Night 52: Sun Room

[composers_proxy]

[from here]

Last time he'd been in the Sun Room at night, there'd been some crazy guy with a gun and Neku really wasn't looking to have another bullet in him, so he was cautious as he pushed the door open, his flashlight darting from place to place.  He might not have all his old psychs on him, but he still had a few of Mr. H's pins and those would

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[scintillatingly]

The act hadn't been kept up for long. Sora frowned as the boy's tone suddenly changed, becoming deeper and cruel. The idea of someone falling for that and then paying the price was enough to bother him. Who did this person think he was, trying to pull that sort of trick?

But Sora didn't have much time to be bothered, since in the next second a huge machine fell from the ceiling, crashing to the floor and causing him to jump back in surprise. "Whoa!"

Still, the boy (or man? it was hard to keep track) had made one big mistake, and that was revealing his plans. If they knew what was coming in terms of attacks, it would be that much easier for them to dodge, learn the pattern, and then search for a weak spot. Though really, that space in the middle of the mech that housed their opponent was already standing out to Sora as the place they needed to aim for.

It seemed that Soma and Neku had come to the same conclusion, as both fired off shots. Unfortunately, Sora didn't have the luxury of something like that, and so he fell into a dodge roll to try to get out of the range of the gas. He ignored the way his eyes started to sting and instead rushed forward, straight for the mech, so that he could force his Keyblade to appear to him. In Landel's, he always had to do things the hard way.

[piggy_king]

Porky yelped as the girl fired her gun at directly at his tube. The mech he was in was not known for its agility, and it certainly didn't help that he was backed up in the corner in a room as comparatively small as the sun room. Perhaps it would have been better to be hiding in the center of the room so he could attack from behind. While Porky lamented his poor choice of hiding places, the bullet pierced the glass tube easily and missed Porky by mere inches, lodging itself into the metal headrest next to him.

"It's times like these that I consider investing in a plexiglass tube..." Porky muttered, shaking his head angrily, "That or one of those physical force fields we've got for the infantry. Then again, if I didn't have a psychic shield, I wouldn't be able to do this!" The psychic bolts that one of the boys had fired off at Porky were repelled by a bright pink force field and sent hurtling back at its sender. "You may as well turn back and run away, little boy! You're going up against the one guy in the institute with anti-psychic technology!" Porky snickered.

While he laughed at the psychic brat's misfortune, Porky raised the front two legs of the spider mech to deal with the other idiot. "Listen, kids..." Porky said, sneering at the group, "There's no real point in dragging this out, don't you agree? You can't beat me, so why even bother trying? All you'll do is end up getting hurt or maybe even dying. Why bother with all that when you can just go back to your rooms and have a nice, peaceful nap?" As Porky gloated, he raised one of the legs to shield his tube and thrust the other one forward, it's pointed tip aimed at the boy rushing towards him.

[madeinthehrl]

So the tube could be pierced by bullets, judging from the yelp and the sound of shattering glass. That was an encouraging sign, and one Soma hadn't expected. Less encouragingly, whatever Neku had attempted to do had evidently failed--but if he possessed psychic abilities, surely there were other things he could do to fight. The mobile suit was similar in build to the Agrissa, and while she'd never seen the AEU armor in action herself, she'd seen footage of its destruction. If they could upset its balance, reaching the pilot would become far easier.

She concentrated, but there was nothing for it; she couldn't tell what was going on. If her brainwaves hadn't been dulled, she was sure she could have fought the entire battle with her eyes shut. As it was, she could only tell that the mobile suit was still in front of her, and that wasn't enough.

Her eyes began to water almost immediately when she opened them, but that didn't stop her from seeing the leg now shielding the tube, and the other leg descending rapidly toward Sora. She was too far away to reach him in time, but she shouted, "Look out!" and began to run toward him anyway, letting off a shot at the attacking leg.

[composers_proxy]

Neku was a little too focused on his own attacks to notice Sora charging without so much as a weapon in hand until it was too late to call him back, but he'd fought together with Sora before, so the guy had to have an inkling of what to he was doing. What took him completely by surprise though, was the fact that his own force rounds bounced off a bright pink field with all the speed and focus he'd sent them out with. Just his luck. What were the odds they bastard would have anti-psychic tech?

