damned_institute | Day 28; Bus 3

There was, Naomi decided, some sort of cosmic irony in all of this. Not that she was trapped in a deranged and possibly other-worldly asylum with a man she'd idolized for years and a boy who was being investigated for - among other things - the murder of her fiance. No, at this point, those were perfectly normal occurrences. Rather it was the soft, pretty, feminine pink sweater dress she'd been stuffed into in the morning. A chance to wear normal clothes, and she looked like a soccer mom. The white blazer and white boots only made her look like a soccer mom who maybe hadn't given up gogo boots.

It was humiliating. Why couldn't she have jeans and a sweater? And sneakers? Something she would conceivably wear? Not this damned pink monstrosity. And her nurse kept saying how pretty she was.

She didn't care if she looked pretty.

Grumbling to herself, and taking it out on her muffin, Naomi was shoved onto an empty bus and told to 'sit tight'. Oh, she'd sit tight alright....

At least she was relatively certain L was alright. She'd spent the whole night with him, and other than falling on his ass, nothing had happened to him. And hopefully nothing would happen to him in town, either....

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Snake glanced up at the sound of the voice, unable to hide the relief he felt.

"Otacon," he greeted. So he was alright. He'd missed him a lot. "How've you been?" He noticed the clothes. "You look like yourself again."

Then he glanced at Raiden, and his smile vanished. "Raiden...He came here yesterday. He was lucky enough to meet Axel, who sent him straight over my way." He sighed. "Kid doesn't remember anything after killing Solidus. He's had it worse than us."

He gave Otacon a mournful look, trying desperately to communicate that he wasn't to tell Raiden about where the other passengers on the bus were from. He'd nearly lost it because of believing he was a work of fiction. Raiden would take it even worse.

"My plan, huh?" he started, weakly, changing the subject. "I was never any good with plans. All my life other people have made them up for me." He grabbed the seat in front of him, and pulled himself a little closer to Fox and Raiden. "I don't even know how they're going to handle us. But we need to stick together, all of us.

"I think," he said, "judging by the way we're dressed, we'll be allowed free reign of the town, as long as we're supervised. We should try and head into an area where there isn't anyone else around except our nurses. Then," he swallowed, glancing around once more to check that his nurse wasn't listening too closely, "Fox, Raiden and I will take them out. There'll be less communication between them, less chance of them summoning an orderly. We'll look over the bodies for anything of use - money, supplies. I don't think there'll be a lot, so try not to get any blood on your clothes. We don't want the police descending on us for murder."

He inclined his head with thought. "One of the people on the bulletin board said this place is in New York, but it doesn't look anything like it to me. It's probably a cover story. I can't identify where we are, and I was trained for this." He smirked, joylessly. "But I think considering the kind of patients they're keeping it's fairly far from major cities and anywhere an escapee could cause a scene. No matter how powerful these people are, they're not immune to embarrassment. Doyletown's bound to be a small place, but it must have some transport links - the mix of food they have on the menu here's a bit too eclectic for an entirely self-sufficient town. I'm not sure how we should get out."

He narrowed his eyes. "I'm not just going to hope one of the nurses has some car keys on her. But we need transport. Otacon, how good are you at hotwiring vehicles?" That was his best idea. It was also a rhetorical question. "After murder, we might as well steal a car."

Fox frowned at Snake. He understood that Snake had important work to get back to, and Fox wanted to go with him but... he wasn't ready to leave, and wouldn't be until he had burned the hospital the hospital to the ground.

Gray Fox did not kill out of anger very often, usually, almost always, it was just business. Sometimes he felt they deserved to die, other times he dreaded what had to be done...

But Fox was going to kill Martin Landel for what he had done, it was personal now, and more than that he needed to be stopped. "I'll help the three of you get out of here, but I'm not leaving yet, Snake." Before Snake could protest Fox held up a hand to indicate he should be quiet and let him finish.

