damned_institute | Night 49: Pet Supply Place

Tobias shuddered at the disorienting feeling, and stared around, just as surprised. < Nope. Smells like prey, though. > (God, he could go for a mouse.) < And cats, and dogs, and, > he tipped his head, listening, < we're definitely not in the institute. The rain sounds too close. >

He paused, thoughtfully, then added, < Ugh, got to be teleportation of some sort. I hate it when people teleport me, it never ends well. >

"Does it happen often?" Abe asked, genuinely curious. He moved cautiously about the shop, running his hand over the counter. If Tobias was psychic he'd probably have no objections to Abe having strange abilities, it was only a natural thing for a person to have.

There was a slight shift in Abe's stance as the headache hit and he opened his eyes again. Nothing useful there, pain for nothing. No one had passed by here in the last few hours. Abe staggered back and returned to searching the place with more traditional methods.

At some point he might think to look out the window.

< Often enough-- woah, you okay there? > Tobias unconsciously clenched his talons as Abe staggered, the sharp tips digging in for a moment before he thought to let go and dropped to the floor, peering up at the guy.

"No, no, I'm all right," Abe said, wincing at the pressure before Tobias fell off. He touched one hand to his temple. "In this body I can't do my psychic readings without suffering from a quick and rather painful headache. They pass and I'm growing used to them, but they aren't pleasant." He spoke lightly in an attempt to show the bird just how okay he was, and offered his arm again as a perch.

How refreshing it was, to talk about it openly without stares or worrisome fidgeting.

< ... Ow. Yeah, I hear you on the pain thing, > Tobias said, sympathetically, with an expressive hunch of his shoulders, a duck of his head. < Didn't know you were psychic, though. What kind? > Tobias fluttered up, perching on the counter (and not Abe's arm-- didn't want to accidentally hurt the guy if he staggered again), tilting his head at Abe. < You obviously can't pick up on everything I'm thinking, or you wouldn't have thought I was a monster. >

"Ah, no, not that sort of psychic." Abe held up one hand and spread his long fingers as demonstration, even as he kept wandering around the shop. "I use psychometrics, I touch things in order to find out information about them. Actual mindreading is usually beyond me if the other person is not psychic themselves. But if I had my normal powers I'd have been able to tell what you were right away, and we'd have avoided the misunderstanding."

He approached the window cautiously, rubbing some of the dust from the inside and peering out into the darkness and the fog. Goodness, was that a street? It was almost familiar...

Were they in Doyleton?

< Sounds pretty useful, aside from the horrible pain thing, > Tobias said, peering down behind the counter, then straightening again. < Anything interesting out there, Abe? >

"It looks like Doyleton. The, ah, the town we were taken to earlier today, it's only a short distance from the institute." Abe cautiously opened the door again, standing back from it and letting only his arm pass through the opening. It seemed safe enough, the area outside is gloomy but harmless and it certainly was not leading right back to the hallway.

"Come on," Abe said urgently, gesturing for the bird to go with him. "This may be our only chance."

< What, seriously? > Tobias fluttered over-- this place was cramped, too cramped-- and looked out into the rain. < Why would they... you know what, I don't even want to know how the guys behind this place think. Let's just get out of here. >

"They don't think like normal people," Abe said as he opened the door. It was clearly raining and dark, not a magical portal back to the Sun Room. Perhaps the effect had been a one-off.

With his bat clutched tightly in his hands, Abe took a cautious step outside.

[To here. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/908765.html)]

[Or here, d'oh. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/903746.html?view=69654082#t69654082)]

[From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/887737.html?thread=69493177#t69493177)]

Yukari braced herself, grip tightening on the two hands she held as Sheena opened the door and pulled them through out into the pouring rain...

...only there wasn't any rain.

Blinking in disbelief, Yukari looked around to find they weren't in the rain, nor were they on the rec field at all. In fact, they seemed to be indoors again.

