damned_institute | Nightshift 43: Patient Possessions Storage

"My boo- it doesn't matter what my boobs are made of!!" It wasn't like he'd ever be touching them again!! Alkaid followed him into the room in a huff, grabbing the flashlight and shining it all over everything she could find in the room. No monsters? Okay. Cool.

But still. Ugh. That stupid eyepatch.

When he asked his serious questions (though the first one he'd asked was probably just as serious, the pervert) Alkaid had to take pause. Yeah, her arm hurt, and it was a different kind of pain than she'd ever felt before. She met his glance for a second before looking away, trying to fight the hunger. "You kidding? I'm fine," she lied. "Don't worry about me. I'll always be in fighting shape."

When he asked her name, it kind of felt like a personal question. It wasn't really, but online and in Landel's, she'd been kind of shy with giving it out. Most people accepted at face value that her name was Alkaid, but she guessed it wasn't the weirdest thing that Badou would want to know, now that the circumstances had been altered. "Heh, well, if you really wanna know... My name's Chika. Chika Kuramoto. But I'm famous as Alkaid. Everyone's heard of the Demon Palace Emperor," she bragged. "So it's not weird at all."

Then she smiled, pushing as much vigor into it as she could. "And even though this is Alkaid's body, I guess I'm in it with Chika's brain and heart. So you can call me either one!"

She was getting all huffy like he was serious about her underaged (computer-simulated) chesticles just because he felt them up a couple of -- well, ok, honestly, he couldn't say he'd met a chick yet who stuck around to let him feel her up a second time. What were they made of, anyway? That was some seriously pervy technology they had going on in Alkaid's time.

He shrugged at her response, not believing a word of it, "Just be careful." It was a little hard to play it cool when he remembered getting a similar look from Makiko. He couldn't be that tasty, all bone and blood, so how come he never got the good kind of 'I want to eat you'? But Alkaid looked a little scared too. Was she faking it? Was this really just a mimic or a zombie or something? That fit in with his life a little better.

Man, he didn't want to know anymore. This was too depressing. If she ate him, he supposed he could play up the story in hell. Time for some petty theft to make everything better. He moved over to the closest box and dumped the contents, crouching down to pick through them while listening to Alkaid.

"So you're like a video game celebrity? What do you do in real life?"

When he told Alkaid to be careful, she just shrugged it off and went to digging through a nearby box, her back firmly to him. "Great advice! You should write a self-help book or something!" Her voice dripped with sarcasm. Seriously, what was she gonna do but be careful?

"Yep. I topped the Demon Palace arena for ages until some cheaters took my spot a few months ago. In real life I don't do anything nearly as awesome... I read a lot, and go to school." She shrugged. "What I want is out. School's as much of a jail as this place is!!"

The box she was currently digging through was replete with completely useless items. Some clothes, a wallet with some credit cards that were probably long since canceled... a magazine... porno? "What the hell? These boxes are full of naked women!! Where did you take me?"

As if punctuating her sentence, the intercom in the room began to puke out ones and zeroes. Alkaid's look of porno-shock didn't go away.

"Chapter one: go choke on a cock." Badou called back lazily, picking through his pile. Disappointing stuff. Cards, pocket watches (in the plural, what the hell), a wallet he didn't bother to open.

Badou never liked video games much (except for the occasional fighting and racing kind of thing), so he couldn't really say he was all that interested in virtual trophies. Kinda lost its shine after you actually blew something up or learned fist-hand how much fun it was to dodge bullets. "Well, it's cool you're so good at games." He shook his head at her second comment. "Maybe. I didn't like school much either, but at least you got to go home at the end of the day." Or at the beginning of it, if you were Badou.

"--- Seriously?" He left his position on the floor and came up behind Alkaid. Ignoring the random number stream across the intercom, he reached over her shoulder to snatch the magazine. "Dibs. You're too young to be looking at these kinds of materials."

...Was that a song playing on the intercom?

His compliment about the games, and the creepiness on the intercom, was temporarily cut short by the porno fiasco.

"Chapter two: Badou's guide to getting his friends to poke his other eye out," she grumbled. Whose right was it to take porn that she'd found? Other girls' boobs weren't exactly her thing, but teenagers had hormones, too. And they definitely had the internet. Stuff like this wasn't exactly hard to find online.

