[from here]

"Here we are," Indy announced unnecessarily, jerking a thumb toward the mine entrance. The warning signs were as foreboding as last night and the way in was half boarded up again. As he moved closer, Indy wondered again just how old this mine was. If it'd been there before Landel's, and if--big if--Richter's device was down there somewhere, there'd have to be another, larger way in, or at least one would've existed at one time.

He glanced back to make sure the others were keeping up, and then he realized what Richter must have been staring at. His shadow was no longer a two-dimensional shape on the ground, but seemed to have resolved itself into--Indy wasn't sure just what. Him, clearly (the shape of the hat was unmistakable), but indistinct, and more importantly, now moving upright in three dimensions.

"What the hell?" Indy breathed.

[from here]

Sai hit the ground and rolled as the blasts from their opponent ripped through the air to either side of them. He crawled up onto his knees, pawing around for the flashlight that had been knocked from his hands in the attack. "Naruto?" He hadn't seen if the blond had been hit or not. If he had, this whole venture would have been a mistake.

The robotic man from the field didn't seem to be following them, and as the adrenaline left his system, the use of chakra started to catch up to him. He remained on the ground as he listened for his friend, catching his breath. If they'd truly gotten away, then this was the furthest he'd managed to get in the past several days.

Now if only such luck would hold out.

[from here]

This was already further than Sai had gotten the past couple nights, which was saying something. It was getting over the wall that would be the real test, though. The actual act of scaling the brick would be simple, but the night had an odd way of ending before he'd gotten beyond that point. Hopefully the same wouldn't hold true this time around.

The important thing was to just keep on the move. Chances were there would already be something or someone in the field waiting to hinder them and keep them from their goal. If they could avoid them, and avoid getting drawn into a pointless struggle, then perhaps they could actually get into the woods for once. Of course, this was much easier said than done. He'd been controlled by the Institute once before, and he knew how easy it could be just to keep a patient with their abilities dampened from getting between one door and another.

He would tell himself to think positive, except that wasn't really what Sai was known for.

[From here.]

The treeline was a welcome sight after the long trek from the quarry, the cold winds fighting the pair the entire time, trying to push them back into the relative protection of the institution's walls. The building may have provided refuge from the elements, but the horrors within had been worse than anything they'd seen outside thus far. The night had yielded some unexpected finds and locations for future endeavors; however, exploring the outer grounds while so injured might not have been their best idea.

The weather certainly didn't make their exploration any easier- the biting air made breathing painful, and Edgar was dealing with enough pain as it was. He walked a few steps ahead of Gren as they entered the forest, using his shovel as a staff as he reached beneath his jacket and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to think of anything but the steady throbbing from the injury beneath the bandages. The claw marks in his leg weren't nearly as problematic. There was no conversation to distract him- Landel had made sure of that. Concentrating on the shadows surrounding them was more difficult with every step. He felt sluggish, his breath labored and uncomfortably ragged.

Edgar stopped as they neared a clearing, leaning momentarily against a tree and taking a few steady breaths. He did his best to look composed, but couldn't help but feel spoiled by the armor and abundance of medicines provided in Figaro; without them, he had to rely on sheer endurance. It was a battle that left him feeling weak and entirely too vulnerable for his tastes.

[From here.]

Upon stepping outside, Castiel used his flashlight to take in what seemed to be some sort of drop-off area for vehicles. So this was how people were supposedly brought to this place. Teleportation seemed just as likely, but his memory of his arrival was either gone or nonexistent. The fact that he still didn't know how much time had passed between tonight and his fight in the hangar was becoming increasingly bothersome to him.

The area seemed to be abandoned; no sign of guards. There was something off about the setup, but Castiel took a moment to look back at the building nonetheless. If his guess was right, then it looked to be about three stories high, and it extended out quite a bit in either direction. It wasn't massive, but it was hardly small, either. Strange, that they would put their cells so close to the front door.

