welp (open as open can be)

[imperfect]

Date & Time: The evening of the 17th September, up until the actual rescue on the 19th
Location: Various bits of the UE compound
Characters: Anyone who may have gone along with Ed Elric's early bird rescue attempt, anyone in the compound who wants to run into them
Summary: A mingle log, so tag in and around or take this as a sign to horn in on the original kidnappee log as you please o/
Warnings: I'll edit as they come up.

[From one point of view, the most insulting part of this failure is that it wasn't even spectacular. Sure, the alarms went off, maybe stirring up a little confusion among whoever overheard them - who would have thought you could build machines to detect powers nobody was using at the time? Technology in this day and age is weird - but they didn't last long. Neither did the struggle between the trained guards on patrol and a few misfits worn out from two days of constant travel who were only attempting recon for the real break-in, heated as it was.

The facility workers' debate over what to do with the new arrivals was another story, but even they couldn't fret about proper protocol forever, and now here you are: probably tired, probably aching for one reason or another, possibly even a little worse off, but without a doubt booted unceremoniously into the communal lounge with nothing but the gown on your back and left to your own devices. You might wonder what's going to happen to you - or, if the UE employees thought you seemed inconveniently lively in either the initial brawl or the first round of testing, when all the cotton wool temporarily filling your universe is going to go away - but the only answer you'll get at first is the steady thrum of the bright, sterile lights overhead.

So, what now?]

Comments

[squirrelyknight]

( Codpiece looks positively offended, stripped of his armor and left inside a rat cage too small for him. )

I say!

( He declares from where he's been left on the edge of a table, outside one of the labs. )

I have never heard of such dishonourable treatment visited by captors, no matter how dastly! There is nary a dungeon to be seen, and to leave a squirrel naked as the day he was born? Chicanery, I say! Utter chicanery!

[invocation]

[They've just finished drawing blood from this kid, here. She would fight it (and she had, the first couple of times), but just dealing with it was better than the alternative, and she's had the opportunity to look around. It's far less horrifying than she thought it would be, but she doesn't like the way she's being treated either.

It's like they don't even see her. It gives her the creeps. She's distracted by this thought, idly toying with the lollipop in her mouth, when she hears the squirrel. It doesn't take her long to remember him — he'd left an impression, after all. A weird one.

Unhurried, she walks to the table and stares down at him.]

Huh...? You again? Stop making all that noise.

[squirrelyknight]

The young lady.

( He recognizes her as well, though he doesn't appear to register her, ah, request. Codpiece is in fact attempting to jimmy the lock open. )

I trust your feline companion does service to your domicile. If it is not too terribly forward of me to ask -- ( His tail quivers along the length of his back, twitching with outrage ) -- might you assist me in the unlatching of this inhospitable prison?

[invocation]

The cat's alright. [Is the response. She's bleary-eyed, tired, oddly removed from this surreal situation. Her hand instinctively lifts up to find the pin hidden in her ribbon, and then she remembers they'd taken that.

At least they hadn't cut her hair.] Yeah, I'll get you out. [...She scowls.] If you stop all that yelling. It's annoying.

[She won't need her pin after all. The latch is easy to open when you have opposable thumbs and all, and the little door to the cage opens without her having to force it.]

[squirrelyknight]

If my voice sounds shrill to thy ears, my lady, it is but a feature of my lamentable species, and not a lack of moderation.

( Of tone. He does believe himself; he didn't think he was yelling at all, if he had been, ah, enunciating rather precisely. Nonetheless, his volume drops as he goes still, watching Kyouko and the door. Once it opens, he is a blur of movement, bursting out and clinging to the outside and pulling himself up on top.

No reason to give up the high ground before he must. )

Where do these fiends hold all of us who might call yonder island home, however short the time spent there?

[alphonse]

[The little guy is almost hard to recognize without the armor, but that voice is so distinctive that it catches Al's attention even from down the hall. He's on his way back from another daily round of giving the scientists headaches over how to extract any useful data from him when he spots Codpiece and stops immediately. If the cage is any indication, the UE isn't feeling the need to be quite so hospitable to their more obviously nonhuman guests.]

Hang on. I'll get you out of there.

[squirrelyknight]

Lord Knight!

( Codpiece withdraws his arm from where he's shoved it through the squares of the cage, nose twitching in pleasant surprise. His anger and frustration is there all the same, but he makes an effort to rally himself around Al's appearance. )

This treatment is beyond contemptible!

[alphonse]

Shh.

[He looks over his shoulder to make sure they're still in the clear before he goes to work on unlatching the cage. Other than the extenuating circumstances of his arrival, Al's been pretty good about biding his time and playing nice with the UE's wishes. But leaving someone who can hold a conversation (...strange as they may be) to possibly be treated like a common lab rat is something he can't risk.]

We have to be careful so they don't catch you again.

[squirrelyknight]

( Codpiece nods, moving carefully out once the cage is unlocked. In a more controlled volume, he asks: )

It would be unseemly of me to hide when so many cannot, lord knight. Unless it is for a greater purpose of discovery, that one of my size might be of especial use in finding.