damned_institute | Night 71: Main Hallway, 1-Center

[from here, skipping some hallways]

Rita reached the Sun Room entrance without incident, and found Taura waiting. They hadn't agreed on a meeting place, or on meeting at all, really, but it looked like they had the same thing in mind. "Good. You're here," Rita said by way of greeting.

They didn't have much time to waste, but there was something Rita wanted to confirm before moving forward. She reached into her breast pocket and produced the strange note she'd received, holding it in front of Taura. "I don't suppose you got one of these, did you?" It was hard to tell if Rita had been contacted specifically, or if others had received similar notes.

[From here]

A moment later, the doors to the Sun Room suddenly swung open beside the two women. Something squat and excessively talkative came through on two stubby legs. Recognition quickly dawned on the boy's generally vacant face, which lit up like a slightly damaged lamp.

"Hey guys!" he greeted cheerfully. Then, as if recalling people were the whole point of his reason for being, Goku grabbed his satchel and held it up. "You guys want a--Uhh... uhmm..." Ugh, he couldn't remember what the guy had called it! "You know, a talky thing?"

Taura shook her head at Rita -- whatever the note was, she hadn't gotten one, and before she could do more than glance at it, Goku bounded up.

"Goku! You're...alive!" It was a foolish thing to say -- of course he was alive, if he was standing right there, trying to describe something in the way only he could. Trying to describe a radio. "You have a radio?" she added, pulling hers out. Then her eyes narrowed again, as she refused to be distracted. "Where have you been?"

When the door burst open, Rita was immediately on guard, reaching for her weapon… when she saw a familiar, dopey-looking face.

For a few seconds, Rita was completely stunned. Goku was dead. She should know. She was the one who killed him! And Rita wasn’t an idiot; she actually checked the body before declaring him dead. There was absolutely no way that he could be walking around and talking to them. And yet, he was.

“I – I wasn’t lying,” she stammered at Taura, still partly in a daze. Then, she looked to the kid himself, gritting her teeth as she blurted out, “How the hell are you still alive!? I… I saw you…”

Rita wasn’t even sure what she was feeling at the moment. Relief at seeing that the brat was alive? Shock? Anger? Annoyance? Shame from facing someone she’d killed without meaning to? It was a lot of things, and Rita wasn’t about to acknowledge a good half of it.

"You saw me?" Goku asked, not quite sure what she saw. Well, she saw him, but of course she had! He was standing right here! He had been seen quite a lot with them for a lot of nights. What had changed? Really, Goku had no clue. Maybe she was just being a silly girl. They did that sometimes.

Well, there were more interesting stuff to talk about than Birdy's obvious confusion. Setting down his satchel, the young boy took out the same device Taura was holding. It was hard to grip in his stubby little hands, but he offered it to the girl all the same. "Want one, Birdy?" he asked briefly after Taura questioned him. He hoped someone wanted them or else this was going to be a long, uneventful day of just wandering around.

"Farwell." As if that one word should explain everything.

I didn't think you were, Rita -- she'd been there too, after all, though a little further away. And while there were things that could be done for those kinds of injuries, they hadn't been. Then again...TK-622 had thought he'd arrived here after dying, or just before dying. And other people had reappeared, at least if the bulletin board could be believed.

But how didn't matter. He was alive, and here, and handing Rita a radio. And talking about a place called "Farwell".

"Where's that?" Or maybe not a place; it sounded a lot like farewell, so it could be a hospital? A real medical one, not like the Institute. "Are you staying here?"

Rita remained stunned. Maybe Goku didn’t remember anything after transforming into a monster. He didn’t seem to have a clue what she was talking about – though that described a good lot of their interactions.

He was holding something out to her, and Rita reluctantly took it and examined it. It was a radio, like Taura had said. Unlike the one Rita already had, this one appeared to be built not just for listening, but for the user to speak into it. Could they use these to communicate across large distances…?

