The neon lights make me numb (Ch. 5: Day 3)

psikeout · Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 8:11 pm

And so, with all the raucous laughter and Goode Ole Times being had by all (or by Casey and Corin rather) in the cafeteria, the mortal combat ensuing just down the hall went unnoticed for the time being. Instead, food was coming out, and Casey, who was clearly wasting away right before them, was moving on to his second helping, if not his third.

"Well, anyway, it sounds to me like it just means you got good stories!" declared the hog to the, well, hedgehog. "And, y'know, everything you been sayin' so far's been checkin' out, too, timing wise, anyway," he opined, nodding toward the device that had just been delivering news--news that confirmed the fate of the Eggman Empire as told by Geoff, and others. "I bet guys like you run across a whole lotta--"

*Wha-bump rumple-blabump.*

The boar shifted in his rough old red jacket and looked over his shoulder, more amused by the raucous noise coming down the hall than actually interested. He may or may not have mumbled something along the lines of "clumsy nurse robots" to dismiss it.

"--a whole lotta secrets, and secret plots," he finished his sentence a few seconds (and a couple of bites of food) later. He had that gleam in his eyes like he was about ready to pry. He really did seem to be expecting Story Time, for better or worse. Little did he know just how little time the unexpected visitors a hall away would allow for it.

Greens · Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 8:25 pm

"HEY!"

Okay, it was clear by now. This wasn't a nurse. And 'hey' was the only thing he could say, really. He couldn't afford to waste time with anything else. Although he did express a great level of of distaste and confusion facially, once he realized that the nurse was no nurse, but a man in a nurse outfit. Honestly, he'd never seen him before. He could've just dressed up as a male nurse. Sure, being an assassin was a good an excuse as any to get a little freaky, he knew that. It was just weird. And distracting. Maybe that was it, a sort of distraction. No argument it didn't shift his focus on-- hey!

By the time that inner-diatribe had passed, poor Mako was already on the receiving end of who knows what freaky-deaky drugs this weirdo had in store for Ace in the first place. So after that, it was all action. Attack.

The 'nurse' was still plenty close, and he made the most of it with a deceptively fast leap in the deer's direction. Or, he would have, if he hadn't just been showering. As it was, he was, and he more or less wasted his 'turn' tripping on himself and trying slip and fall on his own wet feet. Lucky break for Archer.

Seafarinhare · Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 9:09 pm

Archer felt like a sitting duck, completely open to attack. And it seemed, for a moment, that Ace was going to take advantage of that. Right up until he tripped over his wet and naked self.

Lucky break indeed. Archer climbed to his feet and peeled the nurse uniform off of his body now that it no longer served him. In doing so, a couple of loosed stressballs fell to the floor. Seeing as he was wearing shoes, he had a bit more traction for what he did next: He leaped toward his target, going for a swift curb-stomp at Ace's face. Except, without the curb.

Kazz · Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 9:13 pm

Mako wasn't quite out for the count just yet-- it had only been scant moments since the injection, after all. All of this led up to one and only one thought:

dear God, this is the most bizarre thing I have ever witnessed.

Greens · Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 10:26 pm

Sure enough, he was flat on his ass when Archer made his move, but that didn't put him out of the fight by any means. Rather, he was in it well enough to catch his charging foot in both hands, and quick enough to heave and twist it (the wrong way) until Archer was just as grounded and wet as he was. Hopefully a fall would be enough to give the ol' buck pause, because Ace wasn't quite sure what move to make next. He was still reeling from the facade of the skirt.

Seafarinhare · Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 10:54 pm

"Hgk..!"

Despite having an exceptional equilibrium, once Ace got a hold on his leg, Archer was unable to acrobat his way out of the takedown. He hit the ground right next to Ace, but as he fell, he made sure to extend an elbow so as to hopefully hit the alleycat in the chest region as he landed.

Whether or not that worked as well in practice as it did in his head, once he hit the ground, he wasted no time rolling away from the naked and confused cat.