He had a scant few seconds to ponder it before the rounds came back at him, one catching him in the stomach, the other in the shoulder, hard enough to send him to the ground and facefirst into the clouds of teargas. Last night those blasts had been strong enough to tear up rock, so having them send back at him managed to be equal parts humiliating and painful.

The gas burned his eyes, nose, and throat, true enough to its name and the psychic blasts were enough to make him seriously reconsider standing up again; there was a deep cut in his shoulder, the skin burned in places, and a similar one on his stomach, though the bleeding there was harder to stop. He had the healing pin, which would help, but he could hardly see where the next attack might come from.

But if Sora could rush the thing with nothing more than the hope that his keyblade would appear, Neku could do his part too. He pushed himself up from the floor, concentrating on his other senses to tell him where the fight was. The wounds were annoying, but he could still fight. Better to save his healing spells in case someone else was worse off. He needed a weapon, a physical one, or he was screwed. The chairs in here were too big, but the ugly paintings on the wall might do. He tried to rub the irritant from his eyes as he reached for the nearest one. Psychic attacks might not work, but that didn't mean projectiles wouldn't.

[scintillatingly]

One attack had connected, but the other one had been reflected back at Neku. Sora was only vaguely aware of how that turned out for his friend, though he did hear him yell in pain, followed by the thump of him falling to the floor. As much as he wanted to turn back and help the other boy, he needed to focus on what they were fighting. If they held back with their attacks, then chances were the machine would just overwhelm them.

Besides, he had his own problems when one of the thing's legs started to come down on him. Hearing Soma yelling for him helped him to react. His hands went up into the pose he'd learned for when he wanted to block, and his Keyblade manifested just in time. The metal leg hit his weapon, causing a large clang as sparks flew. They were bright enough that Sora had to wince his eyes shut for a moment.

He knew he didn't have the strength to overpower the leg, and so he was forced to jump back and out of the way; still, he had his weapon now, so all he had to do was weave in toward that weak spot and hope that he could do something once he got there.

But at that moment the intercom suddenly came on, flooding the whole Sun Room with the Head Doctor's words. It was hard to focus on them when he was staring down a machine that was piloted by some weird figure who wanted them dead (or at least injured), but Sora did his best to listen with at least one ear as he charged once more.

He just had to dodge the legs until he got close enough to where the figure was seated in the middle, and then --

[piggy_king]

"Such a pity..." Porky sighed as he shook his head sadly, the attacking leg recoiling from its failed attack. If that bullet hadn't knocked it off course, there was no way that key-brat would have survived, "Here I was offering you a chance to just retreat and relax in your rooms, but youinsist on duking it out. Well, don't blame me if you get hurt. I'm just doing my job here, kiddies. Anyway, I may as well bust out the big guns now." Porky scratched his head. Landel had been pretty cheap with what he gave Porky. Normally he'd be throwing bombs all around the room and sucking up their life energy with all sorts of crazy gizmos and whatnot, but all he'd really let Porky have was the mech and some teargas and superglue. Looks like he'd have to be creative if he was gonna fight back with any efficiency.

Suddenly, an idea struck! What if he devoted two legs to parrying attacks targeting the glass tube and had two legs dedicated to attacking? Yes, it would allow him mobility, defense, and offense! "Mech transformation! Change from spider style..." Porky shouted as the two back-middle legs rose up and flipped over to form an X in front of his tube. At the same time, the the two front legs rose up, their new configuration resembling the scythe-like arms of a mantis, "To mantis-style! Now let's get this show on the road, with a little music to get your blood pumping!"

With its four remaining legs, the mech charged forward at Soma, the two "arms" clawing forward menacingly. Finally, two speakers popped out of the side of the mech and began blaring music that made the fight seem a lot more climactic than it really was. "Don't think I've forgotten about you guys yet! I've just got to take care of your little girlfriend first!" Porky laughed as the two arms of his mech shot out to stab at the girl.

[madeinthehrl]

Soma had heard Neku hit the ground behind her, but she hadn't had time to look back. With any luck, he'd be all right. Besides, she seemed to have the pilot's attention now; hopefully she could keep it.

The old man was still talking. He talked too much, she decided, though she wouldn't say it out loud. It gave them something of an advantage. If he kept revealing his plans like that, like some sort of terrible movie villain, she wouldn't be needing her brainwaves for the fight at all.