Was this some sort of test, perhaps? Or merely a game that was meant to waste time? Castiel scanned the sky and saw no signs of lights in the distance, which meant they were nowhere near any cities. At this point, getting back to civilization was going to be quite the task.

"I don't recognize this area," he said bluntly. He still didn't think it was in Japan, but that was neither here nor there. "I'm going to keep moving. Come with me if you wish." And he started walking again, flashlight pointed forward in case someone or something decided to finally confront them on their escape attempt.

[From here.]

As he entered, Castiel confirmed that this room, unlike the one he'd checked before, was empty. That was preferable; the less people he needed to deal with, the faster he could find what he was looking for. What the room had instead was a plethora of doors. The one to the right most likely led into the room he'd previously checked, but the other (he did a slow turn to count them all) four were mysteries.

Granted, the double doors that were straight across from them seemed the most intriguing. "Check the other doors," he said, glancing over to Orihara with a blunt stare before he strode over to the double set.

However, they were locked tight, probably as tightly as the door out of that room had been before it had inexplicably opened. Castiel considered repeating the methods he'd tried before (kicking and bashing at it, in others words), but then he was struck by an entirely different idea.

"Do you know how to pick locks?" he asked, sharply turning back toward the boy.

[From here]

Eventually, the wall at his side turned sharply to the left and he followed suit, outlining the building toward the road ahead. The ground was still rocky here, less so than to the west of the institute, but it wouldn't have been able to stop him either way. The ache in his legs had morphed into a hot, rhythmic pounding that struck with every sprint forward, and the slide and crackle of loose rocks and dirt, displaced by the leather of his shoes, became more and more associated with the hurt. His left hand tightened around the cue, keeping it level to his waist as he ran in order to keep from hitting that too against the ground and losing his balance.

Soon enough, rock gave way to fog-covered road and the path became smoother. Good. That meant he could run faster.

Perhaps now wasn't the time for self-reflection, but the Guild Head couldn't help himself. How many times had he found himself in a situation like this, running through the fog and the dark, no matter his own injuries or thoughts on the matter, for the sake of someone else? If not for the death of another, then for the life of one other? How many nights had he stayed awake, pursuing what trails he could find of his Lord, no matter what or whom was in the way? How many miles had he run doing this exact same thing, how much sleep had he lost and energy he had been drained of in search of his reason for being?

Hah. The calculation was probably too high to measure anymore. But that was fine. If it meant that this time he would save him... Venom would run forever.

The pain in his legs began to blossom into his sides. He pushed himself further. The pain wasn't enough to stop him anymore. Nothing was.

[From here]

Unlike the western section, the central portion of this hallway was completely deserted. On any other night, von Karma would have used this to his advantage to arrive at one of the upstairs locations before anyone else did. The Janitor's Closet, for one, contained a large cache of metal that he could use to compensate Mr. Geeste for the work he would do for him three nights later.

But for now, von Karma merely had to go as far as the very first doorway to his right, which led straight into Waiting Room 1. This was far more important -- though less pleasant -- than his prospective metal scavenger hunt. Besides, by the time he had replied to Mr. Geeste's notice, Ms. Taura had already accepted an assignment from that blasted History Club. He would simply have to try to contact her tomorrow morning as soon as possible before she could accept another one.

Shaking his head, von Karma turned the door knob, expecting to have to jimmy it open, but instead discovering that the door wasn't locked after all.

[To here (with Court's permission to just go on ahead <3 ) ]

[from here]

It looked like the hallway opened up over here. Guess he couldn't expect to just run around and follow a linear corridor forever, but now he had to figure out which way he wanted to go. Normally, he'd just run down whatever hallway he happened to lay eye on first, but again, he was running a liiittle blind here.

He still wasn't seeing any people anywhere. Maybe everyone was hiding. If everyone knew the staff turned into monsters and tried to eat them, then it'd make sense that they'd try to keep low. Thankfully, he'd be taking care of whatever was wandering around this place, so they wouldn't have to stay hiding for long. Once that was done, they could blast their way out of there and he could find his way back to the others. Couldn't keep everyone waiting on account of him, right?

