DAY 43: CAFETERIA, MORNING

[hailmegatron]

Where was Blitzwing?Lugnut ignored the nurse's fussing over his foot, even as it howled objections to his ill treatment of it the night before, pounding through the town in search of his wingmate, reportedly helpless and injured by an attack the night before-- and not finding him, not seeing even a glimpse of his crazy triple-changing ally

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[haplesstracker]

Scourge woke up, and by rote stabbed the air (as he'd been doing for what felt like hours) with a screwdriver he no longer had in search of a target that was no longer there. It took a few more slices before he stopped and panting, looked up at the bright ceiling with a rising feeling of relief

[hailmegatron]

Lugnut ignored Scourge until the Decepticon was next to him, still scanning the cafeteria.

Blitzwing would show up any moment. He was sure of it. They were wingmates: they supported each other, despite spats and disloyal mutterings, and Blitzwing would never allow himself to be swallowed by this place.

When Blitzwing didn't show up in the next few moments, he glanced down at scourge, face blanker than normal but voice definitely filled with ill-concealed worry as he asked, "Have you seen Blitzwing?"

[haplesstracker]

Yeah, Lugnut wasn't fooling anyone.

"No," Scourge answered, trying to sound sympathetic and helpful. He hadn't seen his corpse either, but they'd already had one casualty tonight. He didn't rate Blitzwing's chances too highly.

He sat, and pretend to be enthralled with his breakfast.

[hailmegatron]

Without conscious thought, Lugnut made an undignified noise of distress, one that he covered as quickly as he could with a growl. "Slagger better show up soon," he grumbled, harshly, and sat down next to Scourge with poorly-feigned unconcern, ignoring the tray he set on the table in favor of glaring blankly at nothing in particular.

[beloved_less]

Soubi had hardly had a rough night when it came to the zombies. But emotionally? He wanted to find a place to hide and sleep to get rid of the stupid headache it caused.

But at least he'd found Kio. He didn't want to admit how relieved he was, but he felt it in every part of his body.

He gathered his breakfast, wondered what was up with the intercom and sat down, waiting for Kio. He knew Ritsuka was ok and...after last night... he wanted to be near the boy but not exactly seen by him.

[beloved_less]

All relief evaporated into bafflement when Kio spoke.

"Excuse me?" he frowned. He came close to worrying that he should understand, but....this was Kio. Kio was prone to being weird and hard to understand sometimes. At that simple thought, Soubi smiled. Warmly.

[reanalyze]

The morning's news had not been good.

The death of comrades was certainly nothing new to Citan, but that hardly meant he was completely unfeeling. Certainly his friendship with Armand had been born of the younger man's usefulness, but that didn't negate the fact that he had been fond of him.

And the doubts came, of course, as Citan gathered his breakfast and took a seat. If he had been there, would things be different? If he had made an effort to seek out the man he knew couldn't fight on more than a basic level? But in the chaos there had been little time or thought to spare for absent friends. Regardless of what had happened or how he had changed, Citan always looked out for himself first and others later. With, he supposed, a small exception for his family

[loyal_soldier]

622 was running entirely on autopilot. He'd tried to shut down all unnecessary thoughts, keeping his mind numbly blank. It was a relief, compared to what he could be feeling. This was worse than when Commander Akobi had died. At least there, they were all serving the Empire. Death had always been a possibility.

But Stormtroopers weren't really supposed to outlive anyone. Now he'd done so with the only two real friends he'd ever had. He didn't protest when his nurse picked out what food she thought he should have, taking the tray and sitting down at the closest table, digging into his food, feeling little comfort in it. It took him a moment to realize someone else was there. Dr. Uzuki. He nodded to the other man, not able to manage much else in greeting.

[reanalyze]

Citan offered a small, tired smile in return when his ally greeted him. He wasn't surprised to see the man, and he supposed he was somewhat grateful for it. He had no desire to explain his muted mood to strangers.

"I can't quite bring myself to say 'good morning'," he said, sighing. He could mourn in his own way internally and mourn like a normal man on the outside. He had always been very good at presenting himself as normal - relatively speaking.

"How are you holding up?"

[loyal_soldier]

"Not as well as I should." Not compared to how he knew he could get by after people died. It wasn't as if he wasn't used to it by now.

"You?"