She tensed but held her ground as the mobile suit charged at her, Marie thrumming like a taut wire in the back of her mind. Closer--closer--now, and the supersoldier ducked and rolled forward, past the arms' immediate range and toward the protected glass tube. She had misjudged her timing, and one of the arms tore across her back as she hurtled past, but she pushed the pain away and kept going.

"You'll have to try harder than that, old man!" she shouted. If she could irritate him, keep him distracted, it would give Sora an opportunity to get closer.

[composers_proxy]

It didn't help that it was hard to see, his eyes red and watery from the gas, his stamina hurting after taking those rounds, but to have to be beaten by this guy who seemed like a third rate throwback to every old video game boss fight ever was just humiliating. When he shouted out the order for his mecha to transform, Neku had to fight the urge to mutter every profanity he could think of. Really? Was this seriously happening? So much of it seemed like something out of a bad dream.

As if that wasn't enough, there was battle music. Battle Music. In all of its 8-bit glory no less. Music while fighting, sure. He listened to his headphones all the time while battling the Noise. But this? He couldn't even find words to describe it. If it weren't actually happening instead of being something he'd see on a Saturday morning anime for children, he might've spared a moment to face-palm at it all. But since the giant robot mantis was attacking his team-mates, that made it a little harder to ignore.

Of course, it was even harder to concentrate when the radio broadcast came on and the lights flared up. At least once the commotion was over there was enough light to see by, but if the doctor's words were anything to go by, it was going to be a busy night. For now though, they better concentrate on the walking cliche' or they really wouldn't have to worry about much at all later.

He grabbed a second frame from the wall and made his way closer, flinging the first frisbee-style at the mecha's legs with all the force he could summon up. Physical combat wasn't his best, but he didn't suck either. Maybe if they could topple the thing, or at least distract his attention a few different ways, they could get to the old geezer piloting it.

[scintillatingly]

It was easy enough for Sora to ignore their opponent's taunts, since he was pretty used to that sort of behavior from the people he fought against. Actually, a lot of this was old hat for him. The changing of form, the taunting, the multiple targets to attack (first the legs, then the middle -- there had to be some trick to it!)... The only thing he wasn't used to was the music, but that was easy enough to ignore.

Normally Sora might have protested the comment about Soma being his girlfriend (or Neku's, for that matter), since she was more than that -- she was a teammate and this old guy shouldn't forget that -- but he didn't have the time for it. Instead, he dodged to the side of the mech as the lights went haywire overhead, barely getting out of the way when one burst and almost sent the glass shards down on his head.

He thought back to all of his previous fights, and came up with an idea. What had he had to do with the Cerberus, the Hydra, and so many other enemies? Jump on their back.

So Sora worked his way around to the back of the "mantis," taking a running leap in hopes of landing on top of it. Then he'd be close enough to do some real damage to the weak spot in the center! He just hoped that Soma would be okay fighting it head-on like she was...

[piggy_king]

"Idiots, all of you!" Porky roared as he began to hammer on the mech's control panel, "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" First that girl had decided to be able to dodge Porky's brilliantly telegraphed attack and roll closer to the tube he was in, putting the king in mortal danger, then the emo jerk and spiky-haired brat had thrown paintings at him and jumped on him! Respectively! Well, Porky could put up with shenanigans like this! He wouldn't be shouting out his attacks anymore!

Gritting his teeth angrily, Porky activated his PSI counter device, surrounding the mech with a bright pink light that faded away within moments. In addition, shields appeared around the girl and the boy who had jumped onto the mech, as well. Porky didn't doubt that the psychic brat had healing powers, but with the counter shield on his two little friends, any healing that he tried to do on them would be reflected back to him, leading not only to guilt for the healer, but sustained blood loss for the intended target! And this time, Porky didn't shout it out for everyone to hear!

But that wouldn't be enough to take down this brats. The painting hadn't been enough to knock over the mech, but it did cause one of the legs to slip momentarily, leading to the lapse in defense which allowed the key boy to jump on. Grumbling, Porky reverted the mech back to "spider mode" with all eight legs back on the ground. He grinned. "Quick question," he sneered, "How exactly do you think I got up on the ceiling in the first place?" As the pneumatic joints on the mech's legs hissed and released air, the body of the mech lowered for a moment before the legs stiffened and sent the entire machine flying into the air.