"Well, now isn't that interesting?" she murmured mildly, looking about. Shelves and shelves of various supplies that she couldn't really make out in the darkness. Over in another part of the store was a man who was, as far as she could tell, talking to a bird. And outside, the rain was pounding down on the streets of Doyleton.

"Interesting indeed..."

"What in the--?" Raine blurted, taken aback. This was... she didn't even know they were. She went to the window to look out, and realized they were in Doyleton. But--how?? She spun away to look around at the building they were in, and this time recognized it as the pet store; she'd glanced in, but never entered. Her breath sped up, remembering the last time they'd been here at night, but she didn't see any zombies walking the streets, nor heard any prowling through the store.

She wanted to ask if this was what they had had to show her, but she hadn't seen Yukari do anything to the last doorway they went through, and judging from her reaction, it didn't sound like the youkai had planned this. At home she was most likely perfectly capable of this, but she'd admitted she couldn't use her gaps to go very far here.

Cautiously, Raine walked over to a counter and looked behind it, thinking there might be some weapons; it made sense that the shopkeepers would have them, in her experience.

Unlike Raine, Sheena momentarily didn't remember Yukari couldn't use her gap abilities like that. In fact, given the pact, it was entirely possible in the ninja's mind that this was the youkai's fault.

"...Yukari. What did you do?"

Surprise was never something that lasted long with Yukari, what with how fluid and prone to change such an ambiguous nature as being the youkai of borders and boundaries was. Instead curiosity and amusement replaced what little shock she had felt, prompting her to look around like Raine did, though with less of a purpose.

"A very good question indeed," she replied to the ninja's questions. "I wonder, I do wonder what we just did. Would you believe me if I said this wasn't my fault?"

This didn't seem like an illusion - but then, there was no saying it wasn't just a very good illusion - so did this mean they had really teleported all the to Doyleton when the only intervening gap they had meant to span was that between the hall and the rec field? Mysterious and worrying, but somewhat welcome. After all, this meant they didn't have to get wet.

Raine had no luck on the weapon-finding front, but they had an entire store to look over and she wasn't about to get discouraged. She grabbed a plastic bag and went to look at what the store had in stock; actual weapons were unlikely, but she was very, very used to improvising.

The grooming parlor was definitely promising; Raine grabbed all the scissors she could find, since they were likely the only blades this place would have. Other than that, she couldn't find anything useful; hairbrushes weren't generally good as weapons. She tried the aisles of the store next, and the first thing she found was leashes; she considered, then took the longest and thickest ones, figuring they would be good for something. Whips, belts, something to that affect.

Unfortunately, a pet store wasn't the greatest place to arm oneself; because there was little doubt the clinic would be locked, for the moment she just looked through the store in search of potentially useful items. Hmm, some of the containers looked useful, for when she got her next batch of Gel made...

"...okay, I believe you." If only because Sheena could sense the youkai's feelings and there was no amusement coming off of her. "This is weird."

And then Raine went off to raid. The ninja stared at her for a long moment before she figured out what Raine had picked up. Leashes. "You planning on getting some gifts for Colette or something, Raine?"

Though the leashes did indicate where in Doyleton they were. Eyes going wide, Sheena darted to a window and started peering out it. "...there better not be zombies." Maybe there was a little waver to her voice. Maybe.

Amusement, however, was starting to come back in full force. So, was Landel fooling around with the boundaries within his own institute? Now this was a game Yukari knew well. First, however, they might as well take a look around before giving the roulette of doors another spin.

"Oh? Is she into that sort of thing?" the youkai teased in reply to the ninja's comment as she surreptitiously threw a cute little black leather collar and matching leash into a convenient gap - oh, she was sure she'd find a use for them at some point. When Sheena's guard was down, most likely.

The idea of leftovers from last week was far less appealing a thought though. Well, she couldn't hearing the moaning masses, but maybe the rain was covering their approach. Alternately, the rain could be beating them to rotten sludge that couldn't harm anyone except maybe the local ecology.

"Especially not pet zombies... or horse zombies..." she added lightly. The youkai frowned though when she thought she heard... no, it was probably her imagination.

