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 Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 11:21 am
Asclepius' curls blew into her face and she put a hand to her forehead to help keep them out of her eyes in the sudden gust of wind. The air had that sort of dampness to it that promised storms later in the night, but for now, she thought it was pretty nice out. Well, perhaps a bit breezier than she had expected the roof to be, but still, the temperature was nice.
The Senshi of Medicine sat on a duct on the roof of the library, her usual white backpack resting in her lap. In addition to her usual selection of first aid supplies, she had packed a pair of flashlights. Asclepius had told Chaonis to bring one, as well, but she brought two anyway just in case. She also had her phone out, just in case he felt like calling her to cancel or something; part of her almost wished he would, but she had been the one to invite him to come with her in the first place. And Asclepius could not hide from her own planet forever.
... Her own planet. This was all so weird.
Once the wind died down a bit, the girl rested both hands on top of the little backpack again, and picked at the corner of the little red cross patch she had ironed onto her backpack. Just because she had to do something did not mean she had to enjoy it.
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Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 11:36 am
It was probably a good idea not to count on Chaonis to do anything he was told to do. Either one purpose or because he was naturally unreliable, he always managed to forget what he was supposed to bring, or fail to do what he was asked to. Unless, of course, someone was expecting him to do just that. Then he liked to be surprising.
He still didn't bring a flash light, though.
Always game for a space adventure, and having taken careful pains to make sure this one was particularly fun based on what he knew about her last trip, there was no way the Senshi of Danger was going to miss this trip to Asclepius' home world. He wanted to see what this hospital full of corpses really looked like, or if she had just flipped out the last time for nothing.
She was a girl. They didn't like things like spiders and dust, so he assumed she was overreacting.
And under that, he was worried about her going back alone and freaking out like she had last time. He wouldn't admit that out loud, but he imagined having some company would be better than nothing, and he could, if anything went amiss, at least help her out of there. That's what friends, or whatever, were for, right? Or whatever. He wasn't exactly used to having friends.
Climbing up the side of the library, he reached the roof and hauled himself over the rail. He saw her waiting for him and grinned. She looked anxious and eager at the same time. This was going to be very interesting, which was exactly the kind of thing Chaonis lived for.
"Ready to go?"
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 2:47 pm
"As ready as you are," Asclepius replied, keenly observing that he did not appear to have a flashlight on him as she rose to her feet.
Maybe this was a mistake. This guy was always teasing her, making jabs, that would not have ruffled Marcella much, but something about when she met him, so soon after becoming a senshi, had made it remarkably easy for him to get under her skin from the start. Asclepius nearly expected him to try to terrify her on purpose, just to get a rise out of her. Because he did it to everyone.
But then on the other hand, Chaonis did seem to be genuinely helpful, just also very vocal about it. And full of himself. And the senshi of Medicine was somewhat thankful that she was not going back alone. If Chaonis came with a mute button, he might nearly be a gentleman.
She would just have to do her level best not to let him bother her anymore. With most jerks like him, a lack of a reaction eventually deterred the irritating, attention-seeking behavior. So Asclepius would just have to try to remember how to do that when she was powered up.
"I have an extra flashlight," she told him, stepping forward to meet him on the rooftop. "So I guess all we need now is to dial the numbers, and fortunately-" The girl stopped in front of him and looked up at his face. "That's my job."
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 11:07 am
Chaonis looked fairly eager. He had been to space once before, with Rosalind, but had yet to visit his own planet. Why not go visit Asclepius first? He had debated about why he hadn't visited Chaonis enough, and instead was just opting to ignore it now. No point worrying about something like that, when there was something much more interesting at hand.
Like a hospital full of dead people.
He offered her his hand politely, though the grin on his face was anything but.
"Beam me up, Captain!"
He was more than glad to hitch a ride with her. Something about space travel irked him. All the quiet and the concentration. Not his bag. He would have to focus, of course, and make sure he got all his arms and legs to the other side of their trip, and all in the right place. Did it work like that? He had missed the lesson, though at least he had experienced it once already so it wouldn't be a complete surprise to him.
This was going to be interesting, for many reasons. Not just because he was planning on messing with her the whole time, but because he was honestly eager to see this hospital of hers, and the dead bodies within. Morbid curiosity, maybe, but if they did a little investigation work they might find something awesome. Some scene of a battle, or maybe a disease. At the moment, all he had to go on was his imagination and scenes from 28 Days Later and Dead Space running through his mind.
