damned_institute | Day 27: Intercom, Evening

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Day 27: Intercom, Evening

The intercom gave its cheery jingle just before the Head Doctor's equally buoyant voice rang through the halls.

"Ah, and finally, our day is coming to a close! Rooms and roommates have been reassigned with care, though what great partnership can start without a good meal? Ah, yes, after the nurses escort all of our patients, new and old, back to their proper rooms, everyone will have the chance to enjoy a savory chicken pot pie, full of peas, carrots, potatoes, and of course, chicken. On the side, we'll have buttery corn on the cob and green beans, and to drink, you may choose from the regular slew of water, milk, or assorted juices, which your nurse will bring to you.

"I believe that's all for now! Phew, long day, huh? I know I'll be happy to get some sleep, and thank you to all our vigilant doctors and nurses, although Dr. House seems to have gone AWOL... Hmm... Well, in any case, have a good dinner, everyone!"

The intercom clicked off again as the nurses began organizing the patients for the small trek back to their rooms.

[ OOC: Remember, room threads go in response to THIS post, and please put your respective room number in the subject line of your first post. Thanks! ]

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Ken snorted. "Yeah. I remember." And that was why he was going to kill them. Whoever was responsible. He shifted to the foot of his bed and grabbed the glass of water sitting there. "Everything from when I was downstairs until I was knocked out."

Ken had fought against those who could control minds before. He'd experienced it before himself. But he'd always been able to break away--defeat whoever was behind it. He hadn't been able to this time, and it pissed him off.

Maybe sinking low enough to ask a nurse was all Rhode could hope to do. She would be unable to handle such long breaks between sugar intake for much longer.

Her head cocked again at "peanut butter". Just a few years more in Rhode's time period and she would have at least heard of the stuff, but she was, unfortunately, over a century behind Dairine. Things such as peanut butter and Reese's Cups had yet to be invented. Rhode only knew human culture through her forced attendance of school anyway, and it bored her. "Um...?"

He picked up his juice and took a small a sip as he listened to the man. He was almost tempted to empty his packet of sugar into it, but he knew that it would be better to save it for an emergency.

When the man finished, L set down his drink, “Mr. Star Dragon Sword, I am well acquainted with the basic anatomy of most weapons. I was merely asking for your unique qualities, as swords tend to very from region to region.” He said unemotionally “I am sorry to say this; but other than the fact that you indicated where your face was placed and the blade being thick, I cannot make the distinction as to whether you are common, bastard, or short.”

"Ah-" he started. Sasuke was definitely... perceptive. Allen pulled his legs in a little closer to his chest as he sat on the bed. He could hear Mana's voice in the back of his mind, screaming as he cursed him.

"Yes," he said finally, his voice barely audible. He paused again and it was stronger, but only just. "It allows me to tell Akuma from humans. They usually wear the guise of a human skin, but are terrible monsters underneath it. I was careless and one of them slashed my eye. The poison alone would have killed me, but the Innocence rejected that much. He left me with a curse, a part of me that's like them."

He flipped the card a few more times, before looking up to see the Gambler continously snuggling the kitten. Despite his rather natural adversion to animals, the scene made the atmosphere almost... normal.

He decided to take advantage of the man's nature at the moment, proposing another request. "Would you care to look for one other man? Afterwhile, I shall leave you to... care for the cat, without further annoyance."

Thursday decided she liked her roommate. Mrs. Thornbridge - she supposed the name would have to do for now - rather reminded her of Miss Havisham, acerbic wit and all, and that comforted her in a way.

"Good to know," she responded, grinning. A pause as she recalled her assignment tonight. "There's a group here that calls itself the Arts and Crafts Club - they're the most organized attempt to break out that I've seen yet, and I've offered my services to them. I'm supposed to meet a few others nearby as soon as the doors unlock tonight - we're going on a tool-gathering expedition of some sort. I should think another hand would be more than welcome."

