damned_institute | Nightshift 49: 2nd Floor Staff Lounge

"...dammit." Raine had managed to forget about that little thing called electricity; she was used to things that had their own power source. Finally remembering Sheena's question, she said, "It's possible, but I agree that anything of the sort would probably be in Landel's office. And it's unlikely that any portals would lead us there."

Giving up on the idea of taking the coffee maker with them, she checked the rest of the cabinets but found nothing worth taking. Not bothering to take her can of soda, she said "Let's go," and turned the doorknob.

Only to find the door wouldn't open. "What?" She tried again, with more force, and still nothing happened. The door wasn't locked, but it wasn't budging either. What was happening?

Sheena stared blandly at the can floating before her. The longer it was there, though, the more curious she got and with a sigh, she poked it to see if it drifted away from her. She was quite happy that Raine was putting the coffee maker back, but the the door didn't open.

The ninja just assumed it was locked and raised an eyebrow. "Need me to break the lock?"

The can before Sheena merely turned end over end, drifting towards the side f the gap and rebounding off it with a clunk as it hit the counter top - at least on Yukari's end. From the ninja's end, it simply seemed to go clunk off the somewhat immaterial edge of the hole it was floating in.

"It shouldn't be locked. That's the door we just came in from, isn't it?" mused Yukari. On the other hand, they hadn't exactly come in through that door, so maybe it had been overlaid when they came in and hadn't noticed.

"It isn't locked." Raine tried the door again, with nearly enough force to hurt herself, and it still wouldn't budge. "The doorknob turns, but the door seems to be sealed shut." She found that disturbing for multiple reasons; why would they be suddenly trapped here? Yes, at least they weren't in an experimentation room, but even this seemingly innocuous place could very quickly turn dangerous, and she especially didn't like the idea of being trapped in a room with a monster if one showed up.

This was not good.

With an exasperated sigh, Sheena rolled her eyes. "Move," she told Raine as she stepped toward the door. With a snap, she stuck the door with a powerful roundhouse kick, thinking that maybe they just needed some brute force to knock it open since the doorknob seemed to not be working. A door was a door, so unless it had some magical barrier like the third floor windows--

"Gah!" Sheena stumbled back, almost losing her balance, from the recoil from her kick. There wasn't even any give to the wood. "...you broke it, Raine. Now we're stuck here. Go, make yourself some damn coffee," the ninja growled, stalking away from the door to the other side of the room, face red in embarrassment.

"Ehhh? How boring," sighed the youkai. It didn't particularly surprise her that Landel could do something like this, but considering how much of a free run he usually gave them anyway, she hardly saw why he needed to.

Well, if Raine was going to make coffee, there was no reason for the sodas, so Yukari tossed the healer's can in with Sheena's and let them both disappear into the space between worlds. Standing up and stretching, Yukari started walking along the counter... and throwing open every door and cabinet she came across.

"I seriously doubt that," Raine snapped in reply. She hadn't heard anything break, and since the doorknob hadn't come apart, that was unlikely to be the problem.

Tempting as coffee was, now wasn't the time. So, she stayed where she was and looked the door over; unfortunately, there wasn't really anything to be gained by the examination. Instead, something unrelated occurred to her; a few minutes ago, Sheena had called Yukari "her" youkai. Considering they were dating... it sounded like they'd gotten closer. Lovers?

...at least it was something to think about besides the danger they were undoubtedly in.

"Then how are you explaining it?" Sheena snapped right back.

Finally reaching the far wall, the ninja huffed and leaned against it, crossing her arms and glowering. It had to be Raine's fault, even if she logically knew how ridiculous that notion was. She was just looking for someone to blame for ruining her chance to show off her newly formed pact. It was a good thing Sheena couldn't read the half-elf's mind as she'd be kicking herself for accidentally letting that slip with how fast and damn accurate Raine's mind was. At least she hadn't noticed the necklace Yukari was wearing.

Speaking of the youkai... "What the hell are you doing, Yukari? I don't think there's going to be any mini-portals in the cabinets."

"You can never be sure - besides, do you have anything better to do for the moment?" replied Yukari as she continued along. Reaching the end of the counter and thus running out of things to throw open, she traced her way along the next wall. No windows, so they couldn't escape that way. Maybe there was a way out in the gap between the couch and the floor? Oh, wait, that was just how she traveled and didn't really fit how tonight had been going so far.

