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damned_institute2008-08-06 03:27 am
damned-intercom.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_institute2008-08-06 03:27 am
Day 34: Intercom, Noon
"Good afternoon, patients, and I am glad to see our new arrivals are already making such good friends with our current population!" The Head Doctor's words were usual, unremarkable, which meant that whatever had gone out of control these past couple days was evening out into some form of Dr. Landel's nefarious schemes. For now, however, he simply chuckled with good humor. "We'll be bringing in new patients during this shift as well, of course, but what I'm sure most of you are most intrigued by is... food! Yes, although lunch is posted up on the bulletin board on the schedule, I doubt many of you pay attention to it.... Ahem.
"Today's meal is chicken tenders made from fresh, juicy chicken breasts. As sides, we have potato chips, vegetable soup, and cole slaw, and we of course have honey-mustard and barbeque sauce for dipping. As always, our fruit and salad bar is open for anyone looking for a different meal, and our drinks are water, milk, apple juice, and pink lemonade.
"Mm! Sure sounds delicious, doesn't it? In any case, I hope you all enjoy your meal and your new company."
The intercom clicked off.
[ All introduction posts for this shift's group of new characters should be made in response to this post. (Have your new character wake up in a random empty room, as we aren't yet able to officially assign rooms.) Thanks! ]
"Today's meal is chicken tenders made from fresh, juicy chicken breasts. As sides, we have potato chips, vegetable soup, and cole slaw, and we of course have honey-mustard and barbeque sauce for dipping. As always, our fruit and salad bar is open for anyone looking for a different meal, and our drinks are water, milk, apple juice, and pink lemonade.
"Mm! Sure sounds delicious, doesn't it? In any case, I hope you all enjoy your meal and your new company."
The intercom clicked off.
[ All introduction posts for this shift's group of new characters should be made in response to this post. (Have your new character wake up in a random empty room, as we aren't yet able to officially assign rooms.) Thanks! ]
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He groaned, opening his eyes slowly. He blinked a few times, frowning when he didn't recognize his surroundings. Everything looked so...faded.
Shit, he thought, sitting up quickly. He didn't know where he was, but he remembered the last place he'd been...At Orochimaru's lair, seeing Sasuke again for the first time in a few years. Sasuke's words and his attempts to hurt them, and then...Orochimaru stopping him. They'd left. It wasn't possible that he'd somehow been brought to Sound. And if he had, shouldn't Sakura, Sai and Yamato be there as well?
He looked around, frowning slightly. He couldn't remember anything after he'd been overwhelmed by a wave of...he wasn't sure how to describe it. But he'd never felt so weak and worthless before then. The feeling still lingered, but for now, his heart was beating fast at the thought of where he just might be.
He'd always been under the impression that Sound would be even stranger than this place. More unsettling. Darker. And he'd thought that, had they ever for some reason wanted to capture him and succeeded, there would be more security than this. He couldn't feel any chakra, which was odd.
He could barely feel any of his own. He frowned further, looking down at his hands. That wasn't right.
"Oh, you're up!" A cheerful voice sounded through the room, and Naruto yelped, startled enough that he slipped off the bed.
The nurse rolled her eyes and leaned down to help him up, taking his arm.
Naruto stumbled to stand, jerking his arm away. He glared, backing up away from the woman. "W-who are you?"
He gave her a once over, noticing she didn't seem visibly armed. She had long red hair and freckles on the bridge of her nose, and was smiling at him. She didn't seem like a bad person, but something was off about her. That smile didn't make him feel comfortable in any way.
"I'm your nurse, Mr. O'Malley," she said, her voice sending chills down Naruto's spine. Something was wrong with this woman, but he couldn't tell what.
Then he blinked again, confused by her statement. "My...nurse?" He looked at her like she'd just told him he was the king of a foreign country. What would he need a nurse for? Had he fought that hard back then? Had he suffered from chakra exhaustion and been sent to the hospital?
He looked around again, but absolutely nothing looked like Konoha's hospital. Then something else hit him.
"Wait -- Mr. O'Malley? That's not my name!" He said, as if this fact alone would fix everything. They must have the wrong person. They'd know this now, apologise, and send him back to Konoha where he was supposed to be. Where he wanted to be.
The nurse gave him another smile, this one looking almost like she was pitying him. He glared.
"Yes, it is, honey. Your name is Nathan O'Malley, and you're here in Landel's Institute for delusions and bouts of dementia." She spoke as if it was all fact, as if nothing could be argued about this.
Naruto's glare intensified. "What the hell are you talking about?! I'm not delusional or -- or demented! I'm a shinobi from Konoha, in Fire Country," he said, hoping telling her this would make her finally realise he wasn't meant to be here. She was bound to have heard of Konoha.
