There wasn't a second to waste. They didn't have time to faff around, wasting their time retrieving weapons or planning a next move. They didn't have time to stand around hoping she would come back. It was clear that she would only be going to one place, before she joined up with her sister. Alexandria had stated it right from the get go. She was going to find Calvin. But that wouldn't do! Ice was already apprehensive enough about the machines existence, but Faith could tell that letting her get close to Calvin wouldn't make him best pleased. His heart held a special place for the boy.
So with him in tow, she barrelled up the stairs to the Resort, and to the Diner. She had a head start, but by the time Faith made it to the Resort, there was a sight awaiting her that she hadn't quite expected. Alexandria had already put massive hole through the wall of the Diner, reducing it to rubble, and was making her way, with Calvin and Aleecia, towards the Hospital Facilities. If she hadn't seen the pace she took off in, Faith might have called the feat impossible. But then again, who was she to talk about the impossible?
Hiiiiiiiiiiii guys~!" she called out, skipping up from the stairs and into the corridor, hoping to draw Alexandria's attention,
"You're such a meanie, you know that? Running away before we could finish our fight - delaying the fun; you should be ashamed!" the blade of the dagger glinted against the hospital lighting, and she looked back slightly to see if Ice had caught up yet,
"But we're here now~! We're gonna stop you from getting near Calv-" her eyes fell on the boy,
"Ah... that spoils the fun. But hey, he's not dead, that's a good sign~! We can finally resume now - time to kill each other~!" "Hey hey hey!" Calvin had been lagging behind, but quickly caught up as Alexandria slowed. He stood in between Faith and the Carnage Sister, raising the pick lightly though without much finesse.
"Alexandria saved us back there! We're going to try and talk Nariko down." He looked at Faith, then back at Alexandria with a bit of apprehension.
"Wait a second... Where's Ice? Were you both fucking going after her?" He raised his unarmed hand to gesture towards Alexandria, his voice rising lightly.
”Hmm, seems I waited around too long.” Alexandria took Aleecia and threw her onto her shoulder. This freed up one of her arms to hold her spear.
”But you might want to check on icecream. Monika is as stubborn as they come. She's a big time booper from way back.” Behind Alexandria, a chain gun descended from the ceiling and aimed down the staircase. To the lower floor. It was a fairly heavy caliber, so it would take a moment for it to build up speed.
”Tee-hee! Sounds like she found him!” Alexandria broke into a run again.
The girl was slipped over Alexandria's shoulder, much to her discomfort,
"Alexandria! If you or Monika harms him I won't say anything to Nariko! Stop her!" Sounds of gunshots played through her head and she could almost feel Ice's blood on her hands.
"If-If you don't-!"Meanwhile Ice had been following after Faith and the carnage sister, but he froze when he heard the sound of the high caliber chain gun. All he really knew was that he would have to move and it would be fast. Going up would take too much time so he threw his chain around up so that it would impale one of the ceiling panes and get caught, then he ran down the stairs to the left, pulling on the chain so that he would gain momentum along the wall and quickly get off the stairs, flying to the right. Ice let go of the chain and started to fall, moving to land in a crouch, but he was weaponless.
Any response would have been expected. Any at all.
Except that one. Faith didn't know what exactly to do at Calvin's response, and stood awkwardly in the corridor, eyeing up the Carnage Sister and her associates. She saved them? How did that work? Every sister in her last game had been out for blood night after night, and never had she heard tale of them saving a patient. Her original assumption had been that Davis had placed some kind of action inhibitor on the souls, forcing them to conform to a directive like computer programs, but if they had the capacity to go against that and
save people, was she wrong?
"She... saved you? Why? I thought they-" her train of speech broke off at the turning of machinery, and her head tilted to follow the sound, down the stairwell to lock gaze with the metal head of the already rotating chaingun,
"Oh now that's not great..." she turned back, and skipped into the corridor a tad further,
"But it's fine~! Ice'll find a way up eventually~" the sound of his landing behind her confirmed her comment,
"Now we've got all the time in the world to sit and chat! I'd offer to grab a drink, but somebody destroyed the Diner~! Soooooo... what's this about talking Nariko down? Isn't she, like, a bloodthirsty demon who kidnaps children and eats hospital patients or something? Oh, oh, like an Arasnia!"Calvin had thought Monika had tapped out for the night, but that was clearly not the case. He felt a surge of adrenaline as he saw Ice quickly break sight of the chaingun, though he hoped Alexandria would intervene. When he looked however, he saw that she had already run off with Aleecia in tow. He was torn between helping Ice and following the fleeing carnage sister. He turned to Faith, who was speaking to him.