But, more than anything, the 'too young' part stung a little bit. What, did he think she was a kid? The pain in her words was a little evident. "Gggh... idiot! Not that I would ever look at something like that, but don't try to play moral big brother with me when you're just going to take it back to your room and - you should just find yourself a real girl - it's pathetic!"

She was angrily blushing just from the topic having been brought up at all, but when the intercom's noisy blabbing (a poem?) stopped and the faint background moaning started, she bit her lip. What was Landel's pulling?

"Chapter three: love and friendship save the day. Violence isn't the answer." Badou replied, straightening so he could flip through the magazine. Did all kids have some kind of built-in programming to react like that?

...Well ok, stupid question. By 'kid' he meant 'not old enough to bang', but mostly he didn't explain that because it was fun to annoy the crap out of people. Also he was kind of distracted by Li on page six. Moral big brother, huh? Badou snorted and tapped her head lightly with the magazine. "Hey, I'm protecting your innocence you know. Isn't that what strong men do?"

He pulled a pillow case out of the makeshift satchel and tucked the magazine into it before reaching for another box to paw through. He'd missed most of the intercom, more nonsense than words, and he waited for the noise at the end to die down. It didn't.

Shit, someone had gotten into the Halloween music.

Alkaid thought about poking him playfully on the shoulder, but thought better of it - the less contact she had with his delicious, delicious human flesh the better. Still, she couldn't help but smirking. "And you said I sounded like an after school special. Guess it takes one to know one!!"

And then he dropped the skin rag in his bag. She clicked her tongue. Men did have needs, she supposed, but having it waved in her face like that? It was kiiiind of gross.

And she was about to say something else, but the tapping on her head and that bit about her innocence and him being a strong man stopped her mid-syllable. "B-..." She was struck dumb for a second, then she shook her head like she was trying to make a thought disappear. "I - no, that's what honorable men do! Strength has only a little bit to do with it. You're not a hero..."

She trailed off at the end, dipping her head after a particularly agonized scream could be heard amongst the moaning hums. Yeah, maybe the screaming and moaning was putting her a little on edge, but she wouldn't admit that out loud. "Ugh, I - I wish they would just quit that. It's really distracting."

Alkaid ran off toward another box, one that was near the top of a stack. Oddly enough, all that was in the box was a thick stack of pictures. She inspected one, raised her eyebrows at the cheesy-looking blond guy wearing douche sunglasses in all of them, and then grabbed the whole wad of photos, stuffing them in her pants. Maybe this guy's stalker was trapped in here somewhere. She might be able to get a reward! This was like doing quests in The World, only way more dangerous.

"Hey, don't make fun of my deep philosophy." Why did people have so many issues with a little bit of love and friendship? Sometimes nonviolence was the answer. Especially if they weren't on Badou's side. Then nonviolence was always the answer.

As for not being a hero? Badou just shrugged. Being a hero was for dead people, and he liked not being dead. If the intercom was any indication, being dead, in fact, sucked a hell of a lot. That moaning certainly wasn't coming from 72 free virgins.

And if he happened to be making his way through his own cigarettes a little faster than usual, that didn't mean anything. He dropped a water pistol and a whoopie cushion into the pillow case, a chill creeping up his spine. If Alkaid hadn't mentioned it by now, he would have. "Distracting? It's fucking creepy a shit. Lemmie just grab a couple more things and we're outa' here, fuck this."

"Hey! I wasn't making fun!! All I'm saying is that sometimes you wouldn't be out of place in a magical girl show. Fighting One-Eyed Love Warrior, Sparkly Badou." She tried smiling back at him and winking, realizing halfway that there was no real feeling in it. Still, it was worth injecting the terrible situation with a little bit of lighthearted fun. Though she doubted it would do any good, not when the screams seemed like they'd gotten louder after this last creepy announcement.

She went on to another box, tossing the contents into a heap on the floor before pulling a set of dog tags from it. Dog tags, huh? Also fitting quest items. "Cause, you know, obviously we won't be able to hear this stuff other places in the Institute. My bet's that there's no escaping it. Still, I'll be done here in no time at all!"

Alkaid personally wasn't feeling the chill, but she could definitely also identify the moans in the air as creepy as shit. She gave a couple more boxes a cursory glance, realizing they were in some semblance of order, then spotted the 'K' section. Aha!

