paixaorpg | Unlikely Rescuers... (Closed)

Entry tags:

Unlikely Rescuers... (Closed)

Character(s): Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix Wright, Cloud, Zack, Maya
Content: The lawyers stumble upon the lab and the prisoners.
Setting: Fortriss basement
Time: Late Friday Night
Warnings: Sappy reunions! D'aww.

Miles hated the dark.

The soft clacking of the lawyers' dress shoes bounced off the walls and echoed down the corridors. There had been silence between the two ever since they'd left the other group to find the prisoners, but Miles didn't mind. He was too lost in his own thoughts, replaying the scene in his mind over and over again.

Those long, sharp fangs catching what little light that was cast from the chandelier... the soaking hair clinging to the thin, pale face and bony frame. The thick tail snaking its way around Hojo's feet...

Miles could feel the bile rise in his throat once again and he slowed his pace until he finally stopped, leaning heavily against the wall and trying to control his breathing. He brought a hand to his face and touched the tips of his fingers to his lips, trying to get his mind on anything, anything other than that man.

The two lawyers had been walking side-by-side in the darkened corridor with only the little flashlight found in the pouch Hojo had insisted he bring.

The bag...

He reached into it and pulled out the pistol, holding the cold weapon in his hands and staring at it as though he'd never seen one before in his life. He turned it over in his hands, examining it carefully. How could something so small take someone's life so easily...?

"I shot him," he managed to gasp out. Miles looked up at the other man, who'd long since stopped walking, and slowly slid down the wall, ending up in a crouch. He drew a few more breaths before he repeated the phrase again. "I... shot him."

There was a pain in his chest--the same pain he felt when he'd thought he was the one who had killed his father, all those years ago. The pain he felt when he was on that boat on the lake on Christmas Eve.

Phoenix had gone through so much to clear his good name, and now... now he'd gone and dirtied his hands. He was guilty of everything he stood against. He'd tried to... tried to...

He blinked and met Phoenix's eyes with his own.

"I... I'm so sorry."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not even during the trial had Phoenix seen Miles as broken down as this. Put simply... he didn't know exactly what to say to the prosecuting attorney.

"But... it was in self-defense, wasn't it?" he said after a few moments. It was the most logical conclusion Phoenix could come to; Miles wouldn't have fired it without good reason, right? Not to mention the gun had been in his possession for hours, and he hadn't done anything rash with it before that even when any other person might have...

Maya sat.

There wasn't anything else she could do, really. Get the other two out of the cage? Yeah, lovely and all, but that didn't make any further progress on getting them the hell out of there. What could she do? Maya was just a girl from the city... with spiritual abilities, yes, but when she thought about it hard enough, they were completely useless in this situation.

"Mia..." she found herself muttering softly, hugging her knees tighter to her chest. For some reason Maya believed that if Mia were here, she would know exactly how to get them out of this dreadful place of a lab. Of course she could, her older sister could do everything. But she was dead, and Mia wasn't around. Maybe not even spiritually anymore-- Maya was in a completely different world now. She found herself slowly wishing she could leave. She didn't want to be in Paixao anymore.

A soft sound interrupted her train of thought. Maya looked up, listening intently. A rhythmic 'clack' was gradually becoming louder, and it seemed to be heading towards the lab.

Zack had been curled up half-asleep in a corner of the lab, having decided that rest was the most sensible thing to do for the moment, but his senses had been sharpened enough by mako treatments (and possibly something else, now) that he heard the commotion in the upper levels of the fortress soon after it began. He ignored it at first, but the distant sound of gunshots was enough to make him snap awake and listen more closely.

"Somehow I don't think that's Hojo coming home with the groceries," he said, sitting up and noting with relief that his injuries felt much better than they had that morning. "And considering we all have the fighting abilities of a damp tissue at the moment, I think we better hope it's Maya's rescue party."