"Nariko's more dangerous than Alexandria, I guess. She's losing it, so maybe they got to Krista?" Calvin shrugged for half a moment, though he still felt a great sense of urgency.
"We need to-" As intent as faith was on talking to Alexandria, the robot had bolted past her towards the hospital wing. However, several entities were coming out of the hospital wing towards faith. One was Mary, who was shrieking in horror, and behind her was Julia, who appeared to be soaking wet. Even further back was Jezebel, who had her face scrunched up in anger.. The three ran right past Alexandria like she wasn't even there. The uncontested chaingun was starting to rotate, and would be firing down the hall at them shortly.
"Holy shit." The trio was charging towards them, all while a chaingun revved up and began aiming towards Calvin and Faith. Neither option seemed ideal, but Calvin doubted he or Faith could disable a chaingun on their own.
"Fucking... Can you handle that?" He pointed the pick towards the chaingun, with a hint of dismay in his voice.
Sounds of talk and the resounding calamitous sound of the guns barrel moving again pushed Ice into action. He quickly moved out onto the staircase and hopped onto the hand rail, reaching out rather unbalanced for his weapon. Once he had caught hold of it, he leaned his body against the wall and pulled with all he could muster. The ceiling above rained down white plaster, but didn't budge. Ice cursed inside his head and tried again, but it didn't seem like the chain would be able to be dislodged from this position.
"Maryyyyyyyyy~! Did you deal with Willow yet~? Oh, who's the new frie-eeeeeeeeeeEEEEE! Jezebel~! You could've said you were gonna join us~!" Faith shouted down the corridor, ignoring their expressions and Mary's cries. But as she did, the sound of rotating machinery drew her attention once again. But instead of Ice she found herself looking at... it was the business end of a chaingun.
"Huh, guess we'll have to catch up later, Jez~!" she called out behind her, before jumping up and down in front of the gun,
"Hey, hey, lookie here, I'm a target! C'mon little Miss Monika! That's your name, right? Monokuma would take us on in person, so I bet that's you, right~?" she spun around in a circle, deliberately taunting the Sister,
"You gonna shoot me or what~?"”Alright.” Bliss picked up Ellie by her shoulders.
”We need to move her to safety, Mercy. Maybe back into the dining room?” The plague doctor quickly nodded, as she helped carry the caretaker back inside the dining room.
The chain gun did appear to be aiming at Faith now, and would fire any second now. Maybe not even a second. Julia and Jezebel continued to run like nothing else was going on.
"OH NOOO!" Mary cried as she saw members of S-team on her path; she lead a Champion Carnage Sister right to their midst. She felt like crying, that's how much despair she felt. However, she was still in such a panic that she wasn't thinking of stopping, for better or worse.
WILLOW'S STILL ON THE LOOOOOOSE!" Mary screamed as she continued running past Faith at an average speed of 23 miles per hour, not looking back. Then, she made a sharp turn, and rand down the stairs to F1.
Ice was just about to jump down when a hysterical Mary ran down the stairs past him. The sound of her scream sent shivers up his spine as he imaged she had to be running from someone. A moment after she passed, Ice fell back onto the stair, almost tripping, and starting pulling at the chain all the more harder. He heard the sound of Faith's taunting and let out a sling of curses, what was she thinking?! He couldn't let her be killed!
Disaster. Calamity. Horror. These were a few of the words creeping through Calvin's mind as he saw Faith begin to taunt the chaingun, and Monika by extension. As it began to rev up, he heard Mary begin to scream, followed by her whizzing past both him and Faith and running down to the first floor. His mind tried to comprehend what had occurred to set the plan so astray, but it was the gentle click of the chain gun revving and aiming at Faith that demanded all of his attention. He took a moment to appraise the white-haired girl, who he hadn't truly formed a relationship with. She seemed insane, and yet - Calvin was impressed by her mettle. Or terrified. He briefly looked at the gun and the pick in his hand. He couldn't help, not here, but he knew where he could.
