For once, HK was working very hard to hide a giddy facial expression as he met his nurse at the door. He'd already hidden his scalpels in his clothing. The wonderful, sharp implements of doom would be needed today. “Statement: Despite my reticence towards all processed meat and plant products, I am experiencing intolerable levels of hunger,” he informed his nurse. “I require an especially large meal.”

It was the easiest and best excuse to load his food tray with several of these 'inglish muffin sandwiches', and two glasses of white milk. He then found a table strategically located in the center of the refueling area, and waited. He needed the room as full as possible before the Evil Plan could begin.

[Free, but planning doom upon all.]

[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]

All quiet so far. None of the usual sounds of combat could be heard coming from the Sun Room. It seems they'd beaten the usual crowd of people heading through there. Of course, this just meant they'd be the first to be ambushed. Wonderful.

Regardless, Hime strode forth, knife and flashlight each in hand, Depth Charge following behind her. Now, what lurking predators stalked the darkness tonight?

[from here]

When they stepped into the next hallway, Anise was wearing her usual smile once again. "So, Tem... you said you're a sergeant, right?" she asked, looking to make some (hopefully) less awkward conversation with the man. Work was usually a safe subject, right? Besides, with how soldier-like the man was in his appearance and attitude, she figured he'd be open to talking about his career.

The girl continued, cheerfully. "That's a neat coincidence. We're the same rank!" Well, maybe not exactly the same, but about equal, anyway. Fon Master Guardians were technically sergeants, after all. Anise was proud of how impressive her full rank and title sounded, but saying the whole thing at once would be a little too tiring for casual introductions, so she usually didn't mention it when meeting people at the institute.

Well, that was just one reason for it. The other was simply that it was fun to surprise people by mentioning her position long after first impressions were made.

[from here]

As they started up the stairs, Anise went on to ask one of the several questions she had on her mind. "But, um... are you really okay with being called what the staff came up with? I mean, a number is weird, but isn't having a fake name forced on you just as bad?" She had to admit, 'Temuera' sounded a lot better than 'TK-622' as far as names went, but at the same time, she herself would rather swallow needles than willingly go by the name the nurses called her here. It was just... insulting, in a way.

It looked like she was right about guessing that he was a soldier, though. He certainly looked and acted the part. Anise was probably the opposite in that respect. She would be shocked if anyone guessed she was a soldier from her appearance. On the one hand, it could be a little annoying, not being taken seriously, but on the other, it was nice having her own guards for once. If people were going to volunteer to help her, then who was she to stop them?

[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]

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]

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]

[From here]

"Oh bloody hell, not another one." Another room that looked not only useless, but confusing. He didn't even have a clue where this was. "We should--" he was cut off by the sound of the suddenly much larger door closing with a rather final sounding 'click' behind them. "...Keep going, apparently. There has to be another way out of this." His savior from death or not, stang it, 622 really hated this place.

[From here]

"Fierfek," 622 cursed softly as he stepped through the door, sighing. There wasn't any reason to try and hold the door to head back, it wouldn't help them. Instead of a corridor, they'd just stepped through into one of the doctor's offices. It was better than being dropped right into a crowd of hostiles, that was for sure, but still, it meant that no matter where they went, so long as there was a door they had to go through, they were hopelessly lost.

"I'm not sure if this makes me more credibly sane and competent or less so."

[[From here]]

Russia had expected some kind of storage room.  Rows of shelves, lockers maybe.  Boxes even.  But if he was to take away any important lesson from the people he'd met today, it was that all of them, each and every one, was disappointing.  There was nothing but an empty table and several surrounding chairs.  It rather reminded him of some of the meetings he'd had with the other Allied Powers during the second world war, cramped in that little room and forced to listen to America's inane ramblings.  

He turned back to his traveling companion, offering a condescending smile.  How difficult could it be to know the layout of this facility?  Did the sergeant take him for a fool maybe?  Just to make his point, he upended a few chairs on the pretense of looking for his belongings.

"No, I really don't think they're here," he said with a bright smile as the chairs clattered to the floor.  "You don't think you might've gotten the room wrong, do you Sergeant?  I didn't think Germany's troops would've gotten so sloppy.  But I'm sure it's just a simple mistake." 

[From here]

Still quiet. 622 really didn't trust this, but if they could get to where they were going, at least he might be able to find out more about what this place expected him to be, even if there wasn't anything useful. Maybe he could still make something out of it.

Still, he had a bad feeling about this.

