Night 64: West Wing, South Hall 1-A

[dualistic]

[From here.]

Still no one. Harvey imagined that before long these areas were going to be flooded with sick people who were going to follow that clue, so he was glad that he'd beaten them to the punch. It wasn't that he thought it was contagious anymore -- by this point, they would have known -- but he didn't need to be surrounded by a bunch of miserable, sniffling people, either.

Relieved that he'd dodged that bullet, at least so far, Harvey reached the end of the hall and took a right toward their regular meeting spot.

[To here.]

Comments

[envy_the_sinners]

_{[from here]}

Getting into the more public hallways, Scar noticed one other man in the hall, but he didn't seem to be in such a rush. Perhaps he was healthy. Glad that he seemed to be out before the others made their moves, the Ishbalan rounded the corner into the main hallway.

_{[to here]}

[skeletonenigma]

[From here.]

If there was one thing Skulduggery missed, it was his revolver. The comforting feel of it in his hand was something that he'd grown far too used to over the years. But even in the world of sorcerers, guns were useful. There wasn't much that could stop a bullet unless you were planning on getting shot, and Skulduggery was nothing if not unpredictable. It was one of the qualities he prized himself on.

It was amazing how such an empty and quiet hallway could set his teeth on edge. Skulduggery was beginning to hope he'd run into someone, friend or foe, just to break the suspicious monotony. That probably wasn't healthy. Hopes like that were what led to hallucinations and madness.

[skeletonenigma]

[To here.]

[unpriest]

[From here]

Seishin absently noted he had been moved closer to the main hallway, but he guessed it didn't really matter as much. It would have been convenient had he set out with some sort of purpose like his roommate had, but that was clearly not the case. Wandering around aimlessly in such dangerous hallways quite possibly made him an easy prey, but the former priest was too shaken to truly care whether he inadvertently wandered into a a monster's awaiting claws or not.

[unpriest]

[To here]

[toxicspiderman]

[from here]

A party was an awful idea tonight. Too many contagions. Not that Landel couldn't whammy anyone he wanted. Whatever the sweet, possibly computerized, siren on the intercom said, this was his show. From opening act to drunken Beatles covers with half the words replaced by "fuck".

[to here]

[age_of_kings]

[from here!]

It wasn't terribly far to the other block of rooms, luckily. Tolten wasted little time in making his way up the halls, busy as far as this place went at this time of night. He felt charged and ready to act in ways he hadn't recently. Perhaps he was simply done being frightened and sad. And after that was the anger, which Sed had always told him to hold fast to and use.

Anger was a force. It lent strength and courage. Tolten wrapped it around him like armor and he longed for the sword he knew was waiting for him.

[oneman_onekill]

[from here]

Almost there...! Niikura was about as close to flat out running as he'd ever been. There weren't that many people in the halls, so he could probably run without crashing into anyone or having to pull up short all the time, but something held him back. He needed to save his energy, or something like that.

[to here]

[nobleman]

[From here.]

Still no Anise here as far as Guy could tell, so she was probably waiting closer to the main hall. He wasn't going to jump to any conclusions about her whereabouts until they got there. She was already sick, so he doubted the institute wanted anything else with her. Not that he could assume anything.

It probably wouldn't be long before they reached her, though, which meant that if Guy wanted to tell Claude about Okita, it had to be now. He slowed his pace slightly and glanced over his shoulder at his friend.

"There's something else I need to tell you," he admitted. "Today at dinner, instead of Okita, someone else showed up." Guy moved his head back around so that he was looking straight forward again, not sure he was ready to observe Claude's expression in response to that. "I asked the nurse, and she said he's been released."

He tried to keep his tone even as he delivered the information, but Guy knew he couldn't completely fool Claude. His friend had to know how much this was affecting him.

[hairraising]

[From here]

Rapunzel's hair flew and her heart pounded, but only because she was running as fast as she could down the halls. Even with her not being in any one place long enough to hear much, she caught the sounds of people coughing and being nauseous almost the whole way. All the more reason to get moving faster! Move! Go legs, go! she thought, flinging open doors as she went.

[To here]

[baniichan]

((From here.))