"I'm not the most proficient with whips, but they should work as weapons or restraints." Raine was as focused as ever, so it took her a moment to get Yukari's comment; she twitched a little but said nothing.

The rest of the store had some potential, but it was the veterinary clinic that she was really focused on. After a fairly brief sweep of the rest of the store, she tried the clinic door only to find it locked. "Sheena, could you get this open?"

Sheena, on the other hand, caught the youkai's innuendo immediately. Her eyes went wide and she looked at Yukari as if the youkai was crazy. This was Colette they were talking about.

"Yukari! Pervert," she grumbled before turning to the door Raine indicated. Anything to get them off of the idea of Colette and bondage. ANYTHING.

"Okay," she said, readying herself a moment before kicking the door open with an explosive roundhouse kick.

[to here] (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/909048.html)

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/890532.html?thread=69774500#t69774500).]

From the smell, all urine and animal feed, Keman had a fairly good idea of where he’d ended up this time. He was back in town, somehow, in the…pet shop, probably. The dragon snorted softly. A pet shop. Of course. As if he didn’t have enough things reminding him of his current state, he had to get sent to the pet store.

Sighing, the dragon turned around and decided to try the door again. Maybe this time he would get lucky and actually be able to find somewhere safe for him to rest.

Edited 2010-06-01 00:42 (UTC)

[from here]

As before, dizziness hit him hard enough to make him close his eyes, but Kirk had enough sense to keep a firm grip on the doorknob. Either it was just in his head (unlikely) or they were being warped to an improbable location again, and the last thing he wanted was to lose Chekov or Roxas on the way. Despite his lack of verbal directions, he had no doubt that his travel companions were following close behind anyway.

When he finally opened his eyes, however, what appeared under the glare of his flashlight wasn't the familiar white walls of the hospital. He could make out shelves, a counter... Granted, Kirk hadn't been in every room of Landel's Institute, but the smell alone told him that this was no hospital.

"What," Kirk said, eloquently, turning back, but the knob slid out of his fingers as he moved and the door shut firmly behind them. He'd seen the door they'd exited through, had touched it himself, but this one had a glass panel in it and wasn't even the same colour. Through the glass and the shop windows, he could make a street and the side of another building.

Doyleton.

"...Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

Ow. Okay, he hadn't been prepared for that second time. When he - what, landed? Was that it? - in the new room, he actually felt queasy, taking a step forward from the door to avoid tripping over his own feet.

He was tired and about to lose his dinner. This was already turning into a great night. The smell of wet dog wasn't helping his newly-developed motion sickness, though Roxas supposed there was a small sense of gratification knowing the smell wasn't coming from the three of them. No, it was definitely this... building...

Wait a second. He actually knew where this was; he'd passed by this place with Axel earlier that day. He'd looked through the windows in an attempt to catch a glimpse of any possible animals inside, though he hadn't gone in himself.

And it was still pouring rain outside. Great.

"This doesn't make sense," he said, turning back to stare at the door behind them, the one that had just shut by itself. "I can't even use corridors here, but this store isn't anywhere close to the institute." And if these two still had hearts, there was no way corridors were the things transporting them all over the place. He'd lost control of the Keyblade once, so he supposed it was somewhat possible to lose control of the corridors of darkness as well (maybe they were leaking from him, or something? Not a personal problem he wanted to deal with), but the sensation was so completely different it couldn't have been them.

"I guess we should be lucky we're on the same world."

Oops. He hadn't meant to say that.

Theorizing out loud. First problem that needs to be put down. It hadn't been a problem before since he never hung out with locals. Maybe they hadn't heard him over the rain. Explaining the whole world thing was... well, it wasn't something he should do.

Chekov was once again disoriented and unsure of where they were, but once he shone his light around their new surroundings, he found himself in even more disbelief. They had somehow gone from the second floor of the prison to the town. Chekov had been in this establishment just that morning while he had been mapping the town. It looked to be in severe disrepair, though.