"Really, I don't fancy just standing around all night," the youkai complained as she approached the ninja. Despite her tone though, a smile lit up her face, one that Sheena was had the dubious pleasure of being quite familiar with. "Of course, I'm sure I could think of a few others ways to entertain myself..."

A gloved hand raised up and brushed the ninja's cheek as she passed her, pace slowing for the moment. Unlike Sheena, Yukari had no problem whatsoever with what Raine noticed or didn't notice, though for the moment the wooden marker on the necklace was hidden blow the neckline of her dress even if the leather strings were fully visible.

The voices of the patients might have been enough to mask the sound of something moving, skittering across the ceiling above them, but even if it was noticed, it would have only given the trio the slightest warning before the spider dropped down into the centre of their group. It was easily the size of a grown man, with long, deadly-looking fangs that could do quite a bit of damage, particularly as it lashed out at the closest of the patients.

Raine raised her eyebrows slightly at Yukari; was that deliberate confirmation of what she'd suspected? It wasn't as if she was actually going to say anything either way...

Before she could give it much thought, though, they suddenly had company. Raine blocked the spider's attack with her broom as she jumped backwards, bracing herself for another strike. This thing looked especially lethal and they couldn't leave... the room suddenly felt very, very small.

A glare was the response to the insinuation and teasing from the youkai, but that never came out when the silken glove brushed against Sheena's cheek. Her eyes fell half-closed and she pressed her fingertips into her arm since she didn't have anything to actually hold onto. That was not fair. So not fair. Willpower... Sheena had it. She needed to remember that.

Thankfully, in a bizarre way, the spider dropped into their midst and the ninja's combat reflexes saved her from saying something potentially embarrassing, incriminating, or potentially romantic. Eyes snapping open, Sheena grabbed the youkai's wrist and pulled Yukari out of the way of what she assumed was an attack at them.

But no, it was Raine it went after. Thank Martel, the half-elf was combat trained. Even with a broom.

"Raine! Get out of the way! I can handle this!"

Ah, just like this place to have just the timing to ruin her fun. Well, this could be fun in its own way.

Barely a moment after Yukari noticed the spider, Sheena was pulling her out of the way. By the time the youkai spun about to face the menace, she had her parasol out - for defense mostly, as it looked unlikely she could pierce the creature's chitinous shell.

Backing away to give Sheena room to fight, Yukari glanced around the room, looking for what she could use. The drawers and cabinets she'd gotten to were still open and still full of stuff...

All it took was one quick gap to send a drawer's worth of office supplies hailing on top of the spider's head - hardly harmful, but hopefully a useful distraction.

The office supplies didn't seem to do much damage to the monstrous spider; instead it simply seemed to make it angrier, and it surged forward to lunge at Raine, attempting catch a hold of the girl in its huge jaws.

[[Come to think of it, my bad; Raine's broom broke quite a while ago and her weapon is a closet rod now... whoops!]]

Raine backed away as fast as she could without tripping, but not daring to look behind her; she held her makeshift staff at an angle in front of her, hoping to make it that much harder for the giant spider to get at her.

Her mind was whirling, trying to think of a way out of this, but she was coming up blank so far; it wasn't even likely that they would be able to hide anywhere. Sheena, whatever you wanted to show me, it had better be a new combat technique.

Lucky for Raine, what Sheena had wanted to show her was precisely what the half-elf wanted at the time. Normally, she didn't like calling upon her pacts so soon in a fight - she would not be worthy of being a summoner if she called for help any time there was combat - but this wasn't just to deal with the spider, but to verify the pact was more than just a feeling she and Yukari had.

The ninja darted to the side, flanking the spider so she could see it, Raine and Yukari all at the same time. Pulling one of her thicker cards out, the ninja drew in a deep breath and delved deep into her mana well. Grasping the magic there, the only magic Sheena possessed, she began to chant, using the card as a focal point.

"I call upon the Youkai or Borders and Boundaries..."

A small ring of pale white light, mana made manifest, started to swirl around the summoner. Closing her eyes and trusting in her sense of timing, concentrating so that nothing would break her from the summon, Sheena felt the mana connecting her and Yukari start to pulse.

[ooc: All information regarding the summon is located here (http://mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com/3794.html). The actual summon will occur next round.]