Haruhi nearly cringed as Utena described Anthy as a 'magnet for trouble.' She had spent the morning arguing with another such person, so being reminded of that wasn't exactly pleasant. But Anthy seemed nice enough, so hopefully it wouldn't be a repeat case.

"You still going to go look for her?" It occured to Haruhi that she also had to find something to do for the night. She couldn't wander the halls aimlessly again. Maybe she'd go in search of more weapons, since she'd sadly lost the knife she had stolen that one night with Utena.

"I think he prefers 'Jack,' but that name works just as well," Light replied with a shrug. Nicknames had never really interested him that much, for obvious reasons. "He's also known as 'Alec Doyle,' which seems to be his real name, but all of those are used to refer to him. 'Jack' is used the most frequently, though."

Catching the odd look on his roommate's face, Light trailed off into silence. There were very, very few reasons why Sanji could be wearing that expression while he thought about this navigator, whoever she was (it could have been a he, but Light hadn't gotten that particular impression from him), but while that was information he could potentially exploit later, this distracted state wasn't helping either of them.

Tactfully deciding to not bring up the fact that a navigator would be next to useless when they were being held primarily indoors in one location, didn't have any of the right equipment, and were probably in an entirely different universe with entirely different stars and constellations besides, he said instead, "That's good. I'm glad you have a crew you can rely on. There are others here that aren't so lucky."

Being hardly convinced that this partnership his fellow Tuner was trying to organize would work, the redhead was in his particularly foul mood, glaring holes into the back of his nurse's stark-white uniform. Arriving at his room, she gave him a condescending smile, wagging a finger in his face. "Now, get along with Mr. Morris, all right? I don't want to hear about you trying to..." she paused, looking for a verb that wasn't 'eat'. "...disagree with him." Clearly, she wouldn't soon be forgetting his trying to eat her face. Even now, he had to grit his teeth to keep from gnawing her finger off. A quick pat on his head, and she shuttled him into the room, shutting the door tightly.

He snorted at the sight of his roommate, moving past him to the unoccupied bed, roughly pushing the disgusting human meal away from him. It was probably for the best that Roland had promised food later on. His stomach was empty enough that he had almost tried for the nurse's throat again.

Claire's eagerness with the dinner tray resulted in it flying out of her hands with the force, so her only option was to toss her arm up, knowing even as she tried to move out of range of the scalpel she wouldn't avoid it completely. She winced as it scraped her arm, and she dove back for her "weapon", this time aiming to hit Larxene's chin in a Dinner Tray Uppercut (tm).

The monsters worked for this place? Arietta's friends would only help her. Maybe they weren't Arietta's friends after all, but she wouldn't know unless she got out there and looked. It was the only help she had to hold onto right now.

Looking considerably depressed now, rather than angry, Arietta was able to answer Rinali with some decency. "One of my friends is a liger, with yellow fur and stripes and a big bushy tail." Describing it was a little awkward. Arietta wasn't used to such things.

"Then there's Sync and Largo. Sync has green hair but he always wears a mask so you can't see his face. Largo is really big and strong, and he kinda looks like a liger. Van is also really strong. I guess then there's Dist, Legretta, and Asch but I don't know them well enough to be friends with them." That was probably the most Arietta had said to the other girl all night.

"It is - I love the sea. Perhaps you will be able to visit a place with sea sometime, if there is one on this world." Nami was finishing up her pot pie. While the thought of 'taking in energy for the night to come' really didn't cross her mind, she was hungry and finishing up her food was the most sensible thing to do - as was building rapport with this new roommate of hers.

Though the look on her roommate's face was one of confusion, Nami couldn't tell if she was actually ignorant of the definition of a pirate or not. So she went on, thinking it unwise to assume that Argilla did not, in fact, know what a pirate was, of all things. "Yes, I'm actually the navigator of our crew. A good amount of them are here, too." She smiled smoothly. "Though I'll be damned if they get anywhere without me tonight."

She sighed. "We weren't able to establish a meeting spot, so I'm going it alone tonight. What of yourself?"

