Nightshift 60: West Wing, South Hall 1-B

[ninelivesonce]

[from here]

Taura pondered the announcement she'd just heard as she jogged down another empty hallway. Who was she? Jill? Who he'd tortured himself, though that could have been an act on her part as well? Whose side had she been on? And what could have happened to her that would be permanent?

Death was usually pretty permanent, but even that had its exceptions around here. Taura didn't have to like it to know it was true; what had General Aguilar done that could change that? And why was Doctor Landel so angry?

It was an uneasy thought to stomach; revenge drove people like nothing else did, and being one of the people in between was a hell of a way to go.

[to here]

Comments

[dispersive]

For the record, Chipp didn't seem insane. Luke had met some seriously mentally unstable people in his short lifetime so he would like to believe his basis of judgment held some weight. Maybe crazy was a better term for his roommate. He wasn't very familiar with the differences, but he couldn't just lump the guy in sane because, well, he clearly lacked the requirements, like chivalry.

Okay, so maybe he was just a jerk, or maybe uncouth. Whatever category he landed under, the redhead was not all that comfortable with his plan. Perhaps there was some sort of logic behind hitting someone on a suspicion, but Luke couldn't see it.

"Let me get this straight... We're going to help this kinda-crippled-kinda-not girl out by ambushing her in the dark and then start beating her if it 'comes' to that." His deadpan expression was more than enough to tell Chipp just how enthusiastic he was over this. "What, exactly, will it be 'coming' to? I can't punch a girl!"

[zanuff]

It was pretty sad that Luke repeated Chipp's plan back to him and he found absolutely nothing wrong with it. Actually, he was wondering exactly what was Luke's problem with the plan. Sure, maybe it was a little forward to assume that this Gear would go nuts and not listen to words, but was it really that bad of a guess? That's what tended to happen with Gears, last time Chipp checked. He crossed his arms and looked at Luke with a dumbfounded expression, like he was the unreasonable person here.

"I said I was the one who was gonna punch her! We're not trying to hurt her, just stun her in case something goes wrong. She's a Gear, so we have to be careful." Was Luke really not aware of how dangerous Gears could be? They were already lucky that the Gear was crippled, or else Chipp wouldn't even be bothering going after her. "Besides, that's just if talks break down. I have to find out what she's doing here and why."

Sure, this was pretty dangerous and all, but Luke knew what he signed up for... right?

[dispersive]

"Okay, okay, so we're stunning her. Fine." Luke let out a heavy breath where he stood beside his newest ally, waiting on a girl he had never met. In the silence that followed Chipp's explanation, the young man simply shifted his sword to his other shoulder.

"You keep calling her a Gear. What..." No, that wasn't the question. The real question was whether or not he should even ask about these Gears. Chipp made it sound like something everyone should know about, but obviously he didn't. Would he make a fool of himself if he asked?

Fool or not, he supposed the answer could help him determine if this girl did actually need a punch in the face or not. The redhead didn't want that on his conscience if they were both mistaken.

"What's that mean?"

[rainboompow]

[From here]

Rainbow Dash still hadn't come to a solid idea of what to do when she saw something outside the hallway door that she hadn't expected. Her flashlight crossed a shock of wild hair, and no, it wasn't the draconequus eyebrows she'd been expecting to find somewhere — it was him.

The speed with which Rainbow's blood ran from chill to boil was downright astonishing.

"Nutty Japan?!" she blurted loudly and without thinking. "Oh perfect! Just who I needed to see! Why don't you lea'me alone already and go stalk someone else!" she snapped at him, turning on her heel at a sharp right right angle and starting to stomp away as quickly as she could. Pony or human, stomping was still a pretty satisfying thing to do.

[zanuff]

What did that mean? What did that mean? Was Luke serious? Okay, maybe he never dealt with a Gear before but - damn, what did that mean? Chipp didn't even know where to start, though he was about to make an attempt when someone else cut him off - wait, shit!

"Huh? Hey, wait, who are you calling a stalker?!" Despite perfectly fitting the title at the moment, Chipp couldn't help but take offense and quickly dashed in front of the Gear girl in an attempt to cut her off. She wasn't getting away from him this time!

