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 Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 5:45 pm
Aila had found herself living between the two extremes of inordinately furious and deeply depressed since returning from the outpost. She scarcely understood it herself - the girl had never experienced any emotion to such a degree - and was relieved when the swelling sensations finally began to subside. It seemed as though it had been ages since she had last felt normal, and she took it as an opportunity to do something that had she needed to do since the night of the ball. She stopped in front of a door, staring at it contemplatively.
"Go on in," a passing woman, clad as nurse, said, distracting Aila from her introspections. She regarded the woman with mild confusion before replying with a curt nod and pushing the door open quietly.
"Liam? Are you awake?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:35 pm
His neck would have been hurting had he retained the ability to feel, well... anything... at all. The morphine was taking care of all of that and more. They had placed him in an uncomfortable position, face towards the door and stomach pressed firmly on the soft linens. He was able to see when she pushed the door open, and smiled through the haze.
"Y..." His voice cracked and his mouth felt as if it was full of cotton, "Yes, I am."
Aila was his first visitor so far, though he had been awake for... he wasn't certain, but he was definitely ready to see someone else and figure what, exactly, had happened. Not only to him, but to everyone else as well. His private room was comfortable, but empty and none of the nurses seemed to know... well, anything.
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 8:01 pm
Nyx had been waiting for word about Liam for days, and finally the news that he was well enough for visitors had reached her. The scientist showed up to Liam's room in time to see someone else walk in; But two visitors were better than one, so Nyx walked over and stood in the doorway, a vase of flowers in her hand.
She had been so worried that her little buddy had died, it seemed that he had; Nyx had been relieved to hear that he hadn't. "Liam?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 8:14 pm
She stepped forward, taking a position at the side of Liam's bed. She attempted a friendly smile, if only a small one. He looked... wholly miserable.
She fidgeted slightly, "How are you feeling?" A sound from the doorway - a word, a name - drew her attention towards the person standing there. Nyx. Aila shrank in the agent's presence. She hadn't been expecting other company, especially not in the form of another Rocket who had disliked her even before the Poke Ball.
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 8:34 pm
He heard his name again, always a good sign, and turned his head as best as possible to see who it was.
"Miss Nyx!" he cried, his eyes watering at the sight of her. Aila and Nyx in the same room, all for him. He should have been miserable for his predicament, but he was just happy to see them. "Come in, come in," he added, before turning back to Aila.
"I'm... fine, really. I mean, it doesn't hurt or anything... even if they won't tell me what happened..." He frowned a comical frown, obviously not off-put by his condition in the least. A few days ago he would have been distraught, but maybe it was the medicine, or maybe he had taken a really long nap, but he didn't feel so bad.
"But what about you guys? Was anyone else hurt? What happened? Did they get the Pokeballs from Viral? Why was there crystal flying through the air? Where did you go Aila?"
Those and a million more questions sprung to mind, but he took an extra long pause to catch his breath, hoping to at least get some answers before he continued.
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 8:51 pm
Nyx smiled and stood on the other side, opposite of Aila. "These are from Mau." She put the vase down somewhere in the room where Liam would be able to see it, "He'd come himself but he's laid up too." Not too long ago, it would have taken Nyx ten minutes to even start to mention anything about the mission or injuries, but time and good news had a way for easing the trauma of past events.
The scientist didn't regard Aila any differently than she had before the Poke Ball, there were no strange looks, no hint of judgement in her eyes, nothing out of the ordinary; Just the same old Nyx looking at the same old Aila. "Well, we seem fine," She motioned at Aila, "Mau is recovering--Miss Nadja too-- but I haven't heard anything about the others, Cal and Sorano? I assume they're fine and recovering too." Nyx smiled and scratched her head; Liam just had so many questions at once.
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 9:08 pm
Aila's first instinct was to question his sincerity - second, his sanity. She let it go, however, in favor of responding to his questions. Fortunately, Nyx seemed to have a handle on the bulk of Liam's wonders. Even more fortunately, she didn't seem to harbor any (increased) ill will towards the younger girl. She nodded to affirm Nyx's evaluation, though it appeared she knew more than Aila on the subject of injuries and recoveries.
