Nightshift 21 - Stairwell at Lobby/Dr Offices/Medwing

[theheirshinra]

If there was one thing Rufus Shinra had had enough of, it was Landel’s twisted monsters. Blood was drying to a tacky mess across his back, the two strikes the woman with the hot iron had gotten at him enough to make him regret fully going upstairs. At least it was a learning experience in that he knew better now. Going upstairs meant taking at

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[stray_shinigami]

(from here)

They reached the stairs without further problems. Renji didn't have any trouble finding them, since they'd used them the previous night. He slowed to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, though, squinting against the darkness. Something was not quite right.

He pulled out his flashlight, because this, he wanted a better look at. He made sure to keep it close to what he was looking at, down low. Better safe than sorry.

Big gash in the wall. Big gash in the stairs. Black stuff splattered on the floor, still quite wet, though starting to dry. And some scrapes that may or may not have been there the night before. He hadn't looked that carefully, then. But a big freaking hole in the wall, yeah, that would have been hard to miss.

"Looks like someone had fun," he said. That was all he needed to see. He turned his flashlight back off. "We'd better be real careful." He wasn't about to let the signs of battle (if one-sided) stop him. The whole place was a war zone; if this kind of stuff scared them off, they'd never get anything done.

He started up the steps more slowly, though, concentrating on being quiet instead of quick. That blood had been pretty fresh.

[soul_defender]

Quick to notice the tell-tale signs of destruction as well, Ichigo could only wince as he saw the deep, craggy sections of the drywall torn away, imagining just what sort of horror was responsible. Out of the creatures he had encountered so far, there only seemed to be one monster fresh in his mind with that kind of physical power, and Ichigo did not want to run into it again.

"I hope they didn't have too much fun..." Ichigo muttered, nearly stepping in a small pool of the blackened fluid. Taking up a more defensive position towards the rear, Ichigo constantly peered back over his shoulders; it was his experience that these nightly encounters more often came from the rear, where he would be in a perfect position to intercept.

"I think I know what did all this." he added, keeping his voice calm and low. "If it is what I think it is, we're going to have to make a quick retreat. Unless one of you is hiding a lot of power, we just can't fight it."

[not_a_savior]

Nowe stepped up behind Renji and Ichigo, his blue eyes widening as he spotted the black stuff all over the floor. His hands clapped to his face, covering his nose.

"Aw, it stinks..." he said, slightly muffled behind his hands. He stepped forward, carefully hopping over the pools of the stuff and moved over to the hole in the wall, peering into it, and then looking up the stairs, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever horrid creature (or human) had done this. There was nothing. He turned and looked over his shoulder at Ichigo.

"What do you mean, 'what you think it is'? Have you meet this... whatever it is?"

[scintillatingly]

Keeping close behind Renji, Sora was not delayed and smelling and seeing the leftovers of some sort of destruction. He was also careful to mind where he was stepping. He hadn't seen this sort of gore since his earlier days at the institute. He remembered that wall that used to bleed endlessly.

He didn't need to be reminded to be quiet. The air was full of tension and for the first time in a while, he was almost scared. He'd never had to worry before - the Heartless were monsters he was used to and could usually get rid of without much trouble, but in this place...

Nowe had asked the question he'd had swimming around in his head, so he kept quiet and waited for Kurosaki to answer. Hopefully he could at least prepare them for what was to come.

[stray_shinigami]

Renji paused as he listened to Kurosaki. "I can't tell which way it went," he said. "It's just as likely ahead of us as behind. Fifty-fifty. Let's keep moving." He looked at Nowe, then Sora, then Kurosaki. "I trust you," and he meant 'all of you,' "to keep track of an escape route. We stick together, we won't be defeated."

Because in his mind, running didn't constitute defeat. You didn't survive as long as he had without knowing when to run. Real defeat was splitting apart, losing someone.

"Tell us what you know about it," he said. "I'll follow your lead when the time comes." And even if following Kurosaki's lead just meant running like all hell had broken loose... well, it was still meant as a compliment.

Renji continued his slow ascent of the stairs as he listened to both Kurosaki... and for any tells of trouble ahead.

[soul_defender]

If the others knew the circumstances, they might understand why Ichigo looked, and felt, so reluctant to indulge their curiosity. This thing - whatever it was, Ichigo had no name to give it - had proved to be nothing short of an armored tank with a bad attitude.

"I ran into it a few nights ago, with that guy you just met, Cliff." Ichigo began, glancing poignantly at Renji first, then back at them all together. "It's big, with lots of muscle, and wears this rusty metal triangle helmet on its head."

Slow, but threatening, the monsterous figure swung a large, decayed blade around, just as big as Ichigo's Zangetsu. It never spoke, only making thunderous footsteps whenever it moved. Ichigo had punched it, with no effect; Cliff had stabbed it, leaving an ignorable wound; they set fire to it, but it continued to stagger forward, undeterred; they had even tried to use the weighty metal helmet against it by tipping it over backwards, but getting so close to the creature had only left them vulnerable...

"...right when we had pushed the thing backwards, it grabbed me by the neck." he explained, still able to remember those horrid, grimy fingers constricting his throat like a vice. "Whatever it is, we can't seem to hurt it. It's not very fast, thankfully, so getting away isn't a problem, as long as we don't get cornered somehow."

[not_a_savior]

Nowe scowled at the thought, glancing to the huge hole in the wall again. A thing that didn't seem to be able to be harmed by anything? That diagnosis didn't sound too good. Especially if it got the better of someone as strong as Ichigo.

Still... they couldn't just run away and stand here forever. Nothing would get done if they just waited around. Nowe wanted to go home. Despite the fact that he was not usually the one to take the lead, Nowe hopped comically over a few more puddles of the black goo until he was standing on the first few steps.

"No use wasting time. We'll just take your advice and not get cornered," he said with a nod, and then headed up the stairs.

[not_a_savior]

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