Quite a lot happened in short succession, leaving the team with new, free, friends, and an explanation as to why they were here, and why Peach was not.
”I think we have a few things we need to resolve here first” Midna said once the newly arrived Crenshaw had said his piece, before listing them off
”Like the monstrous doll maker outside, the person in the next room who’s had their limbs cut off, her” she pointed at the still knocked out Painwheel
”Oh, and also I am bleeding from way to many places and I need someone to fix this thing” she finally added as she summoned her Vibrava (which had a massive gash in its back) from the twilight realm, before belated adding
”Please” to her request.
”Heal!” came the voice of Roxas without even missing a beat. His MP had just finished charging and therefore he was able to cast Curaga again in order to treat the wounds that Midna and her Pokemon had sustained,
”And by the way,” he added afterward,
” I’m still confused over here. Am I the only one?”"Nope, I am too!" Pit said, looking around at the general destruction of the lab and the people going about collecting brains. While he seemed perturbed at the sight, and Midna’s mention of a limbless victim, he was ready for answers. For now Gemma, Luka, Yuito, and Hanabi stood off to the side for a debriefing of their own, so the Seekers had free reign to sort through the aftermath for themselves.
The princess breathed a little sigh of relief and stood straighter after being healed, no longer having to support herself with her spear, and then offered Roxas
”my thanks”. On the ground, her Vibrava fluttered back into wakefulness and then gave the hero a few chirps of its own thanks before it hopped up to ride on its mistress's shoulder.
”I know enough to say we should 100% burn this place to the ground once we’ve evacuated its victims, though not all the specifics” she then replied to his question, before stashing her spear and going to collect the weapons she’d dropped during the fight.
Sakura had her arms crossed, thinking about the Dexio and Sina situation. Still generally avoiding eye contact with Gemma.
”I’m glad you’re feeling better, Midna-san.” Sakura said.
”Maybe we could give her a Friend Heart?” She said, walking over to Painwheel.
”And the person with all their limbs cut off is…dead? Or alive?” She asked reluctantly.
”Alive. I think there’s some beeping machines doing it. Tubes and things go from them and into their body. Or taking something. Or monitoring. I really don’t know, it’s out of my area of expertise” she explained, before considering the fallen form of Painwheel
”As for her, the coward kept shocking her with lightning to make her obey, so she’s presumably no fan of his. I can’t guarantee she won’t go berserk straight away” She was silent for a moment before adding
”and by that I mean we should be careful and ready for it to go wrong, not that we shouldn’t do it” before she started to recharge her sun on a stick (having re-collected it while they were talking, along with her remaining clever) preparing to use it as a stun rod again if she had too.
Sakura wasn’t looking forward to seeing what happened to that person in the other room.
”Right, right. Well, it’s like they say: First thing’s first. The Friend Heart fixed Dexio-san and Sina-san. It can probably fix her, too. That brainy guy was being pretty cruel.” She said, to which Midna nodded in agreement.
”Glad you’re up for it, Midna-san. Is everyone up for it?” Sakura looked around at the others.
"Yeah, let's do it. Even if it doesn't fix fix her, it's only right to give her a chance." As he spoke, Pit produced the mentioned friend heart. Now that he'd successfully done this to Sina, he was actually eager to do it again. Of course he didn't know how much of her condition, mental or physical, was due to experimentation done here or what the girl would turn out like afterward. Still, better to be crazy and free than crazy and brainwashed. Probably.
When he bestowed the heart upon Painwheel, it took effect immediately, patching up all her wounds and rousing her from her peaceful oblivion. Unlike Dexio and Sina, however, she didn’t change one bit visually. She remained every bit as bony and scrawny, with blackened veins pumping Gae Bolga through sallow skin, and that ratty mask sewn into her face. This, unfortunately, must be her ‘iconic state’. The eyes that peered out from it were red even without Galeem’s influence, and for a couple seconds they blinked in confusion. When she noticed the people around her, she jerked away with a growl like a feral animal, backing off until she was far enough to safely make a break for the elevator. She evidently had no interest in sticking around.
Pit scratched the back of his head, discarding the idea of going after her.
"No 'thank you?' "”Oh- okay! Bye!” Sakura called out. She gave Pit a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
”Well, we did a good thing, I think. She doesn’t seem to be the social type anyway.”He smiled back up at her.
