Night 48: Cafeteria

[justawaketylor.livejournal.com]

[from here]

Pausing to catch his breath on the other side of the doors, Tylor kept shivering, and tried to shift a little closer to his new female friend with that as a plausible excuse. Even though it had worked out pretty poorly the first time he'd done it, he still had to resist the urge to jump up on one of the tables or chairs instead of staying on the ground where something else might grab him from his shadow.

They seemed to have traded one huge room with an unbearably eerie atmosphere lit by intermittant light for a huge room with an unbearably eerie atmosphere lit only by flashlight. This was the direction Tylor had originally wanted to go in, but now his stomach wasn't eager for any additions; his dinner felt awful. He took a few more deep breaths to calm down, and offered Taura a sickly smile. "Thanks for saving me! Wow, it's a good thing I went in there, isn't it?"

Comments

[ninelivesonce]

The first thing Taura did was the same thing it had been in the sun room -- a quick-and-dirty sweep of the room. This one turned up exactly as much nothing as the first one, and was likely just as helpful. Enemies that could appear out of thin air weren't in the list of things she'd normally check for, but she was learning. Fast. Too bad learning didn't give her any insight on counteracting the invisibility part. At least it gave the man she'd dragged out of there a chance to regain his composure.

"Any one you can walk away from, eh?" Taura said, with an ear-to-ear grin that was quickly becoming habit. Explosions, crash landings, and now animated couch evasions weren't usually what people looked for as meditative experiences, but most people weren't Taura. As philosophy went, she hadn't found a better.

"I'm Taura." She went to extend a hand, but the one she had was covered in blades, which were likewise sporting thin coating of foul-smelling black ooze. And no amount of muscle tugging would retract these claws, though they had performed quite like the real thing. She yanked it back and tried to convert the motion to an awkward, sharp-edged wave. It wasn't entirely successful. Except the awkward part -- that she'd managed full marks on. "I, uh, you are all right, right?"

[justawaketylor.livejournal.com]

Tylor tilted his head a bit at her smile, but didn't stop shivering or smiling himself. "No, I'm really cold and scared and I think I had a stroke when that thing grabbed me around the arms. But I'm still lucky, because I was saved by a beautiful woman." Somehow, Tylor had a way of meeting with women when imprisoned. Taura was a bit scary, but that made women more beautiful, or at least it worked that way with Yuriko. Tylor was reminded of Yuriko a bit, maybe because Taura seemed to also be a woman soldier, or at least someone who was used to fighting.

"I'm Tylor. Justy Ueki Tylor. Are you all right? You had to fight it. Maybe we should clean off your claws?" He leaned closer, as if he hadn't noticed the awkward little gesture at all, just the mess left from that monster. "We don't know what that stuff on them is, but it came from that evil thing. What if it makes you sick?"

[ninelivesonce]

Beautiful? Really? He wasn't the first person to call her that, but it wasn't something Taura heard nearly often enough. "Howdy, Tylor. 'S just shock, you'll be all right in a minute." She grinned, again -- a warm grin could go miles in chasing off the cold. "I'm glad it let you go without a fuss." Had they gotten away too easily? There'd been footsteps outside the other door as they'd left; maybe whatever-it-was had been distracted.

And if it hadn't, well, getting Tylor calmed down wouldn't be helped by her current speculations. So she ignored them, except for a slow flick of her eyes to the darkest corners of the room, of which there were way too many. This wasn't the best place to mount a defense of anything.

"There should be water in the kitchen, yeah? I don't think a little goo will hurt me, but I don't want to let the edges get dull."

[justawaketylor.livejournal.com]

She took compliments, that was going to make their time together even easier. Tylor always enjoyed working with women more, and not just for the opportunity to flirt, although that wasn't a small part of it. "Oh, right, the kitchen! That's where I was headed in the first place... I think. Have you been back here before at night? This is my first time, it's scarier than I expected."

Tylor began to walk further into the room with the flashlight as a guide. If anything here wanted to get them, it already had to know they were there after their spectacular entrance, so there was no sense in being subtle about walking across the room. Or he might have just been walking near-blindly into the dark without proper thought to consequence--Tylor wasn't picky on deciding a motivation for his impulses.

[ninelivesonce]

Taura usually separated duty from off-duty, but that was more because Miles (or Admiral Naismith, depending on mode) had all these rules. Besides, Tylor wasn't anywhere close to her chain of command, and she hadn't seen any of her squadmates yet.

"I haven't been assigned here before, but it's no worse than the other places. No zombies, or the things the nurses turn into," Taura said, half to herself. "Yet." Tempting fate wasn't something she was eager to do. "There should be something you can use to arm yourself with in here."

Even a salad fork or a ladle was better than nothing. Miles had a story for everything, sometimes. Wasn't there one about an old woman chasing her new son-in-law down the road with a ladle, all the way to the border? Something like that, and he'd walked fingers down her skin to demonstrate. Mmm. Not a very Beta Colony story, but it fit him -- all possessiveness and self-loathing that she'd learned to see under the broad accent and broader smile. It had been an interesting lesson in appearances, though not one she'd ever admit to him. It would hurt, and he didn't need more of that.