And M smiled, slow and just a touch ophidian, if a reasonably friendly sort of snake. A serpent that's just been handed a plump information-rabbit, perhaps.

Tangled metaphors aside, she granted that "I'd like that very much, Ms. Next. I'd gotten the name of one of their people from that Byakko chappie, but an in-person meeting sits much better with me than having to rely on bulletin boards. Too many people see them."

The replica's shoulders slumped with more disappointment. Hadn't he met anyone who'd fought that red monster thing or anything? This was getting pretty boring for a monster-infested hell hole. At least at Oblivion, there was a never-ending stream of Heartless.

After shoveling another spoonful of food into his mouth, he shook his head. "Goin' upstairs, maybe. I heard there was a room full of medical stuff up there. M'hoping to get some bandages or something, in case I ever do meet up with the crap people keep talking about." Which was seeming less likely ever minute.

Hadn’t he just said that the type of sword form he took was that of a bastard sword? Perhaps drawing a picture would have been better, the incarnation rationalised as he rolled his eyes and glared over at his annoying companion. “Unless your hearing escapes you from time to time, I believe I already informed you that I was a bastard.”

Sighing in annoyance, his fingers tapped against the muscle of his arm “If you’re insisting on having finer details though… I have a blade length of one hundred and eleven centimetres, while my guard, grip and pommel take up the remaining thirty four centimetres of my length. I can be held either by one or two hands – depending on the muscular strength of whom I allowed to wield me – and I have a variety of colours decorating the various parts of my form. And just to keep you happy I weigh a total to two kilograms… although given my current human form I’m certain that weight has been dramatically increased.”

Picking up his dinner plate, he placed it back onto his lap before using the fork to stab at another of the beans there. Popping it into his mouth, he chewed thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing and adding. “The actual designs of my form are far too detailed to bother attempting to explain since I’m certain they would go over your head.”

Rinali frowned slightly. She didn't like it that Arietta looked so depressed, but it was still better than blind desperation. The fact that she was willing to give some details about her friends and string together more than just short and curt answers was also a good sign. If they were going to be here for a few days longer, it wouldn't hurt to make a few friends along the way, and she certainly didn't want to be stuck in the same room every night with someone she couldn't get along with.

She listened to Arietta's descriptions of her friends very carefully, taking note of everything she could. Most of their descriptions weren't very helpful or useful. A 'really strong person' could be one of any number of people here, she imagined. Of course, several of her descriptions didn't seem to mean anything she recognized.

"What's a liger?" she asked once Arietta had finished with her descriptions.

Sasuke was, if anything, slightly disappointed with the answer. The only use for it here, then, would be to examine some of those human-looking monsters during Nightshift -- but those creatures tended to reveal their true nature almost immediately anyway.

"So it's very useful in your profession, but largely pointless here," he observed with characteristic tact. "Is it suppressed like everything else is?"

"Right, guess not," Dairine said promptly upon her roommate's noise of confusion. "There's a nut that comes from South and Central America. When you get a whole bunch of them, you roast them all together and mash them up. Then you have this light brown paste. It can be pretty salty, but most people like to have at least a little bit of sugar in it. It's really good with chocolate."

Okay, so she wasn't going to get her own show on the Food Network that explained the intricacies of peanut butter, but it was a good enough rudimentary explanation. And, as much as she hated to admit it, talking about candy helped distract her from the impending night and the terrors she'd heard lurked within. If she was going to ask, she had to ask now.

"So...you have any plans for tonight?" Dairine asked, folding her arms and trying to sound casual.

"It's... confusing," Allen said, considering it for a moment. The world back home was in black and white, but here there were so many shades of gray. "A lot of patients here look like Akuma to me. Some are definitely not. Others... I can't be certain."

When were the doors going to unlock? Allen opened his drawer to find his flashlight, just to give his hands something to do. "It isn't as strong as it was. I used to be able to detect them for miles. Now it's... lucky if I sense them all in a large room."

