Perhaps simply claiming 'I don't care' to her nurse was a mistake. Lust found herself in the 'games room' at a handsome table with a sandwich containing nothing but cheese. But following the greenhouse, she honestly hadn't cared one way or another where she was shuttled off to.

Talking with another woman had done little. There was so much to think about and so little desire to. What did it really matter? So the dead could walk here, she'd already known that. So he was here, so what? She had lived many years without even knowing the man existed, there was no reason his presence should shake her so.

And anyway, she would see him again tonight. Perhaps he'd be more accepting of the situation then.

But for the moment she was going to push those thoughts away. She needed to lay her information out in an order that made sense to her. Ignoring the deck of cards her nurse had given her and the instructions to 'make some new friends', Lust opened up the blank book kept in her room and stared at a blank page.

Where in the world would she even begin? Explaining things at breakfast had helped her some, but...

"Even madness begins at the beginning," she muttered as she bent over the journal.

[Loki!]

Everything seemed to be in order as Wilson walked into the front doors of Landel's Institute this Thursday morning. He could still barely believe that the entire doctor staff had been allowed such a long break, but apparently that inspection had required that some changes be made around this place. Honestly, Wilson didn't notice much that was different, except that the Head Doctor was apparently having some renovations done on his office.

He couldn't quite kick the feeling that he was forgetting something vital, but in the end he was just relieved that he'd finally gotten a hold of Cuddy over the break. For some reason she still felt that he should be spending his time here. House hadn't connected well with the patients here (which Wilson thought should have been obvious from the start), but Wilson had actually made progress with a few people. Max Vyer, for instance.

Wilson still felt that he would be better equipped dealing with cancer patients, but the pay here was good and all things considered, he didn't have to work that much. If anything, he could see this as a few months in which he could rest up.

Now that he was finally being let back into his office, though, he was determined to keep up what was apparently being viewed as good work. He sat down with the file of his first patient, Vincent Lant. He was supposed to have seen this patient the last time he was here, only to find out that he'd been suddenly discharged. That had apparently been a premature decision, since he'd been re-admitted.

Just a quick glance over the file informed him of the patient's troubled childhood along with his anger and jealousy issues as an adult. He doubted this would be an easy case, but he was just going to have to improvise and do his best.

Needless to say, her night was a bust.

It wasn't that Ramona was trying to turn it into an absolutely safe evening in which she got nothing done. A part of her wanted to test the limits of her abilities and see what she could actually do in this place, but outside of the absolute confirmation that subspace was no longer a go, she couldn't bring herself to go much farther. Scott's words hung over her heavily. The fact that he had made it clear that he was going to continue being as affectionate as possible wanted to remove any chance of her dealing with anyone. So, though she hit another hall, she turned back around and headed back to her room. Ramona was the type of person who sometimes preferred sulking with company, but that wasn't on the plate for the night. (And she didn't want to call it sulking, either.)

She wasn't certain when she fell asleep, but when she woke up, she was sure the people in charge here had some kind of fast-forward button that they could hit whenever they got bored. That was definitely not the entire night, nor had it been the night before. Sometimes night just ended. Of course, Ramona could appreciate the need for a scene change. This place was already running on enough lame clichés to last it a lifetime. Sometimes they need to return to the daytime status quo to hit reset.

That all said, she was getting the feeling that her own waking up process was a little boring. Ramona was glad that her hair was short now because it made her feel a lot less neurotic about the lack of allowed primping. She cast a glance in the direction of her roommate's bed before she plodded out after her nurse. The woman was kind looking, which, of course, meant that she was evil. Then again, anyone could be evil. Ramona just wanted everyone to be evil right now.

(Maybe she was still sulking.)

"We've noticed that you haven't been socializing as much, Sandra," the woman said while grabbing her attention, and it was as if Ramona finally clued in that a conversation was supposed to be happening. Great, she was fitting the bill for crazy on top of incredibly irritated already. The nurse was definitely evil. And maybe a bitch, with the way her fingers freed her shoulder and she stepped back, snorted softly, and gave a shake of her head. "It's always when you're new that it's hard," the nurse added. "And we can tell you're rebellious."