“Is that where you got these?” Rita interjected along with Taura’s questions regarding ‘Farwell.’ What she really wanted to know was how a dead kid was talking to her, but maybe getting those details could give her a hint, as Goku seemed oblivious to his own circumstances.

"Yeah, they gave them to me," he explained, nudging the satchel with his foot. "I dunno why... To, uhmm, help get everyone talkin' to each other I guess? I was comin' back anyway, so they said I should help this way. Besides..." The little boy looked at Taura as he spoke. "I don't think they like us stayin' there. That's fine, 'cause there's not a lot ta do there! Kinda borin', ya know?" Goku laughed at that as he put his hands behind his head.

Rita looked lost. At Goku coming back to life, or at the idea of radios, or even at something else entirely, Taura didn't know, but standing around here was going to get them killed. Or worse, get someone else killed. Even if it wasn't, uh, always permanent. Farwell, on the other hand, that sounded important. Was the they in they said Marc and the rebellion? Aguilar? Or another player, new to the game? But if so, why wasn't there much to do?

"Less to do than here?" Taura was aiming for wry, but it came out more like bitter. "Here, let me see," she added, to Rita, lifting up her new radio and finding the number. She tuned her own, and spoke into it. "Sergeant Taura to Magician Rita, we've got a crystal to place and not a lot of time, yeah?" Then she switched it off, and went back to Goku. "Want to see what we've found?"

[No

damned_radios linking needed since both radios are in the same thread.]

So Farwell was a place, but who were ‘they’? As usual, Goku wasn’t being all that helpful.

Rita lifted the radio when Taura decided to test it out, and her companion’s voice echoed through the speakers loud and clear. The titles were unnecessary, but message itself was true enough. With a heavy sigh, Rita lowered the radio. “Right. We should get going.”

She didn’t have much to say about Taura’s invitation to Goku. On the one hand, she did want to know more about ‘Farwell’ and how he came back from certain death. On the other, Goku was Goku, and they were going somewhere with a lot of valuable and potentially delicate machinery. What if he broke something?

Eh? Found? Yeah!" Goku shouted eagerly. This night was starting to finally look up, and all he had to do was give out one radio--

Oh.

"Ugggh, I can't right now! I hafta keep givin' these out." Impulsive or not, the young boy had made a promise to help everyone he could within the institute. If he wated all his time out here, the monkey child wouldn't be any closer to his goal. "Tomorrow," he promised. "We can meet up tomorrow night!" Then they could tell him all about what they found.

"Yeah," Taura breathed, her eyes lighting up. "I'll meet you right here." I, not we -- she wasn't sure coming back from the dead would help Rita's patience with the boy, but she liked him. "Make sure to keep a radio for yourself, too." She stretched out a hand, and when he didn't flinch away, ruffled his hair.

[to here]

[skipping some short halls, from here]

Aigis was a little breathless once she made it to the designated meeting spot. She did not expect her companion to be much later in coming. He was just as determined as she, after all.

Leaning against the wall, the android kept herself aware of her surroundings while waiting. So far only a few other patients had gathered here, obvious preparing for the night themselves. She did not plan on intruding upon them and hopefully they would see that they did the same in regards to her.

[From here.]

At least it wasn't much longer before another familiar face came into view, leaning against the wall. Zero slowed his pace and moved toward their fellow android, giving her a nod when he was near enough to stop.

"Aigis." She seemed ready enough for this mission, as well. Good. Now the question was, would Sechs still be up for it? Or was Zero correct in suspecting that same illness from before trying to make a comeback? He gave Sechs that questioning look again, but still said nothing out loud.

Sechs arrived just a few paces behind Zero, his tall stature looming over the shorter droid as his armored suit shifted and creaked with his lumbering steps. Despite his pain, Sechs grinned at the sight of Aigis, glad to see she had arrived unscathed as well. Yet that smile faltered when he caught Zero's dubious glance.

Shit. Looks like Zero noticed...

