Night 18: M40 Hallway
Haru woke slowly, feeling disoriented and very thirsty. The past day or two had passed in feverish dreams and vague snatches of memories. He'd been aware of a nurse in the room once or twice, but other than that, he had no real recollection of what had gone on or how much time had passed. The dark room, however, left little question about what time
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He didn't really want the redhead to see him and Sora together because of that. At least, not until he had more time to accept that Roxas wasn't going to vanish. It wasn't working out very well so far, though; both of them times the boys had tried speaking, Axel had witnessed it. And Roxas couldn't help but feel like that was why the redhead seemed so... Tired?
Still, though. Sora was his friend, and Roxas wasn't about to pretend that he wasn't just for Axel. The weariness of him interacting with his Other was perfectly reasonable, all considered, but the redhead would get over it eventually. Maybe it would be good for him to see that nothing was happening. And Axel himself had told him to do what he needed to. So for now? He was going to do just that. But that didn't mean he couldn't ask anyway.
"Hey Axel. Are you okay?"
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So he'd seen this before, even if he couldn't actually recall it. Which meant the two of them had been in not-so-nice situations in the past. He wondered what their history had really been like, but it all still seemed so vague.
Sora knew that at the moment, this was a conversation between two friends--one who might feel rather betrayed. There had been rough spots with him and Riku as well, where one had caught the other playing with Kairi. It had been hard for the three of them to work things out at first--jealously had definitely abounded, but they had eventually found a peaceful balance.
Maybe he, Roxas, and Axel could do that, but Sora wasn't sure if Axel would ever consider him a friend. Though for the moment, he said nothing, figuring he'd let the two talk things out before speaking up.
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Axel watched both of their expressions carefully, wondering if he did something that would give them that assumption. He had tried his best to look decent despite his exhaustion, but maybe the reality of seeing Sora and Roxas together made his act falter somewhat. But no matter, he forced himself to give them both a grin, even adding in a thumbs up to convince them.
"Yeah, I'm fine..." And just like that his body slumped a little and Axel was back to that same grimace he gave just a minute ago. Maybe it was just that he couldn't handle the sight before him, but both he and Roxas had agreed to do what they thought was best. Unfortunately, he hadn't really anticipated catching the teen in this kind of situation, so he was a little unprepared for what to do.
But instead of letting that bother him Axel took the easy way out and thought of an entirely different subject. One that might soon turn into a crisis for all the Nobodies in the Institute.
"Roxas, Lexaeus showed up," The redhead started, standing up straight and giving him a serious look. "If any more members of the lower rank come by this is going to start getting sticky."
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It didn't take a genius to see just how worn-out the redhead really was. Roxas couldn't say he was used to seeing this attitude, so he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Axel could have just been that - tired - but considering some of their previous conversations in the institute, he couldn't help but be a little suspicious.
He thought over Axel's words. Lexeaus? It was true that the Organization members were the last people that Roxas wanted to see, especially the ones with seniority, but how big of a deal was it in a place like this? Their powers were all limited, if functional at all. What exactly could they accomplish like that? Maybe if they all decided to band together to manipulate and/or take revenge on someone like Sora it could make some very serious problems, but they never had been all that organized in terms of goals. And even if they did unite, what good would that do them? There just wasn't enough of anything to further any sort of cause.
"Even if the sides are divided, I think for now we'll all be focusing on trying to get out of here, anyway," the blonde provided logically. Unless someone got their full powers back somehow, but that was another story entirely.
And he knew that Axel was intelligent to figure that much out. He must have been hiding something, but for now, Roxas wasn't so sure if he wanted to push the issue. Not with Sora around, anyway. Because if it was what he thought it was, he didn't want his Other taking the redhead's discomfort to heart.
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It didn't.
The boy frowned, glancing from Axel to Roxas and then back again. The way they were speaking was unnerving. He understood that Roxas had once been a part of Organization XIII, but the way they discussed this new member's presence made it that much more obvious. A lot of it was going over his head, simply because he wasn't a part of it.
It was slightly frustrating, but he tried to be patient. He wasn't welcome at the moment, or so he figured with the way Axel was acting. That didn't mean he was just going to fade into the background, though. Not when he had questions.
"Was he at Castle Oblivion?" he blurted out, eyes set on Axel even though the redhead was making him uneasy.
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Roxas's words did hold a good amount of truth in them, that the Organization was more disorganized than they really would credit themselves with. But there were other unlikely things he could imagine that he didn't know how it'd happen (For one, sacrificing himself for Sora's sake. But no one really clued him in on the events that lead to this noble act, so who knows.)
"Lexaeus? Yeah, he was at Castle Oblivion." The redhead started, not bothering to look up at the brunet and instead picked at the imaginary dirt underneath his nails. "You never saw him though. Probably too busy with Riku I imagine."
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It was pale, hard to see in the darkness, but the sound of its many legs clacking against the hall's hard floor was enough to allow its targets some idea of what it was--along with the sudden screech it emitted, some kind of animalistic battle cry. It was on its own, a small mercy for the patients, but its hard exoskeleton and the stinger that hung high in the end were enough to convince an onlooker that the coming fight would not be an easy one.
