damned_institute | Nightshift 45: East Wing, Hall A [First Floor]

He'd figured as much, but he didn't want to bring it up. Besides, at the moment, it wasn't terribly important.

Chris moved a bit ahead of Sean, trying doors and ignoring the way that little voice in him mind kept trying to convince him he could pick a lock, or kick it down or anything equally as silly. "I-I think they're all locked," he managed to stammer out.

[Has been running flat out since here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/753420.html?thread=62143500#t62143500).]

"Why are you even bothering with this?" Schuldig snarled when the boys were finally in eyesight again, slowing his run to purposeful, angry stalk. He wasn't even winded - speed was one of his few physical talents(out of those that could be discussed in polite company, anyway), so simple running wasn't going to cause him to truly exert himself, at least not yet - but he was growing increasingly irritated. "I'm faster than you are, and I've got longer legs. Even if you run from one side of the institute to the other, do you really think I couldn't catch you if I wanted to? You're just ensuring that when I do eventually corner you, I'll be angry."

"I know, I know!" Sean hissed, trying to think clearly. All of the offices were locked. Maybe they could try the group therapy rooms further down the--

The thought gave way to panic when he heard Schuldig coming at the end of the hallway. This had been taken further than Sean had originally intended. He wished he'd never left his room. He wished that they could find someone who worked during the night. He wished Schuldig wasn't coming at him and Chris holding a hatchet.

Any coherent response or urging for Chris to run again was lost. Schuldig, angry and with a hatchet, was not something he wanted to be close to.

He groped in the dark for Chris' arm, wide-eyed and nearly immobile. Once he had it, he took off blindly--not even sure where he was going at this point.

(To here. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/762094.html))

[From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/760443.html?thread=62484091#t62484091)]

It seems they'd made it to their destination - or one of them, at least - without incident. Hime's flashlight revealed the line of doors down either side of the hallway, doctor's offices judging by the signs on them.

"It seems you both have singular enemies; that must give you some sense of confidence when facing them," she commented dryly, inspecting the doors. "I get the excitement of never knowing what will be trying to kill me next."

Walking up to a door at random, she tried the handle. Locked.

"I assume there's no particular order you want to pillage, ransack and loot?" she asked the other two, taking a step back from the door. She smiled at Teresa, indicating the locked doorknob then the warrior's weapon. "Care to do the honors?"

"So, it seems," Teresa replied to Allen. "I have been told from another that they believe I am from a place called Australia." Granted that had been Rolo with the assumption that Brittania was the land across the water. She really didn't care, especially knowing what she knew now of that incident with Euphemia.

Either Hime thought Allen was dumb or naive - possibly both - with that comment about creatures other than humans possessing blood. Teresa was starting to think the girl was trying too hard to scare the boy. It was like watching a younger version of herself try a new game and being a bit overzealous and not realizing that the true art in scaring humans came from subtly letting the humans realize exactly how powerless they were and delivering subtle threats through perceived 'rumors'. Ah well, Hime was still young. She had ample time to refine her technique by the time she either died or assumed the throne.

"Youma are as varied as humans," Teresa pointed out, "and not the only enemy I must contend with. They are simply the most numerous. And it is my skill that gives me confidence, not my opponent" Had Hime forgotten about the Awakened or, in Teresa's case, the Organization itself?

The hallway itself yielded nothing but closed doors, lacking the scent of youma other than what was clinging to Allen and his Innocence. It seemed Hime had chosen a door and as Teresa had no specific destination in mind, she did not object. It would still grant her what she'd been wishing - knowledge of the area. And yet, Hime believed...

Ah. Ah hahaha. Clever girl.

The phrasing concealed the order just enough that the girl probably assumed Teresa would not take offense. Though, it did make her wonder what they would do if she refused. Still, the tall warrior had already decided the moment the door was discovered locked, before Hime opened her mouth, that she would handle the lock. Clearly, the girl expected her to use her weapon.