"Konoha?" She asked raising an eyebrow. "You poor thing, Konoha isn't a real place! You made all of that up on your own," she said, taking his arm again. "Come now, it's time for lunch!"
Naruto was too shocked to struggle much, and the iron grip the nurse had on his arm convinced him not too try to hard -- and his stomach had grumbled loudly when she'd mentioned lunch. He felt like he hadn't eaten a thing in days.
Maybe some food would make him think more clearly.
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Honey rolled over, turning his back to the annoying woman. Had they hired a new maid? Surely someone must have told her just what a faux pas it was to wake him when he was in the middle of his nap. She probably had the room wrong too. No one he knew of was named Dennis. That was a stupid name.
“Go ‘way,” he grumbled. She was a lady, after all, and ought to be given fair warning. He'd been up half the night just listening to the twins and their latest drama. At the rate things were going, he half expected Takashi's pet raccoon to declare his undying love for Haruhi before the twins or Tamaki ever one, realized their feelings, and two, actually did something about it.
“Dennis Mitchell, you’ll sleep the day away if you don’t get up now. Come on, rise and shine. You don’t want to miss lunch do you? I heard they’re serving chicken tenders.”
As tempting as that was, especially when prepared by their private chef, he’d have been much more motivated if she’d mentioned cake. How could there not be cake with the meal? Honey clung even tighter to his blankets and stuffed rabbit, Usa-chan. “My name’s not Dennis,” he mumbled into his pillow. It smelled funny. And it was not at all soft like his bed at home. It smelled more like the industrial cleaners they used on laundry in the military. One lazy brown eye slid open.
Few things took Haninozuka Mitsukuni by surprise. As a trained combat specialist, being ambushed was looked down upon even more than sweets and stuffed bunnies. But, as both eyes shot open and Honey realized that this was most definitely not his bedroom back home, he knew someone had to have taken him completely off-guard.
The walls were stark and the room was outfitted with only the basics. A couple of beds and a dresser. He’d had worse, but this was not his luxuriously adorable four-poster bed covered in stuffed animals back home. The number of conclusions he could draw from the situation was quickly dwindling, leaving him with only a few options. He’d been kidnapped, to inevitably be held for ransom, or this was some act to defame the Haninozuka family name.
He really didn't want do deal with either one first thing after waking up, but he rubbed his sleepy eyes in a childish way as he sat up, feigning ignorance. That was one of the good things about his small stature and youthful appearance; people usually thought he was just another kid. And when it came to combat, that mistake was always costly. “This isn’t my room,” he said with a pout.
“No dear, it’s not,” a woman dressed as a nurse told him as she tugged at his sheets. “You’re at Landel’s institution. You’re very sick Dennis, and we just want to help you. I know it doesn’t feel like home, but I’m sure you’ll adjust.”
Was this some kind of ruse? Honey looked at the woman with an honestly perplexed expression. “I don’t feel sick,” he insisted, turning wide and innocent doe eyes on her. “Can I call my family? I don't wanna worry them.”
It seemed to give the woman pause, but she was a hard sell and the usual tricks didn't seem like they'd be enough. “I'm sure they'll come visit you in a few days if they're worried. I know this is a big change, but it's not going to do any good to fret over it. You'll feel better once you have some lunch.”
Somehow, he really doubted that.
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Oh. Right, he thought a bit sullenly as he rubbed at his eyes and took a closer look at the room. The Chief was gone, so it couldn't have been him. Light was probably with his family taking care of things, and poor Sayu...she hadn't been responding to much of anything since she'd been abducted, and this definitely wasn't going to help. It was just one big streak of bad luck for the Yagami family, and Matsuda wished that there was more he could do to help. Well...there really was, and he could help figure out Kira's identity when he got back.
What Matsuda couldn't figure out, though, was where he was now. It smelled like a hospital, and was all white like a hospital, but he shouldn't have been in a hospital to begin with. He'd been discharged already, and this definitely wasn't the same place they'd gone after Mello had blown up his own hideout. What had the guy been thinking? If Matsuda ever saw him again...well, it probably wouldn't happen, anyway, so there wasn't a point in thinking that. And it still didn't help him answer the question of what the hell was going on.
At that moment, the door to the room opened, and a woman came in, dressed up like a nurse. "Good afternoon, Mr. Aoyama. It's nice to see you're already up," she said cheerily and he gave her a smile. It still seemed like a hospital, at least, and she seemed to be pretty pleasant. He didn't know what else it could be, but the whole thing was kind of strange.
