Night 63: Road to/from Doyleton

[dividedby]

[From here.]

But being outside was probably just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than it was being trapped inside the bus with that nurse.

Besides the many other deformed nurses that were roaming around here, Zero caught sight of numerous forms flying overhead, casting large shadows on the ground as they passed by. They looked like...eagles. But deformed and horrific-looking, just like the nurses. At first, they seemed content to simply circle overhead, screeching, like vultures swarming above a carcass. But then many of them suddenly swooped down and headed straight for some of the prisoners running in the street.

Kind of like the one flying at Zero right now.

"Kh--!" The once-Reploid barely managed to dodge the monster as it dived for him by falling to the ground and rolling back onto his feet. The bird flew upwards again, slowly flapping its wings, then circled around as if to try again, another eagle joining it. To avoid them, Zero quickly moved out of the open, where he was obviously a target, and circled around one of the buses, keeping his back to it for cover. But he knew he wasn't going to be safe here...not when there were nurses on the ground and so many eagles above.

Not since the night he had become temporarily stronger had there been so much visible chaos... And if that one prisoner hadn't started a riot, this wouldn't be happening right now...!

As he stood contemplating the best route for escape, Zero glanced around quickly, searching the fleeing prisoners for anyone familiar or anyone who might need help. He was defenseless, so protecting someone else would only get him so far (and he certainly didn't want a repeat of two nights ago), but they all might have a better chance of survival if they grouped up...

[Leanne, Lana, and Harvey, WHERE YOU AT.]

Comments

[lighthearted]

It was true that they might be stumbling right into a trap, but from what Sora understood, there wasn't usually any way to avoid danger at Landel's. No matter what they did, they were going to get attacked or surprised in some way. It wasn't like the forest seemed much safer. Still, Kurogane seemed to have meant that as a warning rather than a protest, so their minds were all made up.

"Sticking together, right!" He nodded to Tsubaki, smiling at her as one more thanks before he started down through the brush toward the institute. While he didn't know if everyone had safely fled the buses, he hoped that was the case. He couldn't imagine how terrible it would be to get picked off while stuck out in the cold like this, and by one of those nasty birds no less.

He had wandered through forests and jungles in the past, so Sora was light on his feet as he wove through the trees. With the combination of the fever and his new injury, he had to admit that he was starting to feel woozy, but he tried his best not to focus on that. Every now and then he had to use his free hand to catch his balance on a tree trunk, but for the most part he was holding himself together.

[seekingmystrength]

Right, the crash hadn't been all Landel. Kurogane had been hoping to keep the idiotic oaf from mind and didn't comment on the matter again. They weren't heading back to the buses anyway.

He trusted what he'd seen of Tsubaki's skills enough to know that she could handle herself in the woods, however this was the first night he'd traveled with Sora. There was little he could go by on how the kid fought, but after that unarmed lunge at a bird, he couldn't say he wanted Sora leading their trek back. That smile against the threat of danger hadn't helped any either. "Take it east, kid," he warned, keeping pace easily for the length of his strides, "We'll get there."

And they probably wouldn't like the entrance any better. Since there was that strong possibility of a trap, Kurogane kept his eyes out for another branch that could become a decent enough weapon should things go bad.

[thecamellia]

That night of all nights, Tsubaki’s focus needed to be razor sharp. Doubtlessly, there were other prisoners out there who required help, but right then she had two people she considered friends in need of her support. They were both sick, and no matter how one looked at it, she had to make sure they made it out of danger okay.

Hence why she quickly moved to the perimeter to keep an eye out for threats. Her human body wasn’t half as effective as a weapon/meister team working together, but she still had the skills to silence her movements until she was nearly indiscernible from the shadows. But she never wandered too far away. For Sora and Kurogane’s sake as well as for her own, she didn’t want to get separated and have some kind of forest dweller attack.

At one point a felled tree rose up in her path; she hopped over the trunk, keeping close to the other two. “Hey, so you mind if I ask why you had to run at the monster to make your weapon appear?” she asked Sora in a low tone.

He still had his blade in his hand, but if he needed to re-summon it down the line, tussling with a creature bare-handed hardly seemed like a good idea.

[lighthearted]

Sora didn't really have any doubt that the three of them would be able to make it back. They'd already handled the worst part of this whole mess, which meant that they only needed to focus on keeping their guard up until they reached the front doors. It might be tough getting from where the trees stopped to the building's entrance, but this was really nothing compared to some of the danger he'd been in before.

When they reached a tree that had fallen over, Sora tried to skirt around it, not wanting to aggravate his wound when Tsubaki had taken such care to wrap it up. Tsubaki managed to jump up without any trouble at all, but she also hadn't sustained any injures.

Her question earned a sigh from him, because it wasn't something he liked explaining. If Sora had had any say in it, he wouldn't have had to take such reckless actions just to bring out his weapon, but there wasn't much he could do about it. "It's just how my Keyblade works here. If I want it to come to me, I have to put myself in the line of some sort of danger first." It was hard to do that without getting injured in the process, unfortunately.

