[From here]

Finally, she thought. It felt good to be actually productive for a night--yanking copious amounts of liquor and snacks aside. Of course, it had come with a price, as the fiery throb in her hand reminded her. Carefully pushing the door open, which was still in pristine condition (and thus creeped the hell out of Tifa), for them to both enter the small, cramped room.

"There's the sink," she pointed to her right against the wall. "Run cold water over your arm and I'll look for something to stop the burn..." There were plenty of jugs to choose from, the question was which held the right chemical. It wouldn't do to make this worse.

"Oh--" That reminded her. "Your shirt. Careful with it. If you got any of that stuff on it, it'll just start a reaction all over again." With that, she whipped back around to the shelves of cleaning products. As she searched, Tifa felt a strange and nagging itch across her back. The door. It was wide open. That faux pas was quickly rectified. "That wouldn't have been good."

[From here]

"Should be one of these doors here..." She kept her words soft so as not to attract any unwanted attention, but it was ultimately a moot decision. It wouldn't take long to dispose of any refuse that lingered in this hallway and the loud slamming noises of Tifa's foot against the first helpless door weren't exactly quiet.

Her hard kicks were precisely place around the deadbolt in the door. After three, four, Tifa began to believe this was a hopeless cause. There was no damage or dents in the reinforced door at all. Narrowing her eyes at the glowing force field around her, the young woman turned her head to Zack.

"This might not be the right door," she confessed. "Let's keep looking. It can't be the only one..."

Even with depleted powers, Tifa had been able to break open the door to the cleaning closet. It was simply a matter of finding the right one.

[From here]

Once they hit the dead end of this hallway, Tifa directed them to the left. A pitch black corridor greeted them like the entrance into a giant monster's belly. There was the usual apprehension, but it was an unnecessary feeling tonight. They both may have been injured, but it hardly made them infirm. If there was ever a night to brave the darkness, it was this one.

Beside her, Zack stood, waiting on her cue since she was the one leading this operation. Tifa gave him a confident nod and moved forward. She took one step and stopped short. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as the hallway before them came alive with the sound of growling.

Apparently her analogy hadn't been too far off. Out of the abysmal bowels before them stepped a rabid, ragged hound. It was in some later stages of decay and bigger than any dog had the right to be. It wasn't alone either. Several claws clicked across the linoleum tiles and clogged the entrance like the guardians of hell's gate.

"Well, let's hope they don't spew fire," Tifa quipped lightly as she bent forward, awaiting the first wave of attack. It came shortly, but the dog had aimed itself at Zack. That was fine by Tifa; she turned her attention to the next closest beast that came out of the darkness.

[from here]

The upper hallway was empty, at least at this end, though Lana could hear something skittering around. She checked her pocket -- ran her fingertips along the grip of the gun in the breast pocket of her jacket, but she didn't take it out. It hadn't done them much good last night, had it?

"And I didn't mean Gant, actually." Had she? Not primarily, at least, which made that not quite the truth, but only fractionally a lie. By some people's standards, that wasn't a lie at all. Her were as absolute as they had to be behind the Prosecutor's bench. Mmm. Did that make it entirely true, or entirely false? She'd meant herself when she'd said it, behind Faraday and Badd, but the subconscious was a slippery beast. So easily convinced.

So easily deceived. "Some of us are trying to learn from our mistakes, but that doesn't mean we won't make them again. I hope Ema will forgive me for what I said to keep her from coming along tonight."

[Coming from here.]

Upstairs was dark and silent, although to Daemon, the faint pink glow that coated all the surfaces since the alarm went off seemed more concentrated here. Was it stronger, perhaps? Or was there just more to hide? He brushed his fingers against it curiously as he stepped out of the stairwell and into the corridor above, his senses already probing the thick blackness around them, searching to see if they were alone or not.

He doubted it. His instincts were telling him otherwise. Their captors were really pulling out all the stops tonight. He and Renji had already carved their way through more monsters than most people saw in a week around here. It made him wonder what was lying in wait in some of the bigger rooms...

