Night 59: West Wing, North Hall 1-A

[tightsofmight]

[From here.]

Did that just happen?

Peter slowed as he entered the safety of the outer hall (safety, really?), turning back to boggle at the door behind him. What - no. No way the cat monsters were that frail. Landel's did not work like that. Nothing was ever that easy here. They didn't get treated, they got tricked. Heart pounding, he checked the hall up and down. Once certain that he was alone, Peter pressed a shaking hand to the wall. Stick.

And it did.

His jaw did drop then. Peter was still for a moment. Switched off his flashlight and tied the pillowcase over his shoulder, then pressed both his hands to the wall. Then his feet. Then up further, rising up and up, then gravity flipped and he was staring down at the floor.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Was that the power the pink had granted him? The limits were off? Peter clung to the ceiling, the pillowcase settled on his stomach as he crawled upside down. His heart was beating. He was afraid. He was going to drop any minute. They were going to take it away. Or what if this was another challenge like the Coliseum? Something worse was in store because of this?

He almost stopped entirely. Then he thought of Jessica.

"No no no, she's gotta - maybe..."

Peter Parker was all but invisible in the pitch black hallway, crawling higher than most flashlights dared to venture as he found the exit.

[To here.]

Comments

[sasuke-of-sound.livejournal.com]

[[from here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1188857.html?thread=81165305)]]

"Which way do you intend to go?" Sasuke asked as they moved past the body of the cat. "Up, or out?"

Not down, because they'd been there already and knew the so-called prize: and Sai was alive, but the tedium of working through down was something that called for more patience than the live thrum of chakra in his body provided.

There was less of a stench of scent of blood and rot in this hallway -- but it grew stronger the further out of the patient areas they walked. Sasuke was willing to bet that the main halls were a carnage, if this was the patient blocks, and -- after blood across his bare feet, a night when everything stank of iron, another night when everything reeked of rot -- could only look forward to it.

[idolism]

Aidou recognized there was a fine line to walk now that he was whole again, one between revelling in his familiar strength and actually using this chance to strike at the hearts of his enemies. He could’ve killed the monster quickly and been done with it--should’ve--but letting it suffer at the hands of a stronger opponent, even for a moment, pleased him.

He wanted to inflict pain. He wanted to make this place bleed.

Which was why he followed after Sasuke, leaving the cat’s gore to leak out over the once pure ice. There were more appropriate targets to exact his vengeance on--the Institute’s beasts were distractions, fodder meant to detract from the true goal of finding the cowards behind their imprisonment. Losing his head now would just be cruel twist of irony after holding himself together for so long.

“One day you’re going to have to tell me about your abilities,” he mused, crossing the slick ground with equal if not similar grace. Sasuke knew enough about Aidou that Aidou felt no need to conceal his nature, but Sasuke was still somewhat of an enigma. Their true potential had only been glimpsed in snatches until now, temporary moments in time that always ended up with them back under the Institute’s suppression, but this was different.

This was a sudden and unexpected push into the middle of a massacre. The rules might just have changed without them knowing.

For the vampire, the smells in the air only grew more potent once they reached the corridor, where the scents met and entangled themselves with those within the building and those from outside. Ahhh, it was almost as if the walls were alive with blood again! Making sense of it all took a moment, in part because there was a hunger in him that resisted being set aside in favor of calm thought.

“Outside, I think, for now. To take a peek at what’s going on out there. I can smell… well, I can smell quite a bit, but it’s hard to tell what might belong to staff and not just other prisoners.”

Needless to say, it was the staff and their best kept secrets he was hunting for: the faces and places he hadn’t been able to reach as a weakened prisoner caught in a cage.

[sasuke-of-sound.livejournal.com]

Amidst the heady rush of power flooding through his veins, the confidence of chakra in his body responding the way it should have, the way he had grown up feeling it channel and form, there was still a sharp half-thrill when everything worked. Aidou's words only clarified it further, meshed with a strange satisfaction (not that Sasuke needed to impress anybody -- not here, not now, obviously), and Sasuke flicked his gaze in the vampire's direction just long enough to smirk briefly.

"With any luck, you will see them tonight." And indeed, luck seemed to be with them. While Aidou could sense the extent of the rotted, bloody ruin around them with concrete, Sasuke was resonating with it on a level more primal, something almost instinctual: the recognition of a fight, the tension of blows struck and blood spilled were a frequency that he had lived since childhood.

The first hint of normalcy here, suffused with the ease of controlling his own body. The only shortfall of the night, his vision, had already been more or less fixed with Aidou's appearance. Any sight would have done; Aidou's had proved itself before.

It made the decision to go outside instead of limiting themselves inside the warded Institute more logical, and Sasuke nodded to acknowledge it. Without further discussion, he pushed through into chill outdoors.

[[to here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1191699.html?thread=81881363#t81881363)]]