"I know what peanuts are!" That Dairine had explained it to her as if she were... well... on the same mental level as Jasdero caused her anger to flare. This human was talking down to her? It was outrageous! Her, a Noah, and the first child of the Noah Family no less!

Rhode had never been the understanding type when it came to explanations, and she most definitely was not the forgiving type either. Dairine was acting like she was better than her, like she knew more than a Noah, huh? Rhode could not stand being made to feel inferior!

She hopped up from her bed and pointed her finger sternly towards her roommate, more than ready to put her in her place, but was stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened as the cold chill she had grown all too familiar with during the day returned without any prompt. The icy pins struck first at her neck and moved the feeling outwards from there, the curse of that ghost woman snaking it's vined black and blue tattoo along her skin. She grasped her neck right as the cold, suffocating pain and forced her back to sitting, and now gasping on the bed.

The fear crept right back in along with the feeling, shutting her off from the world around her. Now she really could feel her inferiority to the girl a few feet before her. No, that wasn't it. Inferiority was not the feeling, but equality. Equality with a lesser species than what she was supposed to be. That feeling of being just as weak made its return all the worse.

Sasuke frowned. There was obviously a bad past with regards to Akuma -- it was one thing to fight something and another to have a past with it, and Sasuke knew that difference entirely too well. But if Akuma were simply monsters ... there was something Sasuke was missing.

"There are people here who are dead to me," he said, and left out the distinction between literally and figuratively. "But they are alive and capable. If they are useful and not hostile, what they are should be irrelevant. Still, if they bothered to suppress that ability, it might be useful for another reason."

Perhaps there were different monsters lurking around somewhere? Or perhaps in the town they were supposed to be visiting tomorrow?

The man's time sounded like something out of a science fiction novel, not that Oriya had ever been much of a fan. It was almost too far-fetched to believe, but then again, he had to remind himself that plenty of what he was told could also be considered far-fetched as well (unless everyone was in on some scheme to make a fool of him). Oriya sighed, picking at the chicken on his plate.

"That sounds very interesting," the swordsman replied. He had not been much into economics himself, but the subject still managed to retain some interest for him. "I run a restaurant called the KoKakuRou." It was more than just that, but he'd rather not delve into that just yet.

"Dead?" Allen asked, his tone dubious. Renji and Rukia and the other shinigami were... they were some kind of exception. But to actually have the dead brought back to life?

Sasuke said they were useful, not hostile, but he was still somewhat skeptical. "I... I would still be careful Sasuke. No good can come of bringing the dead back to life." He'd learned that much from experience. While he wanted nothing more than to see Mana again, he knew better than to wish for it.

"Sorry, they're not familiar." Then again, Touma hadn't been awake all that long.

His roommate's answer to the second question, however, threw him off. How could anyone in the world, let alone Japan, not know what Tokyo was? Or where, for that matter. And the mention of lords and slaves made him think of some sort of LARP, not that he was into that kind of game. "Last I checked, I wasn't a slave, Tokyo was a city, and elves were things in fantasy novels. Did you hit your head when...you got here?" He almost mentioned Arago but stopped himself. There was no reason to alarm any of the normal people in this hellhole.

Catching sight of the tray, he finally sat at the desk to eat. The Western style food was different but good, and he all but devoured the meal quickly and efficiently. Fighting evil huge demons would do that to an appetite.

“I am sure my hearing does. Though, you only asked if I knew what a bastard sword was. That in no way indicates what kind of sword you were.” L answered, “And as for the finer points, I thank you for the information. Once you are weighed again as a human I would be interested in making a comparison between your former and present weight.”

L considered what he said about not bothering to go into any further into the details. Either this man truly thought L wouldn’t understand, or the Great Star Dragon Sword was trying to avoid it simply because doing so would be too difficult. L put on a small smile; he would find out. “I believe it is highly doubtful that such a matter would go over my head. To tell you the truth, I am very interested in what you can verbally explain to me about the design intricacies.”

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Day 27: Intercom, Evening

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