"Good afternoon, miss--" he began, pausing as it dawned on him what she'd called him. "W-wait a second! You've got the wrong person. My name's Matsuda." The woman gave a sigh, and was it just him or did she look like she was tired of something? Was it something he'd said? But she had to have the wrong person. He knew who he was, even if he didn't know who this Aoyama guy was; and where did the guy get off leaving Matsuda to get mistaken for him? "A-are you okay?" he asked the nurse hesitantly. He didn't know what was going on, but he didn't want to upset this woman if she was supposed to be taking care of him. She was so pretty, too...
"Yes, of course. I just get that statement often," she replied, putting a smile back on that Matsuda suspected was just a little bit of an act, but he couldn't really tell. He'd never been good at picking out that stuff until it was obvious. Kinda like a big neon sign or something.
"Oh..." He paused for a moment, then decided he might as well try to see if she would tell him anything. "Um...sorry, but could you tell me where I am?"
"Of course, Mr. Aoyama. This is Landel's Institute. You were brought here by some close friends who were worried about you. It seems the death of your superior affected you badly." It seemed like all she was willing to say, and it took him a second to put it together. Institute. They thought he was crazy or that he was having some massive problems after the Chief's death or something.
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Almost as if on cue, Matsuda's stomach growled, and he gave her an sheepish grin. "Oh, y-yeah, I guess so," he replied, even more confused than he'd been when he woke up. She sure hadn't explained much, but at least they were going to feed him.
He slid off of the bed and got his first good look at what they'd dressed him in. The grey was kinda boring and depressing, but the smiley face on the shirt almost made him laugh. The thought of putting a not-quite-happy-looking smiley on an outfit like this was...well, ridiculous and weird. Kind of like the situation. He snickered a little bit, and the nurse gave him a strange look. "It's nothing," he assured her. "Just wondering whose idea the outfit was." It didn't occur to him until afterwards that she might have been the one to pick it out. Oops. She didn't seem to say anything else about it, though, so he forgot about the smiley as he followed her out of the room.
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Ow. Wait. What? This wasn't right. Why were there bed sheets? There were no bed sheets in the cockpit, he could vouch for that much. This wasn't the cockpit. This was wrong. And bad. Where was Zoe?
His hand crept up to his chest. He couldn't remember being dead because that would be...silly. But he was almost positive he'd died. He could recall it very clearly. Except he evidently wasn't dead. Right? Right? Unless...
He went for his pulse on instinct, almost half-expecting not to find one. Nope. He was alive. Somehow. Although he could feel a heart attack coming on soon. Or maybe a stroke. This was—where the—
"Good morning, Mr. Fields! How are you feeling?"
Wash jumped. His elbow banged against the dresser. "Gwai-gwai long duh dong!" He fumbled with the blankets and managed to toss them off as he got to his feet. "Hi," he blurted, too bewildered to carefully craft any response. "I'm feeling—I died. And then I fell. In that order. Um."
Crap.
The woman still beamed at him in a thoroughly disturbing fashion. It was only now that he realized she looked like a nurse. Actually, this room looked kind of like a hospital. Only it wasn't familiar enough to be the ship's infirmary and it wasn't sterile and creepy enough to be an Alliance facility. Very...in-between.
Which only served to confuse him more. Confusion was a mode that was settling in quickly now that his initial panic had...Well, never mind. It was still there. He needed to breathe. And think of what to do.
"Mr. Fields—"
Like tell this woman that that wasn't his name.
Right. Step one.
"That's not my name," he said, as the woman began herding him out the door. Good. See? That wasn't hard. "You know, I bet this is a case of mistaken identity," he went on, improvising now that he had completely lost track of what step two was supposed to be. "Because unless I've been reincarnated in a new form—I haven't been reincarnated, have I? Did I die and reincarnate myself? Is that what's happened?"
Maybe it was. Was it? He felt the beginnings of panic rise over this new thought for a split second before logic took over.
No, that would be crazy. This was crazy. Where was the woman taking him? He really needed to know where Zoe was, but his options were kind of limited right now. And where were they going? She wasn't dragging him off to some great, horrible—
...Was that food he smelled?
[going to flail over here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/418259.html?thread=33776339#t33776339)]
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Mikami rolled over suddenly, disturbed but not quite sure why yet. He'd been having odd dreams ever since getting the Death Note, so of course that wasn't it. But he definitely felt an odd twinge of anxiety, and his mind wandered vaguely trying to decipher it. Then suddenly, he remembered that today was highly important. And somehow he was already aware without his alarm going off. His eyes snapped open.
He pushed himself up, staring down in utter confusion at the unfamiliar bed clothing, then throwing a look around the room he was in. Why had it taken so long to realize he wasn't in his own apartment? There were no sounds of vehicles below... no windows... no alarm clock to wake him at six... and he was wearing his glasses in bed. It wasn't right at all!
And... oh no.