[tra la la... (http://community.livejournal.com/paixaorpg/77220.html)]

Riku led the way down the hall to the lab, only to find the door locked. With a key. So much for using his Darkness or DNA to put in some sort of passcode.

"Stand away from the door!" he shouted before taking a few steps back. Riku counted to ten before loosing another Dark Firaga right at the door, the steal groaning and squealing as it exploded off its hinges and hit the far wall of the room.

No one seemed to be in the cages Ansem had constructed, so Riku left it to the others to help the prisoners. He made a beeline straight for the hulking dark presence of the super-computer that took up one corner of the room.

"But... it was in self defense, wasn't it?"

Miles shivered against the concrete wall, fingers tightening against the damp sleeves of the denim jacket he'd borrowed from Cid. He swallowed, trying to calm his trembling... he couldn't tell if it were from the cold, or the sickening waves of guilt.

He glanced up at Phoenix, unable to see his face in the dark, but he knew that the defense attorney was horrified, almost as horrified as Miles was at himself.

He convulsed again, fighting back the urge to be sick all over the floor. If Phoenix turned his back on Edgeworth, then... who did he have left? Who--

Thud

He jumped and fell to the floor, glancing over in the direction of the noise, and was overcome with another shudder.

It was Hojo, who'd been carried along with the others he'd left behind before to find the lab with Phoenix. Apparently they didn't move quickly enough.

Miles looked over the pale, unconscious man, his hand trembling as he reached out to hold a hand in front of the half-open mouth. He was still breathing... barely.

He pushed the soaking hair off to the side of Hojo's face and looked down at the shoulder he was lying on--the one he'd shot.

Oh God.

Hojo really did not have the best timing, because he chose that moment to stir, blinking dumbly for a moment before he winced, a low groan rising in his throat. He resisted the urge to curl into a ball; his whole body ached, his shoulder was absolutely blinding him(he wouldn't have been surprised if they'd jostled the wound and made it worse) and his skin felt burned.

He really wasn't sure if he'd have preferred blacking out during the transformation. On the one hand, he wouldn't have any idea WHY he hurt as much as he did, but on the other hand he wouldn't know what had happened to him, physically AND mentally. The knowledge that he COULD be reduced to such subhuman reasoning made him almost physically ill, now that he had his mind back.

Yes, he most certainly would have preferred a blackout, Hojo decided as he attempted to sit up, using his good arm and the floor to assist him in doing so. At the very least, he supposed, his glasses hadn't broken. If he'd been blind on top of all this he wasn't sure WHAT he'd have done, but it would likely have been pretty pathetic.

"...I think we better hope it's Maya's rescue party."

It was only when her name was mentioned that she snapped out of her little problematic world. Maya never was fully and completely aware of all the racket that went on in the upper levels, and only just then realized what it could possibly be.

'Rescue party'... That's right-- That would mean Nick and Mr. Edgeworth were coming! She's finally get to see them again instead of talking through those silly little journals! Her spirits rose dramatically, and while she didn't jump to her feet, Maya did manage to uncurl herself and nearly beam at Zack.

"It has to be!" she exclaimed. "They said they'd come to help, so it's gotta be them!" She clentched her fists in a determined matter. "If they're out there, you think it's safe to get out of this creepy place? I'm getting so sick of it!"

The sudden shifting of the unconscious scientist startled Miles; he gasped and drew back his hand, holding it as though it had been burned. Edgeworth glanced down at the ground and saw the small pool of blood that had been forming from the wound in Hojo's shoulder. Blood looked different when it was wet.

He brought his eyes up to meet Hojo's--the poor man was so disoriented... did he really know what had happened? Was he able to control his transformation at all? Did he know why it happened?

A sudden explosion caught Miles off-guard and he whipped his head around in the direction of the sound, squinting his eyes at the burst of light at the end of the hall.

Was that... the lab?

Explosions? Explosions were perfectly fine with Yaten, after what he had seen on Hojo not too long ago. ANYTHING was better than that, at the time being.