To Chipp's credit, he didn't actually try to touch the Gear girl this time, seeing as how she seemed to be quite mobile since he last met her (so much for being a cripple, if she was capable of stomping) and as much as Chipp wanted to see this place get blown up, he didn't want anyone to be in the building first.

"I got some questions for you! Why the hell is a Gear like you hanging around here?" While Chipp hadn't meant for his question to be accusatory, it was hard to take his question any other way. "Did those military bastards make you here or something?"

If Chipp needed to give Luke any more proof of his lack of sanity, he was probably doing a fantastic job of it right about now.

[dispersive]

Luke stood beside them in silence, a terrified witness to something he didn't exactly comprehend. It wasn't like this was the first fight he had been witness to--Hell, he used to start half of them on Auldrant!-- but this was just a confusing mess of words he didn't even understand. They both sounded insane.

Now, standing here, watching this squabble, the replica wondered if he was on the wrong side. Was Chipp the enemy? Was he trying to persecute this "Gear"? He couldn't be apart of that! And what's more, they were screaming in a dark, desolate hallway where monsters could easily attack from the shadows.

"Hey, hey! Wait! Hang on!" Luke called out just as loudly, trying to put himself between the two. "Okay, not to squash your fun, but let's try to be kinda quiet, alright? Monsters can hear us and she doesn't have a weapon." In fact, she was probably going to attract more negative attention with that lighted fontech.

"And you still haven't told me what a Gear is!" He looked to Chipp for an answer. Luke didn't want to vilify his roommate, but picking on a girl was kinda hard to watch without context.

[rainboompow]

"'Gear'? What are you even—?!" 

Rainbow was cut off from going around Nutty Japan by his red-haired friend. The threat of monsters finding them gave her a big reason to pause, too. Normally she wouldn't find it a big deal; sure, monsters in the Everfree Forest scared her sometimes, but for the most part, Rainbow could either run fast enough, fly high enough, or kick hard enough to make unfriendly monsters a non-problem. In this body, though, she couldn't be so sure of herself, no matter how much she told herself otherwise. 

Forcing herself to keep quieter (with her voice cracking occasionally as it betrayed the yelling that would have been going on otherwise), she turned her attention back to Nutty: "Whatever! You are too a stalker! First the field, then the bulletin, and now here! And I don't know what the hay a Gear is supposed to be either, but I don't have time to find out. I just wanna get out of here, get my wings and hooves back, and get back to my friends so we can save Equestria already! So excuse me—"

Rainbow shoved at Nutty's shoulder just enough to try and get him out of her path. "—'cause that's what I'm gonna go do!"

[zanuff]

... Wait a minute, did the Gear girl just ask him what he was talking about by calling her a Gear? How come no one knew what a Gear was around here?! Not even the Gears knew what Gears were around here! Now, this should have tipped Chipp off that he was extremely mistaken about the "Gear" girl's true nature but when she started ranting about wings and hooves(?) and a place called Equestria, it was finally starting to sink in the man's thick skull that there might have been a communication error somewhere here. Maybe. He was confused, hence why it was easy for the Gear girl to shove him out of the way for the time being.

Still, that didn't mean Chipp was going to just let her walk away. How the heck was she not a Gear if she was talking about weird shit that only Gears had? It was pretty obvious that she wasn't supposed to be a human, whatever she was! Since Chipp started it, maybe he felt a little obligated to confirm that before finally leaving her alone.

"Wait, so you're not a Gear? What the hell are you supposed to be, then?" Of course, it would have helped if Chipp would actually explain what a Gear was to the other two, but he was so used to everyone knowing that he still couldn't believe he had to explain it. "I mean, you both don't know what Gears are?"

wow there was three maybes in on sentence (unsure)

[dispersive]

If the girl was going to turn this physical, Luke wasn't going to stop her, at least not yet. It was only a shove and Chipp sort of deserved it for flying off the handle so quickly. Actually, it reminded him of his own headstrong endeavors and a wash of secondhand embarrassment rushed over him as he imagined his friends looking in on one of his terrible errs. The replica would make it his duty to ensure the guy didn't keep making an ass of himself, well, anymore than he already had.

