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]

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Morning. Again. And again, he'd forgotten his injuries and tried to sit up. He wasn't sure if he was just deterred by the pain or if there was really something wrong with the muscles in his back, or front, or sides or whatever - it didn't matter, though, because soon the nurse came with a chair to roll him around like an exhibit. It was getting annoying being dependant on someone else to even move, or talk on the bulletin.

The last thing he remembered was being wheeled to his room the day before, but he'd been strangely tired - he took it as a sign that his body was healing, that it was using energy to repair itself, even though he had no idea if that was how that worked.

As he made his way to the cafeteria, he realized that he was leaving a different hallway than before. He asked his nurse to make a post on the board before breakfast, and also badgered her with questions.

"That's not the same room I usually wake up in. Why aren't I in 98?"

"Oh, someone else was moved into that room while you were recovering from your injuries. You're in M109 now."

"What about... the other guy... Harry?"

"Don't worry, he was released the same time you were injured, so the room was empty. Isn't that nice for him?"

Forte doubted that Harry had actually been 'released' but didn't argue. Finally, he reached the cafeteria. He refused to let her spoon-feed him like the day before, but she brought him a large cup of some kind of liquid. It was large enough to hold with his injured hand, and with an exasperated explanation, she told him how to drink it with a straw.

When she finally left, it was time to wait for someone to try to talk to him... hopefully, Sechs would find him.

It was just a monster... It wasn't supposed to be him. His nearly broken identity was still intact. Nothing to worry about... What a satisfying victory that was!

And yet... Why did Sechs still feel so damn awful?

The Replica got his answer as soon as his amber eyes fluttered open to find that he was once again back in his bed. Ah dammit... I'm still stuck in this stupid hell hole! And we didn't even get to look for Trunks... He figured there would have been enough time in the night for him and Kibitoshin to continue their search after the fight in the bathroom. Yet he couldn't recall leaving the bloody bathroom in the first place... This was really screwed up...

As Sechs gathered his thoughts and memories from the night before, his perplexed and tired brain was suddenly greeted by a rush of pain. His right arm was throbbing even more now but it was nothing compared to the wound in his right thigh. Despite feeling the texture of medical gauze wrapped around his leg, the torn muscles still pulsed with intense pain. Was he even going to be able to walk now?

Barely able to repress his pained grunts, Sechs struggled to sit himself up against the head board, only to find his battered arm and leg to be too stiff and painful to move much. Undeterred by this inconvenience, Sechs rolled himself off the bed and landed upon the floor in a tangle of bed sheets with a dull thud. After that it took what felt like hours for Sechs to painfully heave himself up to his feet and store his somewhat clean axe into the closet.

It wasn't long before a nurse carrying a pair of crutches entered the room and it took even less time for Sechs to start his usual snarling and yelling at his unlucky nurse.

"I don't need no STINK'EN crutches!!"

"But Mr. Sasaki! The injury you got by accident yesterday must still make walking for your difficult! You don't want to tear the stitches--"

"Accident?!" Sechs barged in with a scoff "no one just gets a BIG ASS piece of glass shoved in their leg while they're sleeping! How 'bout that explosion last night too?! Or that Landel guy? Did he come back from the dead as some zombie or something?!"

"Mr. Sasaki! You must have been dreaming!" The nurse admonished him, "there wasn't any sort of explosion last night! Dr. Landel and everything else is just fine! Perhaps you should talk about that dream to your therapist tomorrow-"

"Ah FORGET YOU!" Sechs snarled with a frustrated wave of his arms. "Geeze! I can walk on my own! Just gimme food and some pain killers!" With a growl Sechs turned his back to his nurse and began his painful limp down the hallway as he added, "and STOP calling me that DAMN name!"

By the time Sechs had dragged himself into the cafeteria and gathered his food, he was already scouring the area for any signs of purple hair. Whether it was Trunks or this Frank person, Sechs would pick out the first one he spotted. He wasn't in the grandest mood and wanted to sit down and take the weight off his leg as soon as possible.

Then he spotted a bandaged-up youth with long purple hair sitting in a wheelchair. Sechs limped towards the stranger so fast that his drink nearly toppled off his tray. He was real curious about this "Frank" but he was also anxious to sit down; his leg was killing him!

"You Frank?" Sechs brusquely asked once he had placed his tray on the table and heavily dropped himself onto his chair across from the stranger.