"Wow, it's been a while since someone thought I was a punk rocker. Don't worry. I can socialize," Ramona assured her as she hit the cafeteria. But it looked like she was one of the first arrivals.

Ramona decided she'd get the woman off her back by grabbing a tray of food and not sitting too far from it. At least people might stumble upon talking to her if she looked available enough.

(And hopefully, that someone wouldn't be Scott. Even though she highly doubted his ability to get out of bed, he seemed to acclimate to this place enough to make an appearance with his face and his smiles and his stupid "I love you"s.)

[for America]

Harmony?

Somehow, that sounded very ominous.

Then he recalled that Rita had said it would be a Music Room shift. Just the thought of it gave him a near-paralyzing flashback to a time that had involved a lot of wine, and an attempt at singing by Thor, Fandral, and Volstagg.

Rita had also said that they could meet in the Sun Room, but it was best to be prepared since the staff seemed to regard the prisoners as if they were sheep and the nurses were dogs. As the hateful woman (really, was her face a mask? she had the same terrifying smile just fixed on her lips and he was almost certain it didn't even budge when she spoke) approached to collect him, Loki scrambled to one of the drawers of art supplies and extracted a few cotton balls, palming them.

A weak defense, yes, but better than nothing. As an alternative, possibly superior to a blood bath that involved using the strings of a lute as a garotte. Or improvising with whatever horrifying instruments Midgard had come up with in the last few centuries, which no doubt involved all sorts of things that went twang and tinkly little chimes that encouraged the common idiot to not so much sing outside of his proper range as sing way outside of his proper range.

Loki hastily pasted a smile on his face that seemed to eagerly insist no, he had not just been contemplating mass murder, goodness, he was too much of a nice young man for that sort of nasty thing. The nurse didn't notice one way or the other. With (feigned) meekness, he asked if perhaps he could please go to the Sun Room instead, as he was not particularly musical.

And pleasingly, it worked. The nurse smiled and began telling him something about her husband not being musical, and choir practice, and yes wasn't it lovely, and... they actually reached the Sun Room before the gripping conclusion had been reached, but he stood and listened politely anyway, making vague noises at all the appropriate pauses in the conversation. She said a few more words in the sort of final tone that indicated she was done speaking, and he laughed for her, gave her an extra little smile, and made his escape.

Pretending to be a nice young man was much less fun when it came without the power to have someone flogged.

Loki walked to bulletin board and waited near it, keeping an eye out for Rita. Or at least someone that matched her description.

[Rita!]

And so it seemed that everything had gone back to normal.

Guy had spent his breakfast filling in a new patient and now Landel was rambling over the intercom like he always did. It made sense that the man would want to act like everything with Aguilar had never happened, though Guy couldn't help but wonder how things would change when night finally came. Knowing Landel, he'd have a long-winded speech prepared for them.

That was something that he could worry about later, though. Guy filed away the information about the doctors, but it didn't matter too much to him. He'd only been forced through that once, and had apparently been deemed a lost cause after that session. Speaking with a doctor here would just be a waste of time as far as he could tell, so that was fine by him.

Being placed in the Sun Room gave him access to the bulletin board, and perusing it gave him some idea of what had gone on last night, at least to the point that he understood that they'd had some sort of outside help. People were being secretive, but that was nothing new. Guy went ahead and put up a note for his friends, wanting to keep it up as a routine (at this point Luke should have been the one doing it, but Guy could talk to him about that later).

With that taken care of, he had little else to do but find himself a place to sit, and before long he located a comfy armchair. He took as seat, but as usual Guy couldn't help but keep an eye out for any friends.

[For Tear!]

[ from here ]

It was only thanks to Chipp's frightening speed that he and his companion managed to cover that much terrain in a single night, finally reaching a section of the mountains that surrounded the Institute that could be traveled on foot - somewhat. Chipp hit the brakes just as they arrived at the base of a narrow strip of trail, kicking up a cloud of dust that obscured the already dark path. Sane, reasonable people wouldn't even think of attempting to take the trail in this kind of darkness, when it looked even difficult to scale during the day. Chipp was only mostly sane and mostly reasonable, giving the mountain trail a challenging look before crouching so Venom could get off his back.