[fencing_captain]

Food first. Whatever later. Juri was well-experienced with believing or thinking what she thought. She considered herself well-grounded in reality and educated. A town full of zombies which she had to fight while wearing a skirt in the company of Utena Tenjou didn't fit in with her view of the world.

Still, she awakened in the clean bed with her poker gripped tightly in her hand. The announcement sounded different too. A computer? What? Juri hid her poker away, and silently followed her nurse to the cafeteria. Free to choose what she wanted, Juri filled her plate with fruit with bowl of dry cereal o the side. She opted for water to get the bad taste of memory out of her mouth.

What was going on here? She didn't like any of it, but knowing that still didn't tell her what to do.

[Free! no restrictions]

[reallyshortfuse]

[Mind a fireworks-expert with a temper?]No one had bothered to respond to her when Kuukaku had called out in the hallway. Unless she would count the weird announcement echoing in the hall all of a sudden. The fireworks master could only guess what was going on, but it sounded like someone just got in some deep shit. Perhaps it was the shitface who had put her into this place

[fencing_captain]

"The nurses don't know anything." That was about as patient as Juri's temper allowed her to be. "And if you don't sit down and stop making so much noise, I'll just let you figure the rest out yourself." She stabbed a piece of cantaloupe pointedly as if to demonstrate she'd rather stab the woman who was yelling at her.

"Most of us got attacked by rotting dead people last night, and what's worse is that they made me wear a skirt. I'm no happier about this pretty prison than you are." She spoke as if she expected the listener to get the 'sit down and shut up' message behind her further explanations. But she's also learned that not everyone here bowed to her expectations either.

[reallyshortfuse]

Che! Instead of someone that could tell her what had been going on, she had picked someone talking back like that while whining over a skirt. At least the girl had a spine and didn't act like some wimpy idiot.

"Heh, at least you have some guts." Kuukaku said while placing her hand on her hip, significantly calmer. She would've smirked had it been a different situation. "But you sayin' there were rotting dead people?" Funny, as she hadn't seen anyone around last night. Living or dead. Or at least she assumed it had been last night. But honestly, rotting dead people?! What the hell?!

She still wasn't sitting down, but at least she was no longer yelling.

[scarefaux]

The voice on the intercom was more jarring than usual this morning; doubly jarring was the horrible sensation that came from the Scarecrow's shoulder as he stretched. His hand ran to the spot- oh yes, he'd been bitten the night prior by that man in the Spa. That was both unpleasant and unsettling.

Why would people want to bite others? He was confident those townspeople didn't actually want to eat him. They must have been incited into their crazed state, sort of like how the Institute became a much spookier and more threatening place during the night. Maybe all folks from this place were like that- they became monsters at night. That would certainly explain why the patients, most of whom claimed they weren't from around here, were seemingly normal during the darker hours

[ruthless_hunter]

Well, that had been one Pit of a night. Once again, Lockdown woke up back in his cell with no memory of how he'd gotten here. He was clean of blood and gore now, and his arms were bandaged up where the zombie had dug its claws into him last night. He also still sported the throbing discoloration on his lower arm.

He woke up in time to see HK get dragged off, chuckling as the droid scared his nurse with his macabre sense of humor. His own nurse dragged him to the cafeteria soon afterwards, saying that "he would heal faster if he ate something."

After gathering a tray of food, he was sat down with a man with leathery skin. Lockdown could swear that he'd met this man before. However, since this man probably hadn't given him any trophies and had done nothing memorable, the bounty hunter had most likely pushed his name and face out of his processor like so many others.

"Haven't we met before? I think we have," Lockdown asked the leathery-skined man.

[scarefaux]

"We have indeed," answered the Scarecrow as he took a bite of toast. "I recognize your unusual facial markings. It's Lockdown, isn't it? The bounty hunter?" The term made more sense to him now, since Scourge had explained the nature of it and of robots in general the day prior.

"We met the other night, out in the Recreation Field. Those dogs attacked us?"

[ruthless_hunter]

"Oh yeah, that's right," Lockdown smiled. "That was fun." Plus, he'd gotten a good knife and a jaw bone out of the whole thing, which was an added bonus.

"I'm not good with names and faces, but I never forget a trophy," He opened his mouth slightly and ran his finger across his open lips, silently illistrating that he was talking about the beast's jaw that he had collected.