...Yaten turned his green eyes to Hojo for a minute and pointed accusingly. "If I puke," he began, voice wobbling. "It is all your fault, and I know who I'm aiming for." That said, Yaten fell. Right onto his ass.

He couldn't manage his legs anymore- he was so tired and shaken that all he needed was a "safe" place to sleep. Yaten glanced around, then snorted at Hojo. "...You only look like a phage chewed you up and spit you out about fifty times over," Yaten said.

Him? Completley and utterly stupid with being tired? No way!

[OOC: OMG HI DUSKI! :D :D :D I ttly didn't realize that OUR CHARACTERS WOULD MEET in this. Hahahaha.]

Dias had been quiet ever since Riku had knocked Hojo senseless, and with good reason; he'd been doing some careful reevaluations of the companions - and the silver-haired brat - that he had previously dismissed as useless and annoying. The pale-haired woman (who was a man now, for Tria's sake; Dias was beginning to get quite suspicious about that, but he'd decided to chalk it up to magic for the time being) had certainly proved to have at least one powerful spell in her arsenal, Riku had shown quite a bit more actual fighting ability than his cocky attitude and ridiculously stylized sword had suggested, and even Edgeworth had possessed enough guts to use the weapon he was holding(of course, given that he had almost certainly not known how to USE it, this didn't show a lot of wisdom on Edgeworth's part), although judging by his current expression of horror as he regarded Hojo it had probably been more of an accident than anything.

Perhaps Dias had been selling them short...

All the same, it wasn't the time for self-recriminations. He'd been hired to help rescue people, and from the look of things they couldn't be far away. Besides, that brat Riku had shown off quite enough already, flinging that dark fire of his around indiscriminately; Dias' pride wouldn't stand letting him find the prisoners first, too, since he'd been denied a decent fight against the transformed Hojo.

Speaking of which, the bastard seemed to be waking up. With the mage barely able to stand from the look of him, if Dias just left now the only people remaining behind to guard him would be Edgeworth and his friend in the blue suit...not exactly the most capable fighters in their party, by Dias' estimation. Hojo might be hampered by his wounds, but still -

"Don't get too close to him," he warned Edgeworth after a few moments' inner debate. "If he transforms again, he could quite easily rip your throat out." He glanced between Edgeworth, his well-dressed friend(Dias really ought to make more of an effort to learn people's names), and the mage. "You should probably tie him up or sit on him or something while we're getting your friends." ~~Hoping~~ Figuring that was enough of a warning, Dias stepped - somewhat cautiously - through the door Riku had blown open, looking around the interior of the lab.

After noting Riku's position, messing around with - SOMETHING large and machine-looking, Dias decided not to give it a whole lot of thought - his eyes were almost immediately drawn to three people on the floor in roughly the center of the room. Two men and a woman, the men possessing hairstyles that defied both fashion and gravity and the woman wearing a kimono-style garment - Dias decided, somewhat reluctantly, that based on the evidence these had to be the people they'd been looking for. The reluctance was due to the fact that all three looked generally the worse for wear (which was to be expected) and that wings and tails were NOT in the given descriptions of the men(which was definitely not).

Still, first things first. He'd sheathed his sword several minutes ago, as he'd been following Riku and the mage to the lab; now he rested his hand on its hilt, just in case, before taking a few steps into the laboratory, closer to the former prisoners. "I'm going to assume you three are the ones Edgeworth is looking for?" he inquired, his gaze flickering between the three.

It had been peaceful and quiet only minutes ago. It was a perfect situation in which to recover some lost strength, or quietly meditate or nap. That was all gone now. Cloud had been trying to sleep, but that was quite impossible now. Loud noises had gone on in the upper levels. Add to that Zack and Maya's voiced observations, and rest was quite impossible. Besides, there was lots of dark energy around now. It was nearly palpable.