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked, like, four times--Wait!" Quickly, he leaned past Chipp to get the surly girl's attention. "Wait, uh, miss! You probably shouldn't... go too far by yourself. You know, there's monsters around here."

[rainboompow]

Rainbow stopped in her tracks again at the red-haired guy's words. Right. Monsters. She really did need to remember that for more than five seconds at a time. Then again, if there were monsters, where were they? She didn't hear anything around them so far. For all she knew, Nutty and his friend were just trying to scare her.

...Dang it if she didn't want to take that chance in this body, though. Rainbow shivered inadvertently.

Instead of heading on, she turned back around, pretending like she was just going to answer Nutty's question. "Last I checked they were little round metal things with teeth that work in machines. And not pegasus ponies," she said to the silver-haired crazypants, raising a very questioning eyebrow at him. "I mean what else would have wings and hooves? Seriously, how do you make that mistake?"

[zanuff]

It was just so damn weird to Chipp that these two had no idea what a Gear was that the idea of the rainbow haired not`Gear girl being a pony was actually easier to swallow. Okay, pony, that was kind of weird, but the wings and hooves thing made it sound like she was supposed to be some kind of demon, and it's not like Chipp hadn't run into characters like that before. She wasn't a Gear, anyway, so it looked like he came here for nothing.

"Shut up, I never heard of a pegasus pony thing. If you're not a Gear, that's all I need to know." Saying the word out loud reminded Chipp, once again, that these two definitely had no idea what a Gear was. Wow, he never thought he would have to explain this. There really were different kinds of things here, wasn't there...

"Uh... Gears are like... these creatures made with Magic. They're really powerful and really dangerous. They're weapons." Chipp tried for that, unable to even articulate really what made a Gear a Gear. He never thought he'd have to. He gave a glance at Luke and the rainbow girl, to see if his explanation made any sense to them.

"So that's why I thought you were a Gear, since you mentioned having wings and other stuff that humans wouldn't have." Since she mentioned it, it sounded more and more like this girl wasn't supposed to look that way. If it was inconvenient for her, why did she look like a human, then? Of course, Chipp was already getting the idea that this form might not have been voluntary on her part... Or she was a spy, trying to act like one to infiltrate this place. That sounded pretty cool too.

[dispersive]

Chipp's vague description of a Gear struck a chord in him that hadn't exactly healed yet. His first thoughts were of Moh's army of hollow children and Ion's cyclical fate. The word Gear seemed a strange name for them, but calling replicas wasn't any better.

The rest of his rambling wasn't so cut and dry. None of it made any sense and he felt like an outsider looking in on a domestic dispute. Luke did his best to keep up, but it was hard since he hadn't exactly heard the first part of this entire mess of an argument.

Maybe he would just keep an eye out for trouble while they argued. Yeah, that worked! He was good at that.

[rainboompow]

Never heard of a pegasus pony? What?

That was a first. All the humans she had talked to today at least had some idea of what she was. The only explanation Rainbow could think of was that this "Japan" place of Nutty's existed so far away from Equestria that no Equestrians had ever visited it, and likewise no Japanese or Gears had ever been to Equestria. Maybe wherever they were now was somewhere in between? Sure would explain a few things... Rainbow thought, tilting her head at Nutty and squinting.

She still didn't really get the whole "Gear" thing, though. So when Red (as Rainbow was starting to call the other guy in her head) didn't seem to have anything to say, Rainbow plowed right into another question: "Wait, you mean 'made' like... Made made? Like created? How does that happen? No one would have enough magic to make creatures like that!" Rainbow was quiet for a moment, then mentally braked and backed up a step: "Well, maybe Princess Celestia could do it, but she wouldn't even if she could! She doesn't need to and she wouldn't want to!"

There was no way Princess Celestia would create any creature just to be a weapon. The Elements of Harmony were the biggest weapons in the fight for Equestrian peace, and Rainbow and her friends wielded those. Also, as much as Rainbow hated to admit it, making Gears wouldn't be Discord's style either. Why would he make weapons when he could just turn enemy swords into ice cream cones and armour into rubber duckies? Even Rainbow Dash could see that logic.

So who would create something like a Gear?