If they didn't run into a zombie, he would be very surprised.
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 12:10 pm
Asclepius nodded and took his hand without another word, and dialed her phone with the other thumb. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to relax, thankful that Chaonis was being quiet for the moment to make this easier.
It took a bit longer than the first time for her to really clear her mind, though. Especially since she still had her doubts about how helpful Chaonis would be. At least this time she was expecting the dead bodies.
They arrived on Asclepius in one of the interior rooms; it was not clear which one because it was completely pitch black inside. The Senshi of Medicine sank to the floor with the tiredness of travel, and tried not to fumble too urgently to open the zipper of her backpack by the glow of her cell phone in order to get the flashlights out. Chilly air crept across the polished stone floor in a particular direction, but without light, it was not clear why.
A moment later, she lifted her arm with some effort to offer Chaonis a flashlight, and switched hers on at the same time. One of the braziers like Asclepius had encountered last time stood surprisingly close by; they looked to be in the large central chamber.
"Here we are," the girl said, hoping her voice was not shaking too much as she rose to her feet once more.
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 12:23 pm
Chaonis wobbled when the senshi he was hanging on to slipped from standing to the floor. He looked down at her, keeping his composure, though not moving from the spot he had found himself in for a long moment.
It was dark. Not surprising, it had been dark last time, too. He looked around anyway, feeling the chill but not seeing any light source. Good thing one of them always came prepared. He would have been a terrible scout.
Taking the flashlight, he flicked it on, wincing when the light hit his face, then cast the beam around the room. He saw she was doing the same thing.
"Uh huh," he said, daring to take a step forward now and finding his footing remaining, at least, upright. He looked around with interest, since he hadn't seen any of this before. His interest waned, though, as it became clear that there were no dead bodies here, and the braziers were only cool for a moment before he was eager to see more.
"You know your way around this place at all? Or should we just pick a hall and go for it?" he offered her his hand, his demeanor slightly altered by the change of setting. There was something dense about that air, tactile in a way that was disturbing to him. He told himself to get used to it, though.
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 1:46 pm
"I think...." Asclepius trailed off as she counted the braziers with her flashlight. Then she tried again. "I think the side hallways all lead back out to the hall around the outer edge. At least the two I went through last time did." She looked back up at Chaonis, then away. Hopefully it was too dark for him to notice her gooseflesh; really, though, it was a bit chilly in the expansive stone room.
"There were the rooms along the outer ring, some of which were empty and some of which had--" she swallowed. "Occupants." The girl was a bit reluctant to see the hallway that had been filled with beds, though. "I didn't have enough light to tell which direction I was going across this room last time I was here, I just know I went across, from one side to the other."
She started to walk towards one end of the chamber, where it looked like there was a statue of a person, framed by more of the pillars with snakes coiled around them. "I guess we can pick a hallway, but I want to see this first...." One hand went to the matching broach at her chest as Asclepius adjusted the small weight of the backpack on her shoulder. Outside the pillars, on either side, were doors, smaller than the open archways that were spaced down the sides of the room; the one to the left of the statue was shut, while the slightly larger one to the right was open slightly, and letting out a faint bluish glow.
Asclepius' attention was on the statue of the man, for the moment, however. To the point that she did not notice the toppled wooden chair until her ankle clipped the edge of one of the legs. Swearing softly, she crouched to rub the spot, then picked up the chair to set it upright.
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Posted: Sat May 07, 2011 6:28 pm
Chaonis was only half listening, sweeping his light from side to side. It was difficult to tell if he was more interested in what he was seeing in the beam as he made the long, sloping sweeps or if he was just interested in the light moving.
Sometimes he had a very short attention span.
Right now, though, his mind was on the game at hand, and he looked back at Asclepius with a look on his face that she couldn't see in the gloom. It was probably for the better, as he wasn't sure how he would explain the grin on his face despite the creepy setting around them.
"Well, let's just explore, huh? We don't have to go the same way you did, right? We'll just check out whatever we can find. Maybe there's some clues to all this mess."
As he was talking, mostly to himself as he had a bad habit of not listening to the people around him, he was interrupted by a thump. He looked around, swinging the light again, spotting Asclepius not too far away from him across the room. He moved to her, noting the chair she had hit, then looking up at the statue.
"Huh."
