Night 68: Main Hallway, 1-Center

[madeinthehrl]

[from here]

It was still early in the night from the looks of it--the main hallway was totally clear as they moved toward the Sun Room. It was true the route they were taking was normally guarded, but there was no guarantee the rec field wasn't, and with a group this large, they would stand a better chance at breaking through anything that might await them.

She glanced back at the group. "If there's someone in the Sun Room, try to focus on disabling the attacker and running. I don't want to get held up in a pointless fight."

Comments

[asteroidbelt]

Certain creatures?! What things?! Ryusei continued silently moving, acknowledging that something was weighing his steps down without putting much thought into it. Miketsukami hadn't mentioned how they were supposed to get away from it, other than run. If Miketsukami was going to be that calm about it, then that meant he didn't know, either. Ryusei didn't have a plan in the event they got caught. Gabe's warnings were information, not advice.

That sound— Those sounds— "Stop talking," he said, a little breathlessly. "Just run."

[ever_loyal_dog]

The heavy atmosphere was far too familiar and he found himself retreating, though he didn't take his eyes away from the growing creature that seemed just a touch more solid with each passing second. How unpleasant.

As it stepped toward them, moving with a speed that was slow and yet inhumanly fast for one with what sounded like a broken ankle. The sound of a shaky dying breath growing just as quickly. He could practically reach out and touch the hate and malice surrounding the creature. Ririchiyo's yurei had been much more adorable in comparison. Besides, her jet-black hair had much more shine to it and-

"Agreed," Soushi said quietly, covering their retreat as the other two moved on ahead. Talk would be of little use. It was quite possible there was no escape at all until the yurei was defeated or decided to let them go. He was without his sword or his true form and a bat was a terribly ineffective tool against the paranormal. Still, he held it outstretched toward the specter, meant as a warning should it choose to continue its approach.

[deathrattling]

One hung behind: two tried to escape. The darkness clutching at their feet writhed, shifted, until it was nothing more than a thick carpet of unbroken hair. Strands whipped up to snag around shoes and cling to their ankles, still in quantities fine enough to be broken with movement but multiplying fast -- if they failed to escape soon, it could only grown thicker and more constraining.

But the grip at their feet was not what needed to worry the defender. The body continued to shift, details blurring in between each blink of the eye: the bloodied hem of a dress. The rhythmic destruction of a damaged ankle, and finally --

Another blink --

And her hand, reaching toward Soushi with bloodied nails, and a face emerging from behind a fall of hair: wide-eyed, horrified more than anything else. A face alive with terrified rage on a body long-dead, and a mouth parted to give the endless death-rattle, even as she clawed toward his eyes.

[impudentsongbird]

This wasn't working. Gabriel wrenched his ankle free of the clinging hair, but it wasn't working--it wouldn't work--not in time. They'd be caught before they reached the stairwell at this rate, unless there was something they could do to break the hair.

Luckily, there was.

"Don't stop," Gabe ordered Ryusei. In the blink of an eye, between one yanking step and the next, Gabe segued neatly into the black-as-black mountain lion, fur ruffled and teeth bared. Claws extended, the Archangel lashed at the hair, breaking the strands trying to contain his changed shape and then the ones around Ryusei's feet, fast and efficient as the plain stumbling run couldn't be. As soon as Ryusei's feet were free, the lion whirled on graceful paws to go back for Soushi.

[asteroidbelt]

Ryusei stumbled as he was freed from whatever had been clinging to his legs, and he whirled around, flashlight illumination bouncing every which way.

Don't stop, he'd been commanded. But where had Gabe gone? Despite him saying that, Ryusei couldn't just leave if—

Focus. If it'd been Gabe who'd helped him (it had to have been, right?), he didn't have to do that. That must mean he wanted Ryusei to keep going for... whatever reason, from altruism to personally wanting a fight with whatever it was—but it'd been Gabe who'd said not to let the thing touch them— Focus.

Ryusei knew how this mindset worked. If he didn't keep going, Gabe (wherever he was) would slow down. He'd already helped Ryusei once. And Miketsukami had turned around, Ryusei could see. There was nothing Ryusei could do. The most helpful thing—the least obstructive thing—Ryusei could do now was to continue running. "I'm going," he said. "—Follow quickly if you want the favor repaid."

He turned to go.