And then the door to the room had been blown open in a most extravagant fashion. The rescue party had arrived. Hopefully it was truly the rescue party. He did not recognize the tall, blue-haired man, but he did recognize the other. Less a conscious recognization that an internal knowing. He'd ignore that one for now, as the blue-haired man was talking to them.

"If Edgeworth is a friend of Maya's, then yes," Cloud replied. Obviously they were the ones. The three of them weren't hanging out in this fortress because it was a fun place to be. Finally they would be getting out of there.

Riku tried feeling his way around the computer, but it was hard. Yes, the thing was imbued with Ansem's Dark energy, but it was at least as much a mechanical device as it was a magical one, and it didn't respond to his presence alone.

DAMNit.

There was only one option before he was forced to remove his blindfold in front of other people. Leaning down close to where he knew the keyboard was, Riku whispered loudly--but not so loud the group at the center of the lab could hear, "Computer...uh...can you hear me?"

Oh man. He felt like an idiot. How fucking stupid. Like a damn computer was gonna talk back. This wasn't one of Sora's goofy old science fiction films.

YES, MASTER. I HEAR AND OBEY, the deep feminine voice boomed through the lab.

DX! *facepalm*

"YES!" This time, Maya did jump to her feet, stepping forward towards the blue-haired man. "Is Mr. Edgeworth here? Nick, too? Does this mean we can finally get out of this place?! Oh please tell me we are!"

After moments of fighting back the tears swelling up in her eyes, Maya cupped her hands over her eyes. "Are we?" she choked out. "I'm so sick and tired of this place and I just want to go home." She rubbed her face with the back of her hand, bowing her head slightly. God, don't cry. It's rediculous. Crying wasn't something people her age did-- Her sister would never cry. "And I'm hungry."

Hojo managed a small sound that could have been a laugh when he noticed that Miles was jumping at seemingly every little sound. "Nervous?" he asked, somewhat snarkily, though his heart wasn't in it. He shifted a little, finding a stretch of wall to lean against for the time being, while he collected himself.

"You only look like a phage chewed you up and spit you out about fifty times over."

"That's about how I feel," the scientist said flatly, disregarding the fact that he had no idea what s/he meant by "phage." It was highly doubtful s/he was talking about viruses, and if s/he was she had a very interesting way of noticing that someone looked like hell.

"You should probably tie him up or sit on him or something while we're getting your friends."

Hojo didn't get the chance to respond to Dias before he walked off, but it was probably just as well. With a soft sigh he reached up and touched his chest, pulling both of the materia out. He was too exhausted to use them, and if removing them would convey to the others that he was pretty useless as far as fighting was concerned by this point, he was willing to. He tossed the two spheres at Yaten with short laugh as he stood, leaning on the wall as he did so.

"I can't really fight any more, so if you're looking to continue I'm afraid you're out of luck." With that he walked the rest of the way down the hall to the lab. If he could get the others to just take the specimens and leave, it would give the wounded scientist time to recover and perhaps continue his research. He didn't need these three in particular, he supposed.

Yaten blinked at the materia, wincing as they hit him right on the head. Bastard. The white-haired young man grabbed them, blinking. "What the hell?" he muttered, putting them in one of many zippered pockets on his shirt.

He wobbled to his feet, leaning against a wall. Oh god, where was that stupid kidnapper? Yaten really wanted to barf on him right about now. He closed her eyes and grit her teeth, swallowing to fight back nausea.

When he had gotten his stomach in line, he followed after Hojo. "What the hell did you throw at me?" Yaten squeaked. ...Squeaked? Oh god. Yaten cleared his throat a little, scowling.

"Materia," Hojo said, looking over his shoulder at the short person. He winced at the motion; it pulled on his shoulder, and he was quickly coming to realize that at some point during the fight his collarbone had been broken. That probably explained why the gunshot wound hurt far more than it probably should have, though Hojo had very little experience with such things.

