Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand, there were clearly some things that made even time throw up its hands in vain and say, "To hell with this!" Guybrush was still inexorably prone to disastrous accidents if the story about the Pox of LeChuck was anything to go by, and he was so obviously keeping something important from her that any passing dolt in the Institute would have been able to tell. In the end, that eternal underlying sweetness of his that won out, keeping her from punching him again, at least. That was only by a hairs width, though. Her snugglecakes was going to have to stay on his best behaviour if he knew what was good for him.

She left the Mighty Pirate™ alone for the time being when the announcement of the next shift went off. He would want some time to catch up with Morgan next, presumably. As much as the woman's attitude bothered her, she was a friend of Guybrush's, as she had claimed. Elaine could be strict, but she wasn't the kind of shrewish future wife/past fiancé who would keep her man from seeing his friends. Besides, she needed some more time to catch up on the goings-on of the Institute. Patients filled the building to the brim, now, it seemed; there would be a lot to investigate.

After a few quick trips back and forth to the bulletin and a few new leads to follow up on, the governor gave in to her nurse's persistent nagging and headed to the cafeteria for brunch. After the relatively light fare of the day before, Elaine took advantage of the Institute's admittedly scrumptious offerings and loaded up a full, balanced brunchfast of eggs, sausage links, waffles, and vegetable soup. As expected, the selection of drinks did not offer either root beer or grog. Grog she could live without, at least, she thought while making a face. Eugh. For now, she settled for a tall glass of water.

Elaine settled into a seat in the cafeteria and tucked into her meal. Her eyes didn't stay on her food, though, instead gazing around restlessly; she hadn't seen LeChuck so far this morning, and god forbid he wanted to invite himself to brunch with her if he chose now to show up. A certain horribly unpleasant dinner on Mêlée Island came to mind. She was prepared to either move at the first sign of the dread pirate or signal a random stranger to sit with her before he could.

[For Dean]

The rain was really picking up by the time McCoy left the bar. A roll of thunder rumbled through the air. He paused under the awning, squinting up at the dark sky. He hadn't seen a storm like this in years. Not since Earth. It was looking to outdo any storm he'd ever seen too. Was it safe to even drive through this weather? If he was worried about the possible accidents those antique buses could get into before, now he was imagining even worse wrecks.

The wind whipped at him as he headed down Main Street, forced him to hug the jacket closer to him again. His pants had dried out in the bar, but the wind was whipping water under the awnings and starting to splatter against him.

McCoy was on his way back to his original assigned quadrant when one of the nurses' voice boomed through the street, ordering everyone inside. He managed to make it past another storefront when he caught a glimpse of white out of the edge of his vision. One of the nurses was looking at him lingering outside, and motioning towards a nearby orderly.

The doctor didn't wait around. With a grimace, he ducked into the nearest door.

[For Dean]

[from here]

Okay, so far so...ridiculously quiet. Better than the civilians milling about, she guessed. If they were civilians. You could never really tell and it wasn't like running up against crazy shit didn't make someone into something else completely.

Case in point: Willow. Who would've thought, huh?

Man, speaking of which, she hoped no one back home was wasting their time looking for her when they had another apocalypse on their hands. For whatever the count was. Four or five times now? God help her if she knew. The Fire and Brimstone Daily didn't exactly deliver to prison, but Angel had dropped by sometimes with updates. So how're you doing? By the way, Sunnydale is showing signs of being sucked into another hell dimension again.

It was weird to think of herself as someone to be missed and a part of her thought, Nah, who would bother?, but that wasn't true, and she knew that, too.

Anyway, she just didn't want the world to end. She definitely didn't want it to end while she was stuck in an empty dark hallway. Missing out on all the fireworks wasn't cool. Every Slayer bit the bullet sooner rather than later, so it was really more of a case of finding a banging wicked way for it to happen.

[From here]

"Well, let's hope it's not lying in wait for its own revenge tonight," said Yukari, only half-joking this time. "Or anything else lying in wait for them, for that matter."

Glancing up and down the dark hallway, Yukari opened up a gap and reached inside. After a few moments of fumbling, she came out with a flashlight in one hand and her parasol in the other. The latter was still a bit bent and sad-looking, but at least the former worked fine.

What forces might conspire to ruin their lovely evening? Hopefully none.

[from here]

Oh yeah, Yukari had asked about her injuries. There was still some gauze wrapped about her left hand, currently holding the pillowcase, but it wasn't anywhere as heavily bandaged as it had been the day before.