"Heh, I think so too. Okay, so that's one thing down. Oh wait, two things. So now..." One of his hands was held up, his thumb and pointer finger tucked in showing three more items on the agenda.
"...doll maker, patient, and, uh."The next part he said somewhat sheepishly, glancing between the people remaining in the room.
"Maybe a recap of what exactly's going on?"Splinter factions, Supernatural Life, P-Types, personality reprogramming, conspiracies… He’d come with Luka initially to try and help save Peach, and this was all quite a lot for the angel's brain, especially since he was still trying to make sense of Midgar's other goings on.
”Could we narrow that question down to just what is going on here? I think we’ll get a bigger picture once we head to the rebels’ base camp” Midna suggested as she popped the sun on a stick away now that Painwheel had run off (she hoped the others were right, and they hadn’t just unleashed a monster on the world above), pulled out a musket and started reforming her second set of magic arms, preparing to confront a certain doctor if he hadn’t already run for the hills as well.
”For the record, I agree with Midna.” Roxas chimed in,
”This creepy place needs to be bulldozed or something. How could anyone allow the kinds of stuff going on here?” he added with a small shudder. Some of this was bringing back memories of DiZ’s lab in the Twilight Town Mansion. And those were not things he was all that eager to recall.
”Guys?” He said with a whisper low enough for only the Seekers to hear,
”If they’re snatching up Pokemon and fusing them with people to create recruits, then… Well, am I the only one wondering where Bede is right now?””Psychic ones were entirely illegal, so your not the only one worrying about that, trust me” Minda whispered back
”After we link up with these rebels, and see what their deal is, and Peach’s situation, I suggest we track down one of the city’s pokemon control squads and get the location of where they are taking the ones they catch. He might be there. That or wherever they imprison people””Sounds good, count me in.” Roxas whispered back with a quick thumbs up. Of course, they needed to sort out the business at this Hospital first. And hear what those rebels had to say, too.
”By the way, what do we know about those rebel guys, anyway?” Roxas then asked, having no idea who those people were and was hoping maybe one of the Scarlet Guardians in the room had an answer.
”They have Peach, to try and help her, not hold her hostage or anything and they don’t like what the main branch of PSYCH-OSF’s doing with turning people into Others, doing whatever they did to those two we just freed, and whatever else is going on here. Seems like a good page to be on, and I haven’t heard anything that would sour me to working with them yet, and given that I spied on them for a bit when they took peach, I’m fairly confident in my read on them” Midna explained, while she started to move towards the door leading back into the giant doctor’s doll making room to see if she could spot him or not.
While she did that, and after making sure there were no sudden surprise enemies that needed taking care of, Pit went over to join the Psych-OSF members in order to get caught up to speed on what they knew and were willing to tell him.
After going back though the smaller, more run-down prototype STEM chamber, Midna reached the operating room, its double doors slightly ajar. A tentative peek confirmed that the Doctor wasn’t present, either on the ceiling or otherwise. It would have been counterproductive to flee from the fight beneath the Brainframe only to stop a couple hundred feet away, after all. Instead the chamber lay in ominous silence, a half-finished Patient sprawled out on the table. This one appeared to be a female torso, shrouded in bandages and a drab green button-up, with what looked like a gramophone protruding from the collar. One arm was missing, while the other had a white plastic prosthetic from the elbow down tipped with two coat hanger hooks. One leg looked like plastic armor, while the other featured a metal peg leg tipped with a plunger.
”Uhhh…” Sakura blinked, staring at the patient. She had no idea what she was looking at. This was either truly terrible, or actually not that bad.
”That might just be what she’s supposed to look like? She’s got a…record player for a head.” Sakura said flatly, gesturing at the patient.
After double checking that there weren't any ambushes waiting to be sprung by the absentee villains, and confirming that they really had just run for the hills, Midna stepped into the room proper.
”It’s certainly … different” she semi-agreed with Sakura, though her main concern was with the actual living breathing person who was still in the hospital, rather than whatever fresh monstrosity had been in the process of being made, and so swiftly crossed the room and re-entered the life support filled room she had been in earlier. She was greeted by the sound of monitor beeps, and still heavy breathing.
”Wha-? Oh, wait, that’s not who we’re saving?” Sakura hurried to catch up to Midna.