"Men like Landel need to be killed. I won't leave here until this entire facility and the people behind it are shut down permanently," Fox kept himself calm and emotionless as he spoke, the cold, uncaring, deadly hunter.

Like clockwork, Otacon showed up, and everything felt a little more complete. Snake and his hacker friend had been the two he could fall back on while handling everything that Big Shell threw at him, and it was a real comfort to have them both present. As for Fox, Raiden wasn't sure what to make of him at this point. He didn't know how he factored in, or how all of them had even ended up here in the first place, but he knew that if the others had those answers, they would have told him by now.

While he didn't mind Snake explaining his situation, it was a little bothersome that he spoke about him like he wasn't there. To make a point that he was in fact there, he leaned forward in his seat and sent a wave in Otacon's direction. "It's good to see you." As far as he knew, all the people he knew that had been brought here were now sitting with him.

Raiden could definitely relate to not quite knowing how to make a plan after being told what to do for so long, but it was surprising to see that in Snake. He was slowly beginning to understand that Snake was no legend -- he was a person, the same as he was, and had his own doubts and moments of pause. That didn't stop Raiden from listening to the plan, however, and being prepared to carry it out to the best of his ability.

"Stick together, find someplace quiet, take out the nurses and search them, then get out of here somehow," he said, running it over for his own sake and everyone else's. It was a long shot, but they had to try. If they could sneak into places so well, hopefully they would also be able to get out discreetly.

A monkey wrench was thrown into all of that when Fox spoke up. Raiden watched him with a sort of wistfulness -- he felt more like the Gray Fox he'd heard of now, his tone controlled and not open to question. While it was difficult for him to know where the man was coming from, he could at least understand his need to stay and finish things.

Now he just needed to see how Snake responded to it. Did they stay or go?

"I'm fine," he told Snake reassuringly, taking a second to assess the physical states of each of the three soldiers in turn. They all looked well enough to deal with whatever it was the Institute had in store for them today. "And it's good to see you too, Raiden. I just wish the circumstances were better."

Otacon listened carefully to Snake's entire plan. The raise of his eyebrows at the question the end said all Otacon thought they needed to know about his expertise with rigging machines. Fox's opinion didn't elicit much surprise — in their short time of acquaintance, Fox had definitely made his character clear. He wouldn't leave these people, even temporarily.

"It's not a bad idea," Otacon conceded. Working on the inside to undermine the enemy wasn't as clear cut as it had been in the past. They were too impaired, knew too little. "There's patients already working within the Head Doctor's game to take down the hospital from within, but it's also necessary to have someone approach this from a different angle. We're qualified. And there are ways back in once we've prepared ourselves — the radio man showed us that much. But..."

He leaned forward as well, shooting a quick glance at Raiden. How much did he understand about this place? "It won't be that simple, Snake. Not at all. They'll be ready for us to try something, just like during Landel's speech. Remember how they repelled attackers? These aren't simple nurses we're dealing with here."

At Gray Fox's comment, Snake paused for a second, before swallowing and bowing his head in acceptance.

"Alright," he said, looking hard into Fox's eyes, both willing he would find some doubt in there and knowing that he wouldn't. "I trust you. We'll see each other again. I'm only escaping to regroup and attack from the outside." He nodded at Otacon, grimly.

"I'm sure we can come up with something," Snake decided. "We have to, anyway. Look - people can't just deflect things just by being there. Unless everyone on the whole damn staff is brilliantly psychokinetic, there has to be some kind of device, which we might be able to..." He sighed. "I'll be honest. I know the odds aren't in our favour. But this is our only chance. We have to succeed."

He looked at Raiden. He was probably hooking some suicidal idea together in his head right now - probably based on that old nickname; 'the man who makes the impossible possible'. Damn legends.

The bus stopped around him - he heard the noise in his abdomen. He got up.

"We've arrived," he said, needlessly. "Everyone on your best behaviour. We can't screw this up."

Day 28; Bus 3

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