damned_institute | Night 60: M01-M10 Hallway

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Night 60: M01-M10 Hallway

The words of the Head Doctor, back to power and gloriously maniacal as ever, slid cleanly past Peter Parker's ears and dripped unnoticed to the floor. The few that stuck - something about the radio guy, and losing a girl - they hit no notes within him. He held onto them, but set them aside for another day. Things were too woozy to even consider theorizing.

Peter had risen gingerly from his bed and strode to the closet. Things were arranged exactly the way they had been in his old room, down to the way the coats and sweaters folded as they fell from the hanger. Peter pushed them aside to take a peak at the long red and blue ensemble waiting for him. He stared. His vision began to water, and he quietly took the coat concealing it and slid it back into place.

The webshooter, the flashlight, and the as of yet unused ring. Those were the only things he brought with him out the door. He didn't feel like Spider-Man tonight. And if he was going to see Brainy, he wanted to do it as he had known him.

Besides, he didn't need the map to find the morgue.

[To here.]

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Sora could have gone without ever having to hear one of the Head Doctor's nighttime rants again. The man was pretty proud of himself for the fact that he'd managed to gain control again, and more than that, he was trying to say that it was all thanks to them. Well, Sora wasn't going to believe that. Getting their powers back last night had still been a step in the right direction, if only because it had shown them that it was possible.

Peter ended up leaving without another word, which Sora couldn't blame him for. He tried to wish him good luck, but the door had already shut behind the other boy before Sora could get the words out. He sighed and slumped his shoulders before moving over to his closet.

Changing into his regular outfit at the start of every night was routine by now, and it didn't even take Sora that long at this point. He also made sure to strip one of his pillows of its case, though, so that he could shove both coconuts and the small box with Kairi's necklace into it. Other than that, he just needed his radio and flashlight, as usual.

Kairi was probably going to tease him about the pillow case again, but he didn't mind. She was going to change her tune once she saw what he'd gotten her -- or so he hoped.

With everything ready, Sora left his room and took off down the hall. He didn't want to keep Kairi waiting too long; he just hoped she stayed put.

[To here.]

Edited 2011-12-18 20:33 (UTC)

What a waste of a day. But it wasn't like Riku was feeling any better about the taste of freedom mixed in with the sudden feeling of loss. Most of his day had been spent avoiding people. First, he skipped breakfast, assuming it would be much of the same, and he managed to make it out later to observe how everything had gone back to normal. The thing was, he wasn't surprised. If someone was determined for things to be the way they were, they would have them that way.

That seemed to be Landel's idea of a good time.

That guy blamed them for what happened. He had to admit that he wasn't surprised. Things had to change. And when they did, it was usually for the worst. Any level of optimism wasn't really his thing, so he didn't bother with that. If things were going to change, he'd just have to be ready. And, at least, when he was, he could make sure both his friends were with him. Riku didn't like admitting it, but knowing they had a shot at keeping an eye on Kairi from now on made him feel better. He forgot to mention to Sora to ensure she stuck by one of them every night, but he figured, from the night's assignments, that his friend clued in on that already.

Riku rolled his shoulders as he grabbed his sword and his nightlight and headed out. His roommate was still sleeping—that seemed to be the case a lot, actually; he wondered if he just bored them into it—so he didn't waste any energy on that. It was time to go meet this new guy.

[to here]

Edited 2011-12-19 16:34 (UTC)

As night grew closer, Locke became more and more agitated. He was just waiting for that sound of the doors unlocking signaling, like some sick race, that night had officially started. As soon as the door could be opened, it was and the treasure hunter wasted no time in making his way to the main hallway.

He hadn't made contact with Tolten at all during the day and he didn't search for his friend tonight either. Silently, he hoped the other man found someone to watch his back in whatever he decided to do tonight because Locke wasn't going to try and pull anyone else into this personal mission of his.

Twice now, the night had ended with them being so close to getting to one of the kitchens and it was frustrating him beyond words. He just wanted to be able to hold his own or watch his partner's back if it was needed. Last night they'd been lucky; Locke had gotten his magic back and had actually been useful for once. But, now, that wasn't a factor. He'd been hoping, but any hope he'd been holding during the day that he'd get his magic back once night hit was dashed with Landel's words.

So, now he'd have to try again to arm himself, even if he didn't have anyone to travel with.