His mind kicked into gear with a sickening crunch. He had no idea where he... or it was. He tore the covers off himself and stumbled from the bed, resting a hand against one of the smooth white walls before striding to the single dresser, looking on top and all around it, and then beginning to tear through its contents. Before he'd put the Death Note in the bank, he'd kept it near-by while he slept in a case similar to this. It was a vain hope looking for it, but the fact of the matter was he was also looking for anything familiar at all.
Had Kira's opponents captured him somehow? He had been instructed to clearly act suspicious, after all, so might it be part of God's plan?
But no, this didn't fit in at all with the sort of planning he had become familiar with. Although he was not privy to the private thoughts of Kira, he had always been given orders that had clear definition. If being sent off to some sterile, Death Note-less environment was all part of the almighty Kira's plan, he wouldn't have been told the place of the final showdown. He wouldn't have been given the go-ahead to get rid of "Near" and his minions.
Slamming the last drawer shut on a pair of slippers, Mikami turned and followed the line of the bed to a desk at the end.
He'd visited a hospital a time or two before, and he'd been to a prison (a rather disgusting experience). This place was clearly neither in the conventional sense. Of course, Mikami didn't subscribe to people getting better, so the possibility he was in a mental institute simply didn't occur to him. Whatever this place was, whoever had dared to put him there would surely have to pay.
He knocked a chair away with uncharacteristic violence, starting in on the desk. He snapped the drawer open and... there was a notebook!! With a rush of adrenaline, he snatched and held it up. But... no, it was wrong. It was too big, and there were no symbols in white on the front. It had to be just a journal or plain notebook of some sort. He flipped through the pages, shook it out, and then dropped it on the floor. Grimly, he shuffled through the rest of the desk's items, but found nothing more that seemed of any importance save for a bundle of cheap pens. He next went through the closets, the other desks, tried the door, felt the beds. Nothing he recognized.
The search hadn't lasted more than a few minutes, but the young prosecutor was winded anyway. Dazed, he finally bent and picked the journal up, suddenly sorry he'd abused it, smoothing out a few folded pages. Then he righted the fallen chair and put it in place, went to the bed, and yanked the covers straight. He just had to think.
No. This couldn't have been Kira's plan at all. Therefore, it had to mean that Mikami had failed spectacularly in some fashion.
He was suddenly fighting down even more panic, a metallic taste growing in his mouth. This was terrible. He smoothed his hair down with a shaking hand, sitting heavily on the bed and gathering his thoughts with his eyes closed.
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Mikami's gaze had flicked habitually to above the woman's head. To his utter horror, there was no name floating there, and no numbers to indicate how much longer she would naturally live. It was the icing on the cake. Mikami had lost the Shinigami Eyes. He had lost the Death Note. Failed his god for sure.
"Alright, Mr. Takanaga," the nurse said, training her voice to a soothing tone, "I know you're upset, but you're at Landel's now. We're going to help you get better." She carefully stepped closer and smiled at him again.
Mikami's mind had almost completely shut down. "Help me?" he muttered, looking up at her through his fingers.
"Yes, dear, don't you remember what happened at the courtroom? Oh, but don't worry about it." She laughed lightly and went to the dresser, coming back with the slippers and presenting them to him. "Now come on! We don't want you missing lunch-time!"
She gently pulled him up by the arm and walked him to the hall. A lingering sense in the back of Mikami's head insisted on getting his act together, but for now he complied with being led away to the cafeteria, clutching his journal and a pen with the nurse babbling away in a calming manner.
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She could relax for a while and spend the rest of the day thinking of what needed to be done in Crimea. Yes, she’d do just that. She felt a smile coming to her face at the thought. Thinking of her country always had that effect on her.
The smile quickly turned into a frown as soon as she opened her eyes. She wasn't in her tent. She wasn't even in a tent. Instead, she found herself in an unfamiliar white room. ...A white room she was positive she wasn't supposed to be in.
She sat up in the bed (at least that explained why her sleep had been so comfortable) and looked around the room. She didn’t remember having gone inside it before. In fact, she didn’t even know how she had gotten there in the first place. It wasn’t possible for anyone to have taken her there. The camp had a strict watch. Someone would have noticed if she had been taken. Yet, that seemed like the only possible explanation.
Even worse, everything about the room seemed wrong. It had been built in a very strange manner. How…? How did they make light come from the ceiling? And why would they waste glass on covering that light? It made no sense at all. Against her will, she could feel her heart beating faster and her breath coming short. It was all too impossible.
She tried to concentrate on inspecting the room instead. There were two beds and a dresser in between them. Two desks, a door… Did somebody else sleep in the room?
“Good morning, Miss Evans. I’ll be your nurse during your stay here. How are you feeling today?” a voice cut into her musings. There was a woman standing at the door. How had she missed her before? She was dressed all in white and both looked and sounded cheerful, perhaps too cheerful.
