Night 52: Main Hall, 2-West

[hes_deadjim]

[from here with Spock]The doctor jerked with surprise. Spock seemed to appear right at his elbow, and he'd be damned if his heart hadn't set to racing. He'd just been just starting to think that maybe that encounter with that statue was a fluke, and there'd be no surprises down here, and then that damned Vulcan had to go ahead and see if he could

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[toxicspiderman]

[from here]

The hallway was still a hallway and not a digestive tract, and better yet, no one had thrown up or bled out on the floor, so dinner could stay put.  Neither of those were reasons to linger., so S.T. didn't.  It was time to dive into the belly of the beast

[herr_inspektor]

The little things seemed to jump out at Inspector Lunge under the harsh lighting of the stairwell- all of L's movements seemed to lag all the more, particularly in contrast with Taylor's light-footed flight up the stairs ahead of them. That he could think about, at least. Can't sit still for long? That haste from before- that wasn't professionalism so much as not wanting to waste time. Either one sat well with Lunge; who knew how much longer of the night was left, knowing the fickle way time seemed to express itself here?

At any rate, it looked as though this wasn't just L calling in a favour: they'd all undergone some sort of session. Of course, if Taylor thought that he was going to discuss his own experiences so readily and in such a public place, he had another thing coming- even if the mention of injections might possibly have induced a twitch under his eye

[quarter_english]

L appreciated Taylor's caution, but it didn't stop him from making a check of his own as he passed through the door. Nothing in any direction--nothing of note, for the moment, anyway--shattered glass on the floor, hanging fluorescent tubes, the occasional flicker. They would be cutting to the left, covering a short stretch of corridor, and then taking a right turn

[toxicspiderman]

[back from here]

There had been something wrong when he'd walked past Ryuzaki and Lunge. S.T. hadn't bothered to figure it out where maiming and chemiluminescent hairstyles were all the rage. He rewound a few frames.

The shadows. He'd turned around. The other two men hadn't been seasicking it up. Heroic postures all around, until S.T. had turned tail. But the light had had other ideas. He held up the pipe. A single black demarcator cut the world in half. He wiggled it. It wiggled back. Maybe it had just been chlorofluorocarbon fumes from Howell's hairspray. Or the dude liked doing his own special effects.

[for_a_song]

[From here]

Thankfully, when he stepped through the doorway, it was mercifully quiet. A few other patients around, but no actual fighting going on. Hopefully, they'd be able to get a little further than he had last night, thought he found himself wishing he'd stopped to copy Edgar's maps. They hadn't gotten very far last night, and now he didn't know which direction was the best to proceed in.

[angeritself]

Fighting. His expression veered again toward discontent, lips pressing into a frown. Wherever he went, it was as if violence followed. His mind had yet to connect the pieces into a whole, but an unspoken understanding dawned in that ever-growing knot of frustrated anger: taking his strength during the day, returning it at night, that CRACK -- the institution wanted him to fight. Wanted him to get violent. So it could call him a hypocrite and -- he shook his head.

Following Gren through the door, Shizuo stopped at his side. Looking left then right, he saw that the others moving were not fighting. Tension in his shoulders eased. Without prior experience with nights in the institution, Shizu still associated the flickering light with the swell and bursts following the bastard's announcement. He didn't need a flashlight; like hell he'd be grateful

[for_a_song]

Gren blinked a little, half-missing the question. For some reason, he was having trouble concentrating, his thoughts pulling him back to Titan and the war, leaving him with a tense feeling that actually had nothing to do with their current surroundings. Why was he thinking of that now? He'd done his best to forget, after all, put as much of it behind him was was possible, considering the circumstances, but tonight, for some reason...

"I don't know," he admitted, "Sorry. I've only been up here once before, and like I said, we didn't get very far. I guess we'll just have to start searching." Not the most efficient way of accomplishing things, really, but he didn't think there was really any other option right now.

[angeritself]

The apology struck him as strange. He'd expected otherwise, but he wasn't such a demanding guy that he'd accept anything less. It also caught him off-guard, unaccustomed to hearing those words unattached to pathetic whinging, when he wasn't in any place to hear or humor them, too furious to give their too-late regret any regard.

Blinking, Shizuo pulled his attention from down the hall, redirecting it to Gren. "I don't know either," he reminded, a hand reaching to nudge sunglasses that weren't there, an uncomfortable, wasted gesture. Not to state the obvious, but to knock aside that ill-fitting apology.

"Figures," he then muttered, at the proposal to search. He had figured as much. With one last glance right, Shizuo intended to dismiss that direction when the air once again cracked, now with the sharp, explosive sound of shots fired. Gunfire. No one looked to have been hit, and the bullets had clearly not been aimed at him. From this distance, he could neither make out the weapon, nor which of them had fired it. That, at least, kept

[selfnighted]

[from here]

Maya looked around, for a moment disappointed. It was just a normal floor. A moment later, she checked herself; there would hardly be some sort of grand spooky chamber that took up the entire floor, would there? Not like the spooky portion of Castle Dran.