Hastily removing his hand from the back of his neck, Sechs returned his grip upon the hilt of his axe and forced his pain behind a confident demeanor. "Great, you made it!" he greeted Aigis with a grin. Avoiding eye-contact with Zero, Sechs quickly added, "So, we're all ready then?"

Even with such boastful words, Sechs' thoughts were a lot less upbeat. He knew that in battle, no matter what, warriors should never show any weaknesses to their opponents -- not even to their allies.

...Yet from all the time Sechs had been in the institute, he learned a bit of a different lesson from the unlikely friendships he had. If he wasn't honest about this ailment of his before it takes over...

No. He could deal with it. Zero and Aigis didn't need to know about it. Only if it got real serious. Maybe.

Aigis nodded to Zero and returned Sech's smile with a small one of her own. "I am glad to see you two made it without trouble as well."

It was a little smaller of a group compared to their last time down to the basement, but things would work out. Aigis turned towards the door, not catching any unusual tensions between them as she focused on their goal. "Alright. We must be swift now. Are you ready?"

...Typical confidence from Sechs, and a neutral, expected response from Aigis. Right. No concern about Aigis, then; she seemed just fine and ready for this. Zero didn't know the extent of her combat skill, but he did recall her mentioning that she was built specifically to be a weapon. Guess he'd see her skill in action shortly. It would waste precious time to try to ask about it now.

As for Sechs...Zero decided he was going to keep an eye on him. He was also going to assume (for now) that Sechs was fine enough to undertake the mission - unless he was simply trying to hide something more serious, in which case...yes, keeping an eye on him. But Zero was not going to draw attention to his concern unless he was given more of a reason to. It might not be serious, and Sechs didn't seem to want any such attention anyway.

Otherwise, it was all agreed, then, that no time should be wasted if they wanted to make the most of their progress here this evening. "Ready," he responded, then turned to the nearby Sun Room doors. He could lead for now if necessary, but in not too long, he'd need to step back...his companions knew the way better than he did.

[To here.]

[From here]

Scar's posture was tight and alert as the funny little group reached the doors of the Sun Room.

"There could very well be something waiting for us in here."

He stood against the wall, beside the door.

"In the past, Landel has guarded important areas with powerful, intelligent enemies when he knows people will be flocking to them."

Last time, it had been that Lingormr bastard, brainwashed into believing the nonsense this place fed. Scar scowled to himself at the thought, at the memory of that humiliation.

Al swallowed and nodded, glancing around. "This is about where we ran into that ghost when Brother and I first got here," Al said. "I'd say that thing had been smart enough."

He reaches into one of the pouches of his belt, pulling out a flash-bomb. "If something's in there, you think it would attack right away, or try and get us off-guard?"

Ed stayed quiet as he waited for Scar's answer and looked up and down the hall suspiciously for any monsters.

He really didn't like hanging around here. What if something ambushed them again?

"That depends. It could be a creature of this place, or one of the brainwashed patients. And even then..." He had been ambushed by those beasts the other night, but that specter-child who had attacked him and Lust had appeared slowly, never actually attacking them.

"Stay on guard. We will not know until we've confronted whatever there could be, if there is anything at all."

"Right." Al looked behind them, checking to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them. "Let's just hope it's something that can bleed."

Ed grimaced. "Right. And let's hope I'm never the one that people have to worry about."

And hope he didn't just jinx things.

The doors to the Sun Room were wide open, as they always were at the start of the night. Scar peered inside cautiously before stepping through the frame.

"There seems to be somebody inside. Blind him with your flashlights." After that, they could see who, or what, they were dealing with.

Trying out of instinct to keep the Elrics behind him, Scar stepped into the Sun Room.

[To here]

[from here]

There had been something in this direction. He'd heard it. There were brief whispers of sound, seeming more far away than they likely were. Naturally, he had wanted to investigate this sound and possibly even meet someone new. However, by the time he made it out of 'the big hallway' things had gone quiet again and he couldn't be completely sure if what he had heard was even real. If they were, then where had they gone?

