damned_institute | Night 49: F21-F30 Hallway

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Night 49: F21-F30 Hallway

Sleep studies. Emergency reconstruction. The doctor's first message was just as ominous as his second, and once again Aigis felt herself dealing with a rush of sudden, burning emotions. She had to stay seated for a moment, biting her bottom lip, just trying to cool down. With her cooling jets missing, it wasn't quite as easy to filter in air to calm her. She had to rely on this model's version of human "breathing." Was this how real humans coped with the fluctuations in their systems? It was a tedious process.

Finally, she was relaxed again, but just as determined. Standing to her feet, Aigis retrieved the baseball bat Junpei had prepared for her and made for the door. She would find Landel tonight, and force him to release all the patients here in the institution. If he would not listen to her pleas, she was not opposed to using physical means.

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Meche was just lowering her hand when Soma arrived, also geared up with her weapons. Maybe they should practice their spear fighting together sometime, if Soma would go easy on her.

"Good evening," she greeted the girl, giving her a smile in return. "Not really. I was thinking about checking the board to see if Hitsugaya had any assignments tonight, but I could put that off if there's something else going on. Guess he wouldn't have anything for me anyway, since I didn't answer any 'who can work tonight' posts." That hadn't occurred to her until she said it, but once it did she felt silly for not thinking of it earlier.

"What about you? Is anything up, or are you just checking in too?"

"I didn't see anything from Hitsugaya on the bulletin board in town. I suppose the weekly visits to town make it difficult to coordinate assignments for tonight. I wasn't expecting to make it back."

She rested one tip of the spear on the ground beside her foot, shaking her head slightly. "I was thinking of finding the pharmacy and acquiring some drugs, but I decided to check here first to see if anyone had anything better in mind."

"I didn't either. I thought he might have put something up here, but that's probably a long shot." Actually, Soma brought up a good point; after last week, Meche had been holding her breath waiting for something bad to happen in town too, and everyone else must be in the same boat. Holding off on assignments might have been a smart move, when she looked at it that way. And half the active members had been involved in that fight with Roland. Maybe Hitsugaya was waiting until tomorrow to get things rolling again.

Meche put her own spear down too and moved a few steps back from the door to leave room to open it. "Are you still in pain? Alita said the nurses have been giving her something for it during the day."

"A little," said Soma, which was mostly true. "They've been giving me painkillers, but I think Alita was hurt worse. My injuries have been healing at an unusual rate, though. Does that usually happen here?"

She paused and added, with a touch of indignation, "They told me I must have fallen over."

"I think so. It's happened to me before too," Meche replied. "So are you going to look for more painkillers, or is there something else you're trying to find?" Meche had already been thinking about coming along if Soma was all right with it, but now she thought she'd better. For one thing, it would help to know what kinds of medicine the Institute had, and to have some on hand when--not if, Meche acknowledged grimly--they got into another fight. For another, she didn't want anyone overdosing or getting addicted to painkillers. She didn't think that was likely to be much of a danger with these girls, but it never hurt to keep an eye out.

Soma's secondhand explanation got a dismissive snort of laughter out of her. "They aren't even trying anymore, are they? That doesn't really fill me with confidence about their medical knowledge." They'd probably told the people who turned up with zombie bite marks that they'd just rolled out of bed during the night.

Soma nodded. "I know there's a healers' room set up--I've used it before. But if we run into trouble again in the ruins and any of us are injured, we probably won't be able to make it back to the institute in time. It's probably best if we keep a first aid kit with us when we travel from now on."

That, and Mele's comments about what was on the second floor intrigued her. A morgue and a pharmacy--what else was up there?

She frowned a little, still sore with the memory of the nurse's patronizing words. "Either they're very good actors, or Landel has brainwashed them as well."

Falis hadn't gotten a chance to ask Senna where she was off to before her roommate headed out. It was for the best anyways as the hunter stood in her room, white frilly white dress on, as she decided what they hell she was going to do for the night.

It was Meche's knock that made it quite clear to Falis that she wasn't going to be able to get out of the dress in time to avoid her - and what that Soma - seeing it. With a sigh, she grunted an acknowledgment and lightly buckled the corset into place if only because the dress looked dumb without it. Crown in hand, the hunter opened the door and gave the two on the other side a bland look.

"Not a fucking word," she said, stepping back, the skirts swishing, to let them inside.

Meche nodded. "Sounds like a good plan." There'd been more than one instance in the recent past when they would have been in real trouble if the night hadn't ended as quickly as it did. "But you know, I've never been able to tell how much the nurses really know, and the doctors are the same way. Mine--"

She was going to describe Dr. Wilson and his constant nice-guy act when the door swung open and Alita faced them from the other side, wearing a white dress that Meche would have pegged as being for a wedding (or at Alita's age, maybe more likely a quinceañera) if it hadn't had a crown and corset with it. A costume, or was that what Alita the monster-slayer really wore where she was from? She looked much more at home in it than Meche would have guessed if someone had told her about it beforehand.