[To here]

[From here]

622 risked a glance over the railing as they passed the Sun Room down below. Nothing there yet. Not even something guarding the area. "Hmm." That was odd. There was always a guard stationed there. Maybe he just couldn't see it, but shouldn't people be trying to head through there by now? There would be evidence if they had.

The return trip had proved inconsequential, no significance beyond increasing rainfall and silence between brothers. If he missed a crucial detail, Nigredo would not have known--the sharpness in his arm had occupied all thoughts, bringing wayward attention to the background. He spent the bus ride leaning his forehead against the window pane, consciousness slipping in and out of sleep.

A nurse who had observed the child's behavior noted the probable cause and took him aside when they reached the front entrance of the institute. Before escorting him back to his room, she administered a dose of painkillers. "Vicodin," she had explained. The lowest available dosage. It still managed to be potent enough to hinder awareness, and before she could properly take him back to his room, Nigredo had drifted away.

Unlike the cold and clammy sleep on the bus, this was warm. Constant. For once, the child who rarely dreamed did so in vivid imagery, events he had once set aside now returning in full vengeance. He dreamed of the time in the Conflict, shortly after he had given up on his search for the eldest to return to their rendezvous point. The decision had been a mistake, Nigredo recalled. The consequences had been nearly fatal. But for all the blood spilled and bones broken, he could only concentrate on a violent glee in his brother's actions, magenta and U-DO and hatred mixed in the expressions.

And he couldn't recall what he might have done to earn such a thing.

He blinked awake as if returning from ordinary rest, and carefully tumbled out of bed. Sounds of rain and thunder rang in the distance as Nigredo situated himself, the dull haze of medicine rendering the task difficult. He was surprised to find no trace of his previous clothes; the nurse, it seemed, had replaced him back in the uniform while he had slept. She even provided a sweatshirt to account for the temperature. For convenience, Nigredo surmised.

A soft sound alerted him to an entity in the room, and his eyes found a dark form on the other side, indicating the presence of a sleeping roommate. Impulse had him reaching in his bed for the handgun (it was only right, after all), but the recall of a brother's face left the weapon unused. Instead, he quietly wrapped the holster around his waist and exited to the hallway.

[To here.]

Tonight, Tenzen had decided to explore beyond the institute's walls.

He had already attempted it on his very first night precisely one week prior, but the attempt had ended in a dramatic failure. During the course of the past week, his skepticism regarding these monsters had lessened greatly, and he had decided that weaponry were among the highest priorities especially with his skills as dampened as they were. His speed, his strength, his stamina...they all were a far cry of what he, Yakushiji Tenzen and one of the ten chosen Iga, had been capable of. Infuriating, but he had little choice but to adjust to the given circumstances.

Doyleton had already informed him that the head doctor's reach even extended beyond those walls, so any covered distance would be certainly lost by morning. Still, the ninja wished to know how far he could come. And perhaps there was something out there that was of interest that could help with tearing Martin Landel to pieces.

By the time the doors unlocked, Tenzen had long since finished his preparations and immediately headed outside without so much as a second glance to his roommate. They had not conversed the dinners prior, so there was hardly any sense in wasting time on such a trivial matter now.

[To here]

After a rough morning, Lunch was actually fairly easy to sit through.  Sechs and Kibitoshin hardly knew him, so light conversation was fine.  The things from Breakfast and this morning though, would be sticking with him for a while.  When the nurse arrived to take him to showers, he was relieved to find he was the first one there.  With that, there would be fewer questions about some of his injuries.  They weren't obvious most of the time, but in the showers, one couldn't exactly hide them. 

He took off the eyepatch at the nurse's insistence, along with the rest of the institute's standard uniform.  There was the locket too, from Aaron, that the nurse told him she'd keep an eye on.  That done, he went about the usual routine, scrubbing out his hair first and slicking it back before he soaped up.  While some of the injuries had quickly become nothing but scars, there were still a few remaining, the deep cut in his neck, right above his collarbone was still in stitches, though it'd closed up and started to heal.  He couldn't see it, but he ran his thumb along the length of it, feeling a slight stinging sensation as the soap reached it. 

Once finished, he dressed and let his nurse re-fit the wounds with new bandages and a fresh and clean white medical eyepatch.  His hair was starting to get a bit long, he noticed, but maybe he'd wait a bit longer before he asked them to cut it.  Still, he dried it as much as he could, then headed out of the showers.

[to here]

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?]

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]

[from here]

622 headed down to the last door in the cell block corridor, keeping alert for anything that might already have set itself up in the hall. There usually weren't any ambushes this early in the night, but better safe than dead.

He knocked on the door to M41, waiting slightly back from the door for the Commander to open it.

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]