Touching the sandy grounds of the coliseum was a catalyst, and the progression of day did not mean the end of the process. By fortune or otherwise, this group's efforts were not allowed to halt simply due to the rising sun. Therefore, when nighttime was pronounced, those who had undergone the beginnings of an incomplete trial were pulled from their rooms, to be deposited without warning in the spots they had held in the previous night.

And at the center of it all, under the glint of the coliseum's light, stood the Eagle.

Unlike his impassioned speech, the General appeared relatively cold, the picture perfect image of an indifferent man. With arms crossed against his chest and nose high in the air, one might have assumed Aguilar to be displeased with the overall setup. Playing the part of Landel, after all, had never suited him. In truth, he was merely tired of waiting. Five individuals shouldn't take such time to recover from a simple "trip".

But recover they eventually did, and the man waved a hand as if to call attention to the south-center seats of the stadium, an aspect unneeded thanks to his projected voice.

"You're late."

[[from here]]

Sasuke woke with a start and thought -- for one horrible, infuriating moment -- that the night had ended again without conclusion or satisfaction. He had nearly opened his mouth to swear at the doubtless-waiting soldier when his senses caught up to his anger and the chilly, musty air pressed into awareness.

This was not his room. He was still underground.

But the air in here was different again from the last room they'd been in: this was not a cramped, closed space like the hallway past the first doors. There was a scent and a lightness to it that spoke of space even underground, but without the cleanliness that had kept the ballroom from being quite the cave that it technically was. It was nowhere that Sasuke could recall ever having sensed.

A moment later, he realised that he couldn't hear the voices of the others that had been with him when the doors had opened -- indeed, there seemed to be nobody in immediate proximity to him. Danger, the thought rushed back, and he tensed until the Sharingan flickered a flare of chakra into his line of sight, directly across from him. Someone was there, and he knew this chakra signature:

"Sai?"

[ from here ]

That feeling of vertigo that came with using the ring seemed to be getting worse with each trip, Erika thought, as she saw the world spin around her and felt that tugging sensation pulling all three of them. Well prepared this time, Erika braced herself as she felt wind roaring in her ears and saw the surroundings change into that familiar ballroom, getting ready to land -

"Ow!"

Landing gracefully this time was her idea, but she realized the thing she was landing on was not the floor, but on Sync once again. It seemed like she was the last one to fall despite being the one to destroy the ring, a curious constant that might have had more of her attention if it weren't for the fact that Erika was certain she landed against an elbow this time and that she still had no idea where the other boy was. Heaven forbid she landed on both of them, she might have killed one.

"Where is..." Ah, there he was. The other boy had landed a few feet away from them, though whether he was awake or not, she couldn't tell. Instead of checking on either of her companions, Erika took the moment to search around for her belongings, trying to find where the bag landed. It wasn't too far, but she noted with displeasure that several items had scattered onto the floor, including her katana and that gun. Clearly, those were her first priority, and Erika ignored the two behind her to get her things.

The commotion just after the intercom's jingle displayed the same kind of erratic energy that the Head Doctor had been exuding all day.

"Come on, get those papers out of the way – no, I don't...! Ah! Good evening, everyone, and I hope you all enjoyed the activities we had to–"

Someone whispered something in the background. The Head Doctor sighed and muttered: "Yes, Lydia, I know we don't have many organized activities...

"...But anyway! Next up is dinner with your roommates! Tonight, we'll be having turkey and gravy, which will consist of some moist slices of turkey breast and garlic mashed potatoes, garnished with steamed broccoli, grilled asparagus, and topped with delicious gravy. We'll be serving the dinners with small side salads and our dessert will be pumpkin pie – as per usual, we have alternate meals for alternate dietary needs."

The Head Doctor took a long pause. Lydia mumbled something in the background.