Evans? No, that wasn’t right. The woman couldn’t have been speaking to her. Feeling rather foolish, Elincia looked across to the room, almost expecting to see someone in the other bed. It was still an empty bed. Nothing had changed since the last time she had looked. That only left her… As she turned to look at the woman (she’d called herself a nurse?) again, she realized that it was her that she was speaking to.
There were too many questions she wanted to ask, yet she couldn’t seem to be able to form the words for any of them. “Evans? Who is… Evans?” was what she finally managed to say.
“Who? Well, it’s you of course! Ashley Evans. That’s your name.”
Elincia shook her head. “No. That can’t be right,” she began, trying to force calm into her voice. She was pleased to find that her voice now sounded somewhat less panicked than it had before. Good. She couldn’t afford to act weak in such a situation. “I’m… My name is not Ashley. I’m Elincia and I’m quite certain I’m not supposed to be here. …Wherever here is.”
The nurse’s response was surprising. It was almost like she had expected Elincia to say that. “No, dear,” she said, still with the same cheery voice. “Your name is Ashley and you are supposed to be here. Your family brought you here to Landel’s Institute in hopes of you getting better.”
Her family? How? Her parents had been dead for years now and her uncle… No. There was no one who could have taken her to this place. She had too many things she had to do back home. Why would someone try to prevent her from doing what she had to? “That’s impossible. They can’t have done that. It’s simply impossible.”
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Immediately she knew that she didn’t want to follow her. She wanted only to get as far away as possible from that strange place. ‘Landel’s Institute’ the nurse had called it. However, she was nearly certain the nurse wouldn’t allow her to simply leave.
She slowly stood up. It took her a moment to gain her balance, but she soon began to wordlessly follow her nurse out the door. As she did she found herself thinking that maybe… if she was lucky… it would all begin to make sense soon.
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The second thing he noticed was that he could breathe.
The third thing he noticed was that his head hurt like a bitch. And he couldn't even remember how he got the hangover in the first place, which was a very bad sign. He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut, as he tried to remember what happened last--
--he was dead.
Jiraiya's eyes flew open. Above him was a ceiling. He wasn't surrounded by water, and he wasn't--
Drowning wasn't the right word, because his throat had already been crushed, when--
He jerked his hand up to his throat, pressing his fingers against his skin before smoothing them across. Whole. Not even a scratch, much less his entire windpipe being caved in. And his chest felt the same, which only left--
His eyes widening slowly, Jiraiya brought his other hand to his face. He had two arms again.
Jiraiya still didn't know why he had a headache, although it wasn't as bad now that he had woken up. Tsunade's voice answered why in his head--something about a lack of oxygen at high altitudes causing blood to rush to the brain and create a headache. Or something like that; he hadn't been paying too much attention at the time because she was yelling at him and whenever she had pause to take a deep breath, her chest would rise up and down nicely.
Focus. He had to focus. Maybe Naruto had rubbed off on him too much after all that training together.
"Naruto..." Jiraiya mumbled, look past his hands, to his shirt.
He stared. What the hell was a bright yellow face-thing doing on his shirt? His gray shirt, which matched his gray pants. An outfit of which he had no memory of.
What was going on...?
"Oh, you're awake!" A cheerful voice cut into his thoughts as he felt another enter the room; a woman, probably in her late twenties.
Before he even looked up, he knew she was beautiful. Or, at least, very pretty. His eyes weren't disappointed when he slowly trailed his eyes up.
"I am," Jiraiya replied, giving her what he hoped was a flattering smile.
"You've woken up just in time for lunch!" The nurse sounded far too cheerful.
Somewhere in the back of his head, he noted the room was gray and dull, and although it smelled like a room in Konoha hospital, it wasn't. His brow furrowed as that thought came to the forefront, confusion clearly evident on his face. Had he been captured after all?
"Lunch?" Jiraiya asked, glancing around the room with feigned disinterest; he didn't want her to notice he thought anything was out of the ordinary, so he tried to keep her talking. "What's for lunch?"
"Chicken tenders!" The nurse answered him happily. "With potato chips, vegetable soup, and cole slaw!"
"... Huh?" Jiraiya's eyes stopped their movements; that was an interesting menu; wait, he had to keep her talking. "What else do you--?"
He tensed a moment before she reached out to take his arm, and then she was helping him out of bed, still talking in that cheerful voice. "You'll find out! If you don't hurry, there won't be anything left! Some of the other patients have very big appetites."
"Patients?" Jiraiya asked, keeping his guard up as she helped him towards the door.
"You don't remember coming in, Mr. Randy?" The nursed asked for a moment, almost looking confused, but then she beamed as she let go of him and pushed him lightly down a hall.
