damned_institute | Night 47: West Wing, Hall 2-A

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Night 47: West Wing, Hall 2-A

((From here.))

So far the coast was clear, but Claude knew better than to let that lull him into a false sense of security. He did his best to stay alert as he tried to get a good grasp on their surroundings. The wall to the right had no doors, though it looked like there was an exit up ahead, in addition to a few rooms on their left. Hmm, he wondered where to start...

Claude's gaze settled onto the door closest to them. Well, since they didn't have anywhere in particular to go, maybe Door Number One was the best place to look first. It was probably as good as any of the others, and didn't really pose any more or less of a threat than anywhere else in this hall, especially since they didn't know where it was they were snooping around in the first place.

After glancing over to Guy and giving a small, why-not sort of shrug, Claude moved toward said door and tried the knob. It didn't give right away, but it didn't feel any tighter than the door to the pharmacy had been, and they'd managed to open that one up just fine.

"You know, I think we could make this one budge if we worked together," he said.

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It felt good to be on their way again, and Guy was also taking in their surroundings as they moved forward. He realized it had been kind of silly of him to expect anything too revolutionary. Of course it was just going to be more and more hallways, but what really mattered was what laid behind all of these doors.

From the looks of it, Claude liked to be systematic, seeing how he'd stopped at the first door they passed rather than moving further ahead. Guy paused with him, waiting for the younger man to open it and then frowning when it didn't creak open easily.

Still, Claude seemed confident that they'd be able to break it open. Guy quirked a smile. "One of those, huh?" He gave a preemptive stretch of his arms, though he was wondering if his legs might be better for this job. He regarded Claude curiously. "What's our plan of attack?"

Well, what had they done last time? Claude thought back on the night he and Guy had busted down the door while Leon sat back. Even though it was just the two of them, they ought to have enough strength for it.

"Well, if we count to three, give it everything we've got at the same time, and keep doing that until the door gives in, I think we could open it," Claude explained. The way Guy stretched his arms reminded him of something important, though, and he regarded his friend with a touch of concern. "But if you're still hurting, maybe you shouldn't use your shoulders, Guy."

He wasn't sure if it'd be better for him to use his legs, or if they should see if Claude was capable of getting it to open on his own. Either way, he didn't think getting the door open was worth exacerbating Guy's injuries. There were other fish in the sea -- well, doors in the hall, in this case. Heck, there were probably other places that weren't locked at all.

While it was true that they could just move on to another door, chances were that the places that were harder to get into had the more interesting stuff. For that reason, Guy wasn't just going to give up because his arms weren't completely better yet. He had to agree that shoving his shoulder with all his strength into the door wasn't a good idea, but he could at least make an attempt to kick, in that case.

Not that high kicks were his area of expertise, but it was worth a shot. And hopefully Claude wouldn't laugh at his bad form. Guy didn't think he would, though.

"I won't use them," he agreed with a nod. He bent down to place his sword, flashlight, and radio on the floor, then stood back up while taking in a breath. They'd done this before, so it wouldn't be too bad. "Ready, then? One... two... three!" Making sure to angle his body to the side, Guy kicked out with his foot, aiming for his side of the door. If all went well, then he and Claude wouldn't get in each other's way.

Claude hoped that Guy wasn't going to strain himself, but he would just have to trust that he knew his limits. After all, he was an adult, so it wasn't like he needed Claude to fret over him too much. All he could was just make sure he wasn't in too much discomfort throughout the night, though it was hard to say whether Guy would be entirely forthcoming about it.

Either way, it looked like he was up for giving this a try. Following Guy's example, Claude set his things down not far from his friend's and took a step back. He braced himself, and when he heard the number "three", he charged ahead, doing his best to aim for his side of the door. His shoulder rammed against the door's surface at the same moment as Guy's foot -- it shuddered from their combined force, but stubbornly stayed closed.

The blond didn't miss a beat, and he positioned his shoulder again. "One...two...three!" He threw himself forward, certain that Guy would follow through with his kick.