[To here]

Waiting for Carter had given Hakkai far too much time to think, which in turn was leading nowhere good. He'd spent a while pacing back and forth in the narrow room, but it was irritating last night's injuries, and given he had plenty to do tonight still, he settled down at the edge of the bed, staring at the floor without really seeing it. His mind kept replaying last night's fight, now that he was more or less alone and had no distractions. Had it been right to show his true nature like that? It has seemed like the best solution at the time, and none of his companions had seemed overly disgusted with him.

And then the conversation on the bulletin board. Giving too much of himself away again. This place was putting him off-balance. Though... he was curious about his anonymous correspondent. Tempered with caution, certainly, but curious. Someone from his world, it seemed. Someone who didn't like youkai. What would they think of him, when they met? Hakkai wasn't sure he wanted to know.

After a while, it seemed like Carter wasn't going to arrive. With a small sigh, Hakkai grabbed his flashlight, and headed into the hallway. He had other appointments to keep, even if it meant he'd have to apologize to Kaneyoshi again tomorrow. He wasn't being much help to them, unfortunately.

[To here]

Edited 2011-12-20 11:19 (UTC)

Kurama had made sure to wait until his roommate left first before he went about his own business for the night. While Goku was probably not going to be much help to him in terms of providing information and further understanding of the Institute's inner workings, there was more than one good thing having him as a roommate meant. Kurama felt perhaps a slight twinge of guilt at having to consider the child in that way, but perhaps he could use his roommate's simple-mindedness to his advantage, after all. Not having a particularly... observant... roommate meant that Kurama wouldn't be as hard-pressed to keep track of his secrets in his room. If he were a better person, he'd feel bad for intentionally treating someone like that, but he was Youko Kurama. And 'Kurama' had no obligation to be affiliate himself with moral good. Although he had regained faith in the significance of trust and friendship, there were still several hundred years of experiences that justified his wariness of having too many connections.

Interesting, how daytime at the Institute transformed into night. There had been two announcements to bring about the change: the first had continued the act of a medical facility, with the head doctor bidding them all a good night and pleasant dreams, while the second had dropped all pretenses and given Kurama several key questions to answer.

Firstly, what was the point of pretending to be an institute in the daytime when it should be fairly obvious to all the patients that this was hardly the case? The head doctor -- this Dr. Martin Landel -- was clearly in the know about what went on at night, but how much did the rest of the staff know, then? If the staff knew about all this, again, what was the point of the act during the day? For whom was the act for? But with the second announcement came an inkling of a possible reason for this.

The second announcement had exactly what had happened at the Institute before he'd arrived? From what this Martin Landel had said in his broadcast, Kurama deduced a couple possible facts: the man had been removed from his position as head doctor before and only recently gotten the position back; it seemed that some military force had taken over in the head doctor's stead. There had been mention of soldiers, a general, traitors, an 'Eagle,' and finally, this person vaguely referred to as ’her’ that the head doctor had seemed particularly incensed about ‘losing.’ From this, Kurama could hazard a guess and say that whatever they were doing inside this Institute was not something that outsiders were supposed to know about. Thus the pretense. What was this then, an experiment? Bringing in beings from different universes, different worlds, different timelines, for their own research purposes? If the military had been involved, perhaps Kurama had stumbled -- or rather, been drawn into against his will, more like -- into something far bigger than he'd initially thought. … How troublesome, that he’d been taken out of one inter-dimensional conflict, only to be drawn into another.

And thirdly, something else that caught his attention. ‘Powers,’ the head doctor had mentioned. It would be fair to assume Kurama was the not the only being at the Institute with some sort of special ability, then. Was this, perhaps, the reason they had all been brought here? Had the other patients been chosen for their powers and brought here to be observed and tested on? And the doctor had mentioned something about limits, hadn’t he? It made sense, now that Kurama thought about it. The ‘patients’ here possessed powerful abilities, but in order to contain them in this space, it would make sense for their captors to restrict their capabilities. Which meant that Kurama would be unable to access a good chunk of his youki, he assumed. How had he not been able to immediately detect nearby demons before? It had become almost second-nature to him, so he hadn’t noticed the lack of distinct auras around him, but in hindsight, it really should have been more apparent. As it was, Kurama had focused his attention internally as the broadcast had been made and realized that he seemed to be able to access more of his youki once night shift was announced. This had to be because of his apparent status as the Institute’s ‘lab rat.’ They gathered information about them at night, perhaps, and whatever transpired here at night was the experiment they were running.

There were too many questions and not enough answers for them. He would have to gather more information before he could start formulating a plan.