"Mostly healed. Saw the bird again last night, so I made it pay for its debut."

[from here]

Another hallway, which meant that he needed to slow his steps to a jog and turn on his flashlight. His light shifted over the walls quickly, up, down, around him, and even toward the floor, as if little black heads with yellow beady eyes would suddenly pop out and attack him. Though he didn't have any idea what most of the monsters looked like here, Riku doubted that he would see anything like the heartless. They may have the Darkness to change Kairi completely, but it didn't seem like the type of thing they would use against their patients. Making them into heartless would only be useful in the situations where Nobodies might be involved. Some people here might be strong in heart, much like Sora had been, much like Kairi had been, but he doubted that would be the intended result of their experiments. No, they were probably going for something else.

But what?

Riku shook his head uncertainly before he picked up his pace again. Nothing seemed to be clear. Not even the Darkness of this place seemed like that Darkness, even as he tried to see if it was the same way. But with every aspect of him feeling relatively weaker, it was no surprise he couldn't really check, couldn't really differentiate to tell for certain. He also knew there was a possibility that his senses were weakened. That would slow him down more, but they didn't bother to remove his experience or knowledge. Those were still things Riku pocketed and kept. They were what would help him help his friends.

[to here]

Even with the nasty weather, Zack still felt refreshed after going outside. Humidity would have reminded him of Gongaga, but he wasn't sure he needed that. Not now, not when he wasn't even sure if he'd be able to get back home and see his parents again. Not that he should have the chance at all, but it was hard to think about nonetheless. Seeing how Gaia hadn't even gotten a rocket into space yet, the idea of figuring out how to get home was one huge question mark in Zack's head.

He already felt hungry again, but after his talk with Aidou the soldier knew that he needed to get that bulletin note up as soon as possible. For that reason, he gave the nurse who was currently herding him his best pleading eyes as he asked to be taken into the Sun Room for a quick second. Once there, he scribbled out a note as fast as he could (he hoped his friends would be able to read his writing) and then tacked it up.

Also, what was with the guy on the intercom all of a sudden? Had he gotten a spontaneous cold? It seemed ridiculous considering he was their captor, but it also meant he was at least somewhat human. He could get a stuffy nose. That meant he was probably weak in other ways.

But there he was, resorting to violence again. It was difficult not to, when that was what he was used to. Besides, Zack was getting the feeling that this Landel guy deserved it.

Shrugging to himself, he entered the cafeteria again and got in line for his lunch. He had to admit he was glad that the food didn't seem to be drugged, seeing how it was downright delicious. Zack got a whiff of the fried poultry as it was put onto his tray and let out a happy sigh. Chow time!

Seeing how the cafeteria was still pretty empty, the young man found the closest empty spot and then sat down. Hopefully one of his friends would spot him and head on over. For now, though, Zack picked up one of the pieces of meat, bit into it, and leaned back into his chair with a content look on his face. So much better than the slop Shin-Ra had called food...

[For Tobias! Let us know if you want to join.]

"I could tell you some stories," Yuffie suggested brightly, "of unquestionable legality." Illegality, that was. Petty little things like the law didn't usually mean very much to her, except for the times when she had to uphold it. Always fun for the breaking, though, the law, and messy for the clean-up. Just the way she liked it.

Her nurse looked like she wanted to rub her temples. With sandpaper. "No, thank you," she said instead. "Why don't you run along, now?" Please!, was the unspoken request. Before I spontaneously combust. Or commit various acts of violence that would have me arrested, or placed in a loony bin. Like this one. Yuffie had quite a bit of fun filling in the blanks other people left. Sometimes she did it outloud, just to see the reaction; sometimes she kept it to herself. It really, really depended.

"Don't mind if I do!"

She took off, bolting out into the Courtyard. The weather was dour, overcast and threatening rain, but Yuffie didn't care. She'd refused a coat on principle, and had found herself bargaining: Fine, fine, Plucky had conced she could go without a coat, but unless she had at least a sweatshirt on, there'd be no outside-time for her. She ran a little ways down the dirt path, then toppled herself into a series of cartwheels. Straighten, run. Cartwheel. Straighten, run, just for the sheer sake of movement, and the whip of the wind. She laughed a little giddily, checking her gait down to a jog. Gawd, Leviathan, she'd needed this. Right from the get-go, she'd needed this. Every day she spent cooped up in side, the more nervous energy she had.