Edited 2010-02-18 08:31 (UTC)

It just figured that it wouldn't work the first time. Nothing was ever that easy in this place, although Guy realized that breaking down a door was hardly ever a simple task. At least there were two of them working on it. The key was focusing on the good rather than the bad.

As Claude had expected, Guy didn't have a problem keeping up with the second strike. He rushed forward once again, trying out another kick and feeling more steady with it this time. Lucky for them, that second hit was enough to bust open the lock. The door didn't go flying open or anything, but it was clear that they would be able to get in now.

Still no sign from the radio, so he decided it was a good thing that they'd moved on from the stairs. "Phew," Guy said as he stepped back and gathered his things. "That... wasn't so bad." And his arms hadn't had to be part of the effort, which was definitely for the best. He'd rather save that energy for a monster attack, if it came to that.

With everything back in hand, Guy let out a breath and pushed the door open, heading inside.

[To here.]

[from here] (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/816084.html?view=66253524#t66253524)

Stepping into the hallway, Sheena didn't sense any threats, but she kept to the left side as she moved along. Passing one of the doors, she noted it had been forced open (kind of sloppily too), but that room just had books in it.

"Very end of the hall takes us where we need to be," Sheena said in a quiet voice. "Keep your eyes on the friendly skies when we get out there."

One of these days, Yuffie was going to perfect the art of not getting tossed back into bed every morning. Either that, or she was going to find and modify an Exit materia. Couldn't be that hard, could it? Just a bit impossible. The closed environment had begun grating on her nerves right from day one; there was a reason why she was so fixated on the outdoors. Not that progress had been coming in leaps and bounds, she admitted reluctantly.

As they walked, she favored Sheena with a fleeting grin and a wriggle of her shuriken. "I'll introduce 'em to my friend," she replied, quietly blasé. Kicking—or slashing to pieces—some serious monster butt never had been a problem for her. Actually, it was downright therapeutic most of the time; not exactly a past-time, not exactly something she actively sought out (for the most part), but… not bad. Yuri thought she was a nutter. Yuri was probably right.

"Just what I like to hear," Sheena replied, reaching the end of the hallway.

Pausing to listen, she didn't hear anything on the other side, so she quietly opened the door. After a brief moment of surveying the area beyond the threshold, outside the ninja went.

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[Back from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/825371.html?thread=66474523#t66474523)]

Yuffie let go of Sheena immediately, spinning around to slam the door shut.

"Whew," she said under her breath. Wrinkling her nose, she looked at the spot on her shoulder where the severed talon had landed. It'd only been on her for, like, a millisecond, but even a millisecond was a milli too much. Still, she had to admit; she'd been covered in worse. The Midgar Zolom's swamp had some of the most grosstacular water ever, and she was no stranger to monster blood 'n guts. It just made appreciating a good supply of clean, hot water all the easier.

She turned back to Sheena. Maybe she should apologize for the yank… Nah. "Okay?" she asked instead, giving the other ninja a quick, clinical once-over. No more worse for wear than she'd been before, it looked like. Good. Yuffie rocked back on her heels, adding, "So, what now? I've gotta get to that recreation area. You can come too, if you wanna."

Sheena hadn't been expecting Yuffie to yank her through the door way and she wasn't expecting the Wutai ninja to let go as soon as she did. This meant Sheena was on course to getting up close and personal with the floor. Or not.

With an agility she should not have been capable of given her injuries, she caught herself on the floor with both hands and executed a handspring to bring her back to her feet. "Ouch," she said, shaking her injured hand, looking down at it. Had she not been partially healed by her double Life Seal, she wouldn't have been able to do that at all.

"Yeah, I'm good," she said, rolling her shoulders, thankful to not have searing pain up and down her back when she moved. "I'm going to pass on the training, Wutai. I've got a doctor's name to track down tonight."

She started down the hallway. "Think about that Doyleton thing I was talking about back there. It'll take us both if it has even a shred of a chance of working."