Porky couldn't help but laugh as he deftly controlled the machine, leaping over the girl on the ground and landing a good ways behind her, the mech crashing on the ground. Hopefully that had been enough to shake off the brat that had hitched a ride, but Porky wasn't feeling too optimistic. Besides, Porky could deal with the key brat while his friends were dealing with the spray of superglue that Porky just shot at them. Like a spray of spider's silk, the glue shot across the room at the girl and the emo kid.

[madeinthehrl]

Something glowed pink around Soma as she headed for the tube, and she tensed slightly as it faded. It seemed harmless for the moment, but it had appeared similar to the thing that had repelled Neku's attacks just moments ago. Her eyebrows furrowed together slightly: why would he do that? Didn't that mean she was protected from psychic attacks as well? Unless Neku has healing powers, too--

That seemed unlikely, but in any case there wasn't time to warn him. There were knoblike protrusions sticking out from the side of the tube closest to her--something that looked like a face, in the flickering light of the Sun Room--and she leapt for them, hoping to grab on and climb up from the front, even as Sora appeared on the back of the mobile suit--

Soma hit the ground hard as the mobile suit leapt over her, gritting her teeth as she tucked into a roll to cushion the fall. Timing. Her reflexes were too slow here, too sluggish in comparison to her movements at home, always half a step behind her brainwaves. She rose into a crouching position and turned back just in time to see some unknown substance sprayed at her. She whipped her head back again, closing her eyes, but the stuff managed to cover the better part of her body even as she tried to evade it.

She managed about three steps back before she encountered resistance. The substance had fused her shoes to the floor, and stuck parts of her clothing fast to her skin. Glue? Some sort of powerful adhesive? Whatever it was, she was stuck here for the moment, and it probably wasn't wise to try to slip out of her shoes until the area around her had dried, too.

The shields, prompted Marie, and Soma nodded grimly. "Neku!" she called. "Try not to heal at all if you can help it! I don't know what that light was, but it's best not to risk hurting yourself again!"

She pulled at her shoes again, hard: still stuck. Instead she leveled her gun at the back of the mobile suit and waited. Too risky to fire now--she might hit Sora--but as soon as she saw an opening...

[composers_proxy]

That stupid pink light again! Whatever it was, he knew better than to throw Psychs at it. It seemed to work like some kind of mirror the last time, bouncing his attacks back at him. At least it only seemed to bounce away Psychs and not the physical attacks.

He'd worked with Sora before, but the girl was new. Even so, it was kind of surprising that they were able to work well together as a team. The distraction seemed to work, at least it was enough to wobble the machine's legs so that Sora could hop on. What Neku didn't expect though, was for the whole spider thing to jump up and go flying across the room, shaking the ground with how hard it landed.

And then there was whatever the spider was spraying. He put up his arms to block, which kept at least some of it from his face, but his uniform, his hair, even his JoTM brand name headphones. It stung his open wounds, but as he moved to try to wipe it from his arms, his fingers came back sticky, not only that, trying to tug his feet up from the floor was even difficult. At least his pins weren't going anywhere...

He heard Soma's shout and nodded, but now that he was effectively stuck in one spot, what the hell was he supposed to do? The old guy had put the pink shields around Soma and Sora too, if he healed them, it might bounce back, if he fired a Psych at any of them, he was screwed. He couldn't even dodge now that his feet were glued to the floor. If he'd brought his full set, he could've at least cast a barrier spell of his own, but here he was, just standing around helplessly.

Neku sighed his discontent, flinging his last picture frame where the spray of glue had come from. If he got out of this muck, he didn't want to give the guy any chances to spray them again. It didn't fly quite as hard as he would've liked; the glue hadn't quite hardened, so he supposed he should be glad it left his hand at all.

[scintillatingly]

It was easy enough for Sora to ignore the man's enraged cries; those were as normal as everything else about this fight. What he hadn't expected was the weird pink glow that almost seemed to solidify around him like a shield. Still, their opponent had done that, so he was going to assume that it wasn't good. However, the Keyblade Master didn't feel any direct effects, and so he did his best not to worry about it for the moment.