"No, I'm not dawdling–! Er... I'll talk to you shortly, everyone!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. Thank you! ]

[from here]

He'd been prepared for the same uncomfortable disorientation from last night, but all Kirk stepped into was the cold, clean air of the recreational field. A considerable improvement, although he wasn't about to thank Landel for any small favours. Despite the dull throb of his injury, he kept a firm hold on the door, remembering the way the handles kept slipping out from under his hand yesterday. Not tonight. Even if the doors apparently weren't tossing them around anymore. Even if it didn't matter. He wasn't going to get separated from Bones.

Kirk realized that this ran contrary to his own orders for them to split up, but then, what was the point of being captain if you couldn't change your mind when you wanted to? Besides, he'd issued those orders in a fit of impulsiveness. Whatever it was his captors expected out of him with their constant torments, he was determined to fight back by staying as unpredictable as possible.

"Oh, and forget about what I wrote earlier, you're with me tonight," he said before Bones could think to point this out, and flashed one of his just-trust-me grins for good measure. There was a fifty-fifty chance of Bones being able to tell that he was faking that unflappable assurance — not bad odds. "You can tell me about the important part of what happened while we head to M108."

[from here]

Was she really the only one out in the hallway right now? Minako certainly couldn't hear anyone else, and she didn't see any flashlights out there in the darkness. Brr. That was kind of... creepy. When it was dark the hallways seemed a lot more echo-y, and she couldn't help but think about the stories about monsters and things that might be lurking where she couldn't see.

"Stop being a scaredy-cat," she muttered to herself, then turned to her right and resolutely marched onward. Out to the main hall there, down a bit, then left. That would take her to the hall where she'd run into Arthur and the fake-Alfred the night before, which thought reminded her that she hadn't talked to either of them today. Maybe she should've left them a note or something on that bulletin. Oh, well. Tomorrow.

[to here]

Yuffie had found a ring.

She'd poked it and prodded it all throughout dinner, rolling it around on the palm of her hand. She'd tilted it this way and that, peering around the band to see if there was an inscription. There wasn't.

There was, however, a red stone.

Now, Yuffie was a materia hunter. And a treasure hunter. And a bounty hunter. And—well, she was a lot of things. She knew that it was all kinds of useless to try matching up with what she knew from home to what she found here, but she couldn't help trying.

So, she'd thought to herself, what do red stones usually mean? First up, and most obviously: summon materia. This… definitely wasn't a summon materia. Second, fairy ring. It wasn't one of those, either. The stone was the wrong shape, the ring was the wrong metal, and it was completely the wrong design. Wasn't a fury ring, either… Could it be a regular ol' ruby? No way, no way; that'd be too easy for Landel, too dull…

A quick change of clothes (she'd gone for the nostalgia kick today, just for a change of pace; the green turtleneck outfit still fit like a glove, though she made a point to leave the clunky shoulder, arm, and leg armor behind in the closet) and a bite to eat later, and the intercom answered her question.

I-It was… oh, man, this could be—it could mean…. "Holy crap," Yuffie whispered, laughing incredulously under her breath. Goldmine! Jackpot! Godsend!

Transported to the area you were in last night… Yuffie wasn't exactly in a hurry to go back to that grotty, smelly old locker room, but if she could use it some other night, the possibilities were almost too good to be true. Ah, as long as Cloud didn't go demandin' she fork it over, anyway… he wouldn't, would he? Well. Yeah, he might. Maybe. … Probably. Which was totes fine, of course, as long as he didn’t start up a brand new game of keep the shinies from the ninja.

There were tons of questions still without answers, like whether or not the rings were one-use only, but she could think about those later. After slipping the ring carefully away and grabbing her shuriken, Yuffie left to find Tifa.

"I look like a hobo," Yuffie whinged.

"You look lovely," her nurse consoled.

Yuffie was having none of it. "Hobos aren't lovely," she argued. "They're smelly and gross and they try to steal your small change." And then they realize who you are, and why they've suddenly got their feet jammed up the exhaust pipes of two separate trucks. And then they wet themselves (though that might've just been the cheap booze they'd been guzzling; she hadn't stuck around to find out).