Jiraiya opened his mouth to comment on "his" name, then closed it. No, if he was supposed to be under a genjutsu that failed, he wasn't going to let her know. He had to know more information before he made any moves.
"Sorry, sorry!" Jiraiya forced a laugh. "I must be going senile! I've completely forgotten."
"Don't worry," the nurse gave him a piting look. "Your loved ones brought you here to help you remember!"
Jiraiya let out a sigh as she walked ahead and indicated that he should follow. This was going to get complicated, quickly. He followed her, just as told, trying to keep the pretense up. It was easier now that she was in front of him, and he could see her behind clearly as she walked. If he had been captured by the Hidden Village of Rain, it would pay well if he acted exactly as they thought he would.
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The was alone. The air flow was poor and the sound was muted, which meant the room was small and windowless, and its only door was shut and locked tight. The bed he was in felt cheap. There was something hard under his pillow. Whatever building he was in was on a tight budget, so this was either a government-funded institute, or a third-party’s interference. Since the room was closed off, and since he couldn’t access his powers, Kaku was willing to bet on the former. After all, only the government would have access to that much seastone, and that’s probably where most of that budget went.
Oh, and he wasn’t seriously injured. That was kind of important.
He opened his eyes, and confirmed most of his guesses. He was in a cheap little bed in a drab little room, no window, locked door, et cetera. The presence of another bed in the room was curious, but it provided evidence towards the building being medical in nature, from its build and purpose to fit more patients to a room.
The fact that he was no longer bleeding profusely or even in pain also supported the ‘medical institute’ theory as well, but it still left some unexplained questions. Like, ‘how did I get here’, ‘how long have I been unconscious’, ‘where is this building’, ‘am I the only CP9 agent here’, and, possibly more important, ‘how do I get out’?
Though he had to wonder: after such a spectacular failure, was the government really going to be so quick to welcome the CP9 team back? There was a good chance that the government was trying to hold him (and the others, probably) until they decided on a reasonable punishment.
Of course, he could be wrong, and this could just be a special hospital for the surviving soldiers of Enies Lobby.
... Yeah.
Kaku slid out of his bed and started going through the room, looking for potential weapons (not like his body wouldn’t be sufficient by itself, but it was always nice to have something extra), or clues to the building’s location. He had only just finished looking through the desk when he heard something on the other side of the door.
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“Mr. Robertson?” she said, looking a little nervous.
He was the only one in the room; it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.
“I guess you’re my nurse, huh?” he said with an awkward grin. The nurse smiled back, relieved.
Kaku decided he didn’t really need any kind of medical treatment or prison sentence. However, while he was ready and willing to just walk right out of the building, there were some problems with that:
One, if the building had seastone in its walls (or something similarly inconvenient), then breaking them down probably wasn’t a good idea. Simply touching the stuff would drain his strength, which would put him at a disadvantage when whatever security this place had responded.
Two, speaking of – he couldn’t see outside of his room, so for all he knew, there could be an army out there waiting for him. He was good, but if they were armed with the right equipment, numbers, and strategy, fighting his way out would be more trouble than it was worth.
Three, even if he escaped the building, where was he? Was he on an island? How big was it? How could he escape it?
So, annoying as it was, Kaku decided the best course of action was to play along at this little institute until he had more information. Which shouldn’t be too hard. After all, infiltration was in his job description.
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Manfred von Karma gazed up at the prison warden who had just addressed him, holding a microphone attached to a tape recorder. He had already long prepared himself for this moment ever since he lost the DL-6 case to the pesky rookie defense lawyer Phoenix Wright, which led to his conviction for the murder of Gregory Edgeworth. Though death was literally minutes away for him, he no longer feared it. After briefly reflecting upon this and taking in his surroundings for what would be the very last time in life, he finally responded.
"Yes, warden. I will make my final statement." He drew in a deep breath before he continued. "A curse. A curse on Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix Wright. May they suffer eternally for destroying my life."
At these words, the warden seemed speechless and unable to do anything momentarily. von Karma frowned at him. What did this man expect his last words to be, a sentimental apology or something equally pathetic? Such would be a mere display of weakness, and he could not afford to leave this world in an undignified manner.
The foolish warden still had made no move to do anything. What was he waiting for? His hesitation was only serving to delay the inevitable, and von Karma did not want to prolong this unpleasantness for any longer than was necessary. "Warden! It is time. Commence the execution. Now!" Out of force of habit, he would have emphasized his final order with a snap of his fingers, were his left hand not restrained to the table on which he lay.
The warden finally shrugged and gave the signal to the execution team to administer the lethal injection. Within seconds, von Karma's vision became blurry before everything went dark. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he thought, My dear daughters... Franziska... Avenge me, and restore honor to our family's name....
