Night 66: Bus Unloading Area

[ham_fisted]

[from here]

"Ack!"

The door finally gave way, sending Gumshoe stumbling forward into torrential rain. He straightened back up and whipped around to face the others, pumping his fist in the air and grinning. "Alright! We made it outside!"

The deafening roar of rain would make it harder for them to hear one another, so he shuffled closer to both of them. "Let's stick close to each other from now on!"

Comments

[fourstonewalls]

"And let's be quiet as we do so," Lana murmured, softly enough that she wasn't sure if Gumshoe would actually hear it, though Ryuuzaki would. It was a lost cause, anyway; had no one explained discretion to that man? Ever? She still wasn't sure why Edgeworth was so fond of working with him; if she found his overabundant enthusiasm grating at times, Edgeworth must as well, and he was not considered a patient man. And not the sort to keep someone around just to feel superior to them; that never ended well.

Perhaps it was just that, in these moments, he reminded her of Ema. That same dogged determination, and enthusiasm that would be infectious if she were, so to say, less infected. She couldn't work up much more than resignation at the moment.

"Well, we're outside now," she said, speaking a little louder, though no more than necessary. "Which way? You can explain as we go."

[ryuuzaki]

L's sense of uneasiness had increased as they'd passed through the front room of the Institute. There were two doors on each side. The first pair would be behind them when they made it to the front door, although to his knowledge they were typically locked. The doors closer to the main one, though, were unlocked, and the areas behind them would make ideal hiding places, perfect avenues of attack for anything that considered the three of them prey.

He was tired of feeling like prey, like a plaything, whether it was for the aquilas or Aguilar or for Landel himself. That was a reversal of the proper order: it was his role to scrutinize, not to be scrutinized... to set up a path through a maze that ended in a trap for his opponent. If he recovered enough that he and Edgar could continue in their attempts to reach the Coliseum, he suspected that those feelings wouldn't change. He didn't have a precise, detailed understanding of exactly what happened there, but he had gathered the gist from observing the aftermath several times over. It would be difficult, emotionally difficult, and he would have to trust that the affected person would return, which in turn would be based on tracking consistent elements in Landel’s personality and behavior. Trusting Landel didn’t come into it; L trusted his own observations.

He paused, once they were outside, nodding at both Gumshoe's suggestion and Lana's softer admonition to be quiet, which might have amused him at any other time.

The gun went back into the holster in his pocket--that was a minor struggle. After retrieving the hat and gloves that he had tucked into his sling, he pulled on the gloves and jammed the hat on his head with a grimace.

It would be better to leave the gun where it was and keep his eyes open; he felt that any attacks here would come with at least enough warning that he could pull it out again, and Lana was also armed. If he kept the gun out, and if he tripped on the muddy and uneven ground they would be covering, it might discharge accidentally and injure him or one of his companions. But he doubted that he would need it again before they reached their destination.

He tilted his head to the east and kept the volume of his voice similar to that of Lana's. "There’s a ruined town in this direction; Mr. Lunge and I attempted to investigate it several times. As I said last night, I think it's most likely to be a river that we're looking for. I've heard the sound of rushing water near the town, but I haven't actually seen where it comes from... it has to be close by."

After a pause, during which he began to walk in the direction he had indicated, he added, “We should be on our guard most of the way there, but particularly when we’re getting close. I don’t know what we’re looking for, or whether or not we’ll have to cross the river... I’m hoping that we'll understand more we get there, and that there won't be any unpleasant surprises."

They had been lucky so far tonight... lucky enough that a wary person might find it cause for concern.

[To here.]