"That worked out better, didn't it?! We should travel like this from now on," The ninja grinned, seemingly pleased with himself for finding a compromise to the whole "things keep moving even after he stops" problem. Of course, he was assuming a lot of things, like that Venom liked being tossed around like a potato sack for one.

Either way, they were finally at the last place Chipp could even think of to look for a man who had to hide. Mountains were just the sort of natural protection against enemies that he would have considered, so it didn't seem too far-fetched to assume that Landel had decided to come all the way over here to hide. Even if it was... rather far from the Institute itself, now that Chipp really had time to think about it. Well, they were here, so they might as well look.

[from here]

—They were spilled out somewhere that she didn't recognize. This wasn't a super creepy hospital or anything like that. Or military base. Whatever, she was trying to keep up. But it was hard to keep up with what suddenly presented itself to her. It wasn't like anything he mentioned: not a cute Stepford town or anything similar; it looked like an atomic bomb had gone off. Or maybe about three hundred years had passed without anyone attempting to excavate that happened here.

A shiver ran down her spine as she gained her bearings, pulling her arms to herself as she breathed out. That shiver only continued, though, because of how damn cold it was. She tried to ignore it, because she was supposed to be used to this crap. Canada and all that. But she wasn't, because she didn't get the slow transition into sudden frigid cold that she was used to. This was sudden—and not just because subspace decided to be a dick.

Ramona's eyebrows knit together as she looked at Scott. "What the hell is this?" she asked bluntly. Trying to beat around the bush wasn't going to do either of them any good. The place seriously creeped her out in ways that she didn't want to admit. Maybe because it just seemed so realistic. Realism was pretty present in the hospital, but this looked like someone came in and gutted this place, and the end result was what could've been The Village if the people weren't so damn tenacious. Or cute, which was pretty much Bryce Dallas Howard's selling point.

Another shiver ran through her as she waited for a response.

[ from here ]

In the end, Venom didn't even have to provide directions; there was a dense forest that stood out in the general direction he pointed at, and Chipp managed to put two and two together. Running through the snowy wasteland didn't slow him down in the slightest, though the biting cold of the outdoor wind was far more noticeable then the bloody air of the building they just left. By the time Chipp finally got close enough to the forest, he actually was feeling uncomfortably cold, though it did help numb the pain from his wounds a little. On the other hand, Chipp wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

The ninja had enough sense not to just rush into completely unknown territory in the wilderness, so once again, he stopped short of actually entering into the dark woods, and once again, let Venom go so the man could skid to his own stop. That was when Chipp saw the problem with his methods, as he saw Venom sail right past him and continue onwards.... Oh, shit.

Thankfully, his reflexes were more then enough to make him spring forward and grab Venom's shoulders, forcibly stopping the man from crashing into a tree or something. And Chipp made sure to wait for his feet to touch the ground before letting go for real, satisfied that his "colleague" wasn't going anywhere.

"..." That did explain why Venom just disappeared into a snowbank the second time he tried this. "Uh... Yeah, sorry about that..."

[From here]

"It's this way," the assassin called out to his side, his eyes attempting to focus on the darkness before them. They had made it to the forest fast enough when he had been traveling with Sora, which meant it shouldn't be much an issue with someone as fast as Zanuff was. "Down and to the right."

Somehow, the area felt just as cold and empty as it had three nights ago. It wasn't empty. He wasn't that gullible to believe that--he could feel something here. But the darkness covered just enough of their surroundings to make it appear as nothing more than a desolate, snowy wasteland.

They couldn't stay out in the open for long. Which meant...

Nngh...

It was with great hesitance and great annoyance that Venom found himself moving to grasp onto his company's wrist. "Hurry."

[ from here ]

The cold breeze and fresh air of the outdoors really was a welcome feeling as Chipp barreled outside, only stopping once he was made some distance between them and the door. Just in case something followed, if those stupid monsters were smart enough to push it open. For now, nothing followed them out, and Chipp deemed it safe to stop.