The scorpion finally came out of the darkness, vicious and oversized, as all things at Landel's were at night.
It gave one last cry before it moved, lunging towards the blond.
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It was so dark, though. There wasn't enough light, and Sora didn't work well in the dark. Gritting his teeth, he braced himself. He wanted the Keyblade to come, but it refused for the moment.
Once things got a little more dire, maybe...
The boy gasped when a huge scorpion suddenly approached. For a moment, he was too frightened to move--not something that usually happened to Sora. He tended to face things fearlessly, but... but...
He watched, horrified, as it slammed into Roxas, tossing the boy relentlessly against the wall. There was an easily audible crack as the blond's head met the wall and he crumpled to the floor, obviously unconscious.
"Roxas!" Sora yelled, skirting around the monster to kneel at his friend's side. It was a stupid move when there was so much danger present, but he had to make sure he was okay.
Roxas was bleeding from the head and certainly wasn't going to be waking up any time soon, but he was breathing. For the moment, that was all Sora needed to be sure of.
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If Axel had the time to think he would've blamed the Institute for making him too calm about the place; about how he never believed what everyone said about 'monsters' until he saw one for himself.
And well, there was one.
"ROXAS!!" The next few seconds all came at a blur. His train of thought shut down as he dived over to the blond boy, not bothering to check if Roxas was okay but was more focused on just getting them the hell away from there. Axel had to literally shove down the instinct to shove Sora away (preferably at the Scorpion to act as a distraction), instead grabbing at the brunet's wrist and using all his strength to haul them all up and down the Hall where he came from.
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The scorpion gave a hard shriek, rearing up on its back legs before falling back down again. Its enormous pincers hit the ground with the weight of twin anvils, rocking the ground with force enough to slow down the progress of its three prey.
It scuttled forward, quickly, stinger held high over its body as it finally lunged forward and aimed for the back of the taller of the three.
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Axel was better at running than Sora would have thought. (Maybe he'd picked it up from Demyx.) Seeing that the redhead was a good deal taller than him, it was difficult to keep up. His balance was precarious enough; the tremors caused by the scorpion was enough to toss Sora off his feet.
He hit the ground hard, but had enough sense to roll into the fall. His shoulder was still forced to take most of the impact, but it wasn't bad enough that it got dislocated.
"Keep running!" he yelled to Axel, watching with a gasp as the scorpion's stinger swiped in Axel's direction. "I can fight it!"
He could. Frowning, he concentrated, and the Keyblade appeared in his hand. Breathing hard, the boy started to pull himself to his feet, determined to make sure the other two made it away safely.
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But all of this opened up a perfect opportunity for the scorpion to attack. Before the Nobody could even look over his shoulder the end of its stinger scrapped along his back; ripping his shirt and creating a long reddish trail over his back. Axel bit back a cry, turning around and stumbling back while holding Roxas's body close to him.
"Are you nuts?!" He shouted back at Sora, keeping an eye open for the scorpion's next attack. "Roxas would do a lot worse to me than this thing if he found out I left you behind!"
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The creature could smell it--could sense it--could feel it dripping from the barb on the end of its tail to the top of its pale back. It gave a cry that, although victorious, was not satisfied. No--it was programmed to rip and tear, to lash and stab until nothing was left of the prey that its masters had put in its way.
But now the red-head wasn't what the creature needed to pay attention to. It turned, multiple beady eyes focusing on the movement of the smaller, conscious patient. Was it looking for a fight? Trying to attack? The creature drew back a little, hissing as its barbed tail continued to hang in the hair above it, tensed and ready to strike. It coldly calculated the danger the boy posed and found it to be small, perhaps even absurd in the face of its own power.
It lunged at the young patient, one pincer sweeping forward to grab him and begin to lift him into the air with a vice grip of iron.
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He knew that Axel didn't want to leave him (whether for his own reasons or for Roxas'), but at the moment, that seemed like the best option. He hadn't been hurt yet...
Though that looked like it was going to change as well. For being so large, the monster was fast. Sora yelped and tried to parry the pincer with his Keyblade, but the swipe had too much momentum behind it and he didn't have the strength to hold the creature back.
He felt the pincer close around his abdomen and squeeze. He screamed as he felt his feet leave the ground, gasped as he felt it become harder to breathe. But he couldn't just hang there and let it continue to crush him. Getting a better hold on his weapon, he made a sloppy hit down against the pincer, hoping it was hard enough that it would let go--though the chances of that were slim.
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Gritting his teeth, Axel carefully set Roxas down at a good distance a way, running his fingers though the blond's hair soothingly. And without another thought he took a deep breath and sprinted back over, leaping into the air and grappling himself onto the scorpion's tail.
There he tried to throw all of his weight to the side, attempting to pull the appendage at an awkward angle to at least make the thing drop Sora.
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What it didn't expect was a counterattack.
The thing howled as it attempted to shake the new attacker off its tail, dropping the brunette to the floor in the fray. It whirled around on clattering claws, confused and disoriented until it finally made one last movement that whipped the tail forward and threw the red-head to the floor.
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