The dark room lit up with the pink glow of a heart the princess formed with a tap of her chest, before she approached and pulled open the curtains once more.
”Hey, I’m back, and I’ve got a way to fix you and get you out of here. This might be a bit disorientating, but you’re going to be alright” she insisted, before applying the heart and then preparing to pull the various cables and tubes out if that was necessary. Instead, the heart pinged off the Patient and dispersed, the spiritual cost to make it refunded.
”Wha- what?” was all that Midna could muster for a moment, before she found ample breath to shout
”What? How?! Look how hurt they are, why did that not work?!” while throwing her hands up in the air in a mix of confusion, frustration and straight up horror.
Sakura was having a hard time looking at the poor person, peeking through her fingers and hoping it would all be over soon and they’d be happy and healthy. Instead, all she got was a very frustrated Midna.
”Huh? I don’t- I don’t know.” Sakura said, disappointed. Her shoulders sagged. Putting a hand up against her forehead, she tried to think of a solution.
”If Blazermate-san was here…” Sakura said, letting the thought trail off. She stared at the person and her empathy demanded she draw closer, so she obliged.
”You don’t- you don’t think they’re already not Galeem-y do you?” She asked, pointing at their face that was covered in bandages.
”We can’t see their eyes.” She said. The staticky breathing gave her a faint hope it might be just a Halloween prop, but she dismissed that particular wish as naive.
Now that Sakura mentioned it, they couldn’t, Midna realized, but also
”Isn’t it bright enough that it might shine through?” she asked rhetorically, before raising a shadow hand and covering the light, plunging the room into darkness, and confirming there was none.
”That’s…” she wasn’t sure what to make of that, and so felt compelled to make absolutely sure, forming a single dragon claw and slipping it under a bandage, cutting and pulling to try and expose one of the eye sockets to the light, dreading what she would find. The eye she exposed bore no superficial abnormalities, but on closer inspection it didn’t seem quite right, either. It looked glassy, unfocused and dull, without any reflected light, and it didn’t react whatsoever to Midna’s presence or touch. Though the eye blinked, just as the body breathed, she found it impossible to say whether this body possessed any sort of intellect or awareness at all. Like someone in a coma.
”That’s. Weird” she decided after staring into the eye for a few moments, entirely unsure as to what to make of this.
Sakura fully lowered her hands from her face again and stood on her tippy toes. She was clearly unhappy about this entire situation.
”Maybe they’re getting prepped for surgery?” Gingerly she reached over and tried to draw the bandages back over the eye, grimacing the entire time.
”I really don’t know what to do. We need an ambulance or something, Midna-san. Doctors.” She said, fretting, tapping her fingers together.
”We can’t just leave them here if we’re going to bulldoze the place. But it is still a hospital. We can’t exactly move them! They’re all hooked up!” Sakura said.
”And why aren’t they Galeem-y? No way it’s a Seeker, right?” Sakura asked.
Sakura made sure her connection to the SAS was turned back on.
Can we call some doctors or healers or something? Someone here is really messed up, looks like they are on life support. She said to her superiors, like Gemma, if they were still nearby.
After a few seconds the soldier replied to her via Brain Talk.
”I suppose we could call for an ambulance. But given what we went through getting down here, bringing paramedics or other civilians here might endanger more lives than we’d save. Plus, the fact that Dexio and Sina came after us means that New Himuka knows we’re here. Once those two don’t report in, who knows what might happen.” His allusion to the Patients and the danger they presented brought to mind the fact that this unfortunate soul appeared to be another Patient in all aspects except pulse.
Ah.Right. Thank you anyway, sir. Sakura said.
Sakura held her elbow behind her back, and was silent for a few moments.
”The breathing sounds weird. The eyes aren’t Galeem-y. Maybe it’s…too late for this person? Were all those things out there people, once, too, Midna-san?” Sakura asked.
As Sakura had been braintalking Midna had been trying to work out exactly what she was looking at. There was something just, off, about the eye. In doing so, she had ended up looking over the machines again, checking there before started, well, carving off more bandages, and in doing so had come across one that seemed to display an outline of the patient, as well might be their insides (Midna had no idea what an x-ray machine was, but that was what she was looking at), upon which she saw an empty cranium, with no brain inside.