"If Edgeworth is a friend of Maya's, then yes."

Dias hadn't really needed the blond man's confirmation, but at least he had it. He gave the man a slight nod to indicate that he'd understood, and that his assumption that Edgeworth was a friend of Maya's was correct. "We should get going, then - "

He was then momentarily and very thoroughly distracted from the prisoners by a booming voice that seemed to come from, well, EVERYWHERE at once. But, glancing around for the source, he spotted Riku looking - well, almost sheepish, really, and still standing in front of that machine. And that sparked a memory - on a few occasions he'd actually heard voices over the machine that was his journal('voiceposts', they were called). Alphonse had explained to him that it was a sort of recording: the machine memorized the sounds of the person talking into it and then repeated them on command. He'd never experimented with the matter himself, but - perhaps the machine Riku was fiddling with was simply doing something like that. Since there was no apparent threat, and no other sign of the speaker, Dias was content to leave it at that for now and turn back to more immediate matters, like the kidnapping victims they'd come to free.

"I'm so sick and tired of this place and I just want to go home."

...Well. Dias had expected them (or at least the girl; the men were soldiers, Edgeworth had said, so they had probably held up better) to be distraught, of course, but that didn't mean he was prepared to deal with a girl on the edge of tears. Monsters, bandits, even demons the mercenary could handle with ease; a crying woman, not so much. "Edgeworth hired me to help rescue you three," he muttered, turning away slightly - as much to put himself at ease as to give Maya some emotional privacy. "Get a hold of yourself; we're not out of here yet."

The loud voice set Cloud on edge immediately. Master? He looked around the room, and the only possible place such a voice could have come from was over by... him, and the computer. Could computers really be so loud? Well, this was Ansem's lair. The computer could probably do more than most ordinary ones could.

And if this computer reacted that way to him, Cloud didn't want to dwell on that. The only master of the Fortress was Ansem. And he was gone. Cloud himself made sure of that. What had remained was... that very kid over there. So he had survived. Ah, if Cloud only had the energy, he'd make sure that kid would never get around again. What he half-remembered was more painful than the experiment he just went through. Dammit.

"Sir," Cloud said, addressing the blue-haired swordsman, "we need to get out of here as quickly as possible." Every instinct in Cloud was telling him to get the hell out of there. Too bad he wasn't strong enough to get up, let alone run.

[ooc: =B]

When no one yelled or pointed fingers or came flying across the room to attack him for being the host of such stinky Dark Evil, Riku finally managed--after several minutes and lots of deep breathing exercises--to get his utter mortification under control.

"Computer," he continued to speak quietly. "Set your self-destruct. I want this whole place wiped out in uh...what's the maximum time you can give me?"

FIVE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO HOURS, the computer's voice boomed.

"..."

Okay. Just a little longer than he thought they'd need.

"Then how 'bout..." How many minutes were in an hour, anyway? "...100 minutes?"

SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED, AUTHORIZATION CODE ALPHA. OMEGA. SIX. SIX. SIX. T-MINUS NINETY-NINE. MINUTES. AND NINETY-SEVEN. SECONDS TO SELF-DESTRUCT.

His ears ringing, Riku wondered if he should help make sure everyone else got out.
...
Nah. He'd done enough hero work for one day. They had plenty of time.

Self-destruct? Hojo scowled a little, irritated at that. "Why are you detroying that?" he asked Riku, making his way over to the computer. Who else could have told the thing to self-destruct? No one else was at the terminal. Ugh, walking hurt far more than it really should have. "There's a lot of valuable information in there. Computer, cancel self-destruct sequence." He highly doubted the thing would listen to him, but what the hell? It was worth a shot, and he really would have preferred NOT losing such a vast wealth of research, even if it wasn't his.

Yaten paused, staring at nothing in particular. He looked around. "...Maybe we should, uh... Uh... Yeah." Yaten was pointing at the door dumbly.