He awoke with a start as a loudspeaker blared, "I hope you all enjoy your meal and your new company." The voice was unfamiliar to him and the words did not make sense. He had already had his "last meal" just a couple of hours ago, so why would he be offered another one after death?
He opened his eyes to get his bearings. He was still lying on his back with his arms outstretched in the same position as he had been just before his execution. However, he was lying on a regular bed instead of the execution table, and there were no intravenous lines in either of his arms. In fact, he was not even restrained to the bed and was free to sit up. As he did so, his right shoulder gave a twinge of pain from the bullet still lodged in it, and he massaged it gently. It was then he realized for certain that he could not be truly dead because if he were, he should not be able to feel mortal pain such as this. What was going on?
He looked around, surveying his surroundings. This room was different from the execution chamber -- it did not even resemble any of the rooms in the prison, for that matter. It appeared to be a hospital room designed for two patients, although he was apparently the only occupant at the time.
At this realization, he looked down at himself to ensure that he was not dressed in one of those humiliating hospital gowns that afforded precious little modesty. His relief was short-lived as he found that he was instead clad in a drab gray outfit with a hideous and disturbing symbol of a yellow "happy face" on the front of the shirt. Never had he wished so much to be dressed in the garish orange prison uniform that he had finally gotten used to after decades of wearing nothing but elegant clothing.
What in blazes was going on? Where in the world was he? Did he receive a stay of execution just before he lost consciousness and if so, why did no one inform him? ...Was this someone's idea of a depraved joke at his expense? And who was responsible for this?
Anger arose within him as he pondered all of these questions. He might still be alive, but this was not a change he had prepared himself for nor even welcomed. In a sense, he was living in a literal hell.
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"Well, good afternoon, Mr. Fuchs!" she addressed him in a sickeningly saccharine tone of voice, laced with the condescension often reserved for young children and people of low intellect. "And how are we doing today?"
He did not answer immediately but instead simply glared at her, his arms folded defensively. Who the hell did she think she was, speaking to him as though he were a child? And she even had his name wrong. Obviously an egregious mistake, one that he would seek to have rectified immediately.
"...Sir?" She peered at him quizzically, waiting for his answer.
"Bah. I am quite displeased with this situation. Tell me, woman. What is going on here? And who is this... Mr. Fuchs you speak of?"
"Why, Mr. Fuchs!" she answered cheerfully. "That is your name, don't you remember? You are Mr. Karl Fuchs, and your family brought you here to Landel's Institute because you are suffering from a delusional disorder, triggered by the early stages of dementia." She clucked her tongue sympathetically, which only served to irritate him further. "They decided that we can take better care of you than they can."
It took him a moment to process everything the nurse said. "W-what? Nonsense! I am suffering from no disorder whatsoever. My faculties are as intact as they ever were! Tell me the truth of what is really going on, nurse! Now!"
"Oh, Sir," she said in an eerily soothing tone of voice, shaking her head. "I understand how confused and frightened you must b--"
"Tell me! Now!" With that, he snapped his fingers sharply at her.
Her demeanor changed, but not in the manner he expected. "Mr. Fuchs. Are we going to have to sedate you again? You are getting very agitated, and we don't want a repeat of the incident from when you were being admitted here." She gave him a stern look, and it was then that he noticed a syringe in her hand and a couple of male orderlies behind her past the doorway.
This caused him to stop and think. Obviously, it would be useless to argue with her at the moment, for he was defenseless in his current situation. He also had the impression that she truly did know far more than she was letting on. It was even possible that she and her team were the ones who had sedated him just prior to his scheduled execution with the intention to abduct him and bring him to this miserable place. But to what end? For now, he had no choice but to humor her, at least until he could find out more about what had happened and why he was really here.
"...Hmph. No, you will not need to sedate me," he grumbled, making the pretense of calming down even though he continued to scowl at her.
"Good, good," she spoke with the false cheerfulness of before. "Now, are you hungry? It is lunchtime right now, and I was sent to escort you to the cafeteria."
"...Hmph. Very well." He was not exactly hungry, but he grudgingly complied, following her down the hall towards the cafeteria. He assured himself that he was not "giving in" to his apparent captors, but rather playing along just long enough to find out more about the situation and possibly how to escape it.
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Perhaps she should have taken it as a sign, when instead of paying attention to the surrounding dungeon, her thumb was slowly slipping away from the analog stick on her controller. Her character was lagging behind a duo of others, but she didn't notice right away; the voices from her other party members managed to jerk her out of whatever thoughts (or lack thereof) her mind was drifting off to, and with a hasty apology she scurried forward to catch up. They asked her if she was okay, and maybe she should go to bed, it was getting pretty late after all. No, no, she insisted back-- they wanted to complete the dungeon, and they really needed a Cleric, didn't they?