Of course, as per Venom's wishes, he let go of the other man before doing so. He immediately turned around, back to looking at the door. Just in case. Still, it looked like nothing came out to follow them and he let out a frustrated sigh. It seemed like this damn place was just frustrating to go through no matter what the circumstances were.

It was still best to keep going rather then linger around. At the very least, maybe they were clear of any annoying vermin. Chipp turned back around to see what was next. Venom ... did know where he was going next, right? Something about looking for Landel... wait, wait a minute.

"Wait, how do you know he's out here an-"

Before Chipp could say anything else, he was promptly divebombed by something big, feathery and nasty.

[ from here ]

The cafeteria was no different then the Sun Room, with the feeling of predators already lurking in the shadows to get the jump on unsuspecting victims. It only took a moment for Chipp to locate a door as he veered to the right on instinct. It was a good choice, because he swore he heard the crunch of bone as something made impact on the wall they were just a second ago. If Chipp were alone, he might have wanted to turn (and possibly laugh), but with Venom in tow, he was quick to just head right for the door.

It wasn't that Chipp had no faith that he and Venom wouldn't be able to take on a few (or a hundred) monsters, but they had bigger fish to fry. Much bigger fish.

"Damnit!" Yet another creature attempted to strike at them, Chipp veering to the left and making a wide turn until he crashed through the door. What was that, a ... a thing? He thought he saw hands, human hands and a mouth, but it too only made a crunch against the floor when it missed.

Screw this shit! Chipp didn't even hesitate when approaching the door, literally crashing into it with his shoulder to throw it open as they escaped into the Courtyard.

[ to here ]

[ from here ]

While the Sun Room was a familiar sight for Chipp, he realized (not as quickly as he ran) that he didn't even know where this Courtyard was. Wasn't the room ahead the Cafeteria? If so, then one of the other doors... Which Chipp didn't even remember going through, even though he thought one of them was that room with the weird games and shit. Wait, so where exactly were they going again?

Even Chipp couldn't justify just running ahead without at least knowing where he was supposed to be, if only because he happened to be traveling with someone who did know, so he managed to hit the metaphorical brakes and skidded to a halt in the middle of the Sun Room, mercifully keeping a hold on Venom's arm so his "colleague's" momentum wouldn't cause him to crash into one of the couches.

"So, uh... Where's this courtyard?"

In retrospect, it might have been better to ask this question before he started running his ass off into places unknown. Even Chipp could vaguely tell that he may have been a little too hasty in his actions. Maybe. Well, whatever, it was only going to be a moment before they could start moving again, right?! Nothing wrong with doublechecking the plan!

[from here]

Kirk ran into the main hallway and found nothing there except more pink light coating everything. His gut feeling said that if something was happening, it should've happened already, but he was a loss to explain what was going on. The system (if he could call it that, vague as it was to describe the whole Landel's torture/experimentation assembly line) had broken down at least once already, on that night when I.R.I.S. had first(?) appeared, and the whole of the building flickered like a malfunctioning hologram. Was that what the glowing cover was for? To prevent... he didn't know. Something. Something bad enough to warrant a Code Red.

(What had killed that creature?)

Waiting around here was already bad enough on normal nights, what with it being an open space with high traffic, but he'd picked it because it was the quickest and most obvious meeting place for all of them. Now with the whole area lit up like the inside of a strip club, Kirk was starting to feel like a lone piece of meat wrapped in a gold ribbon and tossed out for the wolves. He made a face for a second as he considered the unfortunate implication of mixing those similes, then decided that the dumb thoughts which crossed his mind ranked considerably lower in priority than, you know, paying attention to his surroundings and not getting himself killed.

Kirk swung the lead pipe in his hand once, just to focus, and shook his head as pain rippled out from the still-healing gunshot wound on his right arm. Take it easy, Jim, he admonished himself silently. It was still early in the night. Someone would be along shortly. And if not... he was giving his crew one minute. One minute, and then screw it, he was tracking down everyone himself.

