damned_institute | Day 49: Morning

[From here.]

Easily forgiven? Unlikely. A pair of (presumably) mental patient committing theft. No, it was highly unlikely they would be easily forgiven. Conscience-wise? It wouldn't even stain his thoughts, really. Nothing like ten years of judgemental slaughter to make your mind jaded against the simpler crimes in the world.

Either way, it could prove to be... okay, he didn't want to say fun because not much about Venom was even slightly amusing (and Edward was very much ignoring the teenage part of him that was all ready to rebel), but it could prove to be adventurous. Especially since he didn't have the agility nor the power to make the feat easy. Having Alice play the stock market wasn't exactly the most hands-on way of stealing after all. It couldn't really be called stealing, after all... it was just using her naturally-created gifts to further the family's fortune.

So his morals were a little skewed. That was okay with him.

Once he'd left the polluted bus behind him - fresh air, thank god - he smiled to see the sky completely overcast, the smallest drops of water misting through the air. He shrugged into the obnoxiously bright raincoat he'd been given, tucking the coupons and the untouched breakfast into one of the pockets, covering his face with the hood. The suit he was wearing was a little worse for wear, but the vampire wasn't exactly looking forward to marching around damp.

Waiting just off to the side for Venom, Edward surveyed what he could see of the town so far. It didn't seen very big... which was good, he supposed. That way it would be easier to navigate. Now that the first order of business had been planned, they would need to find the right outlet for their theft opportunity.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The human city was...tiny. And not just in the 'everything on Earth is small to a two-story robot' way, either. In contrast to Detroit, Doyleton was little more than an outpost. What few buildings there were were crouched low to the ground, the expected noise of traffic was absent and the place smelled distinctly organic. Also, in Detroit the humans mostly ignored one another. Here, though, every local he passed gave Ratchet an ugly look, as though he were contaminated by something.

"What's their problem?" he asked a nearby inmate. "If looks could smelt, I'd be a puddle on the ground by now."

It wasn't before long a fellow patient had decided to approach him. It was an almost natural occurrence in this facility, to be approached by someone sooner or later.

"Perhaps you should ask them," Tenzen responded to the question, folding his arms as he watched more locals shooting glares into their direction. A shrug. "However, it may be related to the displays of damage everywhere, and the latest decorations could be some kind of message"

There was a pause before his lips twisted into a smirk. "Or, perhaps, it is the result of the chaos from last week."

Ratchet hadn't paid it any mind, but the damage to the town did look pretty recent. "What, so they think we did that?" Even if the inmates were responsible, it wasn't like Ratchet had been there. The local humans could just tough it out and keep their damn optics to themselves.

"Huh? What happened last week?"

"Perhaps," the ninja said, shooting a thoughtful glance at yet another smiling face painted upon the wall. "Though I do not understand why these citizens would further damage their property by adding those smiling faces upon the walls, but certainly, they must be added for a reason." There wasn't quite a way to tell for certain other than asking the townspeople themselves, but as welcoming as they were to their supposedly insane visitors, it hardly seemed worth all the trouble. It did beg the question whether this all was the head doctor's doing, or something beyond the damned fool's control.

Well, considering these excursions had the habit to be eventful when he sun would set - or so he had heard, but thus far he had yet to be proved wrong - perhaps they would discover the reasons behind this sooner than they expected.

"By nightfall, this town was overrun with the walking dead," he stated simply. "However, the damage that had been caused to this silly town amidst the chaos last week had been much more serious than what we see today. These smiling faces had not been part of it, either."

There was a pause. "I am Yakushiji Tenzen," he said before turning his head into the other man's direction. "And you are?"

"A set-up, maybe?" Those weird insignias were also on their usual uniforms, so it could have been an attempt to make them all look like the source of the damage to the town. What would be the point, though? They were already meant to be insane; the people here wouldn't have been believed what was really happening anyway.

Leave it to a human to come up with the most fanciful explanation possible. Ratchet couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, I'm sure." The man had to be tweaking his wires. Sparkless shells terrorizing the living--what a ridiculous notion. "The walking dead! That explains everything perfectly. Strange, though, that the insignias seem to have been added after most of the repairs were finished."

Why did humans have to have such odd designations? Ratchet would be very lucky to remember all that. "Name's Ratchet." Most people added 'nice to meet you,' but he'd never really seen the point.

Ratchet? Many of the patients had such strange, foreign names. Not bothering with any further pleasantries, he returned his attention to the matter at hand.

The response to his explanation had been laughter, something Tenzen did not find too surprising; had he not witnessed the incident himself he would not have believed such ridiculous claims either. But denying it would be an obvious indication of ignorance, and quite honestly, he cared little for the opinion of another man.

"Whatever the reason, I doubt it will be learned by remaining here." Not that he expected to acquire anything of use in this silly town. Or at least not during the day.

"No, you're probably right about that," Ratchet said, regaining his composure. "Doesn't look like anyone's feeling very chatty." Honestly, Ratchet had been to a lot of places in his time, and this little human settlement ranked right up there with the least-welcoming slag heaps he'd ever been in.

In fact, there didn't seem to be much to this sorry little town at all. "So, what was the point of carting us all out here, anyway?" He glared at the shabby little buildings lining the street. "What are we supposed to do?"

Tenzen had been wondering the very same thing himself, but other than a few number of conclusions, he couldn't conclude the reason of why this was being done. Prisoners were usually merely left in a cell until they were executed or would begin rotting away on their own, unless they were a hostage or a possible source of information.

It was interesting how this 'Ratchet' thought how Tenzen somehow possessed the answer to everything regarding this little trip. Likely, he had been a convenient target to fire a number of questions towards, but the ninja cared little.

He scoffed. "I have yet to find any sort of reason to the head doctor's nonsense."

Well, that wasn't very helpful at all. "There must be some point to it," Ratchet said, watching a passerby give them an unfriendly look. He thought back to the doctor and had something of an epiphany, even though he was probably wrong. "Maybe where we are isn't important. What if he just needs us out of the building for the day?" Frowning, he glared down at the dry grass under his feet. "I don't know why that would be, of course..."

The breeze picked up, and a tremor went through his frame. Why did humans choose to live in places that were too cold for them?

"Possibly, he merely wishes to mock us. Or provide us with a false sense of freedom, as limited as it is with so many of his underlings watching us like hawks," Tenzen said. It would be difficult to slip by unnoticed, even for one as skilled as he himself was, being one of the ten chosen of Iga. Unfortunately, such a thing wouldn't be fruitful if the head doctor insisted on dragging them back to the institute.

Of course there was a reason for this nonsense, but standing here making up theories was hardly going to be helpful. Tenzen himself merely wished to cut down that damned Landel rather than putting up with all this, so he could return home and annihilate whatever remained of the Kouga. All this delay was pissing him off further and further, making it less likely to return in time which each passing day.

And he was certainly not planning to get in line to spill the head doctor's blood; if he must, he'd even slaughter his way through patients.

Day 49: Morning - Main Street

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