And she had to consider that this was an asylum, or something that disguised itself as such. Not inconceivable that its secrets were held in spooky asylum-ish things, yes?

However, with no idea where those things might be, Maya looked around, then decided she may as well explore the hallway right in front of her. As she moved, something caught her eye. Maya looked behind her, but no new person emerged. She looked at the other people milling around, but they didn't seem to have made any movements, either. Well, none of her business. She proceeded.

[rischiarare]

[From here.]

It was almost startling to see the second floor bathed in as much light as the first. Even with intermittent moments of darkness from the unsteady flickering, it was way more than Roxas had been able to see earlier. His surprise was only muted by the fact that the hallway upstairs seemed entirely identical to the one below.

Now that he was able to, the Nobody looked both directions that spread out from the staircase, estimating the length of each choice in hallways. The left ended in a wall, seen only as a blank wall of white, though the color looked tired. The right was long enough to be able to slip out of the circles of lights during those dark moments, the end swallowed in darkness every other second. Though having been used to taking the reigns during his Organization missions, he didn't mind not leading considering he had no idea where to go.

"Where is this closet, anyway?"

[flou_canadian]

The silence following Scott’s mentioning of a “Fire Breathing Dragon” lasted for quite some time. In fact, it crawled on for so long that one might even suspect that Matthew wasn’t surprised at all, and rather had simply viewed it as so unimportant that it deserved no comment at all

[vsyourface]

Scott jerked around when Matthew II did. He didn't see whatever the blond thought he had seen, but he did catch another dark shift in the corner of his vision. He wasn't starting to go blind in the corner of one eye, was he? Could that even happen? I...don't...know? Scott hoped it couldn't, because he thought it was a little weird that now both he and Matthew II thought they were seeing things that turned out to be nothing. Maybe there was a ninja following them? Entirely possible in Landeland. Even a half-ninja could hide herself pretty well in his experience. Scott clenched a fist tighter around his bat, wondering if he could score a sequel to his first Roxie encounter - Boob Damage 2: Boob HarderIn any case, before he could answer the stammering about monsters, Roxas asked about the closet, and Matthew II shifted his attention to that question as well. Finding it much easier to answer the question "Where's the closet?" than "Are fire-breathing monsters normal?", Scott went with the former for the moment. "Uh, further down that way

[itneverwas]

[From here. Timeskipping to avoid certain familiar faces.]

Before long, Xemnas emerged on the other side of the corridor he had visited earlier. Unlike the Eastern wing, the area contained much more existences, either lingering or moving through the area. Sounds of battle drifted from the center of the corridor, only seeming to confirm the knowledge he already possessed; the center of this area was one that was nearly always guarded. Despite the flickering lights, he was unable to perceive that what occurred in the distance. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he wasn't quite as interested in observing another battle.

Then, it happened once more. A curious movement upon the wall from the corner of his eye, yet a second glance would reveal a normal shadow cast upon the wall near him. It interested him, though he was still unable to grasp its meaning.

[damned_monsters]

Oddly enough, among all of the shadows and the flickering lights overhead came a very different sort of light. It was self-contained, glowing brightly and almost warmly a slight way down the hall. But the light was only a part of the creature itself, rather than disturbing the shadows being cast on the walls and the floor. If anything, this strange light and the being it belonged to would only confuse a patient's perception of the brightness and the shadow in the hallway.

The smooth, featureless creature was moving slowly, almost casually for the moment. The blades that it had in place of fingers slid against the ground as its slender, golden body started to approach the lone patient.

There was no one to read any expression, for it didn't have one. It only advanced, with an intent that was simple enough to know from past experience. The monsters here tended to do only one thing, and that was attack. But this one was taking its time, almost as if it was confident.

[itneverwas]

He had been given little time to ponder any further meaning behind the phenomenon that persistently occurred in the corner of his vision, for another existence made its way through the shadows. The Nobody shifted his gaze to the creature that sought to approach him, who was by far not part of the patient populace. One of the abominations roaming the halls, then. However, it was not a creature able to melt into the shadows cast by the flickering lights, as it seemed to contain a radiance of its own. A radiance that, curiously, left the darkness surrounding it undisturbed, as if the brightness was not part of the same existence

[damned_monsters]

It seemed that its prey wasn't running. The reason behind that didn't matter, though; all that the lucentien had to keep in mind, if it even had one, was that it would have the time to both reach and cut into its target.

But just for good measure, it did suddenly pick up in speed, lunging toward the patient with an unexpected swiftness. The man's curiosity did not matter to the golden creature. While it was a good way to lure them in, that was all it was: a lure. Because the lucentien's true goal was as simple as any other, more basic monster.

Cut, kill, bleed them out until there was nothing left.

It did not need to eat, so perhaps it killed for the sport of it. Perhaps there was some other reason. But either way, the monster slashed out with one bladed hand once it was close enough.