It was only but a quiet secret, held and kept.

Only a means and a method. A lie, and one he would continue to tell. Continue to slip from himself to maintain sanity's tight coil. Keep your eyes on me--he would not stray if the pattern held, he would not march out of line without a reason gathering whys. No, he would not waver, yet here-- The screech raked out against the night, the sound ill-mannered and poorly conceived, and even as the AI rambled codes he did not know and emergencies he did not care for it was at first the replacement of that sound, that drone. The replacement, slip and slide downward, to wrench something out of place and forward--to call familiarity, an echo in his soul, and it wasn’t that he heard it, per se, but he remembered hearing it; in that moment, he remembered that then, remembered how he had heard and what it had meant and that--

Weakness traveled through him and fled on sight. There was a reach of consciousness, familiar and overflowing, and even as it kept to expansion, here it held, here he would recognize first and only--a waveform rekindled to sparks. He could do what he willed and it would be afforded him, for he was now whole, now more than willing to--

Reach out and grasp firmly what was his. His eyes lit brightly, and something of a grin slipped over him. There was no rules in place for this game. He was only afforded what had been, without limitations or the quiet tendencies of death. Given to this he could only-- Only? Everything. His waveform flowed through him, something else was slowly waking, and Albedo wondered, perfectly, precisely, if what had returned to him was everything, always, or only this, and only this. His gaze happened to his closet, of what was situated there, and his head rolled on his neck, lips thinning in decision, quiet and droll. Of height, there were three things of note. Two guns and one sword, and it was the latter he picked up and placed against his skin--it was there that his arm glowed the moment pressure was released, the wound closing instantly and perfectly in the way that was only his, only his because he was--

Albedo laughed then, his head thrown back, and in the same moment, his arm snatched one of the shotguns, the weight afforded and given, and he pulled it close, tucked it near, leaned a cheek against it in affection. "Memento vivere…" came the murmur, as if to a lover. The gun shifted, nestled under his chin, and the boy reached down, trigger tightening in en experienced grip.

The result was an explosion of light and sound, bone, blood and gore, gray matter situated in-between the leaking ruins left on the wall behind. The resulting sound, sensation, impression faded. And in the moment that followed, the boy regenerated as wholly as he ever had. The entity smiled, tongue touching teeth touching--

Oh, this was glorious! This was truly marvelous, was it not?! "Ipse dixit! He himself said it!" Albedo crowed and broke into laughter, high pitched to a shriek. He curled in on himelf, arms clutching his shoulders, then he flung them out, the laughter bouncing off the walls. "On the third day he rose again!" And what was this?! Was this not the twenty-first day that he had spent in these halls? Divide it by three and what remained? Seven, three sevens to equal this time, and should he call dragons, should he fill seven bowls with blood?! It had not yet weighed on another set, and perhaps it was to him to bring down heaven’s wrath. To cut seven heads from a red dragon, and present them hand and foot--

Parcel and part, for what role would betrayers gain when standing before those who were owed their absolution?

He swayed once then, and his hand loosened, the shotgun dropped to the floor with a clack, somehow not going off at the shock against it. His hand moved to his mouth, his teeth bit into fingertips, and he shifted forward, mind moving through scenarios that could be expended tonight. Of what and where should this resurrection hold? Who shall it grace? None had cried at the grave, after all.~

None had held to faith alone.

[Coming from here.]

Daemon slipped from the hallway and into the stairwell, starting the climb to the second floor. His gaze searched the shadows and he'd made no more than three steps up when he went carefully still, holding up a hand to halt Renji as well. The chittering came from above their heads, quiet but definitely there, the sound familiar enough to send a chill down Daemon's spine.

"Above," he whispered in warning, moving quickly to the landing to put the wall at his back.

[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.]

Did that just happen?

Peter slowed as he entered the safety of the outer hall (safety, really?), turning back to boggle at the door behind him. What - no. No way the cat monsters were that frail. Landel's did not work like that. Nothing was ever that easy here. They didn't get treated, they got tricked. Heart pounding, he checked the hall up and down. Once certain that he was alone, Peter pressed a shaking hand to the wall. Stick.