Edited 2009-09-21 00:44 (UTC)

Forte looked up at the stranger. This must be Sechs, unless someone decide to intercept their messages (although he never said anything that interesting... the nurse made sure of that). He certainly looked like a fighter, with the same marks Forte would look for in himself - injuries from battle, tough attitude... and yes, dammit, he was bigger than Forte. If this guy really was a robot that had changed bodies, he'd know that it didn't matter how small (or young) Forte looked.

He smiled at the man, trying to act cool. "Please, my real name is Forte. And I'm the strongest Super Fighting Robot in the world."

The former android sized up the shorter patient. "Damn... This guy looks like he just survived being processed in Factory 33..." he thought to himself. Sechs just managed to make it through a fight with one mirror creature the night before, yet this kid looked like he'd been attacked by several of those reflective nightmares... The second thing that grabbed Sechs' attention were the red markings that adorned the stranger's face. They looked strikingly similar to the eye black that other fighters such as himself used. Whether it was through paint, blood or metal plates, it was usually standard for a Künstler like him to bear such markings... Alita always had hers...

Sechs nodded with a smirk. "Ah, Forte! Gotcha. I'm Sechs, although you probably already know that." That name sounded a lot more suitable for a fighter than just regular 'ol "Frank". It must have been a name those stupid staff members slapped on him... Like that stupid "Cody" name. Bleugh...

And then came the rest of his introduction. "Strongest Super Fighting Robot in the world?!" Sechs would have been offended by such an outlandish claim; he knew a few people who deserved such a title, including himself. Instead, Sechs' smirk shifted into a challenging grin that spread from cheek to cheek. An aggressive glint flickered in his yellow eyes as stared down the so called "super fighting robot". For a brief moment Sechs forgot the pain in his leg or the food on his plate; this potential challenge was far too good to ignore!

"Really? You think so, huh?" Sechs spoke with an amused tone in his gruff voice. Disregarding his food for now, Sechs leaned his left elbow on the table to prop his chin upon his palm. His toothy sneer widened. "What fighting style do ya use then? Those stripes under yer eyes... You a fighter of the Panzer Kunst arts?"

Edited 2009-09-21 06:09 (UTC)

...fighting style? That wasn't really a question Forte had expected, or had an answer for. And armored... something? He'd never heard of it. Still, Sechs's enthusiastic reaction was what Forte had been hoping for.

"I shoot things, that's my style. I could show you if I had my real body, but it sounds like you've got the same problem."

Sechs' sneer faltered at Forte's response. He just shot things? Was that it? Sechs himself was pretty good with firearms and his Solenoid Quench gun but he was hoping for something a tad more... interesting. Forte didn't seem to know what Panzer Kunst was in the first place and that somewhat disappointed Sechs. It helped to know that Sechs wasn't the only one who was once cyborg before ending up here, but it would have been nice to find someone who came from the Scrapyard as well, never mind know what he was talking about.

With his chin still rested upon his palm, Sechs awkwardly grasped a fork with his braced hand and then firmly stabbed it into the center of his French toast. The challenging flare in his eyes burned on towards Forte.

"Uh huh." Sechs growled, his sneer now shrunk back into his smirk. "Well, let me tell ya something. Panzer Kunst is a cyborg-only style that's made some of the best fighters in the world, even the whole universe. If all you got is some pop-gun, I'd say you'd need a bit more than that to prove to me that you're the 'world's strongest super-duper robot'!"

With his challenge thrown out to the fellow robot, Sechs tore out a piece of the impaled French toast and shoved it in his mouth. His pretentious smirk still fixed upon his lips.

Between talking, Forte took a sip of his "meal" - it was a bit sweet, like fruit in liquid form. Not bad, actually.

At Sechs's challenge, though, he slammed it onto the table again, "I don't have a pop-gun, I am my own cannon. Or I could just copy the weapons of any robot I defeat." ...was, actually but that was beside the point. "...and just because I don't have my own body now doesn't mean I can't kick your butt."

Gulping down his morsel (which didn't taste too bad actually...) Sechs responded to Forte slamming his drink down by loudly ramming his own fork into another part of his French Toast.

"A cannon who can copy other weapons, huh? Now that sounds better!" Sechs' smile started to return, but he still spoke to Forte in a mocking manner; he wasn't ready to take the fellow android seriously just yet. "What specs does your cannon have? It better not be some cheap kid's toy!"