They had said her name was Eileen Kerrigan, right?

"If you call me that again I'm not talking to you anymore. Ever." For at least five minutes anyway. After that he'd probably cling to her waist and try to hide underneath the shirt she was wearing. Sure, it was just some creepy background noise, but he just had to look at how last night had turned out and think that was just the pre-show. Sure, the zombies were utter failures but - he'd failed to acquire cigarettes and dead people tried to eat him. Nothing in here was valuable enough to stick around for more of that.

At least Alkaid was almost done too. He felt kind of bad for coming all the way up here and just grabbing a handful of things, but Alle would understand that he was composed of 90% chicken shit and self-preservation.

The next box - the last box he was touching tonight - yielded cigarettes made of actual pure bliss nicotine fuck yeeeeeeah. He wouldn't feel bad about burning through his last pack tonight. Even as he lit another one the hair at the back of his neck was standing on end. It wasn't the stupid moaning, herald of Worse Things to Come. It was pretty much just the Worse Things lurking in the shadows somewhere, creeping cold. Watching. Maybe it was that Bowl Cut guy from last shift. Badou moved a little closer to Alkaid, whining, "Can we go now? Are we done?"

Ah, there it was. Eileen Kerrigan. Stupid name, and it didn't really fit her, but she didn't ask for it, so it was fine. At least she'd asked for the boobs and the bubble butt, and she'd gotten them after all, but... anyway, here was the box. She started digging through it.

She'd expected to find things like potions or rotting mangoes or strange-looking accessories in here, but there was nothing of the sort. Instead... there was an ancient-looking game system with a cracked screen, a couple of school supplies, and a cup-o-noodles. Chicken flavor.

At least her 'real life' self or whatever had her priorities straight.

Alkaid grasped the wondrous uncooked instant noodles in her lucky hand. Tonight had been a success.

"Sure you aren't. Anyway, Sparkles, I'm done here - hey, are you okay?" He was moving closer to her now, though she could have sworn she told him not to... Was he scared? She definitely was, but seeing him whine like this made her puff up a little bit, her shoulders a little straighter than they were before. She was the one with the bat, after all, which she had been holding under an arm while she rifled through the stuff.

"I'm --" Badou's shoulder bumped against one of the shelving units, toppling a box he'd unbalanced in his last raid. He didn't pay attention to the contents except for the bits that landed on his foot and demanded attention because owfuck. He cursed a little more than usual. Oh yeah, soak it in stalker. Delicious jumping moron.

He crouched down for a moment to make sure he hadn't broken his fucking foot in some stupid way for the third time in a week. What did he care if there was someone or something watching them from the shadows, right? He might die. He might not. Just like back home. Nothing was different except he had a whole new pack of cigarettes he needed to finish before he got himself killed. And Alkaid was there too. She might be pissed if anything happened. Badou willed himself to stop being a pussy. It didn't work.

"You don't feel that, Jiggle n' Bounce?" He asked, standing. He flashed his light around the room before it came to rest on the ground between them. Wait, was Alkaid holding..? "...And you realize that's not brains. It just looks a bit like that on the container."

Chapter Four: Stay Classy.

Unfortunately, before their playful bantering could continue, something had situated itself at the entrance of the room.

Its movements had been slow, feet dragging against the floor as it followed the noise that had led it to a pair of redheads. The lurcher paid no mind to anything else, hunched form stopping right at the foot of the door.

For those few precious seconds it was as still as stone; the only hints of its presence were the heavy breaths and the horrid stench that trailed out from its matted hair.

And then it suddenly let out a roar, rushing at the pair with its fist held high before swinging down.

[Brenda]

Alkaid watched as whatever was in the box landed on his foot. She was looking at him this time - she had been a little worried, even though she knew someone she'd judged good enough to run around in a party with her should be fine.

When he asked her if she felt it, she shook her head. "Nope, only thing I feel is my arm rotting off. Oh, and I feel like a delicious Badou-neck sandwich, but bats aren't great for scraping meat off bones, so I'm gonna have to take a raincheck on that one, ha ha!" She tried to put a little bit of extra confidence in her voice, stepping a little closer. Still, the worry was probably evident in her eyes. She was just tsundere like that. "What is it, though?"