And it did.

His jaw did drop then. Peter was still for a moment. Switched off his flashlight and tied the pillowcase over his shoulder, then pressed both his hands to the wall. Then his feet. Then up further, rising up and up, then gravity flipped and he was staring down at the floor.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Was that the power the pink had granted him? The limits were off? Peter clung to the ceiling, the pillowcase settled on his stomach as he crawled upside down. His heart was beating. He was afraid. He was going to drop any minute. They were going to take it away. Or what if this was another challenge like the Coliseum? Something worse was in store because of this?

He almost stopped entirely. Then he thought of Jessica.

"No no no, she's gotta - maybe..."

Peter Parker was all but invisible in the pitch black hallway, crawling higher than most flashlights dared to venture as he found the exit.

[To here.]

[From here.]

Peter left the room thinking very deep thoughts. Most of which entailed speculation on the origins of the pink glow he had just been assaulted by. As much as he hated himself for it, he couldn't help but keep coming back to the Matrix. Maybe they just changed something. Turned the halls into mazes.

Buzz.

MREOWWWWWW!

"JESUS!!!!"

Peter's flashlight on loan gave him the half a millisecond to register that there was a fetid demon cat leaping for his face. The pillowcase dropped from his grip and he slapped it from the side.

Splat.

A slight splatter of cat guts speckled his side for his efforts.

Peter stood, gaping, dripping, and shaking all over. There was a cat shaped stain on the wall, and a formless sack of skin and shattered bones inching down to the floor from it. What. Had he done.

Mortified, Peter picked up the pillow case and took two inches away from the dead beast. Then four. Then he was booking it down the hallway and out the door.

[To here.]

[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.

As the day began drawing to a close, the intercom flickered to life. Instead of Harrington's voice, however, Berg's calm tone filtered through the speakers.

"Attention all personnel: please escort subjects to their quarters for the duration of dinner shift. After that, you are expected to report to your stations -- no exceptions. Anyone caught away from his or her post without direct orders will have to personally answer to the general."

An odd tension hung in the air, but Berg didn't say anything more than that. Once the intercom clicked off, soldiers began to gather up the patients and bring them to their rooms. Most didn't know why Harrington wasn't handling the announcements, or why Berg sounded particularly serious this evening, though no one would admit that to the subjects themselves.

The few who did know had more pressing matters to contend with.

Billy surfaced into wakefulness. Sleep receded like an inky tide, and it didn't say anything to him before it was gone. His dreams had been nothing but the sensation of water, rocking him restlessly in his bottle. There seemed to be an ocean beyond his confines, but he couldn't see it and couldn't reach it. He pawed at the glass, but any progress he'd made had been washed out of his memory.

He tried not to be disturbed by the deja vu, but it wasn't the sort of thing one was in full control of. And yet, his heart didn't race. His nose didn't bleed. His hands were shaking, but with a different tenor than the last time he had concentrated on them. Everything felt still, and whole, and maybe not right, but for the first time in weeks Billy breathed without trouble. There was no weight of a terrified, dying universe crawling over his shoulders and clamoring for attention. He laid there in bed for a long time. Victory. Not his victory, but someone else's, and that was good enough. He hadn't needed to be the one who saved it, he was just doing what he had to. Truthfully, he was glad to have not seen it. There was a lot Billy wished he hadn't seen.

He couldn't bring himself to react much to the fact that he was still here. Billy glanced around a couple times, vision blurred without his glasses, but saw that the room was basically the same. This time lit up, of course, although it didn't help him to gather many precise details. He would have almost said his aimless adventure with Captain Kirk during the night had been a dream, but it was all wrong, thematically speaking. Maybe if Kirk had been a squid dressed in gold lamé, he'd believe it. It really didn't matter what his dreams meant anymore, though.

( Kraken spoiler cut for those who mentioned wanting to read it. )

Any further thoughts were interrupted by a soldier he hadn't noticed entering.

"Get dressed."

