Night 59: Main Hallway, 1-West

[doneinthree]

[from here]

Kirk ran into the main hallway and found nothing there except more pink light coating everything. His gut feeling said that if something was happening, it should've happened already, but he was a loss to explain what was going on. The system (if he could call it that, vague as it was to describe the whole Landel's torture/experimentation assembly line) had broken down at least once already, on that night when I.R.I.S. had first(?) appeared, and the whole of the building flickered like a malfunctioning hologram. Was that what the glowing cover was for? To prevent... he didn't know. Something. Something bad enough to warrant a Code Red.

(What had killed that creature?)

Waiting around here was already bad enough on normal nights, what with it being an open space with high traffic, but he'd picked it because it was the quickest and most obvious meeting place for all of them. Now with the whole area lit up like the inside of a strip club, Kirk was starting to feel like a lone piece of meat wrapped in a gold ribbon and tossed out for the wolves. He made a face for a second as he considered the unfortunate implication of mixing those similes, then decided that the dumb thoughts which crossed his mind ranked considerably lower in priority than, you know, paying attention to his surroundings and not getting himself killed.

Kirk swung the lead pipe in his hand once, just to focus, and shook his head as pain rippled out from the still-healing gunshot wound on his right arm. Take it easy, Jim, he admonished himself silently. It was still early in the night. Someone would be along shortly. And if not... he was giving his crew one minute. One minute, and then screw it, he was tracking down everyone himself.

[KIRK TO ENTERPRISE]

Comments

[nobleman]

Really, it had only been a matter of time before something attacked them. That didn't make the sudden approach of the monster any easier to anticipate, though, and in the end Claude beat Guy to the punch with taking the cat down. He made quite the show of it, too, but there was no reason for him to hold back when he had all of his old abilities back.

Was that heraldry he'd just used or something else? Claude had mentioned before that he wasn't very good at heraldry, so maybe he had pulled from some sort of other power to perform that attack. "Nice job," Guy said to his friend, setting a hand on his shoulder.

That attack just made it more clear that they needed to waste no time on getting out of this area. It was clearly being frequented by a lot of monsters tonight, seeing how that cat had just added to an already large number of bodies. Anise went about distributing the bracelets after that, and Guy was very careful to take it from her without initiating any physical contact.

Even getting that close caused his heart to race a little faster, though Guy realized that might also be due to the fact that they were about to take a pretty large risk.

"Well, I guess we should try and put them all on at the same time, right?" That seemed like the best way to do it, sort of how he and Claude had jumped off of that cliff together the last time they'd gone into the basement.

[full-score.livejournal.com]

Secret talent? Well, Claude didn't think it was as impressive as Anise's ability to turn that doll into a giant, but his face glowed a little from his friends' praise regardless. "It wasn't a problem," he said with a lopsided grin and a scratch of his cheek. He was just glad no one had gotten hurt.

It was still a reminder that they couldn't afford to waste anymore time, though. He took his bracelet from Anise with a grateful nod, but refrained from putting it on until they'd agreed on how to handle this. Guy's suggestion actually sounded pretty good, since it meant that, whatever happened, they'd all be in it together.

"Yeah, you may be right," he agreed, growing more serious now. "How about on the count of three?"

[gald_digger]

It seemed kind of risky for all of them to try at once, but Anise had to admit it was a little comforting to know that if anything bad happened, none of them would be stuck dealing with it alone. It looked like these kinds of leaps of faith were becoming a routine, though. It was pretty scary, never knowing what was ahead of them.

"Okay, let's do it!" she chimed in, trying to sound confident, even if she was mostly nervous. Worrying was just going to make it harder, though, so it was best to just put on a brave face and charge onward! She picked up her meat tenderizer, tucked it under her arm, and decided she was as ready as she'd ever be. "I'll count! Okay?" She only gave a second for anyone to object, then started.

"One, two..."

They were going to feel really silly if nothing happened, she realized belatedly.

"Three!"

[to here]