damned_institute | Day 44: breakfast

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Day 44: breakfast

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay, last night had gone from incredible to just plain freaky.

HK wasn't there when he woke up this morning, probably already gone to breakfast. Oh, and apparently Landel was back. Wasn't that just peachy?

Lockdown let himself be led away to get breakfast and gathered some food. He tried to think about his time with HK last night, instead of what had happened to that girl.

He found himself an empty table, and, as usual, started his meal by nibbling on a piece of fruit.

[For Beatrix]

If Beatrix hadn't already survived a point blank bullet to the head, she might not have believed that recovering form what should have thoroughly killed a person was possible. The last thing she remembered from the night before, aside from being extremely pissed off, was her heart exploding several steps from the table. It was if she'd suffered the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique herself. She'd only ever used it once - on Bill.

And yet, she was alive. And still pissed off. What better way to calm her rage than to mess with the snake-bitch. The Bride pinned the black card she'd taken from Ophelia's sword the previous night onto the board before heading to the cafeteria to get something to eat. While in line, she spotted the man from Doyleton, the one she'd helped steal lotion. The tattoos, the knowledge of the lotion and his voice, the few visible marks...

Lockdown. How had she not made the connection before?

She fixed the Cybertronian with her cold eyes before sitting down across from him. "Did you enjoy your night?"

Lockdown froze for a nanoklik when he heard a familiar voice. It was that female assassin, the one who had tried to attack him when he had Special Counciling, and who had helped him get the lotion yesterday. She looked mad.

She knew HK, so did she know what had gone on between them last night? The bounty hunter swallowed his fruit and gave her an equally cold look, "For your information, I did. What's it to you?"

The assassin carefully and calmly cut her food.

"The next time you decide to fuck HK-47, I would appreciate it if you make sure to be finished with him by the time the doors open for the night," she stated. "I do not take kindly to my plans being disrupted by such matters."

Lockdown guessed that 'fuck' was another term for human sex. Couldn't humans make up their minds about what to call things?

"Oh, don't blow a fuse," Lockdown replied. "I didn't break him," Too badly. Wasn't his fault HK had passed out almost right after it happened, and again when they'd been woken up by the explosion.

Beatrix was not amused. "I do not care if you broke him or not; he'd eventually heal. I simply would like him capable of joining SubZero and myself when he says he will."

She quietly chewed her food. "Do whatever you want to him; just make sure he is functional and at the meeting point afterward." It was a simple request given the two were roommates and had plenty of time beforehand. If the Cybertronian was incapable of following such guideline, the Bride would simply castrate him.

"Fine," Lockdown replied. "I'll fuck 'im quick and hope he doesn't pass out again. Happy now?" Lockdown had come to learn how dangerous this woman was. For one, she wasn't afraid to jump onto a moving vehicle, and hadn't even flinched after he revealed that he wasn't just a car. Second, he'd seen what she'd done to Blitzwing. On thing was for sure, Lockdown did not want to piss this human off.

"No," Beatrix replied, "but that will do." For now.

She was silent for a long moment before speaking again. "I am curious, Lockdown... Why do you even have an interest in human copulation? It doesn't seem like something an inorganic life form would be concerned with."

"Fine," Lockdown repeated, and once again started nibbling on his food.

He shrugged at her question. "Actually, I think it's kinda gross for the most part," After the act had first been explained to him, the bounty hunter had practically felt like emptying his stomach. Cybertronian lovemaking wasn't so sticky and didn't involve putting flesh into flesh. "I've just had some interfacin' tension in me since this bot I liked rejected me. It was either learn to like sex or else never get rid of the tension. Lucky enough, HK just happens to be my type." Cute, tough, and badaft. Just like Prowl.

Beatrix raised an eyebrow. "And masturbation never crossed your mind?"

She then shook her head. "Forget I asked that."

Lockdown just stared at her for a few nanokliks with narrowed optics and slightly parted lips, as if she had just asked him if he was the Fallen's secret protoform.