Plucky sighed, ushering Yuffie firmly onto the bus. "Sit by the front," she said, still affecting that disconcertingly soothing air. "In case you feel ill."

In case? In case? "There's no 'in case' about it! You could always let me walk, y'know. Or, like, hook up a skateboard to the back of this bolt-bucket. That'd be mad cool, huh, don'tcha think? Near death-experiences always did help keep dinner down the trap-hole." Well, it was true. They did help, adrenalin being awesome like that. Unfortunately, Plucky was a prude, stubborn, and a complete party-pooper. All she did was shove a breakfast bag into Yuffie's hands—orange juice, thank gawd—before gliding away.

Left alone, it was all Yuffie could do not to fall into the biggest sulk of the century. If she didn't look like a hobo, she at least looked like she'd crashed into three separate wardrobes and come out wearing whatever fell on her first. And, and! And, the jeans! Why in Leviathan's name would anybody consent to wearing something so restrictive? They were like death in denim form.

Admittedly, part of her ire—most of it—was down to how far she'd gotten last night.

Because she hadn't. Gotten far. At all. Ugh!

She dropped her head forward, then knocked it back once, hard, against the seat. It's just one of those things, she could hear her old man say. Nothing you can do, he'd add, so you might as well go along with it. Crotchety, senile old jerk, always talkin' like he had the answer to everything right there in the palm of his hands. What a dumb way to live.

[Kurogane?]

It had all been going so well!

Seeing Cloud and Aerith(!) again had brought a now unfamiliar lightness to her shoulders. Work would be harder from here on out, but she wasn't on her own anymore. She was getting a second chance she'd never thought was possible. And then, then they'd trekked outside, totally ready to face the fog and the unknown (privately, the ninja had been a little worried; it couldn't happen again, it just couldn't, but what if it did?)—only to wake up. In their beds. As usual. Gaaaaaawd—!

"I just want you to know," Yuffie informed her nurse, grabbing her journal from the desk on her way out, "that your hair looks spectacularly god-awful today. What did you do, stick your tongue in a socket? I'm not exactly hip on fashion, too busy badass for that fluffy stuff, but—"

Plucky looked ready to plant her face in her hands. Or to plant her hands somewhere else. To her credit, and much to Yuffie's eternal disappointment, she did—tried to do—neither. "One of those days, is it?" the nurse sighed, disapproval incarnate. "Well. You're just going to have to behave; the new batches of patients are due today. We don't want to make a bad impression."

"I am feeling so completely convinced of my wrongdoing," Yuffie confided. They stepped into the cafeteria, practically empty as of yet. The chocolate cake last night had worked a treat, whetting her appetite. Honestly, she was getting sick of pecking at scraps like a runt Chocobo in the snow plains—but not literally, of course. Ew. She got more than enough of that on those damn buses once a week. Now that AVALANCHE really was dropping onto her lap—and remind her to get the hell out of dodge if Barret ever took his turn—she couldn't afford not to keep her strength up. For one, she'd be a liability. For two, she'd get her spine chewed out.

"Fruit," said Plucky, hovering as her charge picked out her choices for the day. Rolling her eyes, Yuffie grabbed an apple, slinging it onto the tray alongside an 'English' sandwich. "That'll do. I'll leave you to your breakfast, now." Somehow, that sounded about as comforting as 'My name is Don Corneo and I am raiding through your panty draw', and Yuffie was stopping that thought right there. Oh, god. Eurk. Bad, bad, bad! Bad, brain. Bad. That—yeah, no. Just, no. 'Sides, the guy was as dead as a doornail, splatted across Da Chao's feet. Dirtying them, really, but somehow Yuffie couldn't bring herself to be sorry about that.

(And it wasn't like the creep'd ever end up here, right? Right!)

