Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

[heraldric]

After the couple glasses of water Leon managed to gulp down during breakfast, the mage felt immensely better. He was still a bit tired, but that was nothing a little lounging on one of the sofas wouldn't cure. Stretching his arms above his head, he couldn't help but wish he'd had the chance to grab one of his new doctor's coats before leaving his

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[sugarsweetblood]

Ururu needed to loosen up and try to have more fun! This place was such a pain that there really was nothing else you could do than break the rules you'd normally follow so long as the people in white didn't care. And they definitely didn't care about sticky fingers! Or, well, the nurse had gotten a little cross for having to wipe Rhode's hands off after Breakfast, but it wasn't like she'd come to stop her or anything. That meant it wasn't a rule!

She skipped into the Sun Room ahead of her nurse and looked around a per her usual. There had to be someone who'd play with her; at least half of those here had white hair! And maybe Allen Walker would end up on a couch again! That had been so much fun, even if she didn't understand why that nurse had said it was a bad thing. She'd only been cuddling with him. What was so wrong about that?

Spotting some silver, she almost moved towards it, but found herself stopping short. Before she'd seen that one she was almost sure that...! Her head turned to one of the other couches she'd looked over for a lack of a white-haired victim, just to be sure. Black hair, messy (very), and sort of dark skin, but not Noah dark. And those goofy glasses! No cigarette in his mouth, but sometimes he didn't have one like that. Sometimes meaning rarely. "Tyki...?" she mouthed out, not believing what she was seeing. Tyki, or more that bum of a human he liked goofing around as was slouching into one of the couches. Here! She only stared a moment longer before storming over.

"Tyki!" she demanded, now in front of him with her hands at her waste and her face scrunched up angrily. "You're late!" Which was only one part of his problem.

[tyki_pon]

Tyki had been in the progress of trying to think how he'd got here, each theory even more unlikely than the previous (he'd never been good at thinking of theories, anyway). Someone must be pulling some bad joke on him, except he ain't laughing.

There was only one person (or two, even) he knew who could pull something like this, and he couldn't help but wonder if Jasdevi happened to be yankin' his chain. If they imagined a mental asylum along with him wearing such a silly uniform, those two seriously needed to get themselves examined or something.

And then a familiar voice suddenly shouted his name. Jerked out of his thoughts, he recognized the girl standing in front of his nose as none other than Rhode Camelot.

He blinked in surprise.

"Huh? Rhode?!" Tyki uttered, offering her a blank stare. "What are you doing here?!" Shouldn't she be with The Earl? Or with Sheryl?

Or perhaps Jasdevi was pulling a prank on him after all.

[sugarsweetblood]

It really was him! Tyki was here! But why did he look like that? It didn't matter. Finally someone had come to get here and she could get out of this stupid place and back home! To either home she wanted too!

"I've been here you big meanie! For one week!" she held out a hand to him, index finger raised, "And I'm not happy that you're so late! I'm gunna tell the Earl how you took so long to come get me, and then you'll really be in trouble!" The Earl was better to threaten with. Sheryl only worked if she wanted to annoy Tyki to death, but he needed to be more punished than that.

Her hand fell back to her hip, and she leaned closer towards him, "You brought Akuma didn't you? Come on, let's burn this place and go home. Oh, and I get to kill the one in charge, all right?" she demanded. The thoughts of freedom and finally getting out were overriding the other possibilities about Tyki being there. It was the third time now that she'd seen someone, or maybe something that had looked looked Tyki but wasn't. Maybe it was just the fact that this particular one looked every bit the hobo Tyki pretended to be, whereas the other two had been too... perfect! Tyki wasn't anything like that. Too lazy. This one was the Lazy Tyki she knew. Lazy and here to take her away.

If he knew what was good for him.

[tyki_pon]

"Whoa, wait a minute!" Tyki protested, throwing up his hands. "What are you...?! I didn't knew you were here in the first place!" If he was supposed to take a few Akuma and get her out, someone would have at least told him, right?