Sheff · Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 11:33 pm

"I... suppose you could say that," replied Geoff, giving a dismissive glance towards the hall before looking back towards Casey. Surprisingly, it seemed the boar had eased out a small grin from the hedgehog, as if he were reminiscing the ridiculousness of his current life.

"But if you really want to know, I could tell you the reason why a tsunami decided to smack Westside Island awhile back," he said in a vague enough manner to warrant some more interest. "Or where the heck the ARK decided to disappear to for a couple of day— er, I mean, months. Yeah, months. Stupid space-time-warp business."

Strangely enough, it sounded like he was actually enjoying baiting on Casey to the potential buffet of strange tales. The hog seemed prepared to have a meal of the story-sort, anyway.

Kazz · Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 11:43 pm

Mako, throughout the scuffle, slowly inched away from the conflict between deer and cat... and towards the door, taking advantage of the fact that they likely weren't paying much attention to him in their attempts to injure one another. Clearly, he was aiming to cut and run, ditch Ace and leave him to fend for himself.

Except not.

Mako took off down the hall as fast as he could muster, ignoring the dully throbbing pain in his back at the site of injection-- and he tried his best to push through it. As fast as he could, down a quiet hallway that was suddenly not so very quiet, he suddenly burst into the cafeteria and up to the table where the boar, hedgehog, and would-be knight were seated, just in time for Geoff to finish his last sentence.

"What ho!" exclaimed Corin in his usual way, leaping to his feet. "What villainy--"

Mako actually managed to cut the aardwolf off, a feat in and of itself. "Ace and weird-- crossdressing deer-- naked-- fighting-- I don't even know!" he spluttered, pointing in the direction of back-down-the-hall.

And then...
His madcap sprint, making his heart rate go up, had caused the muscle relaxant to more easily spread throughout his body. With a sort of cloudy feeling, he... lost all feeling in his legs. And then he lost all feeling.
"Thought you oughta know," he slurred out before he flopped unceremoniously down onto the table like a marionette whose strings had just been dropped by the puppeteer.

psikeout · Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 12:50 pm

Casey was on the verge of interviewing the hedgehog (or at the very least prying with a few fact-checking questions) when Mako showed up.

Well. That was interesting. Maybe improbable would be a better word for it. Or maybe just bizarre.

The hog stopped mid-chew, stared at Mako, then Geoff, then with a great table-rocking clatter lunged to his feet at once and bolted for the door--only to stop short with an awkward, arm-flailing, boot-screeching stumble and turn back to grab Mako and check on his well-being instead. It was hard to know what to prioritize: the"naked Ace situation" (as it would certainly henceforth be known), or the death of Pheidippides the shark. Typed on my phone. Pardon errors for now pl0x.

Greens · Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 1:56 pm

Meanwhile...

The buck's elbow made its mark indeed, but the way he'd been tipped over, he'd have to sacrifice about as much security in his landing as he'd want damage in his offense. It was possibility he might not note how much falling to the ground hurts, but hey, so do elbows to the chest. In the end, it was more or less an equal trade-off in terms of blows dealt. Grabbing at himself near the fistful of chest fur he'd been struck, he clambered his way up to his feet with distance between them and business in his eyes.

"You gonna tell me who you are!?" he wasted no time asking. "Or should I just call you Lola?"

Seafarinhare · Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 6:42 pm

In similar fashion, Archer clambered to his own feet.

An amused grin appeared on his face in response to Ace's question, but it quickly subsided as he glanced around the room. The shark was gone. Archer had made note of Ace's travel companions back on the train, and the shark was certainly not the only one.

"Archer," He said simply as he circled Ace, while keeping him well in his peripheral, "And someone wants you out of the picture, 'Ace'."

Not to name names, of course. He may not be a full-on assassin as much as a thief, but at least he had some business sense. He stopped circling as he became lined up with the door aaaaand, turned and darted out of the room, making his way into the hall.

Greens · Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:02 am

Oh, crap.