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 12:27 pm
"Would that be ... me from before?" she asked, though as soon as she asked the question, she had a feeling it was. Leaving the chair behind for the moment, she stepped right up to the statue, touching the flat spot in the stone where a name was engraved in some ancient language. The unfinished man looked to be stepping right out of the alcove behind him, the long skirts of something like a toga draped around his feet. Something like narrow ribbons or bandages were wrapped around his chest under the drape over his shoulder, then around his waist. He held his hands to the sides, palms upwards, and seemed to peer down at the present Senshi of Medicine.
The girl looked back up at him for a long moment, then turned to glance back at Chaonis again.
"Oh, yeah, sure. I guess you can go ahead and pick a door," Asclepius told him. "I saw some of the hospital rooms around the outside ring, but I really don't know what is inside here, other than this ... shrine? Meeting hall?" She looked past him then, resting her back against the name plate and skirts of the statue behind her for a moment as she swept the flashlight beam around the huge room once more.
There did not really seem to be anything more of note in here; hopefully it would help to keep her companion handy if she let him pick their next destination. Asclepius just prayed he would not find anymore bodies.
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 10:08 am
Chaonis looked up at the statue, frowning thoughtfully. He thought about making a joke concerning crossdressing or gender bending, but nothing really came to mind. Maybe he was still woozy from the trip. It was confusing, too, as the Rosalind statues had all looked pretty much like her. But this guy... was a guy? And the Senshi of Medicine beside him was very much not.
But considering this guy, and all the other people in this place, were all dead and gone, maybe it wasn't so surprising or unreasonable to think they were related, but not the same.
He didn't claim to know much about space.
"I guess so? I mean. Unless someone else was running your planet for you, and got themselves a statue."
He looked around the area once she turned around to describe the doors, nodding thoughtfully in the dark. He would have to slip away from her, to make things fun, but for now he was content to explore and see what else was waiting in this dead hospital. He would be lying if he said he wasn't feeling any fear.
He certainly was. But it was thrilling, and he liked it.
"Let's go this way," he said, picking what looked to him to be the darkest doorway, though he tried not to make it obvious that he was picking it for that reason alone. "You said there were hospital rooms this way, right? Maybe we can find, like, the surgical or crazy wards or something."
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:13 pm
Asclepius frowned, crossing her arms while still keeping her flashlight beam pointed forwards. Really, all of the doors except the faintly glowing blue one looked awfully dark to her, and so she shrugged and moved to follow Chaonis.
"If this hall leads out to the edge, then you'll get your wish for dead bodies," she told him. "Otherwise, who knows what we'll find. I really don't have too much idea yet how advanced this place was...."
Moving towards the doorway out of the large central room, she swept her light side to side. The rooms she had explored seemed to have some sort of machinery, in spite of the rather ancient look of the statue's clothing. But then the Senshi of Medicine supposed that the Asclepius of ages past would be able to ask for whatever outfit he wanted in a statue of himself, regardless of the time period.
The place was obviously old, if everyone who had lived here previously was long dead, but then it was still a hospital in space. So she remained rather unsure of where on the sliding scale of hacksaws to lasers the surgical centers of this place would fall.
The darkest hallway her traveling partner had selected did not seem to be one of the ones Asclepius had tried before. The closed door at the other end confirmed it. Two heavy metal sliding panels, per pale embattled ... rusty and rustier, it looked like under the white flashlight beams, but in spite of the apparent age of the metal, they bore no holes and remained shut tight.
Off to the side of the door, set into the stone wall, was a panel of buttons and a red light that faded on and off slowly.
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 4:01 pm
Chaonis wondered about that, now that she brought it up. What kind of technology was in this place? He hadn't seen much at Rosalind's planet, too busy mocking the giant busts in that room, and then falling through floors. It made him wonder about Chaonis, the planet not himself, which he had not yet seen.
And kept reminding himself that he hadn't. Why was that so damn important?
Moving into the hall, he swept the light around the dark hall with interest.
To him, it was like playing that video game. Dead Space. Whenever he had the controller he was always moving forward, rushing in, just waiting for the monsters that he knew would jump out at him to do just that. Daring them to, in a way. And maybe he was doing that now. After all, he was here without knowing much about where he was or what he was doing, he knew things were dead, and they were in space.
What could go wrong, right?
When they reached the door he frowned.
"We're going to have to open this..." he said, not taking a door to stop him. Sure, they had a ton of other rooms to explore that weren't locked by thick, rusted bars, but the fact that it was locked told him whatever was on the other side was something he wanted to see. He moved to look at the panel, leaning in close to get a good look.