[From here]

"Hey!" A childish voice called out in the dark. "You!" It was followed by a steady beat of foot steps running toward the kid. Soon enough a chubby, grinning face came into view carrying a fat satchel at his side. "Ya want a talky-thingy?" he asked, brandishing the hand-held device as it swung back and forth over his head.

Goku was so relieved to find someone else in the hallway he could pawn one of these things on. So far, he'd given out a few. He still had a mission to complete before he could actually do fun things--like beating monsters to a pulp! These recreational activities were very important to the monkey boy, and the sooner he got to beating, the happier everyone would be.

Edited 2013-07-13 12:20 (UTC)

With how quiet the halls were and how cautious most people here seemed to be, the sudden voice he heard took him completely by surprise. He yelped and nearly dropped the thing he'd taken to calling 'light stick'. The thing about surprises was that they could be really bad or really good. So far, he was betting on this one being intimidating, a fact which was already true, but good. How could meeting someone new be bad?

"What's a talky-thingy?"

"It's, uh..." That was a good question. He studied the thing in his hand as if it had suddenly appeared from thin air. "I dunno, you talk in it and voices talk back." The people at Farwell kept swearing it wasn't magic, but Goku still didn't believe them.

"Here!" The young boy shoved it at the patient. Even if he didn't trust the thing, he had no problem hoisted the terrible device onto someone else. Everyone else in this place seemed to wallow in witchcraft. If they were too weak to live without it, that wasn't his problem.

"It makes sound?"

He took the offered deice and inspected it, turning it over and over excitedly. The last sound machine he'd seen had been so much fun. True that event had ended in disaster, but that fact didn't change how he had enjoyed listening to the 'music'.

"I c-can really have it?"

"Yeah, kinda. You talk into this thingy here--" he pointed a stubby finger at the grooved face of the radio. "Oh, wait! No, you hold this down--" Goku demonstrated by pressing a button down on the side. "So, now you can talk. Lookit--" As he began to speak gibberish into the receiver, it left a message to any patients listening to the public channel.

"So yeah, then if anyone wants to say anything, they will. Or somethin' like that. I've never used it. They just told me how it works. And that I'm supposed ta give them to people, so take it! It's free!" Not as good as free food, but still a wonderful treat.

Edited 2013-07-21 00:20 (UTC)

Though he didn't want to try it himself, he was watching carefully so that he would remember how to do that little trick in the future. Being able to talk with someone who wasn't actually there seemed like a very useful thing. Useful and new, which made it exciting.

"Thank you."

"Yer welcome!" Goku replied with an easy smile. The pint of ice cream he held was slowly melting down the side of the carton, staining his institute-issued pajamas, but he didn't care. If anything, he'd smell like ice cream all night! That was a delicious prospect.

As he stared through 6 with a spoon poised for another scoop, the little boy asked, "You want some?"

He shoved the device into a pocket for the time being. It would be fun to play with later on. Maybe he could even find someone to talk to with it! But for now, there was someone very nice to talk to right where he was.

"What is it? Never saw something like that before."

[From here.]

Slowly but surely, it seemed that the other patients were trickling out. Where it had been abandoned and silent before, Castiel now spotted a few groups scattered throughout the hallway. Most of them were strangers to him, or those he'd only had brief interactions with, but he did spot Aigis. She seemed well.

He moved past her and the one she was with, though, aiming for the door that would allow them into the Sun Room. He glanced over his shoulder at Kratos as he walked. "Has he been briefed?"

As they continued down the hall, just as suddenly as it had activated, his crystal shut off. The low undercurrent of conversation slowly died away, and his vision blurred as it returned to normally. Kratos squeezed his eyes shut for a moment: even though it was dark, and the effects not that dizzying, looking at a fuzzier, blurrier world was a little nauseating even after just a few minutes or so of clarity.