Unfortunately, while the junk she'd dumped on the spider had certainly gotten its attention, that attention didn't change from Raine at all like Yukari had hoped. Thinking quickly, she discarded the notion of trying to jab it with her parasol. Perhaps she could fling a chair at it? The youkai was just about to do so when she heard the ninja begin chanting and saw the light.

"Is that..?" Yukari's unfinished question though was unmistakably answered when she felt that force inside her stir. In her core, and in Sheena's, she could feel the bond that lay there pulse and grow. Her skin tingled, like the feeling of standing in a thunderstorm, a feeling almost electric. And with these sensations physical and magical came the response emotional: a big grin spread across her face.

"Oh, this will be good."

The light nor the chanting distracted the massive arachnid from its target; as far as the creature's brain was able to process, the other two patients were happy to stay clear while it fed on the girl. It lunged forward again, trying to strike around the irritating stick that was being waved at it.

Raine could only glance at her companions, but her eyes certainly went wide at Sheena's incantation. She had made a pact with Yukari??

...As soon as this battle was over, she was going to be bombarding them both with questions for the rest of the night.

For now, though, she had to stay focused; Sheena couldn't defend herself while she was summoning, and she had no idea what would happen to a summon who was being called but already in the room. Fortunately, Raine could defend herself well enough for a brief time; she'd just be hard-pressed to keep it up.

The sensation of summoning was nothing Sheena would ever be able to properly describe to another that had never experienced something so grand, so powerful, so very much a part of her. It wasn't like metaphorically reaching a hand out to something greater than you and pulling them to help you. No, it was like the junction of two streams of mana, connected always and yet still separate, twisting about each other to reach a certain synchronization. For a small moment, it was like summoner and summoned where one in the same. In any other instance, two beings cannot occupy the same space, but that was contradicted metaphysically when the pact is used. Individually, both Sheena and Yukari were strong in their own right, but together they were powerful.

Feeling that connection, that oneness, the swirling mana about Sheena flattened and then spread out across the majority of the floor in the small room they were to form the specific glyph that signified summoning magic.

Opening her eyes as she spoke the final phrase of the incantation, the pale light did suddenly reverted and turned a deep, dark blackness. She had been expecting the see the youkai's summoning glyph to be a shade of purple, but not this. This wasn't black, this was an absence of light, such a contrast to what it had been before, visible even in the already darkened room.

"I summon thee." And then withing the utter blackness, the emptiness of the glyph itself, pulsed red, baleful eyes. If Sheena wasn't as disciplined as she was, she might have lost the summon right then. Those eyes, the glyph... it was just like one of Yukari's gaps. It had been a long time since the youkai's gaps creeped her out, but this summon, this glyph did. But she pushed past that. She was a summoner.

"Come, Yukari!"

As that electric tingle came to a climax, Yukari could feel the bond between her and and Sheena, summon and summoner, stronger than she'd ever felt it before. It was almost as if she was one with the ninja, in the same place as her - no, she was going to be in the same place as her, right now. Forgetting anything she'd learned so far about her limitations in this place, Yukari opened a gap behind her and stepped back into it, disappearing in an instant.

It was quick, it was simple, but the youkai's reappearance was anything but. A long, thin line appeared in the air before that strange glyph between Sheena and the spider, a thin slip in the dimensions. And so slipped through two long, slender legs, feet first sticking up into the air, followed by that violet dress as they turned back towards the floor, the rest of her body and that mass of golden hair following as Yukari appeared, sitting atop that nearly imperceptible crack in reality from which she'd appeared.

"Call and I'll come, my summoner," she said with a dark smile and a snap of her fingers that produced several unearthly black and white butterflies that flew up from the gap she was seated on and disappeared into the ceiling. "Ooh, I haven't felt this good in a while..." her eyes drifted to her target though and in turn, its target. "Well, I suppose I should take care of this troublesome insect before we lose our healer."

She raised her arms dramatically - a completely unnecessary gesture, but she felt like showing off after so long being deprived of her abilities - wide, then sweeping up like a conductor leading the climactic height of the symphony.

"Now, disappear."

When she dropped her arms, so too did the spider drop through the floor, disappearing into the endless void that swallowed it whole, sealing up behind it like the gates of the underworld. Of course, she couldn't really send it there; who knew where it actually ended up. The important thing was that it was no longer here and neither was Yukari. One moment she was there, the next she'd simply stepped at an angle perpendicular to reality as most mortals knew it and disappeared.