He was immediately reminded of the attack that had occurred the very night he and Captain Kirk had arrived. It had happened in the town as well, which meant that they might be at the origin point of the reanimated corpses.

Forming his recommendation that they leave immediately, Roxas' input gave Chekov pause. Corridors? Worlds?

"Do you know of somezing zat could be causing zis phenomena?" Chekov asked, deciding that learning more about what Roxas thought was causing them to bounce around his maps might take precedence over throwing themselves into the unknown once again. There wasn't an immediate threat at the moment, and given that each time Chekov passed through a door he felt ill, there could be something physically detrimental to passing through doors without considering the potential consequences. "When you say 'corridors', what are you referring to?"

Kirk glared out the window at the dark, flooded street. His head throbbed a little from the quickness of the two jumps they'd just gone through, but at least he felt better than Roxas looked. The kid had obviously been exhausted since their fight on the first floor, but if he was managing to keep it together, then Kirk could hardly whine about some slight nausea. It was impressive, really: Roxas may have been young, but he obviously had a good head on his shoulders.

He'd met Starfleet cadets with less composure — say, the sort of Starfleet cadets who might've jumped when they saw a figure suddenly stagger out from the shadow of the Black Rock Inn. Kirk checked over his shoulder at the two teens, and back outside. It was hard to tell what was happening from this distance: the figure could have been injured, tired, any number of reasonable things, but he'd seen a horde of reanimated corpses come at him with that same unsteady walk. He wasn't taking chances.

Kirk backed away from the front as casually as he could, redirecting his flashlight to take in the trashed pet store again. He'd been listening to Roxa, and Chekov had already picked up on the most intriguing point. Corridors. Like a subspace corridor or... something else? From the nature of his abilities and what they knew about Landel's, there was no doubt that Roxas came from a different reality from theirs. Kirk was interested to know what exactly the young man meant when he talked about worlds.

Letting Chekov head the conversation for now (the two were closer in age, after all, and the ensign had demonstrated the ability to make friends with younger prisoners), Kirk moved towards the back of the shopfront to check for danger. He had little desire to stay in this town if it was still crawling with zombies, but they could afford a moment to get their bearings. And, okay, he didn't relish too soon a repeat of whatever hell happened to his head every time they went through a door.

Edited 2010-06-03 08:13 (UTC)

Whoops. The gig was up (as Xigbar would probably say)... or was it jig?

"No," he said quickly, before following it up with, "I mean, I do, I guess, but I don't think that's what's happening now." Oh man, he really was going to vomit. Somehow he had never done it before but he knew that was exactly what his body was wanting to do. And the rain was giving him a headache. Using the length of his pipe leaned up against the closest shelf - piled high with dog food cans, from what little he could see - the Nobody wobbled a little more steadily on his feet.

He officially hated frogs now.

"For one, neither of you should have been able to go into one." Okay, he was blathering, but give him a break. Maybe if he kept talking the food would stay in his stomach. It seemed like a reasonable conclusion. "I don't mean like... hallway corridors. It's like a tunnel... that goes somewhere else."

All tunnels go somewhere else. That is a really stupid explanation.

Roxas wasn't sure saying "corridor of darkness" was going to, you know, expel any potential worries or questions from them and he didn't know if explaining what little he knew immediately upon meeting two other strangers was a good idea. The Organization had drilled their rules into his head pretty hard. Usually accompanied with physical threats.

Grasping for straws, he suggested, "Shouldn't we leave? There might still be zombies around." Which were probably more worrisome than multiplying frogs, and he was going to need longer than a minute to recover.

Chekov had to admit, Roxas' explanation of what he'd been referring to left something to be desired. He could at least comprehend that Roxas knew something about... black hole-like tunnels. Which weren't exactly what they were all experiencing, being that they were at least remaining in their own dimension (supposedly), but it was at least something to question further. Where did these tunnels go? How were they formed? Why couldn't he and Captain Kirk go through one of the tunnels Roxas was referring to?