Nanaki had helped, she realized. Sort of. He'd…helped. In a way. His presence and everything that was wrong with it weighed on her, for sure, but he was still Nanaki. He didn't deserve to be here, didn't deserve to be stuck in a body that he hated and couldn't use, but all the same, she found herself glad to have him.

Yuffie started to hum, as she jogged leisurely around the Courtyard. A cheery little tune, one of her favorites; no, it was her favorite. A Wutaian walking song, with the roughly translated title of Pathway After the Rain. The pace stayed even but the tune picked up, and she found herself half-singing snatches of the lyrics to herself. It felt like ages since she'd last said anything in her native tongue, at least outloud; she wrote in it all the time.

[The Doctor]

Luckily for Mele, the night had ended before Tenzen had changed his mind and deemed Mele appropriate for target practice. Even if the situation of who was mocking who had seemed to change into the Iga ninja's favor. Despite her behavior, perhaps the insolent woman could serve some sort of use nonetheless. He had been trapped in this place for a week by now, he would not accomplish anything on his own.

A week was a long time, a lot could have happened. Of course, he was thinking of the war, the bloody clash of two rivaling ninja clans, whose hatred had gone back for four hundred years. After that infuriating peace treaty had been broken, he, too, could finally release the hatred. And despite their losses, Tenzen had been certain that the Iga clan - no, that he would be the one to remain standing.

Four had remained on both sides a week ago...had the remaining Kouga already been killed? Or had they somehow succeeded in disposing of the remaining three Iga (excluding himself) during his absence? Of those three, two were blind. The situation was not a favorable one, and with himself trapped here before he could return from death, he had to wonder if the Kouga had removed the name 'Yakushiji Tenzen' from the scroll and would believe they had eliminated all of Iga's chosen ten.

The thought - along with no manner of telling this - was enough to make his jaw tighten. The longer he would remain here...

But as unfuriating as it was, it would not help him return. After confirming the presence of the scalpels he had retrieved, a nurse entered his room to escort him to the cafeteria for ridiculous Western breakfast. Unfortunately, the same ridiculous food was the only source of nutrition.

Upon entering, the ninja noticed he was the first to arrive to the area. After deciding on a salad rather than these so-called 'pancakes', he moved to one of the many vacant seats.

[Free to a good home. No limits!]

( from here. )

The second floor. Bella couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief at the fact that she was almost done with her exploring adventure. Now, all she had to do was turn the corner and find the room she wanted, then head back down to Edward, and she'd be good to go.

Looking down at her map, Bella was interrupted by the sound of something metallic hitting the walls, as well as voices down the hallway. She froze for a moment, frowning. Was there a fight down the hallway? While curious, she knew she couldn't spend her time getting mixed up in a fight she would not win, and instead left the fight to itself. She only hoped whoever was down there would be okay.

"Right, okay. Almost there," she muttered to herself, moving towards the wall so she could place her hand against it, allowing her to feel when the wall curled away and led into the smaller hallway she was looking for. Then all that would be left would to count the doors until she found the one she was looking for.

( here. )

( from here. )

Bella couldn't help but slow to a walk when she continued down the hall, her eyes wandering as she looked around a part of the institute that she had never been through before. Of course, she really hadn't seen much of the place; she had only been there for a few days, and both of the nights had been spent doing things, so there was really no time for sight seeing.

She supposed that perhaps this little adventure also held that purpose - to get to know the layout of the building. She was sure that Edward already knew the entire place (him and that photographic memory of his.) but she wasn't so lucky, so she had to experience things for herself to know where they were.

Speaking of. She couldn't stop and check out the scenery anymore, it was taking too much time. Bella knew that when Edward realized she wasn't in her room he would come looking for her, and she had to keep moving. Maybe she could meet him on the way coming back downstairs...

( to here. )

_{[From here.]}

Shinji emerged into another familiar hallway. At the same time, everything was off. He'd learned this his first night, but it seemed to get worse each time. He hated this feeling, but he had to press on. He couldn't run away. He couldn't hide. He didn't have any other choice. He paused for a brief moment to steel himself and then moved on. He had to keep moving. He had to keep going. He moved on.

_{[To here.]}

( from here. )

There was the stairwell. Kairi couldn't help but smile to herself as she rounded the corner and spotted the familiar hallway, still shrouded in darkness like she remembered it. She could see down the hallway and slightly into the Sun Room from where she was standing, and she lowered her flashlight, not wanting whatever it was that was lurking inside it that night to spot her.