Her expression unreadable, Teresa's eyes moved from Hime to the door in question. She gave no indication that the other two should give her room to use the six foot long piece of metal across her back. In fact, she made no move for the weapon, instead running her fingers down the door to the lock, examining the lock. It was a tad bit rusted and looked weak, much like the one on the shed outside had. This was a waste of her strength, but she didn't mind letting these two get a glimpse of what they were dealing with. Especially, Hime as the girl seemed so... interested.

Grasping the knob in her hand, Teresa turned it sharply and pushed forward and down in a singular quick motion, accompanied by the sound of snapping metal. When she pulled her hand back, the knob came with it and the door swung a bit open.

Stepping back, there was a bit of amusement barely seen in the warrior's silver eyes as she gestured for Hime to lead the way into the now-open room. "After you."

"I know there are other things with blood," he said, slightly annoyed, "and Akuma aren't the same all the time. They have levels, and they evolve. Some of them are much worse than others. They aren't...the only enemy I have to face, but I don't really want to talk about the others, if that's okay." Allen was a little put out by Hime's tone, but he tried his best to not take it personally. Some people just expressed things differently than others, and it wasn't as if he wanted an argument.

He didn't know about this pillage and loot business. Was there something that they were actually looking for? He was just along to learn more, see where things were. He had a decent memory, but he'd still have to ask Javert for a map; hopefully the Inspector would have one. He seemed organized enough, after all.

He found himself hoping that the other Exorcists were all right. The fact that he'd been separated from them again so soon weighed on his conscience a little. He had to put that aside, though, in case there really were monsters.

He smiled a little at the way Teresa just broke the lock, unable to help himself. He'd been thinking she'd use that big pole she was carrying around, but...

There was often more to people than met the eye.

It seemed youma and akuma made up for the lack of variety with their own variations, according to those two. And as Teresa had mentioned, there were the Awakened ones. Still, considering that there were some creatures in the Kingdom that there weren't even names for, she would think having your enemies be a somewhat known quantity might be a relief. Not that having things out to kill you was ever a relief.

Hime merely stood back without comment as Teresa took on the lock. She wanted to say she was surprised, and her expression mildly expressed that, but somehow this was just yet more confirmation that the warrior was not one she wanted to pick a fight with. The expression faded when Teresa turned back to her and was replaced with an approving smile; apparently the half-demon had a similar sense of humor.

"Why, thank you," she replied to the invitation with a smirk, taking point and heading into the small office. It was far enough away from the one she'd visited the previous night that she hoped it wasn't similarly booby-trapped. Still, she was cautious as she entered into the darkness, only her flashlight to light the way.

[To here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/765591.html)]

[From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/765591.html)]

It seemed this hallway had remained empty during the time they'd been inside the office. Still, Hime's flashlight made a quick sweep of it before she walked out into the hall.

"I think someone marked a file storage room on the map," she mused, considering their options. "It may just have the kind of records you suggest we look for, Allen." At his name, she graced the boy with a small, approving smile, though it lasted only briefly. "Back the way we came, across the from the Sun Room if I remember correctly."

"There are engorged bats that roost in that area," Teresa pointed out as they headed back the way they came.

[to here] (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/760443.html?thread=62504571#t62504571)

(From here. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/762094.html?thread=62620398#t62620398))

Sean raced through the door, hatchet in hand, skidding to a stop a few feet in. "Come on!" he called, gesturing Chris through the door. How Chris was able to carry Schuldig, he wasn't sure, but it was working well enough.

Once Chris was through with Schuldig, he pushed the door shut.

He heard the beast pounding behind him and forced himself to move even faster, feeling the wounds on his legs tearing open further, and stumbled slightly. He felt Schuldig slip slightly and looked up at Sean.

"He's slipping," he shouted, then gasped as he stumbled once against just before he managed to cross the threshold.