A doctor? "Coolness," Yuffie responded. She wasn't sure if the other ninja meant a medically inclined patient or one of the Institute's dogs, but she put the thought out of her mind in favor of her own plans. They'd taken a lot longer than she'd wanted to; she'd have to hurry. Hopefully anybody who'd turned up wasn't having too much trouble getting settled in.

She walked with Sheena to the end of the hallway, putting a light-footed skip into her pace. As soon as they split, she'd take to the shadows and move as quickly as she could. No stopping for anything, short of a friend in need or a trapdoor to a vault full of materia. "Will do," she said. "I'll run it past Cloud, too. No promises, but fingers crossed." Honestly, a part of Yuffie almost, almost didn't want to try. It was a shallow part, selfish and greedy for even a brief play-act at freedom.

They reached the T-junction, and Yuffie peered around the corner. She could hear the sound of a fight from the central hallway, faint in the stale air, but she wasn't too worried. Not about herself, anyway. Hopefully Aerith had been smart enough to duck around it. Hopefully Cloud hadn't got his dumb, heroic self involved. "See ya, Mizuho. Don't go getting yourself eaten, 'cuz I won't be coming by to save your butt." With that and a cheeky, cheery grin, the little ninja took off into the gloom.

[Backhere (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/816084.html?thread=66253524#t66253524)]

Sheena didn't quite understand why Yuffie wanted to run the inside infiltration plan by Cloud, the man wasn't ninja, but whatever. They'd just need to get some smoke pellets made tomorrow night and then--

Shit. Sheena had a date tomorrow night. A very, very, very, very important date. Damnit! Well, maybe she could get Ritsuka's file quickly (especially now that she was healed a great deal more) and then get to the greenhouse for the right ingredients.

Frowning to herself, Sheena flipped Wutai a little salute and slipped into the darkness on her own.

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((From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/823854.html).))

Even though Claude wasn't sure how the other rooms in this hall would compare to that library, he hoped they'd be able to find something useful -- at the very least, a better weapon for Asch. Not that he knew what constituted as "better", but maybe they'd get lucky and find something fairly decent.

If they didn't, though, that was okay, too. They just had to keep their chins up and stay focused on making progress another night. Of course, he was probably getting ahead of himself there. Claude liked to think they still had a good chunk of the shift left, though it was true that predicting things like that could be kind of dicey sometimes, too. Especially here.

"Why don't we try another room up ahead?" he quietly suggested.

Even if Guy still found it pretty hard to believe that Landel had managed to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, it was obvious that he had pulled it off somehow. There was evidence that this hospital had been around for a while before they'd gotten here, which meant that the Head Doctor had been getting away with it for some time now.

It would have been satisfying to expose him, but Guy was more focused on getting home. While he would have enjoyed giving Landel his comeuppance, he wasn't going to make that his ultimate goal or anything.

So their first try at this had been a bust, but that didn't mean that all was lost. When Claude suggested that they try the next room, Guy nodded and moved on, grabbing the knob of the following door and raising an eyebrow when it opened without any problem.

Poking both his head and flashlight inside, it was easy to see that this was just another bathroom. So was this where he'd ended up that first night? It had to be, and it was nice to finally know now. Keeping that bit of information in mind, he turned back to Claude and shook his head. "It's just a bathroom." There wasn't going to be anything in there that counted as a good weapon, so he was figuring they should just move on.

Claude followed after Guy, curious as to what they'd find. Maybe there would be something as good as the pharmacy around here, but with different supplies aside from just medicine. Not that medicine wasn't good (and he suspected that Guy could use it if they happened to stumble across some), but it would have been interesting to find something else that was potentially useful, if not for themselves, than for other patients who were around.

When the next door actually opened on the first try, Claude visibly perked up. While it was true that easy-to-access rooms probably didn't have much inside them, he still wanted to see inside. Was it a staff lounge with food? Or maybe a lab with compounding supplies! He tried to peer over Guy's shoulder to get a better look until his friend turned back and explained that they'd found a bathroom, of all things.