"It's not my fault no one told me anything!" he continued, because no one had. The Earl couldn't punish him for that hopefully. Not that it mattered; he somehow had the feeling he was gonna receive a scolding anyway. If only for losing The Tease and sitting around in this hospital.

"...this isn't some bad joke, right?" He asked while scratching the back of his head, giving the other Noah a nervous grin. "I dunno know what's going on. Sorry, Rhode."

[sugarsweetblood]

"Do I look like I'm joking Tyki?!" she snapped, not at all convinced by his attempts at innocence. He knew he'd be getting it when they got home. Apologizing wouldn't help him either. She might forgive him for everything later, but only so long as he took her away from here.

And if it really was some kind of sick joke - those twins and their stupid pranks! - it was one she never wanted to have to deal with again. "Take me home, now!"

[tyki_pon]

"Okay! Okay! Calm down already!" he eventually admitted, even though he had no idea where they were and how he was supposed to leave. He could simply go through a wall, but he couldn't take Rhode with him that way. It'd be easier if they simply used Rhode's abilities and...

"Hey! Why didn't you use your door to get outta here? Why wait for me?" he asked. If there was an easy way to get out of here, it'd be simply using Rhode's door. She was the only one among them with the power to move through space without use the Ark.

Of course, he didn't knew about the power-limiting setting just yet. He hadn't saw a reason to use his own powers yet, and even though the situation was definitely strange, the possibility of limited powers simply hadn't occurred to him yet.

[sugarsweetblood]

There, that was better. Tyki shouldn't have ever tried to argue with her in the first place. Or tried to question her even after admitting that he understood.

"I can't use my door, you idiot. I'm stuck as a hu..." she held up. Wait a minute. If she was stuck like a human, and he was there looking like a hobo, then... she leaned further forward. "Tyki, go through the floor. Right now," she made a different demand this time.

[tyki_pon]

"Eh? Right here?" The hobo argued as he glanced around the room. "I dun' think that's a smart thing to do. People are gonna notice, and dealing with them's too bothersome."

Not to mention the trouble he was going to get with it, and he didn't feel like dealing with any of that right now. He probably had enough scolding-material lying on his plate right now.

[sugarsweetblood]

"Do it!" she demanded again, looking as though she'd kill him if he didn't. She needed to see him do it. To see that he wasn't just as human as she currently was. "We're going to kill everyone else anyway, so just do it!" she repeated.

[tyki_pon]

Experience had taught Tyki Mikk that Rhode was going to pester him until he had gone mad followed her demands, which didn't leave him with much of a choice. It was how he ended up making her homework even though he never got any sort of education. He didn't have much of a choice.

"Yeah. Yeah. Just calm down already!" he sighed, holding up his hands in defense. And she had a point, he guessed. Even though the general panic was still too bothersome.

Guess he should get started already...

It was supposed to be easy, to reject the substance below him. He should be sinking through the couch right now, eventually going through the floor and ending up on the level below them.

Except nothing happened. Tyki blinked, only to look down on the couch he was still slouched upon. The piece of furniture was still very solid; he hadn't passed through it, not even an inch.

"..."

He tried again, to will himself at least through the couch. Even a larger amount of concentration didn't do anything; he was still slouching on the couch as if he hadn't tried anything at all.

"What the hell?"

There was a pause, as the Hobo stared blankly at the couch from behind his glasses. "I...can't!" he admitted, too surprised to add anything else to that statement. How was that possible? He wasn't supposed to have any trouble to use his abilities, even in his white side. He seriously doubted the couch was being stubborn.

"This is bad." he said, more to himself than to Rhode. The Tease were gone, too. It didn't take a smart ass to figure out both had probably disappeared as soon as he got here. There was definitely something wrong with this 'Landels'.

"What kind of place is this, anyway?"

[sugarsweetblood]

He... couldn't?

No!

No, no, no!

The shock was more than just slightly apparent on Rhode's face as she stepped back, then sunk to the ground. It couldn't be happening! Not Tyki too! He wasn't supposed to come here and get trapped! He was supposed to be the rescue - him and the others: Sheryl, Lulu, even those darn twins! And the Earl! What if they all got caught too? What if she never got out of here?!