At the thought of that, she looked down at the sword that she held in her hand, feeling ready to take on whatever it was that they were going to do tonight. Though, she had a feeling that even with her own weapon, the two boys wouldn't exactly let her help out all that much. Still, she'd try. The sword she had was real and with her at all times, not like a keyblade that would appear seconds before being attacked.

And to think, back when they used to play on the island with wooden swords, they had never given her one. Well, now she had a real sword, so hah!

[From M59]

Dinner hadn't been Italy's cooking, but Prussia finished it anyway; food was food, and if he succeeded in breaking out of here, it might be a while before he had another chance at a meal.

When an announcement mentioning "patients" was broadcast, it had merely confirmed his suspicions that he'd been placed in a hospital overnight—or perhaps, during the day; from the sound of things, it was already night again. That suited him; the door may have been locked, but his attempts to force it open hadn't brought in any guards, so it seemed that he was alone. He wondered what the control council was trying to accomplish by putting him here; they'd hardly been concerned about his health before (were they trying to make up for what they'd done to him?), and relaxing their guard on him was foolish.

After the announcement, Prussia had started searching for anything that he could use to get out, but the only particularly useful things he'd found were a handheld light, a key, and a pair of boots. It was while he was putting on the boots—who knew what terrain would be like once he got out?—that another announcement was made, of a different nature than the first. The man on the broadcast seemed to be going on about a radio.

Far more interesting than the announcement, however, was the fact that when Prussia tried the door again—out of hope more than any real belief that it would be miraculously unlocked this time—the knob turned.

There wasn't a moment to waste.

The hall was empty. No guards, no England or America just waiting for him to slip up so they would feel more justified in crushing him, no one. Prussia felt somewhat insulted that they were so overconfident as to think their law and a locked door alone would be enough to render him useless.

There was a long row of doors ending in what looked to be a dead end to his left when he exited his room, but there was another hallway to the right. That was the way he'd go.

[To here]

[For Yuna!]

Fish and chips weren't his favorite thing ever, but he did make sure to eat it all. He just liked to think of the fish as the Filet'o Fish without the bun and it made it easier to eat. The french fries had been pretty well cleaned off and he'd even managed a bit of fruit, although he avoided the oranges and other sour things his nurse had insisted on putting on his plate. But the fries had been good and he felt a little better having eaten something. With everything that had been going on lately, Ritsuka had been shirking on his meals more than usual and it'd all but made him sick.

Now, as he flopped onto a sofa in the Sun Room, he felt sick in a different way. He really shouldn't have eaten as much as he did, but there was no helping it. He'd been hungry. Wasn't hi fault the grease was starting to get to him.

Pulling his legs up onto the seat cushions, Ritsuka leaned back and asked his nurse to bring him the book he'd checked out from the library last time. She returned soon enough and he curled up with the book, ignoring her curious looks at his choice in literature. He hadn't seen Soubi at lunch and now that it was the fourth shift, he figured most of the men would be out in the Greenhouse. He'd have to catch up with the Fighter later, now that he'd calmed down.

Heat was able to ignore the still faintly throbbing spot on his head as he was led back into the cafeteria for another meal he had no intention of eating. He kept himself from rubbing at what he knew would be a small bump because dammit it didn't hurt that much. It was embarrassing, was what it was.

At the fishy odor filling the room when he entered, the demon wrinkled his nose. How that was supposed to be the slightest bit appealing he had no idea. Then again, it wasn't always the taste that mattered. Whatever this cod was, it could very well taste better than the rotting flesh he'd gotten down the night before.

His nurse made some comment about his lack of appetite, but he wasn't paying attention. She could eat his damn lunch if she was worried about it going to waste. It wasn't his fault they didn't inform their staff properly of their patients' eating habits. The room was fairly empty too, so Heat wasn't picky with where he sat. He just hoped one of his tribemates found him before he was stuck with some other pest for the duration of the meal.

[Sasuke?]

Scott wasn't really what one would call the sporty type, at least not currently. In the past, maybe. He could have called himself a hockey player at one point - in grade two (it totally counted). And he had been a jock in high school, hadn't he (he had at least played a lot of Track & Field for the NES, anyway)? Regardless of what his athletic status may or may not have been, sports weren't really what the Scott Pilgrim of nowadays was associated with. He was a fighter, not a lover sports guy. Still, he was surprisingly excited to be going out to the Rec Field. Maybe he wouldn't get any games on, but he could still work off those pesky bullet wounds, right?