[seekingmystrength]

With Tsubaki watching the perimeter and Sora giving some defense for why he'd gone head first at the bird, Kurogane did not feel as much of a need to worry over the latter. Because of that he was able to divide his attention less between finding a weapon and keeping an eye out for any threats. The area around them wasn't the only place an attack could come from. They knew what was above, and there was no telling what sort of monsters could potentially be below foot.

Jumping the fallen tree, Kurogane finally found what he was looking for, and in a better position than the one he'd gotten before. One of the branches on the downed tree looked good enough, and was snapped partially off already which made getting it free by way of a kick all the easier.

"And you can summon something as well..." Kurogane followed up on Tsubaki's question, watching her and remembering how the chained blade had come from her hair.

It was good that the two could get their own weapons by magic or whatever it was. He didn't have that kind of ability, but he was decent without a weapon. Normally, at least.

[thecamellia]

“So that‘s what you meant before, when we were with Hokuto-san…” replied Tsubaki. The way their abilities were repressed made everything harder than it should’ve been. Whatever a Keyblade was or meant to do, it sounded special, though. Special enough that it was probably worth the risk to put himself in danger in order to make it appear.

As unfair as the restrictions were, that was the Institute in a nutshell. Saying anything about it would only be pointing out the obvious, so she let the thought lapse and focused on her footsteps, at least until Kurogane turned the question around on her.

That’s right, we haven’t fought together much before, have we? She looked down at the scythe still in her hand. Like Sora, she didn’t want to send it away if it meant expending energy to morph her body again later.

“Yes, more or less… But it stays attached to me because I am the weapon. It’s a bit like an extra appendage.”

[lighthearted]

Right, there had been that time with Hokuto, hadn't there? Sora hadn't had the time to fully explain back then, but thinking back just reminded him of how many people had vanished since he'd first arrived here. It was such a large number that he didn't even want to start counting.

While both he and Tsubaki were taken care of when it came to weapons, Kurogane had to work a little harder for them, but at least there was no lack of branches here. Not that those were the best choices for a weapon, but when they'd been stranded out in the forest what else could they do?

He glanced over at Tsubaki when she explained herself, not quite understanding. Which meant it was his turn to ask something. "You're the weapon? What's that mean?"

Though as they talked, Sora realized they were reaching the end of the trees. Between them and the building was a large open space where the buses usually parked, and tons of those birds were circling around overhead. He sighed and looked back at the others. "We're going to have to run from here."

[seekingmystrength]

Kurogane was close to asking the same question when Sora beat him to it. He had been to enough places that his belief wasn't in question over her claim, but he was a little curious. Being a weapon was a lot different from having or being able to summon one. Likely more convenient too.

With the trees thinning, their cover was soon gone, however the Institute was in view by that point. As were more of those damn birds. Sora was right that running was the best option, even with the three of them now armed. Just so long as they got inside without there being something else in the way a straight dash should do it.

He looked between the two, noting that he'd been the only one to take any injuries to his legs. Running from here was sure to hurt like hell, but he could handle it for that long. Sora would be fine, and unless Tsubaki was trying to hide something, she should manage it as well. Nodding, he added, "Don't stop until you're in."

[thecamellia]

_{[WOW, sorry this took so long, guys. :(]}

Mmm… how was a good way to put it without making a big fuss over it? Tsubaki trusted the both of them to have the information, but for worlds that didn’t have demon weapons, trying to explain their existence was a bit more difficult than talking about commonplace things.

“Um, where I’m from there’s a type of people called demon weapons. I don’t know if you have something familiar? Demon weapons like me can look human, but we have another form that we can take--a weapon form. And then people use us to fight with. The scythe is sort of what I would look like if I could transform all the way, but I haven’t been able to while I’ve been here.”

Well, that wasn’t strictly true--she’d been able to use her smoke bomb mode the night everyone’s powers had returned. With or without a meister, being able to access her transformations would have made their journey through the woods much easier. But unfortunately, she was stuck as a human, and her human body could only do so much to help.

At the very least, she could cover Sora and Kurogane until they were inside the building.

Tsubaki crept closer to the treeline alongside them, keeping to the back. “You two first. I’ll take up the rear.” As far as she was concerned, until Sora and Kurogane were back at full strength, she was the best one for the job.

[lighthearted]

Demon weapons? It was the first time that Sora had heard such a thing, and he considered himself pretty well-traveled. It just went to show that even with all of the worlds he'd seen, there was still more stuff out there that he hadn't learned about yet. He had a hard time picturing Tsubaki as a weapon that someone else was throwing around in a battle, but...

At this point, he was pretty much ready to believe anything. He couldn't really talk, seeing how he'd turned into a lion and a merman in the past.

While he would have liked to ask more questions, now clearly wasn't the time, as they'd already caught the attention of one of those birds. Its cry pierced through the air, alerting others to the fact that there was fresh prey for the taking.

Not willing to argue with Tsubaki about formations right now, Sora took off, forcing his ill, injured body forward despite its protests. If there was one thing Sora had done plenty of since leaving the islands, it was running. He found that it was hard to breathe and each step he took made his chest burn with pain, but Kurogane was right -- there was no way they could stop until they'd made it inside.