[KIRK TO ENTERPRISE]

[from here]

Just like last night, Vino turned the bend to find that he was first in the main hallway again. He couldn't decide if he preferred it or not. Patience wasn't his favorite virtue, but he supposed he'd have to wait. The two meeting places he would have to be at were right next to each other, right? So that was fine. If he had to wait a while, perhaps he could do some hunting while he was at it.

Vino waited, but tonight, his patience was wearing thinner at a faster rate. He didn't settle on leaning against a wall to wait. He paced, swinging the railing all the while. It was still bloodied from the night before. In his excitement, he'd quite forgotten his intention of stopping by a restroom and cleaning the thing off. Obviously, there were more important things he could be doing. In his mind, there was no time for anything else.

He was impatient. I wanted to be somewhere, he wanted to see everything, he wanted to explore, to experience, to hunt, to destroy--

But all in good time. Tonight was his night. Every night was his night. He owned all this. All of it. It would be fine if he bode his time. He had all the time in the world. He controlled it.

The shadows whispered and scratched. And Vino listened and watched. But stayed where he was for the time being. For the time being.

[Neku]

[Coming from here.]


Daemon glided out into the wider corridor and paused for a moment, letting Renji join him, taking a moment to probe the shadows with his senses, looking for anything out of the norm. There was a tingle down his spine, the sensation of being watched, though he couldn't find its exact location, just the knowledge that it was there. He paused, debating on whether it was worth the effort of searching out, or leaving it to others while he and Renji kept heading for the stairs. He could see them from here, the door illuminated by his witchlight just off to his right.

He waited for Renji to join him, figuring the Shinigami would want a say.

"There are things moving in the shadows," he murmured to the redhead as the male moved out from the corridor behind him. Daemon didn't look at all disturbed by this statement, floating a few inches above the ground with a relaxed grace that was utterly foreign for their situation. Looking almost bored, he studied his black-tinted nails with a sleepy, hooded gaze.

Code Red. Initiate—

The sudden sensation hit Riku hard. Just as he stood up to grab his sword in preparation, the power overwhelmed him and made his knees buckle fast. What was happening? It wasn't right. The feeling of this place had never been this intense before, and the stinging in his leg was still there. That feeling wasn't one he was unfamiliar with. Before, it was a faint stench—always there and unavoidable, but now—now he wasn't so sure. His fingers curled as he drew in sharp breaths and dealt with the overwhelming Darkness of this place. He always thought it was strange, how muted and subdued it was, and now it was like it was right there, swallowng him whole—

Focus.

He blinked through it. After all he'd been through, he couldn't let a little Darkness stop him. But it was strange. Though the pain in his leg remained, mere seconds before that all hit, it was stinging a lot more, and now it was fading. At his fingertips, he felt stronger, at peace with himself. Just beyond, he could feel his keyblade right there. That wasn't normal, because usually, he couldn't summon it unless something was about to stab him. That was what happened last time, anyway.

He looked down at his hands in askance, and thought fast. This place had limitations, but right now—

A smirk covered his lips as he held out his hand, and bright light swirled around it. A moment later, his keyblade appeared. Just like that. "Guess it's not all bad." Whatever happened, he was glad for this place's Darkness, at least for this. It meant he got his power back. It was just too bad he really had to smell this place while he did it. In a way, the intensity would disrupt a lot of his action tonight, but he wasn't someone who would let himself be held back that easily. Riku unsummoned his keyblade and stored away the short sword he won. Things would be a lot easier tonight.

But there was one more thing to check. Riku hesitated, remembering his fatigue from before, and then he cast cure on himself. It wasn't too surprising when he felt fine right after. In fact, he felt invincible.

It probably wasn't good to think that, though. He knew that much. Invincibility could only get him so far, but maybe—maybe "so far" wasn't that bad. Riku grabbed his flashlight and stepped outside.