Oh god, he really WAS gonna puke, and the world-spinning? Yeah, not such a great idea.

Self-destruct? Yeah, it was time to get the hell out of town. "We might as well get going, and now..." Again, Yaten was distracted by the glint of metal- gold, even. And a dress. Huh. Someone must've left these, since...

It didn't seem like there was anyone who would wear them, here.

"...Yeah, okay, I don't know about you guys? But I'd be getting out of here."

Yaten was already headed that way.

Oh boy. The place was going to explode. How lovely.

"Hey, we should go help Maya and the others so we can get out of here as fast as we can..." Phoenix said, looking down at Edgeworth; the man was quite obviously not in very good mental or physical shape, but Phoenix really doubted he would rather stay there.

The rescuers seemed to have everything under control, in spite of their disorganization, and Zack couldn't help but be pleased when he saw what a mess Hojo was. But the sudden booming voice from Ansem's computer (why hadn't that activated when they'd smashed it half to bits earlier?) snapped him to attention. "Wait, wait, did I just hear self-destruct? Cloud, Maya, um, other people, I am totally in support of leaving now. I can walk out of here if I can lean on somebody's shoulder, but I don't know about Cloud here." He realized suddenly that the damn tail was twitching with nervousness and irritation, and attempted unsuccessfully to glare it into submission.

"You can ditch Hojo if you want, though," he added, with a grin that could only be described as vindictive.

"Hey, we should go help Maya and the others so we can get out of here as fast as we can..."

Phoenix's voice snapped Miles back into reality. He'd been staring after Hojo since the man had stood and walked away, shocked that he could still move even after all the damage he'd apparently taken.

Miles took a deep breath and stood up on unsteady legs--he had to look strong for Maya, at least. He strided confidently in the lab, trying to compensate for his overly pale features, and glanced over all the people in the lab, studying the unfamiliar faces of the people he was trying to save. His gaze lingered on Maya briefly and he shifted uncomfortably. It wasn't his place to comfort her.

I can walk out of here if I can lean on somebody's shoulder, but I don't know about Cloud here."

"I can help you," he said to the dark-haired SOLDIER, extending a hand to help him up, saving the questions on his tail for later when they had the luxury of time.

"And I assure you that we will be leaving no one behind."

Edgeworth had too many questions for the scientist for him to just leave Hojo behind.

"Get a hold of yourself; we're not out of here yet."

"I-- I'm fine!" Maya insisted. Nevermind she was constantly wiping at her eyes, she was not upset in the least. Not at all.

After the computer nearly exploded in noise, Maya squeaked out in surprise. Oh, crap-- Not even two minutes, not even two minutes! She turned around to start Operation: Get The HELL Out Of There, but stopped dead in her tracks when she laid eyes on--

"MR. EDGEWORTH!" she shrilled. Maya was almost tempted to attack him with a hug, until she realized two things: One, he probably wouldn't appriciate that; and Two, they only had about oh, NOT ENOUGH TIME to get their very-close-to-being-exploded selves out of the fortress.

Phoenix followed Miles into the lab, and felt incredibly relieved when he spotted her among everyone else in the room; she seemed to be perfectly fine, except for the fact that her eyes were a little red.

"Maya!" he called to her. It was really good to see her again.

"N-Nick!" Okay, screw the whole about-to-be-demolished-fortess thing, Maya actually did run up and attack Phoenix with a hug. This only lasted a few seconds, however, because she'd rather babble with run-on sentences later and very much alive rather than squashed five ways from Sunday. "C'mon, we've gotta go!"

Well, at least some people were getting the right idea. The energetic girl, for one. Yaten rolled his eyes. "My thoughts exactly. Let's get off of our lard and MOVE. I don't know how long it took us to GET in here, and I'd rather be taking my leave of this place NOW."

Yaten glared around, hands on his hips in a very feminine gesture-- he couldn't help it, he was originally female, and had spent almost fifteen years of his life that way.

