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.

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"Vandalism?" Was that what it looked like? ...Well, she supposed that was what it looked like. That did explain the smiley face, but not why it looked like this in the first place. If they'd had time to do something like this, then why not repair it completely?

"Depends on what you know about the hopping corpses," Mele answered, filing that thought away for now. "When we were trapped here the whole night?"

"Before my time, but I heard about it." Mello started to notice other signs of damage he'd overlooked before, like the broken glass that clinked when he kicked it out of his path. Great observational skills, there, he told himself.

"Not from anyone who was here, though. What happened?" Teresa had said the Institute was attacked by Doyle that same night, which seemed too convenient to be accidental. Mello already didn't trust either side of that feud. Petty little men, making the prisoners pawns in their stupid little game, and he should've seen, by now, where to apply pressure to make it all come tumbling down. But he didn't.

"We were trapped here the whole night. Apparently, night...'ended', and we woke up in the Institute. So it was like a night back in the building, I suppose." Mele flicked her apple core at a nearby trashcan as they passed it, taking a moment to let herself remember.

There'd been that tall guy—no, that was before the night. "It was...very sudden. The buildings changed...darker, more run-down or something. And hopping corpses appeared. No minds, no strategy, just..." Mele tilted her head. "...slow. Anything in particular you want to know?"

"How were you trapped, exactly? How'd you find out you couldn't leave the town?" Mello hadn't known that, and it seemed to corroborate the theory he'd had, before all that crap had gone down last night, that whatever it was that knocked them out and made them wake up back in their own beds, its influence extended past the walls of Landel's proper. The zombies, he thought, had been a distraction; the point had been keeping people here, keeping them away from the real fight.

He asked the questions mostly on autopilot, though, knowing they were the ones he ought to pursue. The thrill of chasing down new information just wasn't sparking this time, not when he doubted that any progress at all was really possible here.

"There were hopping corpses around," Mele answered. "Too busy fighting them to think of getting out. And anyway, we couldn't leave in the day, why would that be different all of a sudden?" And Mele hadn't exactly been in a position to find out. It was a possible missed opportunity, especially since those hero types wouldn't have had a way to alert everyone, in that case. Tch. She'd stick by the edge of town this time, if she could find it.

She could understand getting information—Scarecrow had just been telling her about some guy who was doing an investigation—but Mele would've thought 'no escaping you're all screwed haha!' was what anyone could expect from Landel. "Why the specifics? You know something?"

"Just pieces," Mello admitted, sourly. His impulse was to keep what little information he had to himself, even if there was no point to doing that. His way had gotten him nowhere so far, and he still didn't want to give it up. Change, and the little wanker in the lab coat won.

"Did you know there was an attack on the Institute the same night?" That was easy enough to find out on one's own. "Good thing for Landel you were all stuck here, hm?" Mello remained suspicious that it might not be as clear-cut as it seemed who benefited from most of the prisoners being away. He dashed his damp bangs back from his eyes irritably. Second-guessing was going to get him nowhere, too.

"Wait, they were hopping?" She'd said it twice, probably not a figure of speech.

Mele waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn't, she sighed. Everyone knew 'just' pieces—

"On the— No, I didn't. What happened there? Did his lackeys get tired of him?" Although if it had been some sort of mutiny, it clearly hadn't worked. Who else but the patients opposed Landel, though? "I don't think it would've made a difference if we weren't," she replied. "His power still worked." And anyway, they wouldn't have known where to attack. Mele still hadn't found this third floor she thought existed, but given how little progress she'd made, that was perhaps not so surprising.

"Hopping corpses, kyonshi, the reanimated dead, zombies," Mele answered, flicking some hair out of her eyes. There were other terms for it—one of the other ones in another language was on the tip of her tongue—but the rinshis had hopped, and the ones from last week hadn't been rinshis so 'hopping corpses' they were. "They were attacking."

"Heh, gotcha." He was almost amused at the idiom, before he focused on the rest of what she'd said and his frown reasserted itself.

His power still worked. Not so long ago, Mello had been sure he could take that power for himself. And yet here he was, damp and wearing castoff clothes, eyeing the windows of a store and wondering if there were decent chocolate in there, as if he'd forgotten that shoplifting was for amateurs. Being beaten in a fair fight would've stung, sure. But beaten by a petty tyrant, who relied on tricks and monsters to keep his victims here? That ate at his soul like acid.

One corner of his mouth twitched in what wasn't a smile, but the conclusion of a quick internal debate: Fine, I'll give this much information up. She and I are in it together. "It was Doyle. Or someone wanted people to think it was." He hadn't discarded the idea of a third person or group being involved, but he'd based that all on a gut feeling, and those, well. Tended to fuck him over. He huffed a sigh. "Someone also wanted us to think he died that night."

Day 49: Morning - Main Street

sorry for late! ;A;

Oh, that doesn't count as late!

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