[running across Rita, The Trickster, and hopefully, a freaking flashlight]

[From here, with much AUGH]

Of all the things Recluse was expecting when he walked through the door, immediately falling into a lake was not one of them. He began to sink immediately from the weight of his weapons, swimming back up to the surface, spitting out a mouthful of water that he'd nearly swallowed in surprise.

Hopefully, Agatha knew how to swim. Recluse wasn't quite sure he was in the mood by this point to do something so charitable as save her if she couldn't.

[from here]

The door had apparently not decided to be good for her, judging by the way the disorientation lasted even longer this time, but when it cleared up-

"-this does not look like the same building," she declared. "Are those... cash registers?" Whatever world this was, their mechanical aesthetic was certainly boring.

[From here]

Another moment of disorientation, and here they were in... an actually marginally useful place. What a surprise. "You wanted tools last night? This is the room." He was hoping that Agatha's priorities might be in a sensible place, he wouldn't stand for any 'there's no time, we have to save my friend!' hysterics.

[from here]

Agatha wasn't really sure what she'd been expecting. Either something would try to defend the room, and she was as ready for that as she could be; or it wouldn't, and she could move on to those adjoining rooms she'd spotted through the doorframe. But she'd certainly expected there to be adjoining rooms, what with having seen them already. In fact, she'd expected it to have anything at all in common with what she'd seen, rather than being a rather boringly tidy little office.

It barely contained anything- desk, chairs, couch, tiny and severely plain machine with a flask- but somehow, it was enough to bring unease to the forefront, despite Agatha's fury. Something was horribly... was even more horribly wrong than she'd thought.

[From here]

Stomping up the stairs, the Mathematician was immediately reminded of his lack of a hand truck banging up behind him. He'd probably need to replace that if he wanted to grab more materials for his artwork.

"Haven't made so much as a single standing statue since Night 1," Sho muttered as he clomped up the stairs in his institute boots. Sure there'd been the occasional creation in Arts&Crafts, but that hardly counted. Well, there was one artistic piece he could be proud of, fleeting as it was... "Well, other than my latest masterpiece!"

A chuckle and laugh - he still had most of the materials for another as well - all he needed was a suitable subject to paint red with flame.

Zack was staring to think that he had bad luck when it came to roommates, since this time his new one had come back from wherever he'd been (not the field trip, since he hadn't looked like he'd just taken a dive into a river) and then immediately fallen asleep. His first roommate had slept until he'd just disappeared, and so the soldier couldn't help wondering if this was some sort of nasty repeat.

As a result, he'd had to deal with a very quiet dinner until the intercom announcements came on. The head doctor was just as much of a creep as usual, though it sounded like the rain was doing some structural damage to the building. "That bad, huh," Zack commented to himself as he stood from his desk to grab his flashlight and prepared to leave. It wasn't like that was going to stop him from venturing out.

The talk of visitors also nagged at the man, but it was something he'd be better off asking a more experienced patient about. For now, he just needed to get going. From what he'd managed to piece together, Tifa was heading out with Rude tonight, which meant that he'd be better off finding Cloud or Aerith. Maybe even his favorite ninja.

The faster he got going, the more likely he'd be able to catch someone on their way out of the patient rooms. And if he didn't manage that, then he'd just invite himself into another group. There was, of course, that urge to just go off on his own, but Zack was doing his best to hold back and listen to the multiple warnings he'd been given. He wasn't always the best at thinking before he leaped, but he knew that he couldn't toss his life around like it meant nothing.

Nodding to himself, Zack left his room (it looked like he was the first in this hallway to do so -- good sign!) and started down the hall.

[To here.]

[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.