Once he had shoved in the second chunk of his breakfast, the nurse who pestered him earlier suddenly approached his side with a small paper cup of pills.

"Here are your pain killers Mr. Sasaki--"

Yet she barely had a chance to finish her sentence when Sechs' hand flashed out to snatch the cup away from her. Mouth still full of food, Sechs meant to say "GIMME!" but instead it came out more like a "MMPH MEH!!"

Looking absolutely offended by Sechs' utterly rude behavior, the nurse gave out an indigent huff. "Now what do you say after being given something?" she asked in a tone more bitter than sweet.

Sechs frowned in what appeared to be deep thought as he finished consuming his food. Once his mouth was clear enough to speak, Sechs replied, "uh... Screw off?"

And with that the nurse gave out a haughty "hmph!" and was off to care for less barbaric patients. All of which happened in less than five seconds flat.

"As I was saying..." Sechs continued before throwing down his pain killers, "get yourself fixed up first, then we can see about who can do the butt-kicking!" After he took a drink to wash down the pills Sechs added, "speaking of which, what the hell happened to ya?!"

"My Forte Buster can rapid-fire super-heated plasma, or copy any other robot's weapon. And when I fuse with Gospel with a Super Adapter, I can charge charge it for large blasts, or just fire my arm as a rocket. I also have air-dash capability, or with Gospel I can actually fly."

Forte watched with amusement as Sechs grabbed his painkillers (they had those? Why didn't anyone tell Forte he could stop pain with some pills?), and sipped more of his smoothie.

"There are some pretty serious monsters here. I was on a mission with another 'bot to get supplies for explosives, when we a giant cat-thing attacked us. And just so you know - we got the supplies back; and I look like this, but the cat-thing is dead."

Sechs listened to the shorter patient with growing curiosity. That weapon of his sounded pretty good. The messy-haired Replica couldn't help but wonder how his past Solenoid Quench gun would do against Forte's Buster. Yet he wasn't quite so sure on how Forte's weapon could ever copy Sechs' electromagnetic cannon... Sechs would be pretty impressed if Forte's gun was able to pull off such a mechanical feat.

Sechs' sharp eyebrows perked up at the mentioning of the machine that Forte fused with. "Gospel? That some sort of robot or vehicle?" Sechs questioned. Forte's description mildly reminded Sechs of the various machines and support systems offered by G.I.B to their TUNED Agents. Yet Sechs was unable to take advantage of such powers for very long, the corporation that created Sechs fell shortly after his creation...

"Tell me about it!" Sechs grunted. Feeling stiff and uncomfortable in his seat, Sechs leaned back against his chair and stretched his wounded leg out. He carefully laid his splinted hand upon the spot where the piece of mirror had punctured into his thigh. Despite the sharp pangs that shot up his leg, Sechs managed to fell out a row of stitches wrapped in a layer of bandages underneath his pant leg. Feeling such unnatural, bumps on his flesh made Sechs wince slightly with pain and disgust.

Avoiding the fresh memories of the mirror flashing deep into his leg, Sechs drove his attention back to Forte. "So you managed to kill the monster that attacked ya, huh?" he responded with a nod of his head. This guy was really starting to sound like a worthy warrior to challenge! "Must have been a pretty huge cat to cause all that damage! But if you killed it, then I'd say you sound like you got some good battling skills!"

Or it could have been that Forte just had less luck and skill to fight without surviving the ordeal by the skin of his teeth...

"I had a rumble with a monster last night too actually." Sechs began his own boasting with an ever growing smirk, "killed the nasty thing myself! I got a..." Suddenly Sechs words were cut off by a repressed grunt of pain. Damn, his leg hurt...! The Replica's hand clutched at the wound in a futile attempt to stem off the pain before he continued in a strained voice, "...souvenir from it but in the end I won."

Forte smirked at the way the question about Gospel was raised. Was he a robot or vehicle? "Yes. He's a wolf, that was built... for me, as my support unit. My first mission was to steal the Super Adapter designs to make the Gospel Boost, but he can also transform and fly on his own." He continued with the same pride in his voice, but there was some hesitation. Gospel was the only one he really missed from his home (world, or dimension, or whatever) - aside from being himself, of course. In fact, having Gospel at his side, let alone the Gospel Boost was part of being himself.