"If I'd known you were throwing a ball I would've at least put on some heels," she cracked with a grin she couldn't quite suppress, glancing down at her boots and sweatshirt as she went into the room. Senna wasn't there. "You look lovely, by the way," she added more seriously. Alita probably wouldn't like that, but Alita could suck it up and take a compliment. Meche guessed with some relief that a run anywhere dangerous wasn't in the cards for at least one injured girl tonight.

Soma turned as the door opened--and gaped. The expression looked rather out of place on her normally stoic face, but she couldn't help it. She hadn't been expecting that.

Part of her wondered if that had been the outfit Alita had been stuck with for the trip into town. But no, that was ridiculous; even she could tell the material was too good for that, and anyway Alita, despite her comment and the look on her face, wore it like she was used to it. Was the dress one from her home world?

"Is that yours?" she said, recovering at last and following Meche into the room. "How did you get it?"

Falis rolled her eyes as the comments. "What part of 'not a fucking word' didn't you get?" There was just cranky irritation in her words, no real anger. "If I was attending a ball, this isn't the dress I'd be wearing - too casual." Which was saying something considering the quality of it. She shook her hair out and secured the crown on the top of her head. There, now when they ran into nasty beasties, if she could deal with the pain fighting would cause, she wouldn't lose her crown.

"And yeah," she said to Soma. "Princess, remember?"

With a shrug, she continued as she moved back to her bed to collect her sword. "Hell if I know how it got here. It was just there one day when I went into my closet for something. Figures they'd give me this damn thing instead of my hunter clothes. Damn I miss those things. This damn dress snags on too much stuff. I can't tell you how many times I've destroyed one."

Meche had been expecting this kind of grumpy response and so wasn't bothered at all by it. She was trying to figure out exactly what made a dress that expensive-looking too casual for a ball, but she had to admit defeat pretty quickly, since her expertise in clothes mostly just extended to neatly-tailored work clothes in decent fabrics and good stockings. Maybe that wasn't enough frills for a ball gown?

She, for one, didn't remember anything about a princess, but maybe she just hadn't been paying enough attention. Meche didn't comment on the revelation in case Alita was touchy about that too, but she did pay closer attention to the dress after that. Bibi would love it if Meche could work the details of a real princess dress into one of her stories.

Since Alita was going for her sword, Meche stuck to business--mostly. "Want to come on a medicine run with us, or do you need to get somewhere before midnight?" she invited. All right, she promised herself, that was the last joke she'd make about the dress. Unless she thought of a really good one.

Meche was right--it looked like a dress from a fairy-tale. Soma couldn't imagine how it might be too casual for anything. Still, this meant everyone else in LDGC had found something resembling their clothes from home, and she couldn't suppress a small spark of envy. It wasn't as if her uniform afforded any advantage in combat over what she was currently wearing (not that Alita's outfit did, anyway), but there was something to be said for the familiarity of having clothes you knew.

She tried to ignore it--the subject of the dress seemed to be a sensitive subject with Alita as it was. It was nothing but pointless wishing. "It shouldn't take too long; I'm fairly sure I know where it is. If you have any other plans, we can get to those too."

Unfortunately for Meche, Falis didn't get the joke and just gave her a confused look. "Midnight? No... I don't got any place to be. Senna ran off real quick and I ain't moving as fast as normal. Why I'm still here and all."

She then grinned. "Glad you came by, though. Fuck if I'm staying inside another night." Even if she knew she shouldn't be going out. She shouldn't even be wearing the dress out, for many reasons, but it was so natural for her to wear it anymore (and she did actually like it, grumbling aside) that she didn't even think about changing back.

"I'm not up to taking point today, aside from the fact that I have no fucking clue where that place is. Reminds me I need to see what Namine's been up to," she commented, settling her sword at her hip as she pulled her wrist bracers on then moved the sleeves of the dress down to cover them. Her eyes narrowed in distraction for a brief moment as she noted the differences in the bracers, but didn't say anything. No need to admit where there was a weakness when it didn't matter.

"It's--" Meche started to explain, but then she decided Alita probably wasn't in the mood to hear a bedtime story, or to be compared to Cinderella. Although Hokuto was a pretty good fit for Princess Charming, actually. "--lucky for all of us that we met up," she finished tactfully instead.

Meche wasn't just blowing smoke about that; she thought it might be the best possible outcome of the night. Alita wouldn't go out on her own, her slowness would force Soma not to push herself too hard, either; they'd have medicine in hand and Meche herself could feel like she was doing something worthwhile instead of just stumbling around in the dark looking at old coffee cans and waiting to get eaten by people who turned into lightning monsters.

"Well, we'll follow you, then," she said, turning to Soma. "Although I have the maps with me if you need them. Ready when you are, Alita."

A quick nod from Soma. "I've never been there before, but I have a copy of the map, too. It shouldn't be too hard to find."

Shouldering her spear again, she turned and went out the way she came.

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Night 49: F21-F30 Hallway

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F22 - so sorry!

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