She was pulling the instant ramen protectively to her chest when she heard the heavy breathing of the monster behind her. And then her body reacted.

First step: protect the goods. She shoved the ramen in his pillowcase.

Second step: equip. She dropped her flashlight, electing to go with two hands on the bat. Her body wasn't made to wield two-handed weapons, but this was a bat!

Third step: pwn. "Get back!" She swung the bat upward, trying her best to knock the huge fist out of the way with it. All her strength was behind the blow, 'cause Badou didn't have a weapon, and the thing was blocking their only exit... She probably had to fight this thing alone.

And now Alkaid was worrying about him right after telling him she had a strange urge to eat his neck and scrape his bones clean with a baseball bat. Why were all of Badou's relationships so awesome? He felt like that one chick in all the horror movies except Alkaid had gotten the epic boobs so he was definitely the canon fodder one nobody liked anyway.

On the bright side, the thing that emerged from the shadows was only Luxord in serious need of a bath and oh wait, there was no bright side. He tossed the pillow case over his shoulder, unwilling to part with it, and shined his flashlight at the creature's eyes...or the area where they should be anyway.

"Alkaid, fuck that, get back here!" She was right: Badou had no intention of fighting that thing. They only needed to get around it and out the door, so luring it back sounded like much better plan than trying to take anything head-on.

Instead of flesh and bone the lurcher's fist connected with the bat, a loud clang filling the air as it pulled its fist back from the sudden attack. However, before it could recover and attack a second time, a bright light suddenly seeped through its matted hair and into its eyes, causing the lurcher to roar angrily.

Unable to locate its prey, the best raised both its fists and swung blindly down in front of it.

Her bat busted against the ape's giant fist, and Alkaid grinned in spite of herself. Yeah, it had worked, even though the bat had made a sickening sort of sound, a kind of craaack that made her wonder how much longer she'd be able to use this weapon of hers...

The monster paused and roared, so Alkaid held the bat in front of her, jumping back handily when the monster blindly swung. Off by a mile. Her stance was defensive; she knew that the best thing to do was to get away, but sometimes the best defense was a good offense.

Badou was urging her to get back, but Alkaid wouldn't hear of it. "And let ourselves get cornered? Yeah, right! I'm trying to create an opening for you, so take it!"

She backed away from the door a little, kind of in a diagonal direction from the entrance, hoping to draw its attention away from Badou and towards her.

And it was hard to get that sort of predatory instinct out of her head - like Mr. One-Eyed Love Warrior was her prey, not this stupid monster's.

Oh, of course, she was trying to create an opening for him. That was all well an good because Badou was all for the path of least resistance except Alkaid hadn't mentioned the part where she somehow magically escaped after him. Unless she was planning on bouncing the thing off her tits into hell, Badou was having none of this bullshit. He'd lectured Haine about it enough that it was a sacred creed: you didn't leave your partner behind. Death was a piss poor excuse, even for pussies.

So hey, it looked like he was sticking around. "Make it good! I don't want an opening into the next life!"

His cigarette had burned out, leaving just the chill and the monster. He backed away diagonally, moving off a bit towards the opposite side, still close enough to sprint for the door if he could get near it.

In the end the lurcher didn't really care which one of the two fell, and it showed this by following after the voice from the shorter redhead. Its previous attack had missed, but it wasn't long before he raised its fists again and swung at the one with the bat.

While Alkaid's current weapon wasn't the best suited for her, she was realizing that the fight was really only a matter of distancing herself from the situation enough that she could think of this as almost a puzzle event in a game - just that this body was capable of doing better things than it normally could. And that there was no save point she could revert to.

With that framework in mind, Alkaid nodded. "Yeah, no problem - I'll figure it out!"

The fists were fast though, which she wasn't expecting so much as she should, and ended up hitting her hard in her damn zombie arm as she raised the bat. The pain of rotting away was already so intense that the sound of the brittle, half-rotten bone cracking didn't quite register so much as the simple fact that she'd been hit. She didn't scream, instead hissing in through her teeth, the tears welling up in her eyes. She didn't want Badou to hear the agony.

If it was her turn to act, she would: she fell into the boxes behind her, kicking and flailing her intact limbs so that boxes full of stuff, hopefully marbles or something, fell over into the walkway, so the thing would maybe, just maybe, trip, and they could make a run for it...