"Viral returned to our room," she explained quietly. "I guess they probably got the pokeballs from him. The crystal was because of a fallen chandelier... There was an explosion too, right before that." She turned her eyes down to her still-fidgeting fingers. "I went to provide the distraction."
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 10:02 pm
"Mister Mau? And Cal? And Sorano?" The news hit him hard in the face. All of those people and here he was, laying on his... well, stomach. But still, he could have gone to see them! He wasn't about to try to struggle out of bed (he had tried that to no avail several times before) but he could at least pester those who were here to get all of the information possible. "What happened to them? What was the explosion? What kind of distraction did you make? C'mooon, I gotta know! All I got to do was fondle some old fat lady and steal a couple Pokeballs... they were probably just Bidoof anyway..." He sighed, though his tone was still one of excitement. To him, the raid was a success, partial paralysis or not.
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 10:38 pm
Nyx chuckled quietly, he was so excited, it was almost like he hadn't been injured at all. "I don't know for sure, I didn't see everyone when it happened, but it's likely that either the explosion or the chandelier falling did it. I'm amazed that I walked away fairly unscathed..." That was a lie; She knew exactly why she was unharmed, but that didn't mean she wanted to tell everyone that Mau had protected her from the various dangers; Especially not with Aila in the room.
Speaking of, "What did you do, Aila? All I saw was something crash through the window, and then Mau and I went to work."
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Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:43 am
"I'm not sure anyone knows exactly what caused the explosion." She'd heard murmurs that Sorano would know, but there would be no way to confirm that until he was well enough to say his piece, and that was assuming he even retained a complete memory of the incident.
And then both had the same question, the answer to which being something Aila had been trying not to think about anymore. It was all getting too confusing. She had promised Liam and explanation, though, and this was the first step towards that end.
"The girl. Leon's daughter. I killed her." She felt as though the words should be delivered with more pride in her tone, that she should feel fulfilled in her deed, but somehow it wasn't working out that way at all...
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Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:07 pm
Though he initially began to react to Nyx's comments, Aila's response silenced him for a moment. He took that time to contemplate how he felt about that and responded very slowly, "Well... I suppose... you had a good reason, right? So you probably did what you thought best, right Aila?" His smile never faltered. Something in him believed in Aila and that something was shining through his doubt over her decision. It was her decision and she had made it and he wasn't about to make her question it any more than she already may have been.
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Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:25 pm
Nyx looked fairly surprised. That had not been the answer she had been expecting. She didn't look horrified, at least. Nyx had not cared for, or even known the girl, so an emotional response was un-necessary. "Was that part of the plan?" Was her only question and comment.
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Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:32 pm
Aila had no response for Liam. What she thought was best? That made it sound an awful lot like a conscious decision, and it didn't feel like anything that deliberate. But there was no need to dampen her friend's spirits when he was in such a bright mood, and so she nodded in affirmation.
The plan? "Nadja was aware of... Well, no. I don't suppose it was. I got distracted." The plan had been to kill Leon. That had been the plan for the past six years of her life. How could she have forgotten that so easily...?
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Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:36 pm
"Well huh," Liam responded, really unsure what, exactly, he should say, "I guess things turned out all right in the end, all things considered?" His feeble attempt to nod at his own back was more of a half-hearted spasm, but he hoped it got the point across.
"But hey!" He had just remembered something sitting on his bedside table and decided now would be the best time to get them to help him with it. "You guys wanna help me play some... D... S? Hayes' note said something about ping pong, but I don't know how you're supposed to play it with that thing. I mean, it'd be a pretty poor paddle..."
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Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:52 pm
Nyx stared at Liam, amazed, and obviously past the whole 'murder' thing. Their superiors would deal with her having strayed from the plan; And in front of Liam was no place for a scolding about following orders, or whatever superiors were supposed to do when that sort of thing happened. "D S? Oh! Wait. Haven't you played a video game before?" She certainly hadn't, but as she understood it, younger people and Newton enjoyed them quite a bit. It was strange to her that Hayes would know about the device and not poor little Liam.
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