He didn't press the issue however, due to the fact that Roxas looked as though he were about to be ill. If the other young man were Starfleet then Chekov would have urged Roxas to divulge as much information as he knew. However Roxas was a civilian, and looked as though the travel was beginning to wear on him.

It concerned him, the thought of continuing through these unknown entities without any information--especially when Roxas was looking to adversely affected. However Roxas was echoing Chekov's earlier recommendation that they leave before something made them unable to escape. But without anything to go off of, who knew? They could step through the next door and never come out.

Chekov's eyebrows came together and he looked up at the Captain for orders. "If zis plece is ze origin point of ze reanimated bodies, it would be to our adwantage to leawe as soon as is possible, Keptain." Even if they had no readout on what it was they were using to escape. He looked back to Roxas, frowning slightly.

"Are you going to be able to stand anozer tunnel?" he asked, offering an arm to assist Roxas if he needed it.

Roxas' explanation of corridors also went over Kirk's head, but he could grasp the gist of his meaning, and the most important point. "So it's not you who's doing this," Kirk said, still picking his way through the disorderly mess of the store. He hadn't exactly suspected Roxas was to blame — the kid had looked as surprised as they did to warp to completely unpredictable rooms — but he shown himself to have "powers," and he'd seemed to recognize something about the doors.

But same as how Kirk knew it wasn't transporter technology shooting them around, he guessed it wasn't whatever means Roxas normally used either. Which pointed again to their number one suspect: the Head Doctor. If his hunch earlier today was right, then Doyleton also fell within Landel's sphere of influence, meaning going through the front door again(?) would send them off to god-knows-where. And, seeing how Landel loved inflicting his experiments on as many prisoners at once, it also meant that everyone else was probably going through the same thing.

Kirk's flashlight lingered on the open drawers in the grooming area, and the disarrayed supplies within. Whoever had been here before them was now long gone, and if some of the building's structural damage had happened just tonight... well, Kirk definitely wasn't averse to Chekov's recommendation.

"Here." He pointed out a door at the back of the store, which a sign indicated would lead into a veterinary clinic. Time to test the scope of Landel's "experiment." A few solid kicks with his hospital-issued boots rattled the lock, and he pulled it open, unsurprised to find exactly what he was expecting: a vet clinic. The other passages hadn't changed until they'd gone through, either.

Kirk looked back at the two teenagers, smiling as he held the door open for them. "If you're feeling up to it, I'd say 'as soon as possible' is right now."

Edited 2010-06-05 19:48 (UTC)

"I'm okay," he said, quickly moving away from the offered arm. If there was one thing he needed, it wasn't an arm to hold him up (not even if he was about to fall over, thanks.) Maybe just moving and getting out of this rainstorm would help; even a different smell couldn't hurt. It was just the combination of everything.

Once he did move towards the door Jim opened, he did feel better. And since he was already flinching before entering the door, he was prepared for it.

Edited 2010-06-06 06:36 (UTC)

[From here. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/899768.html?thread=69853112#t69853112)]

Carter was ready for the twist this time, and even held his breath as he pulled Kairi through the doorway again. They emerged, not in a crowded storage room or a forest, but a big open space.

"Now where are we?" Carter asked, scratching his head as he dropped Kairi's hand. It looked sort of like a store, with the way the counter was set up and a quick flick around with his flashlight showed pictures of animals on the boxes and bags displayed on the shelves. There was an odd musky smell about the place that reminded Carter of the farm back home, and chicken seeds and food for his pet mouse.

"Hey, I bet I know where we are! This is where they keep the food for the animals and the monsters." Carter began hunting through the boxes for dog biscuits. If they ran into another monster maybe he could distract it with treats, or bribe them into being friendly like they'd done with the Stalag 13 guard dogs.

[From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/909647.html?thread=69887823#t69887823)]

Allelujah did not consider himself a superstitious person. He was born from science and raised by science in a world where science ruled supreme, even in an organisation called Celestial Being. But still, as the dizzy feeling cleared and the location resolved itself, he couldn't help but feel that perhaps, just perhaps, he shouldn't have thought about the door breaking and dumping them in the town. Again.