The bag full of goods and the flashlight clattered to the floor barely a second after the sound of breaking bone. Badou was already sprinting before his mind caught up to ask his legs what the fuck they thought they were doing. It was too late for that now. Pulling a vial of acid free of the little satchel he was still wearing, the only thing going through his head was destroydestroydestroy

"DESTROY~!" Badou leapt at the creature from behind, trying to grab onto its back and ride it like the world's ugliest...smelly ugly thing so he could smash the vial of acid into its face, its eyes -- anything he could reach. The glass would cut and burn his own hand too but the important thing was destroydestroydes- "GO PONY!"

No amount of satisfaction was felt when the lurcher finally hit its opponent, watching as she fell back into the pile of boxes and began to kick them around. The monster stepped forward with every intention of chasing after her when something suddenly jumped on its back. Completely distracted from its first victim, it tried to reach back to grab the offender, but before it could something smashed right into its face, glass cutting into its skin.

But then its entire face began to burn and the lurcher let out a wild roar in pain, swinging its limbs wildly around as it tried to throw off the weight on top of it.

Alkaid was caught in a web of confusion as she was hit with a bazillion different and startling facts: that her zombified arm was somewhat impossibly twisted underneath its bandages, and that the rot was not the only malady that had afflicted her. Also, the monster was coming for her, and - Badou was trying to ride the giant, crude beast, yelling about destroying and ponies. Idiot!! What was he doing!? And then she could hear shattering glass and the sizzling of flesh.

She stared, horrified, at the enormity of the sight before her, Badou's expression barely visible over the monster's disgusting back. He almost looked like a monster himself, in some kind of blind rage... Was he a berserker or something?

The former Demon Palace Emperor wasn't personally trained in combat arts. All she knew about strategy was what she used in The World and what she learned from war histories (which was pretty interesting, actually.) But she knew what she had to do well enough. Her arm almost hurt too hard for her to move, but damn skippy that adrenaline was pumping. She scrambled up and made like hell for the door. Strategic retreat!!

When they finally got to a safe place, she would punch him really damn hard for being such an idiot, trying to save her like this. And then she'd probably light his cigarette for him. ~~And then she might try to bite him.~~ Stupid idiot man, going this far...

Badou dug his fingers in, glass ripping deep into his palm, acid searing the skin of that hand while the other was clinging to matted, disgusting hair. He held on. He was aware of Alkaid making a break for it, and of every joint in his body going I DOTH FUCKING PROTEST but the pain lit him up like fireworks and Badou just laughed and laughed.

If Haine was here, he'd have bitten the thing's face off, but Badou liked to think he had better taste.

Two things happened at once just then: he saw a flicker of red, a familiar face out the corner of his eye, and then the creature's wildly flung fist connected and Badou hit the ground hard. Abruptly everything snapped into focus. He must have dislocated his shoulder because he couldn't really move that arm anymore as he tried to push himself far enough away so he could scramble to his feet and maybe run without being hit by those fists again. He wasn't really staring at the thing while he backed away, but at the darkness behind it. He should have run all along. The steady litany in his mind sounded just the same even if now that it was just saying Dave.

Edited 2009-09-18 14:59 (UTC)

Feeling its fist connect with something, the lurcher had twisted its body in order to propel the thing even farther away. However, its entire face burned as glass and acid continued to cut and eat away its flesh, leaving it completely blind as it moved about in the darkness. Boxes were thrown everywhere as the monster searched for its prey, its movements frantic with rage.

Alkaid, shaking from the adrenaline, couldn't feel her arm, just the shaking and the pounding in her heart. She clambered past the monster and her nightshift companion, who was laughing in an evil supervillain way that should have scared her. But the situation was pretty much already as scary as it could get, what with the countdown and the screaming...

She turned back when she heard the thump, and the monster tossing boxes, and noticed Badou was on the floor, scuttling and-

Geez, was the thing going right for him or what? She had to go back for him! What kind of person would she be if she didn't!?

So she ran back the couple of feet it took to reach Badou, bending and grabbing for his hand. When she locked her fingers with his, there was this wild hope that burned in her - they would get out of this alive, both of them.

She was opening her mouth to say his name, but then it all went black.

Nightshift was over.

Nightshift 43: Patient Possessions Storage

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