Of course, she was quick to reappear, a gap opening back at her original location. However, when the youkai stepped out of it, she tripped over her own feet and promptly crumpled on the floor, landing on her knees and roughly taking a seat. Her head felt dizzy, but there was still a smile on her face, a lingering buzz from that rush of power.

"Well, that was fun."

[OOC: As noted, eliminating the spider through use of the summoning pact (http://mind-the-sukima.livejournal.com/2194.html)]

Raine just stared, barely remembering to even keep an eye on the spider while Sheena summoned Yukari; she would have wondered what the point was, with Yukari in the same room, until she saw why. Apparently, joining with another's power allowed the youkai to rip at the limits on her own power and use her gap to swallow something far larger than she normally could here. The spider simply vanished into the hole that had opened up underneath it, and as Raine watched, the gap closed up again before the monster could even try to struggle out.

She was concerned when Yukari fell to her knees, but she seemed to be all right; so, she decided to give the girl some space and instead made a beeline for Sheena. "When--how--did you make that pact?!"

The creepiness was well worth it, the card in her hand vanishing in a flash as Sheena's mana consumed its focus and call the youkai to her. Not that she had much to do to get to her, but that hadn't been the point. The point had been to make sure it did work and how effective the gap was.

Sheena always remembered the first time she summoned any of the spirits she had pacts with. She instinctively knew what the spell's result would be, but that first moment of summoning, of feeling the pact for everything it was, was something unique and special for each pact. It was no different with Yukari. The summoner couldn't help but grin when the youkai made her dramatic appearance, eyes filled with the wonder of a child as she watched the display. And then it was over.

And then Sheena felt like she got hit with a ton of bricks. The light, or lack of light, from the mana disappeared in a flash and it felt like every single, itty-bitty iota of mana was sucked right out of her. Her vision swam and she took a wobbly step back, hand moving to her head as she blinked her eyes and shook her head in an attempt to refocus. This wasn't good. This wasn't normal. She'd never felt like this after a summon.

As Raine zoomed in on her, the ninja fell backwards onto the floor, landing softly despite the angle of the fall. She wasn't out of it enough that she couldn't keep herself from getting hurt on something as simple as a self-induced fall. She was just... dazed and disoriented. And still...

Her lips curled up in a brilliant smile, a giddy laugh coming from her. Ignoring Raine, she tilted her head back so she could see Yukari and reached a hand out to her. "It worked..." Another one of those giddy laugh. Never mind the complete loss of mana. That'll come back in the morning, she believes.

"Yukari, it worked." Sheena could just kiss her youkai right then. She heard Raine, but she didn't care to answer at the moment, still coming down off of the rush of a brand new summon in a place where she was once deprived of them all.

Raine's reaction was amusing - stunned, surprised and far too interested. Of course, if the healer's reaction was amusing, then Sheena's was hilarious. That child-like giddiness, despite having practically collapsed, much like she had - really, what a cute girl.

"It worked," she agreed softly. Much as Yukari would have liked a kiss, she couldn't find the strength to move over to the ninja. Well, maybe she could have, but that would have taken effort. Of course, she couldn't refuse that hand reaching out to her. It was a little far away, but who would she be if she couldn't close a gap that trivial? Opening one of her holes in space, the youkai reached gently out, her hand appearing in midair and taking the ninja's.

No, this had not been a bad night at all, no matter how tiring it may have been.

When both of them collapsed, Raine finally realized how exhausting summoning must be here; there was a reason even at home Sheena didn't generally use her summons at the very beginning of a battle. And they had done it when Raine would have said it was impossible, due not only to their being from very different worlds but to their power restrictions.

Seeing them hold hands even when physically too far apart to touch made her smile very slightly; it was sweet.

Of course, her reaction then went straight to wondering if she could get Yukari at least, who seemed far less secretive, to tell her anything about how many levels that connection was on. If they were not only bound together by a pact, but lovers, how would that manifest when intimate?

Predictably unable to contain herself, Raine didn't give Sheena much of a chance to even get her breath back before she was asking "This was the first time you tried it out? Or just the first time using Yukari's powers in actual combat?"

Nightshift 49: 2nd Floor Staff Lounge

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Sorry for the slow guys, I'll try and be more on the ball for you.

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No worries. This is almost done anyways.^^

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