As eager as they were to get to the X-Ray room, Barnaby knew they couldn't afford to do anything careless, either. He still hadn't discounted the possibility that they were walking right into a trap, after all.

There wasn't any reason to tell Kotetsu to keep his guard up, though. The man was always on high alert to help others, almost to a fault. The damage fines said as much. Thankfully, no one here seemed to be keeping track of that kind of collateral damage, which meant he didn't have to worry so much about reeling in his partner at night.

His focused faltered for a moment when he remembered that, technically, they had both retired from the Hero business, but Barnaby promptly squelched that thought. Doubting his abilities right then wasn't going to do anyone any favors.

[earthling]

He could tell from Guy's body language, and from the way he slowed slowed down, that there was something on his mind. Of course, that wasn't so surprising, considering the sickness going around, and Claude had been willing to let it go. But when his friend specifically mentioned something else, he knew it was serious.

At first, he'd wondered if maybe Luke had been released again, and so he braced for the worst.

The last thing he expected was to learn that Okita was gone.

Claude's pace faltered, and he was unable to hide his pained expression. "Okita?" he echoed in disbelief. "No way..."

The news felt like a punch in the gut. He hadn't been as close to him as Guy, but he would never forget the kindness Okita showed to him in light of the tragedy in the basement, and his genuine interest in Guy's well-being. The thought of losing him so unexpectedly made his heart hurt, not only for Okita, but also for Guy, who was undoubtedly taking the man's absence even harder.

"Hey..." Forcing himself to take a few larger strides, he reached out to place a gloved hand on Guy's shoulder.

[nobleman]

It was the sort of thing that would have come as a surprise to anyone, but Guy realized that it had been wrong of him to see anything as a constant here. Anyone could be taken and have their mind rearranged at any time. It made it hard to make friends and keep them, but at the same time he couldn't think of going through any of this alone.

What if Claude disappeared next? Or Anise? Of course, it was also possible that he would be the next one on the chopping block, but that was almost harder to fathom. Still, if it had happened to Okita, it could happen to any of them.

When Claude's hand clapped down on his shoulder, Guy glanced at it before meeting his friend's gaze with a strained smile. "It's not really the sort of thing you can prepare for, I guess." That hardly encapsulated all of his feelings about what had happened, but he couldn't dwell now.

"Anyway, we'd better keep moving or Anise is going to worry." Though for the moment, he didn't move away from Claude's grip.

[oyaji]

East, that seemed easy enough. So far these hallways really had only one way to get in or out, but now there was this pesky thing called an intersection with several doors that went more than one way.

Shining his light down the new hallway, a pretty big group of patients clustered to the right and then the rest of it was rather empty. Huh. Stroking his beard, Tiger stopped because, since he was the leader of this outfit, he had to pick a route. East, obviously, but which way was east? His suit would have told him that, but ha! Yeah, he was a bit suitless so that pretty much took his one solution away from him.

"Hmmm..." Well, he couldn't stand here all night! They had to get there, like, as soon as possible so no civilians got in over their heads! Okay, he had to think, and logically! He repeated the rhyme never eat shredded wheat in his head before finally jumping to the most likely conclusion. East came after north, so it was obviously going to be on his right! And that was exactly where he began to walk off with obvious determination.

[earthling]

There was a lot Claude wanted to say, but he realized that this wasn't the time or place to say it. Moving through the halls at night made having any sort of deep or meaningful conversation impossible. That was probably just as well, though. They had things they needed to do, after all, and they didn't want to keep Anise waiting.

Still, he didn't move immediately, instead giving Guy's shoulder a squeeze as he met his eyes. If you ever need to talk about it, I'm here, was the unspoken message. And though he felt like Guy could use a hug, it sounded like his friend was ready to focus his efforts on something more productive, so Claude was willing to leave it at that for now.

"You're right," he said once he broke eye contact. With that, he finally let go of the other man's shoulder and resumed his earlier pace. "Let's go."

((To here.))

[baniichan]

Without their suits' built-in compasses and no familiar landmarks, Barnaby realized he should have been more specific with the directions. Still, the delay was a few extra moments he didn't want to waste.

