Dayshift 49: Bus 2

[diamondstorm]

Morning hit without warning, with the sheer knowledge hitting the Digimon before anything else that today they were going back to Doyletown. Her feet hit the floor and she rotated her right shoulder experimentally. The skin stretched tight, soreness persevering, but it moved fine. She stretched her fingers then curled them into a fist, staring at the tanned skin that was her right arm. If something happened this time... She would be more useful. Her mind replayed the events of last week, and Renamon stilled, considering.

There wasn't much time left to her as the nurse bustled in with an armful of clothes, the same shade as the weeks before. The woman murmured a cheery complaint that it was too cold for skirts and left Renamon to change. The pants were preferable to the past two weeks, though the other item she was left with gave too much to irony. She frowned at it for a minute, then slid it over her head, reflecting that this motion in days or weeks past would have left her shuddering. It meant she was becoming used to this human body, and that was nothing that boded well. She grabbed her notebook before being led to a bus, and slid into a seat halfway down the aisle, pressing against the window. Again, the previous night had been more than short. Was it just her, or was there something more to it?

[for Haseo!]

Comments

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Well, someone was chirpy this morning. Depth Charge raised an eyebrow, silently hoping the kid wasn't about to give him a headache so early in the day. Pit, they'd barely started moving.

"Yeah, that's right. Good to hear you're holding up." Fortunately for Forte, he wasn't the only one who preferred to skirt around the brainwashing. Better to hear he'd been going on a weapon hunt. One more armed patient meaned one less person to have to think about every second of the night- not that it had helped much with the Scarecrow, of course, but it was good to play pretend every now and then. "Made any progress?"

[runner-up-robot.livejournal.com]

Forte continued munching on his apple between talking. "Well, I got a handful of scalpels, and some of those small, thin scissors. Plus, now that I can walk, I can use my crutches as weapons, or to stop something from tearing up my arm."

"And how have you been holding up? Any more missions?"

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Something from tearing up my arm. That wince was completely involuntary; Forte's wording was just a little too close to history for his liking. Still, so long as they could stop a second take he could relax.

"Me? A few broken bones. Nothing big." He shrugged lazily, as though they were talking about breakfast rather than serious injuries. "Not exactly 'missions'. Been taking a look around the cellar for the last couple of nights." Come to think of it, he'd barely done any fetch-questing for ZEX at all over the last week- though maybe that was a good thing, considering the welcome he'd gotten before. "I wouldn't go down there without at least three people, if I were you."

[runner-up-robot.livejournal.com]

Forte noticed Depth Charge flinch but didn't blame him. He was trying to not to be bothered by that encounter, and also make a point that he would be more prepared if it happened again. At least, hopefully.

Similarly, if Depth Charge was glossing over his broken bones, so was Forte - especially when he heard what Depth Charge was up to. "You went to the basement? How? What's it like down there?" He didn't know much about the lower area except that someone had warned everyone away from it some time ago on the bulletin. Of course, that was enough to make him intrigued, especially with Depth Charge's warning. It seemed fairly logical, after all - the second floor was dangerous and the common practice seemed to be to go in at least pairs (not that he'd really explored any other direction), and the rewards were much greater than what he'd find in the usual dayshift rooms on the first floor. So if the basement required at least three warriors (plus he didn't recall any maps of it on the board), it must be more dangerous yet.

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Depth Charge had kind of figured throwing out that warning was throwing out a red plasma beam to a cyberbull before he said anything- that much was unavoidable with Forte. The kid seemed to have a thing for biting off more than he could chew, or at the very least picking fights with the big boys.

"We didn't get far, but what I did see... tch. Didn't sit well with me, y'know?" It was all too easy, too quiet. Even that great domed ballroom was suspicious as all-Pit, conspicuously elegant in the middle of what Depth Charge saw as a battlefield. "We didn't get to see any action. Just the set-up for it." Part of him didn't want to mention that they'd been supplied with weapons down there- he wasn't sure if Forte would have been able to resist the temptation.

[runner-up-robot.livejournal.com]

The lack of action was a bit disappointing, but it was obviously too late for Forte to resist any temptation - between being back on his feet, getting something like a weapon, and hearing that it was, at least, interesting enough for Depth Charge to explore was more than enough to excite the teenager.

"And how did you get there? I don't remember any down stairs on the maps." Of course, he never made himself a usable copy of the maps before they were banned from the bulletin board, so it had been a while.

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Forget 'wasn't sure'- make that one hundred percent certain. Telling him how to get down to the basement would have been all but handing Forte the keys to the basement, provided he could scrounge up a few other knuckleheads raring for a fight to get the doors open. It occurred to Depth Charge he wasn't his slagging babysitter, but then straight afterwards came that nasty little reminder that not keeping a close enough eye on the kid was what had gotten him killed before.

"There's a secret entrance- but don't even think I'm gonna tell you where." There was a pause. He sighed. "You're... just gonna go asking around after it anyway, aren't you?"

[runner-up-robot.livejournal.com]

Forte was obviously disappointed at Depth Charge not telling him how to get to the basement. Why shouldn't he go there? Was he worried he'd get attacked? The bot could handle himself, and it wasn't up to Depth Charge to decide what he could and couldn't do. "Maybe. Or I'll just find it myself. I can do things on my own, you know." Well, that came out more defensive than he'd intended but that was nothing new. "You don't have to worry about me, I'm prepared to defend myself, and I'm going to be exploring anyway."

He finished off the apple in his hand before asking, trying to sound nonchalant, "So you've already got three people then?"

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

“That’s the problem,” Depth Charge countered, punctuating himself with a pointed look. ”You’re plenty capable of finding your own trouble to stick your nose into all by yourself. Just don’t get scrapped while you're there.”

“Something like that.” More like he’d been recruited onto a femmebots’s night out as the designated driver than ‘found three other people’, but maybe that was a little harsh. Kagura and Teresa seemed smart enough, even if the latter still set his plating on edge, and as for Hime… well. He'd ended up almost liking her. “But you won’t make it far without at least four people.”