Billy stared at the military blues from the night before. Clean and fresh, no sign of any blood, not that he'd been the one injured. There was even a little hat that he had missed the night before. He was going to look ridiculous, he could feel it.

"I think you'll probably find I'm not actually registered here," he tried to tell the guard, who was not impressed by Billy's claim. The soldier wasn't even moved by Billy pointing out that the dog tags didn't have his name on them. (Frederick Aldrich? An eerie coincidence that made Billy quietly comply with demands for a few minutes.) The man spoke in nothing but orders, which were easy to follow when you weren't particularly attached to any final aim. Billy was listless. Flotsam and jetsam. Getting back to London was an eventual goal, but he'd put in a call to someone later, and go back to whatever. His life, he supposed. He was already exasperated by the taciturn and far too serious military man. Once upon a time he would have wanted to gain purchase with him through inoffensive smiles and falsely friendly comments. Today, he could only give the man a tired look and equally brusque answers that didn't hide his irritation. Did he really look young enough to be pressed into a military academy?

He was led down cleaner versions of the hallways he had seen the night before, and into a large cafeteria, basically devoid of anyone beside himself and the assembled guards. Billy uncomfortably found a seat, and took a few seconds to just hide his face in his hands and block everything else out. The tray he had been given was immediately forgotten, just to the side of him, and he blamed his turning stomach on the adrenaline that was still working its way out of his system. It was so fantastically quiet in the large room, he wanted to drown in it. He only peered through his fingers when someone else in powder blue passed close to his table.

[For Castiel.]

[from here]

Momentum carried Kirk forward even as the scene changed: snow gave way to tiled floor and the field to a row of shelves, which they all got to experience intimately as Kirk slammed into Glasses and Wichita, and the two of them slammed into an assortment of soup cans, which tumbled off the shelf and down on their heads. Being the tallest, Kirk caught the brunt of the assault, because that was really all he needed right now on top of a gunshot wound and disorientation from the sudden teleportation. "Ow, ow, ow—"

Vaguely, he was aware of how deeply unheroic this whole thing had been, just as he'd been aware of how ridiculous he probably looked to the transporter technicians after he'd gotten trounced on the drill by Romulans and nearly killed himself and Sulu after losing his 'chute. But they were alive, or so Kirk judged from the echoes of ow from beneath him, and he'd take a ridiculous rescue any day of the week over an unsuccessful one. He let the pipe drop from his fingers, where it clattered on the floor alongside the last of the rattled soup cans, and grabbed his flashlight as he stepped away from the other two. They were in some sort of pantry... he remembered storage rooms marked on the map beside the first floor kitchen. Interesting.

It appeared they were— No. Kirk turned to point his flashlight at the exit, and frowned. He thought he'd saw someone darting from the room — short, with long pale hair — but the door stood firmly closed, and he hadn't heard anyone or anything in here except Wichita and the other guy. Funny. The last time he'd been in this area, he'd been with... okay, never mind, those cans hit in the head harder than he thought. The three of them were alone. Kirk finally allowed himself to prod at his bloody arm and grimaced. The bullet had passed clean through and hadn't hit bone, but his shirt sleeve was a mess. So much for his shiny new uniform.

But as much as it hurt, he knew he'd gotten off inexplicably lucky. Wichita had probably been shot worse. Kirk clamped a hand over his wound and looked over at the other two. "Everyone in one piece?" he asked, trying for a tone of confidence.

[ from here ]

Sesshoumaru had not been in the building for nearly long enough to really know it, and his knowledge had not been expanded yesterday as it might otherwise have been, because of the poisons that had been fed into his system - poisons that somehow worked, which had been a disconcerting and unpleasant experience. In the end, though, all it meant was that he had one more person to kill - whoever it was who had invented the poison capable of subduing him.

He either avoided or ignored the memory of last night, of Niikura telling him he might as well be a human now. Avoided thinking of how weak he had become.