The plan had been to close in to attack the weak spot at the exact same time that Soma got there, so that they could get him from either side, but that didn't quite go as expected. When the air was released from the legs and the mech started to flatten, Sora almost lost his balance. He made sure to fall forward and grip an edge of the mech as tightly as possible, since he had a feeling he knew what was coming--

As he'd guessed, the whole machine managed to jump in the air, causing the boy to hold on for dear life as he waited for it to hit the ground again. What went up had to come down, and so it did; the spider-shaped mech landed with a lot of impact, causing Sora's body to slam hard against the metal. It was enough to knock the wind out of him for a couple seconds, and he was definitely going to be sore in the morning, but he'd at least avoided falling off.

"C'mon," he said, mainly to himself. They had to do this! Even if they only stunned him for a moment, it would be something. And so the boy slowly got to his feet, using his Keyblade to pull himself up. He was still standing on the thing's back, though a quick glance around showed that his two teammates were incapacitated, at least for the moment.

Which meant one thing: it was up to him! "Don't think we'll give up that easy," he called out as he moved forward on the mech's back, reaching the spot where the old man was seated as he slashed forward with his weapon.

[piggy_king]

Porky pounded the keyboard in rage and groaned. Despite his best efforts, all he had managed to do was momentarily distract the other two idiots. They would figure out how to get out of the glue somehow in the near future. After all, it was only designed to last one turn. Stupid scientists had complained that a stronger adhesive would have made the boss fight too hard and might make the players angry...pffft, as if! Porky was the final boss! It was supposed to be hard! At least he didn't have some sort of lame cop-out battle mechanic like praying involved in the fight!

But Porky had bigger fish to fry. While the two other brats were stuck, the third one was currently climbing all over Porky's mech and being an asshole in general. Of course, Porky wasn't an idiot. He knew that there was no way that he'd be able to deflect the attack in time. Nevertheless, he grinned. The key came crashing down, shattering a good part of the glass tube protecting Porky. As he shouted in faux horror, Porky raised the two back legs of the mech and swung both of them at the boy. With any luck, at least one of them would connect and send him flying into the glue.

"Come on, guys!" Porky shouted above the din of battle, "What's the point of all this? You're not going to win, and even if by some freakish chance you do, what would you have to gain? One night that you could spend running around this cage? It's not like you'll find out anything important! Really, why bother taking your life into your own hands when you could just let the other idiots do all the work for you?"

"Of course, you'll probably take this speech as the cue to give one of your own..." Porky grumbled to himself.

[madeinthehrl]

Did the old man ever stop talking? As if anything he said could dissuade her. He was a threat to the rest of the institute and he was deriving entirely too much joy from this fight (not, said some part of her, that she wasn't as well). Even if that hadn't been true, at some point all of it had stopped being a mission to protect the other patients for Soma, and had become a mission to prove she hadn't lost her touch. It was far too late for the old man to try and dissuade her.

Soma had never been the sort for speeches--she would leave that to Sora, who seemed the speech-making type. Instead, she clenched her jaw and pulled harder at her shoes--there, there was some give, she might make it yet--

Which was when she saw the back legs rise up and swing at Sora. With a final burst of adrenaline, she yanked her legs free and ran toward the mobile armor.

The rest of its legs had returned to the ground by now, giving it the appearance of a scorpion. One bullet left before she could reload; Soma fired it at one of the legs nearest her, hoping to tilt the mobile armor toward her as she, too, sought to leap onto the now-unprotected tube.

[composers_proxy]

Sora managed to stay on, if only just. Dammit, why didn't he have any Psychs that would let him throw the furniture around equipped? Throwing things with telekinesis would've at least been useful rather than just blasting the guy. But it wasn't like he could just ask them to all hang on while he found a pin that actually worked.

It wasn't like Neku hadn't thought plenty about the stuff the chubby old guy was yelling already. Everything reset in the morning, but at least it meant that other patients who maybe couldn't handle the fight didn't get hurt.

And then Sora managed to shatter the tube, leaving their target unprotected. So even if he couldn't use Psychs, couldn't find anything to throw, and couldn't really help from a distance, if he could get in close, a well-placed kick just might come in handy.

Soma managed to break free of the glue, which at least told him it was possible, so he set to getting his own legs free, stumbling a little as one jerked loose and other was a little late in following. Once free, Neku charged toward the mecha, hoping the other two would be enough to keep the old man occupied.