That damned disembodied voice again, and it wasn't even as if what it was saying was good news. Dias had never heard of a 'self-destruct' sequence before, but it was kind of a self-explanatory phrase...the only comforting part involved the numbers the voice mentioned. Ninety-nine minutes and ninety-something seconds - if they had that long to get out, that would be plenty of time, at least depending on how far they'd need to get away from the place. The biggest concern would be getting the entire crowd out without leaving anyone behind.

"I can walk out of here if I can lean on somebody's shoulder, but I don't know about Cloud here."

Ah, yes, there was that too. Edgeworth had offered to support the dark-haired man(who, by process of elimination, had to be Zack), and Maya seemed well enough to fling herself on the unsuspecting man in the suit, so that only left the blond-haired man. And as no one else seemed to be paying him a whole lot of attention...that left Dias.

This had not been one of the more illustrious jobs of his mercenary career.

To Dias' credit, however, he didn't waste time complaining ~~out loud~~. He walked over to Cloud, kneeling down beside him. "Come on," he said with only a hint of impatience, gesturing for the man to use him as support. While he waited for that, he scanned their group, doing a quick mental count.

...wait, weren't they one person short...?

[ooc: Sorry, Hoho-chan! D: I love you. ♥]

"Why are you detroying that?"

Riku turned around and scowled in the scientist's general direction--or as well as you can scowl at someone through a blindfold. How the hell was he conscious and moving again?

"Shut up."

A very illuminating answer, but that was the type of guy Riku was. He had no comment for Hojo's summation of Ansem's research as 'valuable.' And if he had, it wouldn't have been fit for mixed company.

"Computer, cancel self-destruct sequence."

Riku was just getting ready to go over there and bust him one for even trying, when the computer OH SNAP!ped for him.

ACCESS. DENIED.
NINETY-EIGHT. MINUTES. AND TWENTY. TWO. SECONDS. REMAINING.

With a smirk, Riku turned and tried to leave again.
But the computer wasn't finished with him yet.

MASTER.

He froze in place, clenching his fists and grinding his teeth. WHAT the fuck?!
"What?" he hissed in an angry whisper. Not that everyone present couldn't hear the exchange.

I LOVE YOU.

Okay, that was it. Riku was OUT of here. WHAT the fuck! He wasn't even Ansem and now the computer was coming onto him? Oh HELL no.

If he had taken a look at all into Ansem's memories, he might have discovered the woman's voice that had been programmed into the computer was that of Hollow Bastion's queen, all that remained of her now.

But he didn't, and he didn't care, and how was a computer making him feel dirty wtf?

"Uhh. Yeah," Riku muttered as he booked the hell out of there before the computer decided to give him a good-bye kiss, too.

"MR. EDGEWORTH!!!"

Well. It was good to see that he was missed. His eardrums, however, were not so thankful. He was about to acknowledge her with some sort of awkward greeting, but she had spotted Phoenix before he had the chance and ran to him, leaving Edgeworth with his hand still outstretched to Zack.

That was all right. The last thing he needed was to waste his time on an awkward greeting when there were obviously more important matters at hand.

Once the creepy computer finished booming out its love confession to the white-haired boy, Miles turned his head and said loudly, "Mrs. Ashe and Isaac should still be up near the front--we'll pick them up on the way out. We've got plenty of time before this place goes, but I'd still like to put as much distance between us and it before it does. We'll stop at an inn in Muspelheim to allow the wounded to rest and for those who need payment to recieve it."

He looked over at Phoenix, who was trying to piece together words from Maya's babbling.

"Wright. Keep an eye on Hojo."

The gun was still in Edgeworth's bag.

...What the HELL? Now the computer was making declarations of love to 'Riku'? Oh hell. If the situation weren't so, you know, life-threatening... It would've been something to laugh at, instead...

...Well, Miles was right. "I'd still like to get out now," Yaten replied to Edgeworth, glaring around the room. "There are injured people here, and how long did it take to GET down here, hmm?"