Tyki's own questioning went ignored over to Rhode's internal panicking.

[tyki_pon]

At first, Tyki wasn't sure what he was supposed to do when Rhode sank through the floor. It wasn't very often she did.

Was this place that bad?

"Oi!" he said, reaching out to ruffle the girl's hair. "I bet everything will be just fine!" He gave her a reassuring smile, one he often gave to Ease when the boy was worried he wouldn't come back. Tyki's white side wasn't all that bad.

Even though he wasn't quite sure how everything would be fine, though. He didn't even knew what was going on! But if Rhode had expected him to rescue her, it meant she was held prisoner. His own position probably wasn't any different, and the idea wasn't very appealing. Especially now that his powers were gone...

So who were these people? Were they with those Exorcists or something?

[sugarsweetblood]

"How?!" she yelled, emotions mixing in anger and fear, "They caught me Tyki! And now you... What if the others get caught too?! You didn't even know I was here, did you? That means they don't! So they don't know to be careful!" And if they got caught...

She shook her head hard, not wanting to have to think about it, but the "whats" and "ifs" just kept coming to her. Nothing had ever panicked her so much before - two Noahs were caught by some unknown power that might even be connected to the Exorcists (even if some of those were still in the same situation), they were all but powerless against it, and if Tyki's own words were any indication, no one even knew to come get them!

Even after getting what she wanted, seeing the real Tyki there, she wasn't going to get out. Not now, and maybe not ever!

[tyki_pon]

Tyki was slightly taken aback by Rhode's panicked reaction. It wasn't very often he had seen her so upset, and he couldn't help but wonder what the hell was up with this place.

For now, it seemed it was up to him to try and calm her down.

"I dunno what's going on 'round here, but they're gonna notice we're missin', right?" he finally said, somewhat carefully. "We can always look for a way out ourselves. We'll be fine, so calm down."

A few walls had never stopped him. Granted, it was going to be a little more difficult now that his powers were gone, but there was always the old-fashioned way of using a door. How hard could it be to steal a few keys from the nurses 'round here? If growing up on the streets as an orphan had been useful for anything, it at least made him a little resourceful.

"So tell me what's goin' on, okay?"

[sugarsweetblood]

She pouted up at him, not completely comforted by what he was saying, but gradually feeling better as a result of his words. Tyki didn’t know yet, what this place was like - how it tricked and tried the people here no matter where they were from. It was a nightmare, even for her who loved seeing humans running for their lives. Because she was stuck as a human too.

After a moment, she nodded, then crawled up onto the couch with him, sitting close enough so she could cling. It was both good and bad that he was here: good because she finally had a family member there for her, but at the same time bad because now they were both trapped. And here she was supposed to be the one telling others that misery loved company.

"I don't know what. I though this was the Ark and that the twins were playing games at first, but it's not," as she spoke, she did cling to him at his arm, like a scared little girl that didn't want to let go of her favorite toy, "Something here took my powers, and all these monsters are out in the halls at night that aren't Akuma. I can't heal without my powers, Tyki, so I can't play with anything." Instead, things played with her. That ghost woman, and those bird things too. If Tyki didn't believe her, she still had the claw marks on her back as proof.

[tyki_pon]

When Rhode climbed close to him on the couch and clinged to his arm, Tyki let her. They were family, after all. At least she had calmed down a bit now, and Tyki listened silently to her story.

It sounded like one of those really bad horror stories, or something a superstitious villager would come up with after he had seen some strange building or something. Except Rhode wasn't a superstitious villager. He didn't see why she would lie to him about something like this, even when the story sounded as far-fetched as it did.

Especially the monster-part surprised him. He had never heard of any monsters aside from Akuma, and why would they be running around in a hospital? It sucked, because they probably would be pretty bothersome to deal with without his powers.

"I guess this ain't a normal hospital, then." he remarked after she had finished, stating the obvious as he scratched his head with his free hand. He wasn't quite sure what else to say, though.