But first, he would have to survive whatever was going to happen tonight. The warnings and advice from the bulletin board had carried a mixture of impressions, and Kurama was unsure which impression he should trust the most. And then there had been that fellow youkai he’d conversed with.

Perhaps it was because Kurama had been taken from such a time in his own universe, but he was wary of this meeting he had agreed to. While the other youkai had seemed honest enough, it was difficult to tell through written text and deceit was hardly an uncommon trait among demons. Even if he wanted to trust this demon’s words, he was, by nature, cautious and it was this quality that had saved his life countless times before. There was no sense in being unprepared for whatever outcome, even if preparations proved unnecessary in the end.

As expected, Kurama had none of his usual arsenal of weapons at hand. After Kurama had finally gotten the room to himself, during his search of the rest of the room, he had also conducted a search on his own person. All of his usual stock of seeds, as well as the modified rosebuds he used as his signature Rose Whip weapon, had all been taken from his person. He would have to make do with improvised weapons until he could find and personalize a new stock, then.

Slipping the carefully-detailed origami map that the Nation of Japan (… he still wasn’t sure what to think of this) had provided into his pocket, Kurama picked up the flashlight and the radio, switching the latter on and putting the strap over his shoulder to keep his hands free. There must have been a reason they had all been provided with a radio, after all. Perhaps he might catch something interesting if he brought it with him. Kurama exchanged his indoor slippers for the shoes and then picked up the keyring he’d found in his desk as he headed out the door. As he stepped out into the hallway, he turned and locked up with one of the keys. Even though he had nothing valuable inside, he might as well get into the habit. Finally, he turned and headed down the hallway, the route he would take already memorized and mapped out in his mind.

[to here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1210908.html?thread=81734428#t81734428)]

So Sam was alive and that was pretty much good enough for Dean. Anything other than that he felt he could totally roll with - or at least pretend he could roll with, which was the next best thing at this point. He'd spotted the kid talking to Peter and from where he'd stood, his brother didn't look like he was real beat-up or missing any arms and legs he might be kinda needing: in other words, he was fine and Dean was relieved in a weird way that at least he was here.

At least he could account for where Sam was. It beat the other two alternatives, which basically ran from Dead Sam to Stepford Sam. Stepford bitch Sam from what he remembered. Yeah, he was shocked too. He had no idea Sam could shoot higher on the bitch scale.

Dean shouldered his duffel bag and headed out.

[To here]

Once the telltale sign of the door unlocking was heard, Goku eagerly rolled off his lofty bed and scrambled for his wardrobe. Inside lay his nyoibo, his red staff, and its sheath. He tied it carefully to his back and let out the rear of pants as he always had to. The young monkey boy couldn't understand why his clothes kept mending themselves. It would be so much easier if they would just remain torn for his own convenience!

Tearing a new hole in his pants, Goku's brown tail slowly wiggled his way through the tight carpet where its owner could greet it properly.

"Hey, long time no see!" The strange appendage bobbed and swayed behind him as if in answer. With his weapon in hand and his tail no longer suffocating, Goku headed for the door to find Taura.

[To here]

The more Chipp heard this Landel guy speak, the more he grew to hate the other man. What was this asshole trying to do, scare them into obeying or something? The fact that Landel already lost the place by the time Chipp got here only made the "Head Doctor" more unimpressive to him. No wonder Venom wanted to knock this guy out first thing. Oh well, he had something more important to do tonight: Gear hunting!

Okay, maybe not "hunting"... That sounded a bit extreme. Chipp just wanted to find the girl and figure out what she was doing here. It seemed like he wasn't as wary as he should have been solely because she sucked at walking that much.

"Luke, you ready?" Chipp looked around for his roommate, wanting to make sure they were ready before they left. Hey, it was a Gear they were still dealing with, things could get really ugly. As for Chipp, he was ready with that stupid military outfit (it scratched his arms but it was better then ... those weird gray tshirts) and the bright red axe Venom handed him the other night. Yep. Just in case.

once the door was unlocked, the young man went for his wardrobe and pulled out his present, a longsword. Carefully, he looked for any signs of blood spatter, but there was nothing to be found, not even one spec of dried gore. So what did that mean? Well, he would question it later; he didn't have time right now to ponder what he couldn't remember.

"Ready." With no scabbard for his sword, Luke just balanced his sword on his shoulder with his restless fingers rubbed roughly against the hilt. His green eyes glanced over to Chipp, happy to see the man was as well equipped as he.