"Aleecia and Alexandria ran off, I'm going after them!" He yelled down the stairs towards Ice. He looked to Faith as he broke off into a sprint down the hall.
"I..." He shook his head, closing his eyes as he tensed up, preparing for the sound of gunfire.
Even with Faith's apparent complete insistence to get herself killed, her expression barely changed from one of a smile. Despite the circumstances and overwhelming odds she could clearly be seen having fun, even as the sound of heavy, robotic footsteps grew louder behind her, and the revving of the chaingun's turning mechanism increased every second. Her arms were outstretched, as though offering herself up as a sacrifice. Even as the second ticked down, the smile didn't evade her lips. Like some kind of ga-
She didn't even have a second to move. She flipped her knife so the blade faced the ground, already turning and running as Mary passed by, shouting to her in terror. Who could blame her? Julia was evidently unhinged.
"I am the thirsty. I am the hungry. I watch the young grow old and die unchanging. I cancel. I rend. I pray a thousand blood soaked prayers. My essence creates power. My blade carves the sun. I bid you an offering of death - thee smitten by chains. Ferrum Clamoris." Her legs fell in front of her and she dropped to the cold, white floor of the Resort. Sliding. Irregardless of whatever gunfire accompanied her across the floor, she slid - between Mary and Julia. Sure, the robot was heavy. It'd crush her in an instant if it managed to step on her, breaking who knew how many bones in the process. Except as she came in front of the Sister, she swung the knife out to connect with the joint in her knee, digging into whatever slot she could find, using her own momentum to swing herself between Julia's legs, ripping the blade out of her knee in the process. Leading the gun straight to Julia.
With the minigun bullets trailing faith, The next thing to get ripped apart by the chain gun was Julia. She didn't even have time to fall to her knee before the bullets ripped through her body. Faith was close enough to the robot that she was going to get soaked with hydraulic fluid. By this point, Jezebel had caught up to Faith, and the two of them were able to hide behind the tower shield. It took both of the girls to hold the tower shield up, which still had Julia's arm strapped to the opposite side of it. After a few seconds of trying to break through the shield, the gun eventually stopped firing. The barrels just spun without firing anything at all.
”Out?” Monika sighed. She had reappeared on a wall monitor.
”Well whatever. There's a lot more people in the hospital anyway.” She waved to no one in particular.
”Thanks for being a good sport everyone! If you want to play with me some more, I'll be in the other room.” and with that, the monitor blinked off.
Jezebel turned around on her heel and started to walk towards the hospital.
“You're coming right?” she called back without turning her head.
Faith stood from the body of her most recent kill, dripping with the supposed life blood of the Sister. To think Davis would have go so far as to even simulate blood within the cold husks he stuffed with souls. If she hadn't already declared him the enemy through the murders he induced, the sick attitude he expressed to the dead might have sent her into a rage. The deceased didn't deserve to be disrespected in such a manner, and the idea that magic such as Necromancy was still practised within the civilised society of the modern day turned her stomach.
But she couldn't exactly dwell.
"Jezebel~!" she quickly shouted, running up behind her friend as she walked off, wrapping her arms around her shoulders,
"Why didn't you say hiiiiii? I can't believe we're gonna fight together~! Eeeeeeee, I can feel my heart racing at the idea already~! Where'd you get the cool gloves from, anyway?" but as soon as she asked the question, she ducked behind her a little ways and turned back the corridor,
"C'mon Ice, lets'a'go~! We've got a Nariko to slay~!" before turning back to skip alongside Jez.
Plastered rained down on Ice head, mixing into his hair and slipping into the seams of his long trench coat. With the sound of Calvin's message, one thing ran through his head. Aleecia. She was in danger and all Ice's mind would do was replay Shona's death scene with Aleecia's body impaled instead. Aleecia hung up in her room, Aleecia torn to pieces. Ice pulled harder and harder until the panel finally completely caved, narrowly missing him in the process. Ice swung the chain so it wrapped around his right arm, moving to hurry up the stairs. Nariko was doomed, especially with all the infinites were working together to bring her down, but Alexandria would be bathing in her sister's blood soon after.
"If there even is a god out there, I beg you to keep her alive."
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Majoraa
Aewin