"Sorry?" He strained to catch Castiel's voice, even though the other man was talking at a normal volume. "Ah--not yet," Kratos confessed, although that wasn't as egregious of an oversight on his part now since they'd just gotten some new information and all technically needed to be briefed.

He in turn glanced over his shoulder at Lloyd. "We're heading to the third floor. Castiel and I were able to find the entrance last night in the library, but didn't get much further. We want to see if we can get farther tonight." Seeing as his note was the more informative of the two they had, he dug it out again and handed it over to Lloyd. "Apparently, there's a record archive on the third floor that is essential to discovering a way out."

Kratos paused and then added, "You should find the obstacles named familiar."

Holding both a sword and a flashlight in his hands was definitely inconvenient. Lloyd grimaced, wishing he had some kind of sheath to carry his weapon in. Too late to talk to Al about it now. It would have to wait for another night. For now, he switched his flashlight off and tucked it into a pocket on his tool belt so he could take the slip of paper from Kratos. He squinted in the dark, trying to read what was written in the dim light of the other two's flashlights.

"Teleportation pads?" he echoed. That had to be what Kratos was talking about. "So that's what my note meant." He quickly fished a hand into his pocket, pulling his own note out, then handed it over to the other man. "I got a note, too, but it just talked about bouncing around when we get to the third floor." That line made sense now in the light of teleportation.

Too much sense. That sounded way too much like what they'd had to do at the Palmacosta Human Ranch when they were trying to rescue Chocolat and the other captives. Ugh, he still had nightmares about that sometimes, going back and forth between pads because they couldn't figure out which one went the right way. His grimace deepened at the thought that they might have to go through that again. "Oh man," he groaned. "Please don't tell me this is going to be like Palmacosta all over again." He wasn't really expecting an answer from either man. They wouldn't know any more than him. The complaint was more for the sake of preemptive venting.

The door to the Sun Room was coming up now. Lloyd didn't know exactly where they were going, but sticking as close as he was to them, he didn't have to guess where they were heading.

[To here.]

Edited 2013-07-11 03:30 (UTC)

[From here.]

As they approached the door that would take them into the Sun Room, the intercom came on. Sora paused, because that wasn't something that happened much when it was the middle of the night like this. Unless the night was already over? No, that couldn't be right!

But it wasn't Landel's voice that came through. Actually, instead of being addressed like usual, all that he was able to make out was a conversation between two other people. They weren't voices that he recognized, but he paid attention all the same. It sounded like they were dropping something off, but where...?

If they want a better way to communicate than pen and paper... That was the phrase that stuck in Sora's mind, the clue that those two probably wanted them to hear, if this was something that had been planned.

"Huh! I wonder... are the rebels handing out more radios to people?" Sora already had one, and he yanked it out of his pocket and looked it over. Unlike the others, which looked like toys, his actually had the appearance of a real radio, as it was one that had been given to him back in Farwell, rather than passed out covertly during the Doyleton trip.

Tsubaki didn't second guess the consensus once everybody had come to an agreement. If they would have her along, she'd go and try to help accomplish this one thing, where she knew she could at least be useful on some small level.

There was just one more thing she felt like she needed to do... "I'm sorry for interrupting you and Sora-san so suddenly," she said to the quieter of the two boys from her position behind them. She took the idea of "support" literally and fell back where she could watch the rear. "Later we can properly meet, but I'm Tsubaki as you know."

Once voices started to filter down from the intercom system, she froze, however. She cocked her ear to the sound.

"Huh...?"

They weren't voices she recognized, and when the intercom clicked off she looked at the two to gauge what they were thinking. She assumed they were rebels, and that they were obviously up to something. "They're in his obvious?" she thought out loud before Sora's musings drew her gaze to his radio. "They sounded like they were moving something heavy. Strange, those noises... like scraping dirt?"