"What do you think? This thing doesn't work, right? We'll have to bust it."
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 5:28 pm
Asclepius was not much of a gamer, but even when she went to see movies, she was not the biggest fan of horror in general. She had seen a couple, but since she had last visited this place, for whatever reason, the girl had not felt particularly compelled to go watch more tales of the living dead. Even when she did feel like sitting in the dark and scaring herself, zombies never really appealed.
She was also one to obey blinking red lights, and solid metal doors.
"Why do we have to open this?" the senshi of Medicine replied. "I mean, I'm curious, too, but doesn't red usually mean bad?" She moved to join him by the panel of buttons, staring for a moment at the light as it faded on and then off again. Then she turned her gaze to Chaonis for a moment, then the door once more. "I mean, what if it's open to space on the other side?"
Asclepius moved back over to stand close in front of the door, letting her hand with the flashlight hang at her side as she pressed her other palm to the metal surface of the barrier. It felt cold - cold like the stone floors and walls, but not cold like the windows to space, at least. She traced her finger along the spot where the two doors met, then across one of the horizontal struts reinforcing the door. This was not just any door.
As she was turning to start heading back the way she had come, though, Asclepius thought she saw another motion down in the darkness of the hallway. She felt an immediate thrill of fear and moved closer to Chaonis, to the wall, and to the array of buttons. She tried not to look perturbed, resisted the urge to reach for Chaonis' arm or anything like that, and worked to keep her voice steady as she told him, "We can still try, I guess."
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 7:12 pm
"Oh, come on," Chaonis laughed, "the red probably means... broken. Yeah. Seriously, what could possibly be in there besides dead people? This place is ruined. Anything that might be dangerous, or was back then, is definitely not going to be now."
It sounded like he had a point, at least. After all, what trouble could come, when the rest of the place was so old and run down?
"Did you forget how planets work? You can't just open a door while on a planet and then just walk out into space. Thanks, Columbus, but the world, any world, isn't flat. I didn't even finish high school and I know that."
He shook his head derisively, but watched her as she touched the door, then turned around. His eyes followed the movement, beam of light stretching out as far as it could back down the hallway from where they had come. He hadn't seen anything.
He did notice her fear, though, sticking close to her. Presumably dutiful. Or playing a part. Either way. He looked at the panel again, poking at the buttons. Did this thing really still have power? "I could probably break it open if I use my attack." And take out half the rest of the building if he wasn't careful, but he left that part out.
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 7:35 pm
The girl shook her head and pretended to be very focused on the control pad, and totally not looking back down the hallway to see if anything was there again. Especially not when Chaonis shined his light down there. Not at all.
"This is different, though," she told him. "This is... this is a minor planet. It's small. We're inside it. All of the rooms are stone all over and dark because everything. Like...." Asclepius trailed off, trying to come up with a metaphor that he might understand. Movies, likley. "It's like the Death Star."
Asclepius frowned at the keys, as thought staring at them would somehow reveal their use, whatever code was meant to open the door. Things that could hurt them might not be working, but that meant that panes of glass or force fields keeping the atmosphere in might also not be working. Especially if the room on the other side of this door was--
"Hanger bay," Asclepius breathed as pressing a single button on the pad caused the slowly pulsing red light abruptly turned to a steady green and the door hissed and creaked and slowly cranked open. A rush of air went from the hallway through the interlocking teeth of the door, and the senshi of Medicine put a hand to the side of her head to keep her blowing hair out of her eyes as she attempted to see in. "s**t," she hissed between her teeth, then called out over the rush of wind to Chaonis, "Do you see a hole in there anywhere? If you do, we'll have to shut it."
Indeed, a few small ships floated in the adjoining room, but a door similar to the one Asclepius had just opened except much larger kept the hanger bay shut off from the blackness of space. Either the room had been at least partly decompressed or it had been leaking over the last millennium; it pulled air from the rest of the asteroid in, leaving both senshi to enjoy a decidedly uncomfortable change in pressure. It equalized within a few seconds, however, the breeze of moving air quieting.
Asclepius put a hand to her mouth and yawned as she stepped out to stand just in front of the doorway. The light on the control panel was once again red, slowly fading on and off.
"How was that?" she asked after a moment, looking over to Chaonis. "I guess while we're here, we should check the door on the other side for leaks. Just in case I should ever need to use this place again." Asclpius studied him for a moment, then told him, "No, you can't fly any of my little ships."
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