She took to a seat, dropping her tray and her journal both onto the table. The book fell pages-down; Yuffie flipped it over, thumbing through to the middle as she worked through her apple. An almost finished map of Gaia stared back at her, neat as she could ever manage. Dots for major locations, squiggles for mountains. Stars for the materia caves, Chocobos for the tracks. All labelled in Wutaian. It was just a little piece of the home she absolutely had to get back to, 'cuz Leviathan knew what kind of trouble they'd be up to their necks in without her.

[For Donna]

The intercom jingle went off, mirroring the cheery voice that came out of the speakers soon after it.

"Hello, everyone, and I hope you found productive endeavors in both your music-making and your therapy sessions! Now, our nurses will be escorting all of you to your rooms and to your delicious dinners. Tonight, we're serving moist slices of turkey breast covered in gravy and served with mashed potatoes and grilled artichoke. Also available are our usual salad and drink choices, as well as a to-die-for devil chocolate cake dessert!

"...Mm, yes, I do think I'll have to partake in some of that myself! I trust you'll all enjoy it as much as I do, and I'll speak with you again shortly!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. ]

Peter woke up suddenly, his body twisting in the bed and then forcing him to catch his breath in pain. Pain, which was coming from his middle because of the thing that had scratched him last night, and after that...

After that, Zach had jumped in front of him like some kind of martyr, like the exact opposite of everything Sylar stood for, to take the next hit for him. It got pretty fuzzy after that, so night must have ended right around then.

The man let out a pained grunt as he straightened himself up in bed. For some reason, he got the feeling that he'd slept in. There was no way for him to really tell without a window in the room, but he just knew. The fact that Sam's bed looked long since vacated was another clue.

Sam, but was he Sam again? Had the brainwashing worn off, as he and Roland had hoped, or was he going to have to go through this nightmare for even longer? He didn't know how long he could handle "Zach" and "Harrison" before he started going batty himself.

Pulling himself out of bed, Peter lifted his shirt and saw that he was tightly bandaged. The scratch most likely wasn't nearly as bad as the bite that "Zach" had received, but it still smarted. He let his shirt fall and then had to deal with a nurse chiding him for sleeping through the morning announcements. Not that Peter really cared at the moment. He was too busy thinking about last night and the fact that in a way, he now owed something to Sylar. Except it hadn't been Sylar. That was something he was sure of now.

Lost in his thoughts, Peter reached the Sun Room right as the rest of the patient populace was trickling in from breakfast. Sighing to himself, he headed over to the bulletin board and then saw a note written in familiar yet unpleasant handwriting. Holding his pen in a vice grip, Peter scribbled out a reply and then stalked over to an armchair and fell into it with a huff.

While Sylar was maddeningly frustrating, there was one good thing about the fact that he was himself again. It meant that Nathan was too.

[For Spock!]

The intercom's jingle signaled yet another announcement.

"And our excellent behavior continues! Well, I am extremely impressed indeed!

"In any case, it's time to stop our socializing, unfortunately, and for the patients to return to their quarters for dinner. Be aware that new roommates have been assigned due to our influx of new patients and discharged old ones, so please be hospitable should you find yourself with someone new!

"As for dinner itself: tonight, we'll be serving shrimp and vegetable tempura along with delicious chicken teriyaki. Yum, yum, yum! As sides, we will also be serving boiled, salted soybeans, rice, and of course the appropriate soy and tempura sauces. Our regular assorted drinks and vegetarian substitutes are also available.

"I hope you enjoy your meal!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. Find new room assignments here. ]

Today was really trying to rain on her parade, wasn't it?

Well, it wasn't gonna work! Hanna was determined to stay strong and cheerful, in spite of Kenshin throwing a mega bitchfit and that the chick from the library being… Yeah. Her flightiness had been bad enough, but the half glossed-over memories had bordered on terrifying. Had she really been that far gone? It had to have been the meds. Just the meds. Yuffie was a douchey, semi-sociopathic klepto ninja thing, but even in that imagined world of hers, she hadn't gone around slashing people to ribbons for fun. Had she? Ugh, Hanna didn't even know anymore. Crazy people were capable of crazy stuff

Hanna's gut clenched just thinking about it, and she turned determinedly back to her lunch. The food wasn't exactly great, but it was better than some of the stuff she'd eaten. Like Stan's Deep fried Twinkie and mashed banana hot pot. Or, y'know, the normal stuff that teenage semi-runaways ate. Craptastic sandwiches and super economy potato chips, when she could get them, and whatever was in Tiffany's fridge when she couldn't. Dignity was dignity, and dignity was important, but being able to scratch a living from a rock was a handy life skill to have.