"Let's go!" he declared for them both before heading out of their room.

[To here]

Edited 2011-12-24 19:16 (UTC)

Almost as soon as the doors unlocked, Vino headed out the door. His new roommate seemed like an interesting person, but once again, that basement was at the forefront of his mind.

With the gear he'd been taking the past few nights on hand, he started down the hallway with almost a bounce in his step. How fun would today's trip downstairs be?

[skipping to here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1217969.html?thread=81827249#t81827249)]

Edited 2012-01-04 11:43 (UTC)

[from here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1210908.html?thread=81950236#t81950236)]

Kurama turned at the end of the block hallway and continued moving.

"I'm in M1, by the way." He was already reaching into his pocket to pull out the keyring so he could unlock his door.

"Did the name the nurses address you by have any particular significance to you?" he asked as he slid the key into the door and turned it. The lock clicked open and he turned the knob and pushed the door in. His roommate wasn't there and it didn't look like anything had changed since Kurama had left.

He turned to Hakkai. "Well then," he said. "After you."

"Human years, I suppose," Hakkai replied, the slight confusion clear in his voice. "I wasn't aware youkai had a different calendar." Though in fairness, he knew little about them as a culture - and most of his interactions with them had not given him much incentive to try. A few exceptions here and there, perhaps, but attempts on his life were not particularly endearing.

A quick glance at his room as they passed showed the door still closed - though he supposed his roommate could have left and closed it again. He trailed after Shuuichi, all the way to the end of the hall.

"Almost neighbours, then. I'm in M5." He gave the other man a quick smile which he didn't quite feel. Now that they'd reached their destination, he was starting to feel on edge again. This could be a trap - and entering the room meant showing his back. But at the same time... nothing had happened so far. The evening had been abnormally normal, all things considered - and so he headed into the room, doing his best to calm himself.

It was a test, just a minor one. And Hakkai passed it as soon as he stepped through the door. In terms of power, he had just willfully stepped into unknown territory, and with demons, this meant a whole lot more than just accepting an invitation into a room. Of course, this could also just mean that he still operated under human societal standards, but it was a clear act of trust. As such, Kurama was further inclined to believe he would not have use for the makeshift weapon hidden in his hair tonight.

He followed after and shut the door behind them. There wasn't a way to lock the door from inside, but this was probably as private a setting as they would be able to get. It wasn't until the door was shut that Kurama spoke again.

"Many youkai species age differently and are capable of living much longer than most humans. It's less that there's a different calendar and more that the concept of age doesn't necessarily match up," Kurama explained. He gave Hakkai a curious look though. That tended to be common knowledge among demons. "Does it work differently where you came from?"

"For example," he continued, releasing the check he'd been holding on his demon aura. "I look seventeen in human terms, though this appearance really doesn't say much about my actual age. Although I may be several centuries older than seventeen years, I'm still considered rather young among my species."

His normal level of youki emission was hardly high enough to seem threatening -- he liked to keep others guessing at his real potential before he showed it -- but the jump in energy would be noticeable to anyone who could usually detect it. This was Kurama's way of evening the playing field. While he had long realized that honor had no high place in a society like Makai's and could usually get over any qualms he had about abandoning honor for the sake of survival, this particular incident was separate. Everything had been in Kurama's advantage before. Hakkai had been nothing but compliant and, thus far, unthreatening. It was only fair for it to be Kurama's turn to put his trust forward.

"You mentioned on the board that you hadn't always been a demon," he said. "Perhaps my story is, in some ways, the inversion of yours."

Hakkai glanced around the room - identical to his, it seemed, save the presence of his roommate. He contemplated taking a seat somewhere, and then decided it would be rude to do so uninvited. This room was Shuuichi's, and the closest any of them could have to a 'home' in this place. He would not disrespect that.

"I... don't know, actually," Hakkai confessed. "In my world, some live longer than ordinary humans, I think, but it's never something I put much research into."

He managed not to jump at the sudden feeling of power in the room, but he tensed, shoulder stiffening. He didn't usually turn his qi-senses outwards, but some things were obvious even without having to do so. The change was not nearly as strong as the feeling of Goku unlimitered, but it was enough to sense the difference.

The vast difference in age didn't even bear remarking upon in light of what Shuuichi said next. "You mean... a youkai who became human?" He wouldn't let himself hope, it was wrong to hope for that, but he couldn't help but feel that little seed of possibility rise in him.

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Night 60: M01-M10 Hallway

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