That computer made it all but obvious that the boy standing by it was truly Ansem. That would be dealt with later. Right now, there were better things to worry about, like escaping the fortress.

While everyone else was wrapped up in reunions and general chaos, the blue-haired man came to Cloud's side and offered his shoulder to lean on. This was obviously not the man's idea of fun, nor was it Cloud's. "Thanks," he said succinctly, deciding not to mention this ever again. He took the offered shoulder quickly. He wasn't about to refuse the help, not when he needed it so badly.

Zack took Edgeworth's profferred hand, wincing at the repeated outburst of noise from Maya and the computer, and snickering as it proclaimed it's love for the silver-haired boy. "Thanks," he told the lawyer, glancing around quickly. "If this is everyone, let's go before things get any damn weirder."

God damn it.

Hojo scowled at Riku as he ran off and knelt in front of the computer, opening a panel in the main body and digging around with his good hand. Maybe he didn't have to keep the computer intact, if he could get the information he needed out first. Besides, he'd had to repair this thing not even a week ago so he knew what he was looking for. For the most part.

After a few moments of searching he found what he was looking for and pulled what looked like a hard drive out of the case. That done, he got to his feet and grabbed Ansem's old journal off of the table where he'd left it. If he couldn't save the lab, he could at least save the research, or parts of it, and begin again somewhere else.

Dias pulled one of Cloud's arms over his shoulders before straightening up, dragging the other man to his feet whether he liked it or not - in fact, lifting him almost off the ground as Dias forgot to take his extreme height into account. Some swift readjustments made things slightly less awkward, at least for Cloud; Dias was forced to actually lean over slightly. Damn it, this was not the sort of work the mercenary was suited for...the only consolation was that Cloud seemed to have the exact same mindset as himself on the matter(that being "let us never speak of this again").

He wasn't so busy adjusting for his height, however, that he entirely missed the disembodied voice Riku seemed to be conversing with(it would have been nearly impossible to do so, given the volume). Dias had already, upon the voice's first addressing the boy, made a quiet mental note of it referring to him as 'master', and nothing the voice had said thus far had served to make him any less suspicious. But that was a matter best dealt with elsewhere, at another time.

A double-check of his previous headcount revealed that he'd miscounted the first time; they were TWO people short, and one of them was that surly-looking redhead in the leather. That wasn't exactly promising. Had anyone besides him been left with the machine they'd come in? If not, Dias couldn't help wondering if it would still be there by the time they got out of the fortress...which could be a problem if this place was going to explode. He wasn't sure how far away they needed to get but even he, with his rapidly-growing dislike of all things technology, knew they'd get a lot further away with the buggy's help than on foot.

"Someone grab him before he runs off again," he said roughly, nodding in Hojo's direction. Then - with another slight adjustment to his grip on Cloud - he headed for the door of the laboratory, fully planning on depositing the blond man outside as soon as possible.

Dias was doing his level best to ignore the wing, despite the fact that he'd had to manuever his arm around it just to get it around Cloud's waist. He had enough problems as it was.

No one had to grab Hojo, because he was quite content to follow the others now that he had the things he needed. If they were going to kill him they would have already, and he was fairly sure they were satisfied with how badly he was hurt for the moment.

It didn't take long for the group to make its way up and out of the fortress, picking up the still-unconscious Ashe and the silent Isaac when they got to the ground level. She was moved carefully to the waiting buggy, though even without Riku(where HAD that boy gone off to?) they found that they were one seat short, even WITH Yaten offering to sit in someone's lap, since Ashe would need to be lay down and would take up two spots.

The general concensus was that if anyone was going to give up a seat, it would have to be the kidnapper, and so Hojo ended up wedged rather uncomfortably behind the driver's seat for the duration of the trip back to Muspelheim.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Unlikely Rescuers... (Closed)

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To Hojo <3

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