[for Sora ... and Venom]

Renji walked with purpose down the hall, though he wasn't in enough of a hurry to flashstep yet. He had to have somewhere he wanted to go first. Of course the idea that sprang instantly to mind was easily summed up as an equation: INSTITUTE + HIHIOU ZABIMARU = BOOM = :-D

However, that would need to wait until, for example, there weren't people he liked in the institute. And even with the Shinigami gone, he was sure there were people he liked around. Sora and Kairi sprang instantly to mind. So how to work that out? And he was sure there were other people around that had their own brand of kidou that could blow some shit up in a way that would paste a permanent smile on his face.

Organizing. That organizing thing needed to happen. And fast.

After an intercom broadcast like that, Kurogane felt somewhat better about the little information he'd gotten from Harrington the previous night. The man only sounded competent when he needed to but was an idiot otherwise. Unfortunately that was furthered proof of the General not employing the brightest of staff members, making another option for information closed to them.

Kurogane was again some steps ahead of his escort when he reached the Sun Room and ignored the soldier further as the ninja headed to look over the bulletin. Last time he'd missed something, and he wasn't about to have that happen a second time. With some searching he located Tsubaki's messages to others he didn't know but found nothing either written by the magician or addressed to him. That being the case, he left the board without any of his own writing and sought out a chair over a couch. If he didn't leave open a space by him, he had a better chance of being left alone. Or so he believed.

[free bird! bear]

By the time lunch rolled around, things still weren't getting any better. The voices hadn't gone away; instead, Firo was pretty sure they were getting more frequent. Ennis had been silent since last night, but Czes's voice had been an insistent buzz in his ear all morning.

He'd spent the morning alone, trying to ignore any cutting remarks from a boy who wasn't there as he puzzled through things. Were the drugs responsible after all? A note on the bulletin had confirmed that someone else who'd been forced into the trial had been hearing things too, but Hakkai...

The call for lunch had been welcome; the day was barely half over, and Firo was already feeling exhausted. At this rate, maybe it would be best to just wait it out instead of trying to figure out what was causing it. If it was the drug, it should wear off after a while.

He accepted his gruel quietly, looking it over as he headed across the cafeteria—Hakkai had said it looked spoiled, but he couldn't tell any difference from what they'd served morning, noon, and night every day. Maybe the man was still seeing things after all, or maybe he was the one seeing things. It could have been bad and only looked alright. Or maybe it was just the color after all...

As took a seat, a new voice called out to him: "There's no point in you trying to figure it out, Firo. You're a real idiot, you know?"

Firo scowled. "I don't want to hear that from you, Berga," he growled under his breath.

[For Peter Petrelli ;_;]

Erika stood back to survey her work, and she had no idea why no one seemed to care.

By 'no one', she was referring to the soldiers who were on guard, who should be looking particularly anxious due to the atmosphere of this place. It didn't make sense in her mind. Someone who just took up a large chunk of the middle of the Sun Room to build a blanket fort of all things should have prompted some sort of reaction other then asking what she needed the blankets for. In the center of the room, a couch and several chairs had been stolen from the tables to make more "support" for the blanket to stretch across both. In fact, Erika was finishing up preparations for another layer of blankets to be laid out and still, she got no reaction from the soldiers. At least, not any reaction that matched with her expectations. A lack of a reaction was still a reaction, but not the one she was expecting.

Why was she going out of her way to antagonize her captors in the first place? In truth, it was because Erika was hoping to stir up some drama and suspicion after the military was stupid enough to make it blatantly obvious that they were in a tough situation regarding their little traitor. But perhaps Erika overestimated just how serious the situation was. Even so, she seemed outright disappointed and grumbled quietly to herself as she started to lay out the second blanket after stacking some more chairs up to make another wall.

"What a waste. All of this trouble and no one even wants to look at it," The ex-detective grumbled to herself, but she didn't bother dismantling what she already put up. No, it seemed more like Erika was determined to ruin someone's day and if she could annoy some people by making it more difficult to find a place to sit, then it was all the better for her. After setting the blanket in place, Erika watched the fabric settle for a moment before scowling and crawling underneath the fabric, poking her head out from underneath and glancing around again to be met with no reaction whatsoever.

Why did no one care?!

[ hay Sync it's time for a secret evil league of evil meeting get in here. ]