The sounds of pursuit didn't cease even as one of them reached relative safety, and the sounds of the leftover's uneven footfalls never even slowed until it was almost on top of the door. It skidded to an abrupt stop just in time to keep it from slamming into the wall of the building, its wings abruptly thrusting forward as lightning played over its feathers and then arced from wingtip to wingtip - and over and through anyone caught between them.

"I got him!" Sean called, pulling Schuldig onto his back and moving away from the door. Chris was bleeding more. They needed to get somewhere safe, and fast. He didn't think he could feel Schuldig's heart beating against his back.

Sean took three quick steps away from the door and turned, seeing the floor below him light up.

"CHRIS LOOK OUT!"

Chris had just enough time at the shout to turn and see the light headed for him. He froze, memories that couldn't be real holding him in place for the lighting to slam him back through the doorway and into the opposite wall.

For a brief moment, he lost time and his sense of self, but soon the pain of burns and aching as muscles twitched on their own brought him back.

The jolt had thrown its target back through the door, farther out of reach, and the leftover screamed its rage as it struggled to follow. It might have made it through the doorway, if barely, had it not been for the wings that caught on the edges. Still it struggled, forepaws scrabbling against the floor as its neck stretched as far as it could reach, teeth snapping at nothing.

"CHRIS!" Sean looked back at Chris as he was thrown against the wall, then to the creature that was snapping at them. It was only a matter of time before it managed to get through the door. They had to barricade themselves somewhere safe and hold out for the night.

He dragged Schuldig further away from the snapping teeth, looked to his right, and decided this room was better than nothing. Reaching out a hand, he prayed the door wasn't locked.

The handle gave way when he turned it. Thank God.

"This way!" he called, seeing Chris start to move after being thrown.

(Running to here! (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/767303.html))

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/760443.html?thread=62625147#t62625147)]

Once in the hallway Yuuko couldn't help but hear some kind of odd commotion going on down at the far end, and she paused a moment to wonder about it. That sounded...kind of like a horse. But why would a horse be wandering around in the middle of the night? Much less in a hallway...

She refused to listen to the tiny voice that told her that this seemed a lot like some of the stories she'd heard, and some of the things she herself had believed about the nights here. It wasn't possible, though. It couldn't be. But still she hesitated, glancing uncertainly back at Rick. "I hope your doctor's office is pretty close...."

Whatever it was, it was pretty much quiet the next moment, although there was a weird smell in the air. Not exactly like that burning smell in the Entry Room, but...dunno, he kept thinking he should know what it was. Still, he didn't see any Green or any other patients charging them, and it sounded pretty safe to him. Wasn't like the monsters under the bed were real and that knife he had wasn't something he wanted to really use, if he could help it. Rick stopped to get a look around, shining his flashlight across the doors.

Third time was the charm. Rick stopped, his flashlight hitting Kisugi's nameplate (he wasn't surprised when it didn't even have any tiny scratches on it) and tried the handle.

"It's locked," he said, frowning. The options were turn around or keep going, but it wasn't like he had a ring of keys on him. Having trips that he could kick down the door or something like he was from COPS was fun except for the part where that was just TV. "Don't suppose you can pick locks?" he asked, half-joking.

"Well...normally I could." That was a skill that was legitimately hers, not something she'd only thought she could do because she was supposed to be a ninja. Yuuko had learned it for fun, basically, and because it annoyed her uncle (which she'd always considered a worthwhile endeavor) but in the end it had actually turned out useful enough, considering how often her friends had forgotten their locker keys.

She pulled her attention away from the other end of the hallway, since the noise seemed to have subsided a bit; it was too dark for her to see that far, but she didn't much like the smell that was coming from that direction. Or maybe she was imagining it, just like she'd been imagining all kinds of things tonight. The darkness must just be making her jumpy.

The lock on the doctor's office was a little more complicated than that on a simple locker, and she pointed her flashlight at it with a thoughtful frown. "If I had my picks, maybe. Or even a bit of metal." She did have a pen holding her hair back, but...this was a door lock, not a bicycle lock. A ballpoint pen would only be so useful.