Now he was famous. In a bad way. A million miles from home. If that's not your wake up call, you probably don't have a pulse. Now there's a grim thought.

Whoever that 'someone' was could wait for when he didn't have a friggin' hitman on his butt, but damned if it wasn't overloading his head already. Was he already on Li Fang's shitlist? Why him and not the others? Was it the mouse guy? Holy Hell, what if it was Rock? Did Rock the monkey put a price on his head? Was their ship supposed to land in a volcano before it malfunctioned? A sea of questions flooded his synapses, but he knew better than to mull over them here and now.

Oddly enough, Ace smiled, and peered as his attacker below the tops of his brow as if what Archer said suddenly triggered something in him... only for him to split.

He bolted right after him but seconds after, throwing himself at the deer with a touchdown-killing leap of a tackle. "No you don't!"

Seafarinhare · Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 2:32 am

An impressive leap it was, but Archer was almost expecting it, and as such, weaseled his way out of his grip with a skillful sidestepping spin through the doorway. In doing so, he did lose control and crash into a wall in the hallway with a low grunt of pain.

"Guh$&%@!"

This slowed him, but he didn't stop, for obvious reasons. He staggered down the hall before recollecting his bearings and continued down the hall, quickly transitioning into a sprint before he made a hard turn and threw his body into the door to the stairway access. Circumstances made the elevator a poor choice. Barring any further interruptions, he would continue up the stairs.

Mie · Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 4:50 pm

"Any place different from Bhatguri," Latika answered immediately, idly perusing the useless figurines and stuffed animals.

"Is very..." the loris hesitated, her brow furrowing. "Very the same, all the time. Nothing ever change. Old die, children grow up, have more children, grown old, die. People come, want expedition, we go, come back, wait for more people come. Same thing, over and over..."

In the course of her painfully accurate description of life in a rural oriental village, she'd plucked a plastic bottle full of dubiously opaque pink liquid off a shelf, pocketed it, and left in its place too much money in a currency not regionally accepted before unabashedly walking out the door.

"Just need to do something different; see something different for change," concluded the loris, as she pulled open the door to the stairwell.

Sheff · Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 9:48 pm

Mako's abrupt appearance and choppy exclamations certainly caught Geoff's attention, as it would for anyone else within thirty yards of the shark. Having already been ready to spill the beans on such things, his spontaneous life of disaster seemed already revved and ready to come careening right back to the hedgehog, maybe believing it'd already given him enough R&R for one day. The details from Mako may have been questionable (in more ways than one), but yet here he was, being the out-of-breath messenger boy of dire news.

And then he flopped onto the floor.

"...he usually doesn't do that," muttered Geoff as he lurched out of his seat after Casey, taking the shark's urgent words for granted. Some footwork was required when the pig decided to do a one-eighty right back to Mako, however.

"He'll be fine!" stated the hedgehog over his shoulder, albeit not too confidently. "God knows he's been through worse."

And then he was gone.

Moments later, he was jerking around the corner of the hall, a hand pushing off the opposite wall as he tried to keep his momentum. A few seconds were given to him to take in what lay ahead; Ace somewhat visible through a door (and still seemingly naked... wonderful) and a brief glimpse of a pair of antlers before they vanished through a doorway farther down. Now that particular feature was familiar.

Like a wolf chasing its prey, Geoff took off after the deer's exit point, not even giving the serval a glance as he sped by. He already knew enough to give him the motivation for the chase... the question was why this guy was back. He'd already let the deer go without much of a fight back on the train, so why suddenly the reappearance? Unless this was a matter of "getting rid of the evidence", Geoff really couldn't put a finger on it. Or maybe it was entirely different person. Who knew how many antlered folk could be in the area?

Either way, trouble had been stirred up, and the hedgehog was soon bursting through the same door Archer had gone through, hearing the tapping of footsteps and following the noise up the stairs, driving up them three at a time.

The neon lights make me numb (Ch. 5: Day 3)

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