The shelves were filled with sacks of dog food and leashes and those toys that made obnoxious squeaking sounds. Since all of the animals at the Institute seemed to prefer fresh human flesh and would probably shred a squeaky rubber chicken within five seconds, he felt that it was safe to assume they were still in Doyleton.

"I think," he said dryly, "that someone hates us."

"No kidding," Indy answered equally dryly. The pet shop. His favorite place. He took a couple of steps forward into the store, only far enough to give Dent room to follow him in--last week he'd needed something here, but now he didn't and he wasn't going to make the mistake of letting anything rotten get between him and the door. The sweep of his flashlight beam around the room didn't reveal their unusually fast friend or any other Zombis, but they hadn't noticed that thing at first the last time they'd come in, either.

"Dent, does it look the same now as it did earlier today?" he asked in a tight voice, hoping to learn whatever they could from this place in short order and get the hell out of it.

Even with an axe in hand, Harvey was not happy to find that they'd somehow ended up back in the pet shop. While it was better than having to run through the rain and dodge zombies, it wasn't like he wanted to be here in the first place. He'd already been here twice, and that was two times too many.

That being said, Jones' question wasn't unexpected, and it was something worth considering, as much as he hated to admit it. He stepped in after the other two, using his flashlight to look around and take in the store.

The ground was littered with items that had been shoved off the shelves (by them, a week ago?), and the place was in more disarray than he'd remembered from that morning. "No," he responded at a delay, shaking his head at Jones. "It was more or less cleaned up earlier." Had it really just reverted? It seemed like too much effort for Landel to employ people to clean things up only to then mess it up again when night came, but...

Maybe he was warping their perceptions somehow? Harvey would have expected some residual effects, but maybe it had to do with the inertia that came from walking through the doors. He really couldn't say at this point, though. Everything that had been happening tonight had defied the laws of physics as he knew them, and this was just one more thing to add to the list.

There wasn't even anything useful here was there? Unless he wanted to try taking down hordes of the undead with a dog leash and kibble (he didn't - even Hallelujah wasn't fond of that idea. They had their sense of self-preservation after all). He wandered down the aisle a little way, checking for any monsters which might have been left behind, still keeping an ear out to the conversation behind him. "So the change that comes across the Institute at night comes across here too," he said thought fully. "Habitually I mean, not just last week. I wonder if the townspeople know." He wondered if any of the townspeople had died last week for real, or whether they had just woken up back in their beds as the patients did.

Maybe they didn't even notice if people had died and they were just conveniently replaced. It was a thoroughly disturbing thought.

"I wonder what they think happened last week," he murmured. "Did you see the looks that they gave us when we were there earlier? The graffiti. Someone is trying very hard to make us look bad." Worse than a bunch of crazies in a mental hospital could look anyway. It meant that even if they escaped, there would be no sympathy amongst the town people. It reminded him of the propaganda against Celestial Being too much for comfort.

Why would the store be in this kind of mess again? Indy didn't have a clue. It was certainly possible that the store had already been ransacked tonight by other patients who'd ended up there, but he wondered if that mess in the leash aisle didn't look a little familiar. It couldn't really be that the town was--partially--cleaned up during the day and went back to the same battered state at night. None of it made any sense.

"We only have two nights to base our understanding on. It's too soon to jump to conclusions," he cautioned, ever the scientist. There was at least something mildly comforting in looking at it that way: what was happening wasn't nonsensical, they just didn't have enough data to piece together the explanation that'd make order out of the apparent chaos. Indy tried not to think about how slim the odds of their actually getting that data were.

There didn't seem to be much else to learn here for the moment, and neither Dent nor the kid looked inclined to take anything. Indy turned around and went out the way they'd entered.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/918356.html?thread=70084436#t70084436)]

Night 49: Pet Supply Place

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