"It's fine," Kyousuke shrugged, content to fall to the middle of the group for now. "I"m Tsurugi Kyousuke. Nice to meet you." That was as far as he went with introductions; as Tsubaki said, they could do them properly some other time, when there weren't other things they should be focusing on.

His eyes narrowed at the familiar sound of static cracking through the intercom system, but the voices that came out weren't the ones anyone was expecting. It was hard to say if the broadcast was intentional or not; they seemed to be in the middle of a conversation, but at the same, that timing seeming a little too convenient. It didn't matter, though—it got the message across either way.

"Black lung..." the boy repeated. "It sounds like they're in a mine." Was there something like that around here? He'd never heard of anything like that, but he hadn't bothered learning much about the surrounding area. "But it sounds like it doesn't concern us." If they wanted to get to the third floor, chasing after more radios would be counterproductive.

So that was what black lung meant? Sora had never heard anything about it before, but between Tsurugi's guess and the noises they'd heard, a mine seemed pretty likely. "I think I've heard of there being a mine somewhere around here! It's probably near the quarry, but I've never been there before."

Tsurugi was right, though. It didn't really have any bearing on what they were doing. Sora already had a radio, and so did Tsurugi, which meant that there wouldn't be much point in going on a search for that mine, even if he did have a basic idea of what direction it was in.

"We should keep moving, though, yeah. Hopefully someone else goes looking for what they left!" They'd reached the mid point of the hall by now, which meant that the Sun Room was waiting for them. Sora knew that there was a good chance they'd run into resistance there, and so he did what he could to prepare himself. If only he could draw his Keyblade out like he'd been able to in Farwell...

That wasn't possible, though, and so Sora stepped into the room with just his flashlight in hand.

[To here.]

[From here.]

The night sky poured its subtle light through different directions at this point, notably through the doors into the Sun Room, though Ciel wouldn't know of its name yet. Even if there were signs, she wasn't paying attention at that point. Her single-minded focus at that point distracted her from other considerations at that point.

As she moved towards the open doors carefully, she drew a caught breath: Her earlier thoughts of the place having been abandoned were tossed aside, seeing the scorched room inside illuminated by the crescent moonlight up above from the glass ceiling.

Someone was here, her thoughts raced, noting how new the smell was. There was fighting!

Ciel walked backwards slowly towards the west wing, shaking. She wasn't safe here, and her guard was dangerously down outside of her peripheral vision as she began to panic.

Indeed, Ciel wasn't safe there.

From around her came chittering, hoarse clicking and faint scritching as creatures moved around her. There was one to her left, darting along the wall, its claws catching on the floor and marking its trail; another moved in the darkness behind her, scuttling next to the door, its graveled hissing there and gone as it scurried away so as not to be caught.

From in front of her came one more sound, a graveled whispering that had a near-human quality to it. Though the room was still, save for the movements of the small creatures that circled Ciel, the chattering in front of her was an unclear begging, luring her toward the center of the room.

Why exactly the girl was shaking, it was hard to guess, aside from the skittering she couldn't determine the source of and the chills that ran through her from it.

Was it for her own safety? In a measure of feelings, sure. How long had she been walking around there, not expecting to come across a dangerous situation so directly? Coming face-to-face with that made Ciel chide herself; she needed to get back home... home, to the Resistance.

"Promise me you'll come back!"

To Alouette. Before the others who "changed" could reach her and those who didn't go with her that day.

There was also the aftermath within the Sun Room. If it had nothing to do with whoever brought her here, then it didn't mean anything to her compared to her immediacy. However, if they helped her... were they hurt because of her? Did she cause even more lives come to harm through another one of her decisions?

The sound that came from the center of the room in beckon to her put that last possibility into even greater focus, and so the girl with guilted concern obliged, advancing with worried glances around her and a series of queries, asking, "H-hello? Are you hurt...? What's going on?" It was only afterwards that her scatterbrain reminded her of the tool in her hand, so she clicked the flashlight on and shined it towards the source of the voice whilst she crept forward.