Sesshoumaru absently flexed his fingers, and felt his poison began to pump. If he was not still immune to toxins, surely his own venom would burn him, sear his veins and his hands, but it did not appear to have any more affect on him than it had ever. Just like always, the poison might as well have been blood, or water, for all the harm it did to him personally. This was not a double-edged sword. It was designed to harm others, not the wielder.

A thread of sweetness curled through the bite of the cleaner as Sesshoumaru stood for a moment, his claws becoming saturated with their natural poison. In any case, claiming that he was - that he could be - so weak as that was ridiculous. He was Sesshoumaru.

[ for Terra ]

((From here.))

Although some patients took a great deal of time to memorize their way through the building, Spock's eidetic memory allowed him to remember most details from an area, even if he'd only seen it once. Of course, he'd passed through this hall several times during his reconnaissance assignments. The path to McCoy's quarters wasn't difficult, particularly since the patient blocks had a uniform design.

Even so, that wasn't any reason to let his guard down. Remaining alert, Spock carefully listened for any signs of an impending ambush as he moved through the darkness. A quick glance at his surroundings revealed no other patients aside from himself. That was likely for the best, seeing how Spock didn't wish to keep McCoy waiting longer than necessary.

Given the doctor's current condition, the Vulcan knew he needed to proceed with future interactions as carefully as possible. There was a chance McCoy would leave his quarters if left to his own devices for too long. Moving with purposeful strides, Spock turned into the northern block.

((To here.))

[from here]

It was really dark.

It had been a long time since Anise last tried to navigate the halls without a flashlight, but with both her hands full, there was no way she could carry one. She had her handy little mini flashlight tucked away in her coat pocket so she could use it after dropping off the pipe.

It looked like the night was going to start on a positive note, but Anise couldn't help but wonder about that weird announcement from earlier. The military was probably up to something really shady. Anise just hoped they didn't put anything weird in her food again.

[to here]

Well, that was interesting; being moved to a new room and injected with a Mystery Drug, all in one confusing moment. 'Interesting' being a blanket term for annoying and nerve-racking and ridiculous. It was all making her start to feel very Winona Ryder a la Girl, Interrupted. That was based on a true story, right? Kind of? Ugh. Though if she were being honest, being dosed was the first event that really, actually made this place feel like the mental institution she was being told it was. Minus being visited by not-Columbus. That was certainly brain-fuzz worthy, even with the warning.

Either way, her arm itched, and maybe that was just in her head, but she couldn't stop scratching at it. If she got some kind of rash from this crap, she was going to be livid.

Dinner wasn't so bad - at least her new roommate seemed normal, kinda - but she rolled off her bed and headed out as soon as the doors unlocked, map tucked into the side of her boot and her flashlight in hand. Oh yeah, so ready to take on the great outdoors. Because tonight she would be getting herself a bat. Monsters beware. Now that she was sure she finally had a grasp on where the hell she was going around here, she was determined to get outside and get armed.

...The doors unlocked and Albedo was gone.

Though, to be fair, we'll back up a moment to add context.

The shift was not a gradual thing--Albedo's day had been interesting, to say the least, but it was not altogether bad. The adjust came right before the boy took off, when the link flared between black and white with little context. And Nigredo only felt confusion, then a sharp fear that burned, then the strong pulse of heavy anger. There was no context, as stated, and Albedo had a ring that went to his brother's door. The reaction, then, was understood; the action only the simplest of what would be done.

Albedo sent a demand and a concern at his sibling in advance, then, in some fury, slammed his hand against the wall.

[teleporting to here]

The dinner announcement came as something utterly unexpected. Rather than Harrington's excited tones, the calm accented voice of the General drifted through the intercom speakers.

"Code 1-8. I repeat: Code 1-8. All personnel are to report to your stations. No exceptions."

The intercom clicked off, leaving no explanation behind. The staff appeared to take the words to heart, however, as evident by their thin-lipped faces and snappy tones to the slower patients. They were in an obvious hurry to get everyone back to their rooms.

For what cause, they refused to divulged.

[ Those participating in the forced drug trials, please ensure to read this lounge post before posting to dinner. Thanks! ]