He was impressed by Sech's injury, but it seemed more painful to him than Forte's were. Possibly because he'd been walking on it, while Forte was just sitting in this chair (it had definitely hurt when he tried to sit up in bed), or because his injury was fresh, while Forte had been... unconscious for several days before waking up. He didn't even know what his skin looked like under the bandages... certainly didn't want to know. But at the moment, without moving, it was just a dull throbbing that he could ignore if he didn't think about it.

Or maybe Sechs just couldn't handle the pain as well... but if he'd been able to kill his attacker, like Forte, that wasn't very likely.

Speaking of which... "Well, Depth Charge was there as well," he admitted, with a helping of false modesty. "It attacked me first, so I kept it busy and attacked when I could, while he got it from behind. It kept darting around, though, so it got me in the side," he pointed to the plentiful bandages on his torso, "I grabbed it and held it down while Depth Charge finished it off." Sure, it wasn't quite him killing it himself, but he was still pretty proud. And... he might not have actually attacked it himself, but the exact details once he was one the ground were hazy, at best (for example, he was pretty sure he was wrong about how his left hand had been injured, he certainly didn't stab himself, so he was remembering it wrong).

"Next time, I'll get a weapon first, so I have something to really block with besides this weak body."

"Ahh...! I see now!" Sechs exclaimed with a pleased nod of his head. "That Gospel of yours sounds pretty fun to fight! I had a smaller robot version of myself to help me in battles too before." Mini-Sechs never could transform or fly or anything fancy like that, but she was still a vital part of Sechs and his battles.

The Replica took note of the other robot's name. Depth Charge, eh? Sounds like a good name for a deadly fighter... "And you survived all that, huh?" Sechs spoke with a lightly impressed grin. "Creatures like that don't stand a chance when they're up against cyborgs, but in bodies like these they're... challenging." In a more life or death situation than in a fun way unfortunately...

Sechs nodded with a gruff 'hmph' of acknowledgment. Hearing that he wasn't the only one who struggled with the organic body he was put into helped Sechs feel a bit better. It didn't change the situation or get him back his Fizziroy body, but not being alone on the matter did take some of the edge off his frustration.

"Yeah, that chicken shit Landel took everything away from us." Sechs bitterly grumbled. "Everyone definitely needs to get some sort of weapon here. These bodies are too breakable... If I was still in my Fizziroy body last night, I wouldn't have this pain-in-the-ass injury right now." Sechs scowled at his leg before adding, "what I was stabbed with last night would have just bounced off then. It wouldn't have even left a scratch!" Even hollow-point bullets couldn't leave a mere dent in his head when he was still cyborg, a piece of glass would have simply shattered upon hitting his skin. "We gotta adapt to whatever this hell hole throws at us." Sechs added in a serious tone.

Dang... Finding another worthy opponent and all this talk of battles was making Sechs antsy for action! If only he could have some sort of fight right now! Maybe if he challenged Forte to an arm wrestle... Wait, both of their arms weren't in good shape... Oh, maybe a thumb-war? ...Nah. Staring contest? ...no. Crap, this sucked...

Picking up from where he had left of his breakfast, Sechs gave Forte a less hostile grin. "When we get outta here and return to our original forms, I wanna battle with ya and see if you really are the strongest fighting robot!" With a chunk of French toast stuck on his fork, Sechs pointed the utensil at Forte as he added, "in the mean time, when we get ourselves repaired - erm, I mean - healed or whatever, I'd be no more than happy to have a spar with ya! How does that sound?"

That's right, he'd forgotten about the "Mini-sechs" that Sechs had been talking about when Forte started 'eavesdropping'. He had to admit, a small copy of himself would be a little... creepy, if only because of Wily's habit of trying to replace him. And his own problem establishing his identity.

"Yeah, that cat wouldn't be able to scratch my real body. I wouldn't have even let it get close. But I've had to fight without armor or a real weapon. It hurts, but... it's also fun like this."

Forte tried to stand at the challenge, on reflex, but winced and leaned back again. "Alright! I'm trying to get another prisoner to heal me, so don't get too relaxed just because I'm so torn up."

He also wanted to ask about Sechs's own powers and weaponry besides Mini-Sechs. Unfortunately, the announcement came on to signal the end of the shift, and he didn't get to decide where he was going next - they considered him a "child" to his aggravation. The nurse was already coming to fetch him. "You'll have to tell me about this 'Panzer Kunst' later."

Edited 2009-09-25 00:57 (UTC)

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Day 44: breakfast

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