The graveled chittering from the center of the room continued, its tone rasped like a strained whisper of someone in dire need. It was unfortunate for the creature trying to lure her in that she turned on her light: the beam blinded it instantly, and the hushed noise became more of a hiss as the light revealed the true source of the supposed distress. Two bulbous eyes and a mouth full of glistening teeth appeared, vanishing just as quickly as the creature darted back into the darkness.

It was not the only one, however. More noises came from behind her- the patter of deft feet and monstrous claws making their way across the floor around her, followed by more chattering from the left, then the right. Worse yet was the hoarse rattling nearer to her feet, getting closer with every passing second.

The echoing clank of the flashlight on the floor throughout the halls followed Ciel's yelp and her own landing, startled by the sudden "face" she had seen. She completely forgot that now, caught up within that moment. That couldn't have been a person, Ciel's mind thought as it raced through whatever remaining semblance of logic it could bear, but struggled to think of much else, stricken with shock.

The noises around her reminded her of her situation, but too late. Before she knew it, she was surrounded. Her chest expanded from the air coming in, her breathing forgetting itself.

Was this how it would end? The girl looked to her right to desperately find the flashlight, it being a last resort to use. And there it was, next to the doors to her right; she noticed it right before the tool clinked along them, and it turned the light for a final time away from the hall entirely, the light caught too thin of an angle to properly illuminate the area.

Her increasing whimpering contained many emotions. Anger directed at herself, fear from the danger, and misery from the situation. All she could do now was face the apparent end of her life...

No! I can't let it end like this!

Not like this. Ciel's face flashed of forced determination, born of a final attempt to save herself, for the sake of everyone else. In one fluid motion, she pushed herself up off the ground to try and grab at the flashlight so far away. She did not get far, however, before something made her fall again. What was that? Did she trip? Did she bump into something? She couldn't tell right then. She skidded a short distance towards the flashlight, not quite able to reach it. Would it really help? She didn't know, but it was her only chance left, so she continued to inch towards it on her elbows and knees, in a brave trial to ignore the sounds about her and behind her, around of and in front of her.

One of the creatures hissed at her as she tripped over it; though its skin was thick, the impact had left it sore and ill-tempered. Its chittering went from quiet to anything but, its call a warning cry louder in the darkness than it had been a moment ago. Gone was the whispered pleading, replaced with a stuttered, furious wheezing that could be heard all around the room.

While its brethren danced around Ciel as she crawled toward the flashlight, as though taunting her to move while she still could, the angered one snapped at her leg with its sharp teeth, trying to get a hold of her in return for having been tripped over like a footstool.

The shrill sounded like nothing the young scientist had heard before, and with the new sounds came an even stronger dread of despair. She was nothing compared to these creatures, and she knew it. She never had the fighting ability of the Reploids and, with nothing now to protect herself, Ciel knew that she was in dire peril.

As if that wasn't enough to make her nerves go into overdrive, she then felt a stinging, sharp sensation on her left shin. Her flailing with her legs as she attempted to grab at the flashlight saved her from a much more gruesome fate, the teeth only deeply scraping the crus' flesh, but for now the pain made her scream her own series of cries, those of a panicked animal afraid for its own life. The immediate response made her left foot come down on whatever it was that attacked her, though it was far less so for revenge than for her own redoubling of her efforts to reach for the flashlight.

Finally, though the seconds felt like they couldn't be short enough, Ciel took hold of the flashlight and quickly rolled over, turning the flashlight on the things in the darkness. No matter how long she had came to know of machines that resembled living creatures, her knowledge of Mechaniloids could not have prepared her for this moment.

Night 71: Main Hallway, 1-Center

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sorry for the wait!

no problem! ^^ sorry I was away all day

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((sorry for the long delay, July weekends are busy for me x_x ))

No worries! I've been hella slow myself /)_(\

((and somehow I also didn't get this notif o_____o I'm so sorry))

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Sorry for the delay!