She caught up to Tylor in a few quick steps, and took point. Nothing jumped out at them from under any tables or behind the serving counter, so she pushed open the double doors and moved on.

[to here]

[vstheworld]

[From here]

Scott let out a breath of relief as he hobbled into the Cafeteria, hiding behind the wall next to the door in case whatever had been in the Sun Room was in a position to see through the door. As soon as Logan joined him, he pointed across the room to the door beyond the food counter, his arm still a little shaky with adrenaline. "Right there. That should be the Kitchen door at the back there." He was a little disappointed that he hadn't made it this far with Remy. He was still waiting to taste that kid's cuisine. Maybe he would try to take the guy here again sometime. Obviously, it wasn't so hard to get through the Sun Room on every night.

[noifsandsorbubs.livejournal.com]

The cafeteria was a bad room to be in at night, Logan thought while Scott talked; too many things to hide under, and it was big, so you couldn't keep it all in your peripheral vision. It sounded empty, but he stayed in front of the kid anyway on the way to the kitchen door.

As soon as he touched it the intercom's static suddenly doubled - he took his hand off the door reflexively, and froze when the talking started. Same guy who'd been on the speakers all day, but now it was down to business: it was the same kind of thing you could usually expect from the guys in charge of bad operations; they loved to talk about their plans. Logan supposed it was lucky that he hadn't even had to wait a whole day to hear it. He pushed open the door to the kitchen when the crackling faded away.

[noifsandsorbubs.livejournal.com]

[idolism]

_{[from here]}

Aidou took a second to scan the cafeteria, then promptly began moving again, letting his footsteps fall loudly enough to be heard by his companions.

He would've thought it reckless for someone to push ahead in the same way Aidou did if they couldn't see in the dark and were using no light, but in his case he could, and that changed the equation. Although there were a handful of people in various positions just inside in the cafeteria, he couldn't make out any enemies. Or so it appeared, at least. There was a noxious odor coming from some substance smeared on a female's weapon, which didn't sit well with the noble.

Chances were high they'd just avoided something, and the cafeteria was as likely a place for threats to lurk as the Sun Room.

[sasuke-of-sound.livejournal.com]

Even without Aidou's hissed warning, Sasuke had tensed as soon as he stepped into the Sun Room. Not only was this place an apparent hotbed for controlled patients or the Institute's more difficult monsters, but the moment Sasuke stepped into the room, he could feel something oppressive in the air. Like some of the worst areas of the Uchiha compound after the massacre.

And there had definitely been the faint tinge of blood in the air. He hadn't been able to ascertain the direction (however much his sense of smell might have improved, unbeknownst to him), which had only made the air more uncomfortable. It had been easy to follow the familiar pace of Aidou's footsteps into the next room.

Clearly, others had made it through already, but not many.

It didn't make this area any safer. The sooner they made it to their destination the better; Sasuke kept moving with that in mind, expecting neither of his companions to stop.

[[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/855862.html?thread=67817270#t67817270)]]

[she-is-ruin.livejournal.com]

_{[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/849257.html?thread=67884905#t67884905)]}

And just like that, she was outside of the spectre's territory. Another leashed animal.

Yomi put a stop on her breakneck run once she’d passed the doors, lowering her pipe back down to a comfortable position as she resumed moving at a walk. The cafeteria was still and silent, no around but her, not even another opponent. ‘No teammates’ yet.

No Kagura, either, but the unexpectedness of her vanishing was already fading to a muted murmur. Funny about that. What had happened to Yomi and the new memories she’d been given, the memories she knew were fake by all rights, had stirred her emotions more than Kagura’s disappearance. Even what was entirely fake was more real than Kagura had been.

A few feet ahead, the counter formed itself out of shadow, and circling it, Yomi approached the kitchen door.

[she-is-ruin.livejournal.com]

_{[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/855862.html?thread=67828022#t67828022)]}

[screwthegods]

[From here]

Compared to the troubles that had been reported to him, this nearly seemed too simple so far. Homura might have considered it luck, if he counted on such a thing. But too many years and too many battles had simply taught him better; relying on something as arbitrary as luck would be no better than standing still and expecting all of their answers to simply appear from thin air as if a gift from the gods. Only their own efforts and strength would lead the group to achieving their goals.

The silence of the cafeteria was an ominous sign. It could simply speak to the power of whatever had likely been positioned in the Sun Room, yet that wasn't the demi-god's concern. To proceed, they couldn't afford to be the ones caught up by whatever might be lurking in the shadows here. With no others present, their group presented the only target to appease hunger, rage, or whatever drove the creatures to fight.

Homura said nothing as he headed around the counter where food was laid out for them nearly each day. He simply kept his sword read, his senses on guard until they could move into the next room.

[screwthegods]

[To here]