[M57]

Having no roommate pretty much sucked. Even if the first guy who'd been in here with him had just slept the whole time, at least there'd been someone else around. It was one small thing to focus on, even if only as a perplexity. Tieria had actually given him someone to talk to after that, but this evening the man had just never shown up. Did that mean he was gone? Or maybe the nurses switched things around sometime. If not, though, that'd make the second roommate of his who'd just up and disappeared.

Was he bad luck or something?

It looked like he had the room to himself for the moment, but that wasn't something Zack liked. He'd prefer to have someone to chat with over dinner, but instead he'd been forced to eat in silence and then scribble in his journal to pass the time. He'd made sure to get a hold of his flashlight before the lights went out, but since that was really the only thing he needed at this point, it wasn't like he'd had to do much preparation.

The announcements from the Head Doc spiced things up a little, but it was hard to care too much when Zack had barely any idea of what the man was going on about. Jill, a rebel... what was all that? Maybe he could ask Aidou, since the kid seemed to be well-informed. If they got the chance, anyway. He didn't know how much effort this task of theirs was going to take, but he'd stay focused on the matter at hand if that was what it came to. He was nothing if not a good soldier, as much as it hurt him to admit these days.

Once Landel was done talking, all Zack could do was wait. He stood in the center of the room and started in on some squats, figuring that he could limber up while he waited for Aidou to arrive. He hoped it wouldn't take too long.

[from here]

Here they were. S.T. set the toolkit down on the bench, and ripped off the duct tape holding the flashlight down. It went on the counter, pointed up at the ceiling to spread the light. Then he popped the latches and pulled out his prizes. He unfolded the cloth, touching neither with bare skin.

"First up -- nebulizer mask. I'm going to check it for residue, see if I can tell what effects it had. Second," he pointed at the surgical spreader. It looked like a bloodstained pair of scissors that had melted in the sun, and he had a feeling it wasn't more than it looked like. "Pulled that from a second room. I don't know who got hit with the gas, and the other guy wasn't ready to talk when we pulled him out."

He took pity on Carter. "Think a dentist's chair in the pre-anesthetic days -- they strap you down, do something gratuitously painful, and laugh at you the entire time. But afterwards, instead of missing teeth, something else is off. Usually or always sense-related, but a lot of guys don't like to talk about it, so gathering information is tough."

He was in full lecture mode now. "If we can find out the aim, if there is one besides watching us squirm, we'd know something we didn't before about Martin Landel, second edition or not."

[From here]

"And just out of curiosity, what sort of evidence are you referring to?" Recluse asked S.T., making for the door to the decontamination room. Rather than remove the bolts, he gave himself a little space, and with one hard kick broke the door open. With such meager strength it required a certain amount of concentration to manage without causing injury to himself--normally an unthinkable situation--but he managed it with only a minimum of discomfort that he could easily hide.

[from here]

S.T. stopped as soon as he'd reached the side hall and took a deep breath. It still smelled like roadkill, but at a lower concentration. A few parts per million. Fucking boxcars.

The incipient catechism was interrupted by a brief word from their sponsors. He wiped his eyes and nose surreptitiously as he stopped to tune in.

"Lame." The word came out like a belch, guttural and dismissive. "Tell us something we didn't already know."

Carter wasn't going to have a clue. He'd have to head off the questions before they overflowed everywhere. "There was this dude. Jack. On the radio, before my time. The Head Bastard offed him on live coverage. Then he came back as a zombie, returned the favor, and it didn't do a damn bit of good. The intercom announcements sounded like a robot phone sex operator for a few days. Then the whole place rebooted -- Martin Landel, and Jack, at least for a day."

He took a breath. "This was all over the intercom. Could have been just a show, except the zombies were real. And the deaths. The patient ones. Be glad you missed your chance to play Jesus. Shit fucking hurt, man."

There had been ethanol in that supply cabinet, hadn't there. S.T. knew better than to add more volatiles to an already aromatic situation, but he was earmarking one of those for his personal stash.