If it was a car, then yeah, Rick might've had better luck and it wasn't just wishing he was some poor man's Bruce Campbell: getting into locked cars was kinda par for the course working in a garage 'cause it wasn't that rare of an instance where a customer would turn around to hand the car over to them so they could get to work...and discover they'd just locked their keys inside. Hell, he'd even had to help Matt once or twice like that, even when Matt kept dropping hints about the skill like he as regularly breaking into cars or something.

Rick patted down his pockets. He hadn't exactly thought to snag paperclips before while he was here and the only thing he had that was metal was the bowie knife, which was a bad idea to be flashing around even if Yuuko was a pretty cool chick.

"I got nothing. Could kick it open but it can't be as easy as it looks on the TV," Rick said, pausing and frowning at the door.

"Don't know. Never tried it, myself." There wasn't exactly much call for kicking doors in back home, really. Yuuko imagined that she probably could, if she really wanted to, but at the same time, she didn't really want to. What could a doctor's office possibly have that would be worth the effort?

She leaned against the wall by the door, pretending toward a casualness that she didn't actually feel, and gave Rick an inquiring look. "Do you really want to get in there that much?" Maybe he had some kind of criminal record back home - but if so, the doctor wouldn't be the only one who knew about it, so there wasn't much point in trying to steal it from here. Or maybe he just felt like breaking in somewhere, just because he was bored. Who knew? "Does he have something particularly interesting?"

"Doctor's not a guy," Rick said offhandedly, "Kisugi was acting like I wasn't gonna get outta here any time soon 'cause I couldn't face the facts. Well, I faced 'em, and I wanna see if she actually did anything or I was good to go and she was jerking my leg."

Studying the door, Rick had to say he wished he'd paid more attention to all the break-ins in the movies and stuff...although maybe that was all wrong and he'd just end up breaking his foot on an impulse and he wasn't gonna make it far with a busted foot. In all fairness, he could probably go without, but y'know, he never really had liked the doctor, even if she had some head-turning tits; her ice queen personality kind of killed any enjoyment of that right there on the spot when he swore she had it out for him the moment he walked in through that door.

That and the whole sedation thing.

Rick finally decided he'd have to give up. "I got no clue how to bust down doors. Don't wanna break something doing it wrong. Sorry 'bout the goose chase."

Yuuko paused for a moment longer, eyeing the door with a thoughtful air. It might have been kind of entertaining to try, just to see if she could do it, but...this was a hospital. This was someone's office, she couldn't just go around damaging the doors for no good reason. It wasn't as though doors magically repaired themselves or whatever idiocy she'd been coming up with lately. The fact that there was no damage in the morning simply meant that what she'd thought had happened really hadn't.

She finally just shrugged, though, glancing back at Rick without bothering to straighten up from her casual lean. "I had no plans for the evening, anyway. I don't really care where we go, while I'm off avoiding my beauty sleep in the first place." After a momentary pause her grin turned a little sly, and she tilted her head to one side a bit. "Though some privacy might have been kind of nice..."

Sure, he seemed to want to go somewhere, but she didn't much want to go outside if she didn't have to. It was cold out there. And if they had a chance, maybe they could resume what had been interrupted earlier in the day?

Oh, Makoto would be annoyed as hell if he knew what she was thinking. But what he didn't know didn't hurt him, and she might as well enjoy herself while she bided her time before she went back home. Right? (Not to mention the fact that if she was thinking about that she could pretend not to pay attention to the ozone stink wafting down from the far end of the hall, on top of all the other stuff she had to be hallucinating at the moment.)

Rick flashed her a grin in the dark. "My brother's got crap timing, if that's what you're talking about. It's like he's got a radar for worst possible time for walking in."