He walked as fast as the crutch would let him despite the protests of his nurse and his injured limbs. His hand could grip just well enough to keep the crutch steady under his right arm (gravity did most of the work), and he was thus able to keep a good pace. "All right, not doing bad so far," Scott said to himself with a grin as he hobbled quickly across the field, heading for the goalposts on the far end. He had worked up a surprisingly steady stride by the time he got close to them. Crutch forward, then left leg swung out in front of it. Crutch, leg, crutch, leg, crutch, leg. Nothing to it! Sure, his shoulder was hurting like burning. Sure, his right leg was still giving him similar pain on a smaller scale despite not having weight put on it. Sure, his animal brain was constantly shouting, "WHY WON'T YOU STOP?!" Other than that, though, he was a-okay. He was determined to be. Otherwise, it was Game Over, wasn't it?

Soon he reached the goalposts and stopped, much to the relief of his limbs. He hadn't really gone to this spot for any specific reason. He had just wanted to prove to himself that he wasn't that hampered by his injuries. For now, he seemed to have made a good case for the affirmative on that point. He knew that he couldn't just stop at moving forward, though. He had to see how good he was going to be at fighting in this condition. How was his moveset going to be modified with a crutch added and an arm taken away? That was the million dollar ($1176470.59 CDN) question, wasn't it?

He tried something simple to start - a standing kick with his good leg. He quickly raised his left leg while leaning his armpit against the crutch, lightly touching the goalpost with the sole of his foot. Nothing bad so far. He did the same thing again, only harder. A small wave of pain shot from one leg to the other, causing him to wobble on his crutch a bit. Scott grit his teeth, not liking that result at all. This time he decided to try a small jump kick, just to spite that stupid injury. After backing up a good few inches, he pushed both feet off the ground. "Hiiiiya!" With the end of his crutch still on the ground, he gave himself a bit of extra momentum, letting it fling him toward the goalpost with his left leg outstretched.

One didn't have to be able to predict the future to know what that the result of that was going to be. Foot connected hard with goalpost. Rebound pushed him back against the crutch. Center of gravity over the crutch shifted too far back. Pain shot through both his legs and his injured arm again. This and the gravity shift caused him to let go of the crutch entirely. Body flew back over the crutch and crashed on the ground slightly behind it. Bum (among other things) ended up stinging and covered in grass stains.

"Owwwwww," Scott groaned to himself, fumbling for the crutch. It was in an awkward position, just beyond the reach of his good arm. ". . . Well, could've gone worse, I guess," he told himself as he used his left foot to start pushing the crutch back toward his hand.

[For Keman at first, then Peter and Indy later.]

[From here]

Neku might not have been in the Arts and Crafts room before, but he'd had it pointed out to him enough times to make it easy to locate.  The door opened easily and he made room for the others to slip inside while he let his flashlight search the room.  A quick scan revealed nothing, though he was somewhat concerned over what tuning into other frequencies might do.  If they had psychos with guns running around at night, he could only imagine what kind of Noise might be contributing to it.  

Now it was on to the important part.  Risking their lives for art supplies.  

How was he supposed to know what CAT wanted anyway?  He took a few steps toward the shelves at the other end of the room.  The tables were bare, so the stuff had to be back there.  Josh knew Mr. H pretty well, so would he want to pick the stuff out?  Or would he just enjoy himself and laugh when Neku picked the wrong supplies?  Then again, Mr. H, had entrusted the task to Neku.  And Neku definitely knew CAT's work.  Focus.  Something in bright primary colors, black, maybe some white too.  He opened the nearest cabinet and started rummaging through the supplies.

622 picked up his sword and glowrod, heading out into the hallway. Hopefully, things would go smoothly tonight. They probably wouldn't, but it felt nice to actually have something to do.

[to here]

Heh, tonight was promising to be kind of interesting. First time in awhile, it seemed like, for which Xigbar was far too happy to give things a shot. That in mind, he stripped off that aggravating gray shirt and started grabbing his weapons, making sure that they were all okay. Three knives lashed to his ankles, three arrows tied around his waist, and the clips of ammunition for the gun were carefully put away for safe-keeping. The gun, naturally, remained in his hands, and he reminded himself that he needed to get some duct tape so he could lash the flashlight on the thing.

For now, though, after preparations were complete, he opened the door and eased out into the hallway, keeping his eye open for trouble. Not that he'd mind, but he'd prefer seeing some trouble after meeting with his people. No point in showing off if there wasn't an appreciative audience, after all!