"Gladly," He doubted he even wanted to know what she was talking about.

Beatrix easily changed subjects.

"I spoke to Depth Charge the other day about the Decepticons," she began. "Do you identify yourself as one, or do you just work for them?"

Well, at least they were now on a different subject. One Lockdown could easily talk about.

"Don't wear the brand, but I sometimes consider myself one by default. Got no loyalty to Megatron or any Decepticons. I just work for them when they got the payment."

"If you hold no loyalty to the Decepticons, why do you default yourself to being one?" The Bride raised her eyebrow. "Is there something against being an independent in your society?"

This whole Decepticon/Autobot thing better not be like Republicans and Democrats.

Lockdown shrugged. "They pay better, and most Autobots only hire me as a last resort. Besides, plenty of Decepticons go off and do their own thing without giving a slag about Megatron." Most notably that half-organic freak, and especially Starscream. "Defaulting myself to one is more a formality than anything else. Some bots don't trust Neutrals." They were right to do so in his case, though. He'd turn on his employer in a nanoklik if someone else made him a better deal, no matter what faction either party was.

"Would the Autobots hire you more often if you aligned with them by default instead of the Decepticons?"

Beatrix was of the opinion that anyone that needed to hire a mercenary would be better off choosing an independent than an affiliated. Less ties that way.

Lockdown shrugged again, "Maybe. Of course, I do have a bit of a reputation. Not a whole lot of Autobots are willing to hire a monster like me. The Elite Guard only hire me if they're desperate."

Okay, so he wasn't that well-known on Cybertron. The only people who really knew about him were the top bots in the Elite Guard, some of Megatron's personal squadron, and a few back alley bots. Everyone else usually found Lockdown by reccommendation and most of the time the bounty hunter just scanned the broadcast waves for potential jobs. Most bots sent out messages that they had a bounty one someone's head in the hopes that anyone would take the job.

Monster? How amusing of Lockdown to think himself as such.

"I take it the Elite Guard are whomever leads the Autobots' personal unit? Interesting... I've not heard anything about their leader."

"Yep, they're the top Autobots. The ones who lead the whole army," Lockdown informed. "The top Guard is this old relic, Ultra Magnus. 'Course, he is pretty tough for an old relic. Has a nice hammer that'd make a sweet addition to my collection." The bounty hunter grinned while saying that last sentense. Sometimes he wished Megatron would just hire him to take out the Magnus so he could get his hands on that hammer.

"A collection. I see..." A trophy hunter. Those were oddly easy to manipulate. Lucky for Lockdown, the Bride had no desire to manipulate him.

"Who leads the Autobots these days?"

"Yep. Got a whole room full of trophies back on my ship." By the way, just what had they done with his ship when the institute took him? Was it hidden somewhere on the grounds in disguise? Or was it floating around aimlessly back in his own universe?

"Same bot as it's been for the past few million stellar-cycles, Ultra Magnus."

"I see..." Just what did he do with all those trophies?

Her lip quirked up. "So, in a fair fight, who would win - Ultra Magnus or Megatron?"

Lockdown put a hand to his tattooed chin in thought. "Hm, never thought about it." The bounty hunter didn't pay much attention to politics, and thus never had a reason to actually think about that kind of thing. "'Course, seein' as how the Autobots won the war, I'm guessing that means Magnus kicked Megs' skidplate more than once."

"Wars are not won by the individual strength of each side's leader," the Bride pointed out, "but usually by shear numbers or advanced technology." The former was why the Union had determined the outcome of the Civil War and the later that of World War II.

"Yeah, that's true," Lockdown agreed. "Actually, now that I think about it, the only reason the Autobots won in the first place was because of that Project Omega thing." He'd seen that thing in action a couple of times on vidscreens, but had never really encountered it himself. He'd deduced a long time ago that that thing was what the access codes in that intel bot's processor were for. How they'd gotten it online when the codes had been erased he'd never quite figured out, however.

Day 44: breakfast

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