Dedication had gotten the better of Atoli. The dungeon was tricky-- they tended to be, the higher the level was, but they were close to the Beast Statue, they had to have been. Another turn down the labyrinth brought them to yet another encounter with some monsters, and it had quickly proven it would be a challenge. Not an impossible one, thankfully, and it was entirely possible that the group of three could have made it out in due time... However, behind her M2D, Atoli could feel her mind drifting again, unwillingly nodding off...
She wasn't entirely too sure what to think when the next thing she knew, Atoli was jarred awake by an unfamiliar voice echoing from... somewhere. Realization belatedly hit her, but when it did, she finally did know that to think: Oh no oh no oh no, she fell asleep of all things and-- the monsters! The dungeon! They... didn't make it. No, she wasn't idle in the dimly lit dungeon anymore, which only meant they must have been defeated. The very, very white room obviously meant that...
Wait a moment, white room? Usually when a character was defeated, you got the game over screen, not this. White rooms should have been completely abnormal in The World, but when she had seen them before... Well, they were still weird, but not impossible. Still, she shouldn't have been able to get here by normal means.
Atoli's first assumption was that something-- whatever it was-- must have happened, but what? Wasn't all the trouble, all the things that could go wrong, all gone and in the past? Did she do something? Other than fall asleep at her computer, that is, which was bad enough in itself... She could only imagine just how annoyed she had made her other party members feel, abandoning them like that!
Nothing struck her as odd until she pulled the bedsheet off of her (which, then, she had to wonder what she was doing in a bed in the first place), pausing halfway through the action. With eyes slowly widening, Atoli dropped that act and lifted her hand, staring at it; and then the other, slowly moving her fingers as if there was something terribly wrong with them. Oh, there was-- she could feel them and the bedsheet, something that should have been completely impossible for a mere online character. Brushing them against the sides of her face next, then... There was no M2D.
This wasn't good, not at all. This was like reliving an event that happened in the not-so-distant past-- But before Atoli could fret over it any longer, the door clicked open, and through it a woman peeked behind it before slowly making her way in.
"Oh," she began, sounding mildly surprised. "My, you've slept in awfully late. We should get you up and going before the day ends!"
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Not that he held any love for brown bricks and mortar, no. On the contrary, the man had found their presence in his cell rather dull, almost depressing. Six months of seeing nothing but had shifted the former indifference into distinct hatred, a feeling even the most expensive furnishings could not alleviate. His old world sensibilities failed to see much point to such a drably color, going so far as to wish for a scenery change in his recent days.
But this… This was far too extreme.
Slipping away the covers, Kristoph propped himself against his pillow and glossed over the area. Lack of visibility made the act pointless, (His glasses were nowhere to be seen.) but he managed to come to a conclusion from another source. Hint of antiseptics. The man inhaled slowly, allowing the scent to seep into his most immediate thoughts. A hospital.
The corners of his lips pulled tightly into a disapproving frown. Neither reason nor experience could properly explain the situation. Illness? Certainly not. A transfer? As chaotic as prisons often were, even they had their protocols and taboos. Kristoph, as well as an entire committee, would have caught wind of a move weeks ago.
An escape? The former attorney could have laughed at the idea. What manner of man fled when an appeal was a mere court day away?
The speculations ended at that. A sharp rap from the door interrupted Kristoph’s thoughts, forcing him to subsume a more socially acceptable position. He gracefully climbed up and out of bed, ignoring the sudden nausea that came with the movement, before weaving two hands into his hair. Pains were worth appearing presentable.
“Mr. Godfrey?”
Godfrey? Kristoph blinked, unable to recognize the name being called out.
An orange-and-green blob came into the vicinity, its form indicating a woman. “Oh, good, you're awake," she spoke with some relief. "You had me worried there for a minute, Mr. Godfrey.”
Odd. The man silently ran a hand over his chin as if torn between thoughts. Logic screamed at the obvious error, but everything else hinted otherwise. Kristoph was the only occupant in the room. She had to be addressing him.
It felt like such a bother to correct her, however. “My apologies,” he said instead. “I seem to have lost track of time.” And whereabouts.
“Oh, that is really all my fault.” The blob laughed sheepishly, albeit in good nature. “You had arrived so late last night, I thought you deserved to sleep in today.”
“That was very considerate of you.” Not particularly, but this woman seemed the type to appreciate flattery. Perhaps enough from his end would bring him a suitable explanation, one he could live with.
Her smile--which appeared a little more than a red and white blur--indicated Kristoph was correct in the assumption. “Well, then. Shall I escort you to the cafeteria, Mr. Godfrey? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss lunch.”
“Yes, please.”