Stuffing another few chips in her mouth, Hanna did her best to ignore the door—and, by proxy, anybody who happened to come through it. Nostalgia trip aside, hadn't the Head Nurse said something about a whole new batch of crazycakes? Now she'd feel even more like a sardine than ever. Great.

[ For Cloud? :D ]

[From here.]

As expected, the next hall was just as dark as the last, but Sync didn't bother to waste any time just loitering around. Following the same idea as last time, the God-General kept close to the wall, using his memory to lead himself across with little effort.

He found what he was looking for in no time, pushing open the door and sliding through the crack into the larger hallway.

[To here.]

Once again, it was Nurse Lydia who took over the daily announcements just after the jingle came on. She didn't seem to waste any time and launched right in.

"Hello, everyone. Dr. Landel will be taking over for the last announcement of the day, but for now, I will continue in his stead. Presently, our nurses will escort you to your rooms, where dinner will be served. Tonight, the menu consists of herb chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and carrots. Dessert is a brownie."

After one of her conspicuous pauses, she added:

"A double-fudge brownie."

It seemed as if someone had been coaching her from the background. At any rate, she stiffly finished the announcement with: "The Head Doctor will speak with you soon."

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. SOME ROOM ASSIGNMENTS HAVE BEEN CHANGED IN LIEU OF DROPS, so please double-check on your character's assignment here. ]

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

Hello! I.R.I.S. here once more to announce to you, our honored guests, that you have officially made it through a day of our typical Landel's treatment. Of course, it isn't quite over: we will now have you retire to our designated patient quarters with one of your agency partners to inspect their sleeping area and the tools that we provide them with for the true bulk of our behavioral testing. On an added note, we would like you to notice once again that the meals we provide to our subjects are of the highest quality.

For those of you feeling apprehensive about taking part in our more intensive methods, please be aware that we would never imagine putting all of you in any danger whatsoever. This last shift will be your last at our Institute; afterward, we will escort you to our Head Doctor's personal observation station to survey some of our test Next-Wave participants in the rigorous trials we put them through – all for their betterment, of course.

Once again, we hope that you are satisfied with what you find, and as always, direct any questions you may have to your console.

The nurses began to escort the patients to their rooms. They didn't even seem to be brought to awareness by words such as "testing" and "subjects."

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. (Find all of the newly changed room assignments and shift introductions here.) If you are introducing your character during this shift, you may either choose for them character to wake up before their roommate gets back, or after. ]

[from here]

Lockdown kicked the door to the hardware store down and barged in. There was already a zombie in here, a big one, who the bounty hunter guessed was the owner of the store. There were also two other zombies with him, so Lockdown was already outnumbered. But that had never stopped the bounty hunter.

He frantically shifted his optics around the store, before settling on a set of large axes. Dashing forward, and executing a somersault to dodge the hands of the zombies, Lockdown quickly took hold of an axe, preparing to defend himself with it.

"HK, get your aft in here and lend a servo!" The bounty hunter called out.

At first, the idea of being stuck in this meatbag dwelling sector at night seemed like a wonderful idea. So many targets, such an open field, and so many things that could be repurposed for use as weapons!

...Then he saw all the zombies. After the talk of those 'space barnacles' last night, it was fairly easy to identify them as such. But the only thing was, those things were supposed to only affect droids.

Now there were meatbag zombies. All over the place. And he didn't have a flamethrower. Oh no no no nononono.

In short, HK freaked out.