”Maybe but. Just. Look at this” Midna replied at last after staring at the image for several seconds trying to process it, wanting a second opinion.
”Mm?” Sakura peered over Midna’s shoulder.
”Oh! It’s an X-ray.” She tapped the strange paper.
”It looks like they don’t have a brain.” Sakura said with a frown.
”...Anymore.” Sakura said with a horrified little wince, thinking about the many, many brains she saw in the other room.
”Ugh.” She shuddered.
”It’s definitely too late. They aren’t a Seeker, it’s just almost like they don’t even count as a person anymore.” Sakura said.
”Oh good, you know what this is” Minda replied, referring to the machine, before commenting
”I guess this more or less proves that a person is the brain then, but why hasn’t it turned to ash? I mean wouldn’t removing the brain kill…” she paused, then started speaking her thought process out loud several things together at once
”That psychic person you were talking to and I took down was just a brain in a machine… they’ve been removing peoples brains… the bodies are still here, just like how the bodies of the machines which had those black boxes didn’t dissolve … Maybe they used the bodies for … something. Maybe it was the dolls … Hang on … Wait … so are the brains Crenshaw is taking alive?!” she’d just sort of glossed over that when he’d said that they’d been stealing brains, but now she really, really wanted to know what was going on. Because she could not fathom
” What in the world would anyone want or need to reduce people to just their brains for?” Sakura’s skull felt itchy from all the brain talk. The brunette scratched at her head uneasily.
”Well. He said they were donated but I'm not sure if I believe him. The only way you could do that in this world is if you found a whole lot of comatose people on the organ donor list. For this hospital? Seems unlikely.” Sakura shook her head, looking a little green around the gills.
”Ugh, God.” She put a hand up to her forehead that was slick with sweat.
”And the people who did this are still out there” Minda growled, mentally kicking herself being a big part of that, declaring
”I should have killed him when I had the chance” before punching a random machine in frustration.
Then she caught herself, breathed in, breathed out, and decided
”We can at least make sure they can never use this place again” before drawing here obsidian fire ax in preparation to burn it all down.
”We’ll get him next time, Midna-san.” Sakura said succinctly. She raised her eyebrows at the fire axe.
”Alright. Let’s do it.” She broadcasted over all psychic lines.
We’re tearing this place down now! With that she turned and smashed a random machine herself, crushing into the metal, sending buttons flying and glass shards scattering, instantly rendering the machine useless.
”I hope they didn’t buy insurance.” As the life support machine sparked and died, the patient convulsed slightly, gasping out his last breath. Although the heart monitor no longer functioned, the two didn’t need it to realize that the patient was flatlining. Overhead, the lights flickered, affected by this place’s barely-functional electrical grid.
”O tto.” As the lights outside flickered back on, a soft creak issued through the room from behind Midna and Sakura. When they looked, they found a inhuman silhouette, backlit, standing stock-still in the open doorway, with two mismatched legs, a missing left arm, and an unnatural brass head. A moment later, the overhead light flickered again, and when the pair glanced at the hospital bed, the dead patient was sitting up.
Shrinking her head into her shoulders, Sakura sheepishly turned to look at Midna, eyes wide.
”Midna-san, I just had a thought. Do you think these things will escape if the building falls down?” Sakura asked, voice quiet.
”I don’t know but let’s solve this first” Minda replied much more quickly, before slapping the rising patient with her ax, igniting it in flames for seven seconds, and then pulling out and smashing it over the head with a bottle of dwarven rotgut she had been holding onto since their climb of the split mountain. The lethally high alcohol content drink splashed over the doll and bedding it was laying on, offering perfect fuel for an actual fire to ignite, instead of just the on a timer fire her ax created.
Sakura winced, not getting a chance to complete her thought out loud.
”Because if we burn it down- okay. It’s probably fine. Let’s go.” They had to go out the way they came in. Sakura tried to use her telekinesis to move the patient in the doorway out of the way, reaching out her hand and concentrating. If she managed to scrape it along the floor she would slip out, gesturing for Midna to follow her, which she did.
”M’kay, m’kay, good good good. Here we go.” Sakura said uneasily.
”We’re leaving! We’re leaving now!” She yelled, her voice echoing through the halls so every non-psychic nearby could hear her. Then it was just a matter of meeting up with the others and getting the heck out.
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