Any other time and he'd be suggesting they finish up what they started back at his place - well, room; "place" made it sound like he was all a big boy even when they stuck them in the goofy gray uniforms - but he figured if Yuuko wanted to come along on the car ride, if they even got one running, then there was always a rest stop or any place not here. Although Matt riding shotgun would make that kind awkward on just bout all fronts. Yeah, this was a lot of logistics he hadn't had to put a lot of thought into until now. Still, Rick was always up for some quick run, he just needed to be able to walk afterward, if he was gonna be honest.

Last thing he wanted to do was put Matt behind the wheel. Kid would probably just turn the car around on them.

Rick stepped away from the door, shifting the weight of his duffel bag from one shoulder to the other.

"Wonder what the odds are that Green back there got bored and left?" Funny thing about crazy people was you couldn't tell. Normal people would've wandered off if they weren't getting paid by the hour to play security guard. Another patient though? Yeah, he didn't know.

That was disappointing, and Yuuko didn't bother to hide it. She didn't bother to dwell on it, either, though; it'd been an appealing thought, but it wasn't as though she'd set her heart on it. But...it still would've been fun. And a lot more interesting than wandering the hallways in search of a door to the outside.

She straightened up again, absently tucking a lock of hair behind one ear as she considered. From the way the girl in the front room had been acting, she seemed to think she was supposed to be guarding the door or something. And if that was the case, and with her luck, it wasn't likely she'd just get bored and wander off. And frankly, Yuuko had no interest whatsoever in encountering her again if she could avoid it.

"Doubt it. Could try one of the other doors instead." She cast a somewhat uneasy glance toward the other end of the hall. "Maybe not that one, though. It smells kind of like something electrical is going haywire down there, and...it's not something I really want to look into. There are doors to the courtyard through the cafeteria, or there's the rec field. The walls out there didn't look too high." Please let him say no to those; the last thing she wanted was to go out and climb walls in the cold.

Yeah, he could see why she wouldn't wanna go that way - Rick smelled it too and they didn't want to walk into a bunch of livewires or whatever. Maybe that was why all the locks had failed, maybe they were automated or something. Didn't explain what the lights were doing on working in the rooms, but maybe they weren't hooked up to the same thing - he wasn't an electrician or nothing, so he could settle for just steering clear.

Although maybe if something was on fire, that was more of a reason to coax Matt to come with, in case it spread.

"Y'know, if someone's really on fire here, maybe we should go back and get my brother," Rick said, frowning. "Don't want something to happen when we're checking the exits."

Ah, his brother again. Well, that was understandable enough. Yuuko didn't know where that smell was coming from, but it was strong enough that it did seem like maybe the wiring was about to go. Either that or lightning had just struck, but that was a little far-fetched even for someone like her. She couldn't smell smoke, but who knows when something would go up in flames?

"You have a point." Yuuko gave another glance toward the dark hall, then turned away back toward the front of the building again. "Where's your brother? Maybe we can find a staff member on the way and let them know what's going on." Even though they seemed...rather conspicuously absent tonight. If the doors were going to unlock and let people wander, shouldn't someone be keeping an eye on things?

"He's in M24," Rick was already moving, turning his back on the door as he flicked a glance at Yuuko. Even with the flashlight, he could barely make her face out, "Kinda surprised we haven't seen even an orderly or a janitor or something. You'd think a joint like this would have someone pulling graveyard shifts."

He took off down the hall, not jogging but definitely picking up the pace 'cause a lot of crap wasn't adding up and he wasn't sure if it was 'cause Mom would kill him if anything happened to Matt or if he still had some bleed-over with Dean's protectiveness. Okay, maybe he wasn't one hundred percent cured, but he figured most of it was good to go and getting protective over Matt for a change couldn't be a bad thing, even if it wasn't really him there. Rick checked to make sure Yuuko was still there (didn't want to turn around and see Green suddenly behind her like a friggen ninja) before continuing down to the end of the hall.

[To here]

Edited 2009-12-08 10:24 (UTC)

Nightshift 45: East Wing, Hall A [First Floor]

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I'll have to move us later tonight, about to leave for work