"Oh..." Claude couldn't hide the disappointment on his face, but it didn't take him long to bounce back. "At least that's one more door that we can check off our list, I guess." He wondered what other kinds of rooms would be in the same hallway as a medical library and a bathroom. Claude's gaze drifted toward the far end of the area. Well, there was only one way to find out, right?

Guy couldn't blame Claude for being disappointed by that. After the two of them had spent the majority of a night in a bathroom one time in order to harvest metal, Guy wasn't looking to repeat that anytime soon. It sounded like Asch wanted an actual weapon rather than the metal by which to have one formed, which was probably for the best if the alchemists had been disappearing.

While he suspected that the next room would just be the woman's bathroom, Guy knew that it was best to be thorough about these things. Hoping that there was no one in there, he carefully opened the door and confirmed his theory. "And here's the one for the women," he said as he quickly closed it. He didn't need someone to come across them and think he was some kind of pervert, right?

Just as he was about to move on, the radio came on once again. Guy quickly lifted the device up and then stood quietly as the message came through. She hadn't lied to them about coming back with some clues, and they'd even gotten to search a few rooms in the meantime.

The place of worship wasn't something he knew much about. There was the chapel that was nearby, but that was obviously not the place that Jill was talking about. They weren't particularly close to any bodies of water, either, so it was the last clue that they had the best chance of actually finding.

"Where the staff stores their things, huh..." Guy crossed his arms over his chest as he thought it over. He glanced over to Claude. "What do you think?"

It figured that the next room would be the women's bathroom. Claude had expected it after finding the men's room, at least, so he wasn't quite as disappointed when Guy announced it. He couldn't help but smile a little bit at how quickly he'd closed the door, though -- until he remembered that time he'd walked into the women's bathroom on Nede, and promptly hurried out in a flustered tizzy.

Thankfully, the radio saved him from having to relive that all over again, and he moved closer to Guy in order to catch everything the lady on the radio said. There were more clues than he was expecting. Straight-forward ones, even, although he guessed the riddle she'd given for the music room a long time ago had been really easy, too. Maybe a little too easy..

He was guessing that the last clue would probably be their best bet, but that was assuming they even wanted to go traipsing after it in the first place. Since they were here, it seemed like finishing up in this hall was a good idea. Not to mention the fact the last time they'd followed one of her clues, it'd been nothing but a trap. Was it a good idea to drop what they were doing to look into another one?

"I'm pretty sure there's a place like that on this floor," Claude said slowly as he met Guy's gaze, "but maybe we should finish up here first, and then if we have time we can check things out."

Seeing how the clues that Jill had given in the past had hardly been trustworthy, Guy could understand why Claude was apprehensive about the whole thing. When they were already making some good progress when it came to searching an area that neither of them were particularly familiar with, why should they drop everything just because of what the radio said, especially when it might just get them into a fight that they weren't prepared to deal with?

There had been a group of five or so in the music room that one time, after all. When it was just him and Claude, they could easily be overwhelmed if they weren't careful.

"Sounds good," he agreed with a nod. Another group might beat them there, but Guy wasn't too concerned about it. If that happened, then it was probably just meant to happen that way. With all of that decided, the swordsman decided to keep moving down the hall. Instead of finding any other doors on their left-hand side, there was instead a door that would lead into another area.

"Guess we can keep going," he said with a shrug, opening the door and heading out into what seemed to be cold night air.

[To here.]

[from here]

Another hall, one she had only passed through several times. Still, she remembered, ingrained. The first door on the left. Here....

[to here]

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/816084.html?thread=66493140#t66493140)]

With the smell of blood lessening as they left the mess behind, Franziska's focus began to sharpen even further. There were no people in this hall and nothing to distract her save for the sounds of the two companions she'd managed to gather on the way shuffling and walking behind her. She knew the way thanks to her maps and her memory. She'd made sure to memorize exactly where she needed to go in her room and now all that remained was to get there.

Likely easier said than done knowing this place, but she could hope things would progress smoothly from here on out.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/825371.html?thread=66762011#t66762011)]

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Night 47: West Wing, Hall 2-A

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