[zanuff]

Chipp couldn't even begin to start answering the not-Gear girl's questions, since he himself had no idea which asshole had the bright idea of making Gears, only that the world never really healed from the destruction they caused in the first place. It was just a relief to know that there weren't any walking around at the moment, for everyone's sake.

"I dunno. I'm just glad you're not one... not that I hate Gears, but they're hard to deal with." In all honestly, he should hate Gears, but Chipp had already seen the error of blindly hating something without any regard as to why it existed in the first place. Apologizing for his behavior might have been the next appropriate thing to do, but as far as Chipp was concerned, he did the right thing by trying to check on the girl and clearing up any misunderstandings. Yep.

Except now he had no idea what to do, aside from tell Luke and not-Gear girl about Gears, except that he told them everything that he knew. In that case, then he really had no idea what to do, other then...

"Okay, I guess I'll just go then. I'm looking for Landel's office so he can tell me the way out." And so he could beat the hell out of him, but that was probably obvious enough. "You guys wanna team up?"

It seemed extremely out of place to offer a team-up when one guy thought he was insane and the other thought he was a stalker, but Chipp figured there was no need to go through the trouble of looking for some extra allies when there were two others here who probably wanted the same thing he did.

[dispersive]

Well, that had all been rather anti-climactic. Luke supposed he shouldn't have expected or prayed for anything else. Senseless bloodshed would have gotten them nowhere. So, if she wasn't a Gear or a replica or pegasus thingy, then where did they go from here?

The young man was about to make a suggestion, but Chipp beat him to it and his sounded just as good. It would be no simple task, but you may as well dream big in the face of uncertainty and oppression. Besides, Luke and his friends always had the tendency to find people that didn't want to be found. It was a developed skill and one he may as well use to help his friends, even if these two were still on shaky ground.

"I'm game! Someone needs to teach this guy a lesson!" That made two of them, but what about their third baggage. They were deliberately arousing trouble and it wouldn't do to bring someone along if she couldn't defend herself.

He turned to the oddly colorful girl and asked, "Can you, you know... Fight?" That lightened fontech was pretty heavy, maybe she could bludgeon Landel to death with it.

[rainboompow]

It bothered Rainbow that Nutty couldn't answer any other questions about Gears. They sounded like pretty serious customers. Before she could start getting properly annoyed or secretly worried about that, however, Nutty made a suggestion that she actually liked. Miracles could still happen, apparently.

If it had just been Nutty, she might have been a little more wary. Even with the misunderstanding cleared up, Rainbow wasn't completely over how he had treated her earlier, or the accusation of her being a Gear. However, with Reasonable Red getting in on the action too and putting forth just as much (if not more) enthusiasm, Rainbow felt good about her chances on this idea. Plus she sure wanted to find "Landel"'s office all right, if for no other reason than to see if she could force Discord to show himself. Either way, teaching Landel a lesson (Discord or not) sounded right up her alley.

"You bet I can!" Rainbow answered Red instantly. Never minding the fact that she was more of an athlete than a fighter, and the fact that she still wasn't totally used to this body. The desire to kick something in the face was too strong for her to think things through at the moment. "If 'Landel' or whoever he is wants a fight, then Rainbow Dash is gonna give it to him!"

[zanuff]

See? Nothing wrong with proposing a little teamwork! It was like Chipp had completely forgotten about the whole misadventure that happened only seconds ago, and to be honest, it might not have been surprising if the whole incident was already water under the bridge for him. With Luke and Rainbowgirl on his side, they definitely should have been able to catch up to that Landel bastard. At least he was already in the building, that should make things easier for him.

But where exactly was he? All Chipp had to go by was Daemon's suggestion that he was on the third floor, and when they went up to the second floor... well, on the other hand, he and Daemon kind of got sidetracked by the dude who set him on fire. If he found that guy again, he'd punch him in the face too.

"Cool, so we're all teamed up now! Let's go, we're looking for the third floor." Now that he secured everyone's cooperation, Chipp had no trouble turning around and walking out of the hallway like he actually knew where he was going.

[ moving them over here

ooc: so I figure since Chipp is leading, I can move the whole group after a round of posts, or would you guys prefer I keep going up to the second floor? XD; ]