"The other east," he promptly corrected him, and he motioned his flashlight over toward the right path.

As tempting as it was to start walking that way without him, Barnaby refrained. This was unfamiliar territory, and they needed to avoid any attempts the institute might make to separate them. After last night, Barnaby didn't think it was unreasonable to be concerned about an unexpected ambush.

[ham_fisted]

[from here]

Gumshoe jogged faster when he heard the distant echoes of coughs between the sound of his heavy footsteps. Time wasn't on their side. If Dr. Landel got to the X-Ray Room before them, they might never find a cure!

[ham_fisted]

[to here]

[fallenbeanpole]

[from here]

Now this looked promising. This hallway actually was inhabited, and the Once-ler could hear the sound of activity at the far end of the hallway. Picking up the pace, he marched briskly to the next intersection, swinging left as he reached an even larger hall.

He was going to get answers.

[to here]

[forsworn]

[from here]

Now that they had gotten some momentum by actually leaving their starting point, it was time for introductions.

"Castiel, this is Rapunzel and--Flynn." Kratos caught himself just in time. Although he knew the man's true name, he'd noticed that Eugene preferred to use "Flynn" on the board, and presumably with other people who were not his golden girl. In fact, the only reason he knew about the name "Eugene" was because Rapunzel had let it slip while they were battling their way down the road last night; if they'd bothered to introduce themselves earlier, the story might have been otherwise.

Personally, he didn't see anything wrong with "Eugene", but the man deserved his privacy.

[hairraising]

So they were all on the same page and ready to go — all the better. On the off chance very very likely chance that there was something nasty waiting between them and the cure, she was glad they were a group of four instead of just two. Three of them had been enough to take out a giant bird with no weapons the other night. She didn't know how much of a fighter Castiel was, but he couldn't be worse than she was, and if she could handle herself in a fight, then she was sure Castiel would be a great help too.

"Nice to meet you, Castiel. Sorry for kind of just rushing past the introductions before," she said with a faint laugh while re-looping her hair around the crook of her arm. "I just wanted to get moving as fast as we could. I have a few friends who are sick, so..."

She ran her teeth along the inside of her lip. "Yeah, sorry about that."

[brokensmolder]

Eugene hadn't actually expected to be introduced as "Flynn," not by the one (other) person in this whole place who actually knew his real name. Behind Rapunzel's back, he gave Kratos a little nod, just enough to acknowledge what was said and to convey his gratitude.

He knew that Rapunzel didn't like it any. He'd really turned a corner by willingly going by Eugene and the whole planning-to-give-up-his-life-of-crime-for-her thing, but at the same time, he needed something to hold onto here...at least for a little while longer. The Tales of Flynnigan Rider was still his security blanket, even after all these years.

"Flynn" spared a nod for Castiel, too. "Hey."

The hallway was dark, but not so dark that he couldn't see they were coming to the end of it. Following the rest of the group, he stepped out in to the main hall.

[idolism]

_{[from here]}

The route out the cellblock was clear for the most part, offering no interruptions. If there were drooling beasts around, previously prisoners or not, Aidou couldn’t locate them.

“Were you on the field trip?” he asked as they walked. For all that Sasuke assured he was simply sleeping during his absences, how long could one person remain unconscious for? The boy seemed to spend more time in his room than anything else, of late. “I had my eye out for you.”

[stellarregions]

[From Here, skipping M-A Block Hallway]

It looked like there were a decent number of people out this evening, as opposed to previous nights when he'd been greeted with virtually empty halls.

"Wonder if everyone's trying to get to the medical wing." It seemed like asking for a disaster akin to last nights, to him, but who was he to judge other people's decisions.

[oyaji]

Wild Tiger halted abruptly, his flash light bobbing across the opposite wall from the impromptu scolding. He refused to look behind him at the face Barnaby was giving him, but his amber eyes danced frantically through the darkness as he tried to ascertain how his partner knew that when he didn't.

"Yeah, well I was... Just making sure everyone was okay down here before we went, you know, east... but now that I clearly see everyone is okay, we can go east like you said... Okay, come on..." Coughing awkwardly, the former Hero passed Barnaby as they regained their forward momentum.

[To here]