OOC: There is no excuse for having gone so long without posting. I should be setting an example, and here I am, one of the worst inactivity culprits. All I can do is apologize, and promise that I'll do better.

Even through all the back-and-forth chaos and confusion of the sudden addition of three people to a conversation previously housing two, it'd be hard to miss Latika's crestfallen face as she silently repeated, "Gone?" How could she not feel responsible in some (large) way? Who was it who'd said, "Ace can handle himself"? ...

It'd sure looked like he was doing okay, chucking explodey glowy robots and all, but even if she had stuck around, what could she have done? Carried the aggressor away? Even as shallow as her understanding of Tracer's capabilities were, she couldn't see that going well. At all. Nor did it help to ease her conscience any that Ace had been kind of a jerk to her ever since she and her villagemates had pulled him and his friends out of burning wreckage and nursed them back to health as best they were able to...

The long and short of it was that she felt responsible for Ace's abduction, and that compelled her to ignore introductions, Casey's private phonecall, and reason, all in one go, as, quite belatedly, after a disproportionate amount of silence on her part, the loris stepped forward, and clearly said, looking Geoff square in the eyes, "I agree we need to helping Ace."

"Don't know about details, why or how, or who, but not is relevant. We need at least try to get back."




Then, fidgeting sheepishly, she added, "And... Not appropriate time, I know, but... What name call for you? 'Green Sonic' have very irreverent sound."

The rest of Casey's conversation didn't last long. It mostly broached matters of location, and mumblings of timing—whens and wheres for some uncertain plan. And then, it was abruptly over. His phone stowed once more, the burly hog rushed back to the mottled congregation of allies, stopped sharply, regarded them with a moment's hesitance ("Urrr..."), then blurted:

"I gotta go."

Knowing this would not be a satisfactory statement, he amended it quickly, explaining, "I think I know where your friend's bein' taken. It's a real dangerous place, though, so you folks can just... stay here, an', yeah. I'll go check it out."

He didn't sound entirely certain that what he was saying would be received the way he wanted.

Casey furrowed his brows at the flurry of commentary as he sidled toward the stairwell door. Ultimately, he appreciated Latika's vote of confidence... however terribly wrong she may have been about his intentions. (He was not scouting; he was doing.)

"Thank you, Latika," he said with a sort of stilted hesitance as he glanced back toward Tyra, "but, yeah, I wish I could answer, but... it's just... a matter of having the right contacts."

Even he didn't seem entirely convinced by what he was saying. Either Casey was a very good liar or a very bad one, because he certainly hadn't let on about much of anything up until this point, but he didn't seem to be covering himself very well, either.

"I've been in this region for a while, so, y'know, you get to know some people," he explained weakly.

Without further explanation, he reached the door, opened it, and made way to leave. He wasn't exactly the fastest guy on the block, though, so he wouldn't be able to do a whole lot about it if anyone did follow him. Either way, he was on his way down the stairs, to the elevator, and outta there.

Later that night...




*Bzzt.*

The elevator door slid open. A heavy, black, flat-soled boot thudded out onto the shiny, concrete floor.

Everyone had long left to chase off after Ace. Fires had been put out, patients had gone back to sleep, and some big, chubby Egg Pawns (Or were they Chimera Pawns now?) had taken up the task of slowly scrubbing the floor with big, industrial-looking brushes on long, metal poles.

Skiff. Shhoosh. Skiff. Shoosh, went the repetitive noise in the utter silence of the wrecked hospital cafeteria.

The stark, fluorescent lighting cast faint shadows in haywire directions. One fell alongside a Pawn; it turned and looked over its shoulder with mild interest at the arrival from the elevator. It then stood rigidly straight and saluted, inadvertently throwing the handle of its scrubber through the nearby glass window with the gesture. Glass rained down on the street below and the remainder of the safety glass, crumbling and sagging, hung crookedly above.

...

The pane fell inward, struck the robot across the head, and reduced to little glass cubelets all across the floor. The Egg Pawn didn't even seem to notice.

Rock stopped next to the robot, unresponsive to its antics. The focused-looking white primate knelt next to the mess of gunk left over from the fight earlier in the day; quietly observant, he ran two fingers through the mess. Tracer's sticky-foam stretched between his index, middle finger, and thumb. It was fairly stubborn even after sitting so long.

He sniffed the air a couple times and looked at one of the robots. It was holding a plastic jug in its non-saluting hand.

"What are you using as a solvent?" he asked.

"Uhhnnn."

The brilliant robot looked around, looked at the floor, then raised the jug in its hand and shook it around, inadvertently making it all that much harder to read.

Rock stood, wiped some flame-retardant foam off his dark blue shorts, and squinted. The bottle's label read "acetone." He stepped over, seized it with no great concern for politeness or gentility, and rinsed his glove with it. Sure enough, Tracer's foam melted away, and was replaced with the remembrance of a couple semesters' worth of boring chemistry classes.

"Polar," he mumbled under his breath as he foist the jug back into the robot's grasp, and turned, gazing around the room as if searching. After a few seconds, he looked back and asked, "Which room was Ace in?"

"Uhhnnn."

Rock frowned. When he looked ahead again, though, he noticed a trail of what looked like some sort of crusted, slimy footprints. "Never mind," he sighed, and followed the trail to Ace's former room, where, sure enough, he found Ace's clothing, still lying in a little stack on the bed.

He gently picked it up. There was a Bolt Boar shirt, something sentimental to Ace, now very bloodstained; a well-worn pair of jeans; a pair of boots sitting to the side... All Ace's favorite clothes.

"So that's where it went."

Rock plucked his black hoodie from the selection and unceremoniously dumped Ace's stuff on the floor, uninterested. He wandered out of the room, down the hall, and back to the waiting elevator.

"Got it all blood-stained..."

The buzzer sounded and the elevator door closed.