Day 69: Sun Room (3rd Shift)

[redcladidealist]

Tomatoes in both choices. Lloyd's face fell the moment he heard the announcement, and with a groan he let his forehead thunk against the table in the Sun Room. He couldn't even ask if he could have a sandwich made without tomatoes in it. The lunches were already made, his nurse holding one of each in her hands. Unhappily, he accepted the one that had meat. Maybe something could be salvaged from it.

Ignoring his nurse's cheerful parting words to enjoy his meal, the teen waited until she'd stepped away before he took his lunch out of the bag and started picking it apart - only to freeze, heart pounding unevenly. A deep, rattling breath had just- Lloyd didn't even finish the thought. Something was here! He whipped around, not even sure how he was going to defend himself. The only thing he had was one of those plastic spoon-forks, and if he was up against that same thing they'd run from last night-

There was nothing. Nothing but nurses and patients passing by. Not even any cats. No one else looked like they'd even heard anything. Lloyd's eyes darted around, but still nothing showed up.

Come on, I know I heard it...

[For Ed and Al!]

Comments

[armoredsoul]

Al smiled a bit--they had to explain this one a lot back home. "The Law of Equivalent Exchange basically means that you have to sacrifice something of equal value to create something. Substances have to be similar, and you have to keep the mass the same. I couldn't turn this fork into a sword, for example."

Alphonse leaned over as well, frowning at the blue stone before shaking his head.

[redcladidealist]

Once they'd had their look, Lloyd pulled his hand back, rubbing the skin around the Exsphere's crest almost reflexively. He hadn't worried about hiding it in a pretty long time, but that was largely because most of the people he was around already knew about the Exsphere. Here it was different. People saw it, but didn't realize there was any reason to give it a second thought. As far as Lloyd knew, only Kratos knew of its significance, and he was pretty sure he could trust Kratos not to talk.

Ed and Al, though... He'd only just met them. Could he trust them with this?

I trusted them with my life last night. They trusted me with theirs. He took a breath and let it out. That would have to be good enough.

"It's an Exsphere," he began. "It's a stone from my world that can amplify people's power if it's attached directly to their skin. It has to have a Crest, though, or it'll make them sick. The problem is..." He swallowed. This was the part he hated. "The problem is they're made from people's pain and human sacrifice."

Sacrifice... He stared at Al queasily. "So in order to make your body, they had to sacrifice someone else's?"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed's lips thinned and he sat back in his chair, staring into space. "We found out that the Philosopher's Stone requires an array about the size of a city. If they used it to restore Al, it's more like thousands."

He continued staring into space, face going blank. "It's probably best not to think about it too hard."

[armoredsoul]

Al swallowed tightly, staring down at his hands. "Restoring my body meant taking back a toll the Gate--something that regulates alchemy--took. One body for another isn't enough in that case."

It was eerie, that two worlds so different would have something so similar. "How common are Exspheres in your world?"

[redcladidealist]

Even though Lloyd didn't know what exactly an array was, the fact that it had to be the size of a city was both daunting and a little bit relieving. Surely something that big couldn't be that easy to make.

Thousands of lives, though... "That's horrible." He paled, feeling cold at the thought.

"It... depends on which world, I guess. My world was split into two a long time ago. I'm from Sylvarant. That's where the Human Ranches are, where Exspheres are made, but Tethe'alla seemed like it had more of them. One bridge used three thousand of them. There was even a mine to dig new ones from the ground."

[fullmetalheart]

Ed's eyes snapped to Lloyd and he turned tense. "I don't like the sound of these ranches."

[armoredsoul]

Al paled at the thought of that many lives being used for something so...trivial! "That's horrible! Why in the world haven't they been stopped?!"

[redcladidealist]

He couldn't blame them for the way they felt, not when he felt the same way himself. It still sickened him to think about that bridge. Even so, he wasn't sure he could blame the people in Tethe'alla either. "I don't think people in Tethe'alla didn't know what Exspheres really were. I mean, they knew where they came from, but I don't think they knew what it took to make their power wake up. Zelos, one of my friends there, didn't know until we told him. I guess if they never saw the Ranches, since they're on my world, it makes sense they wouldn't know." It made sense - but that didn't mean it was okay. Lloyd's solemn, pained expression turned into one of determination.

"We're trying to stop them now, trust me. No one should ever have to go through what they do to people at those Ranches, and if I have any say, they never will again. In fact, I want to get rid of all the Exspheres someday."

[fullmetalheart]

Ed looked at Lloyd's hand. "They can be removed from whoever they're attached to?"

[armoredsoul]

Al relaxed a bit--that at least made some amount of sense, even if it didn't diminish the horror of what was really going on. He nodded in response to Lloyd's determined look, then followed his brother's gaze.

[redcladidealist]

Lloyd went quiet for a moment, picking up his fork and poking at his salad with it. Somehow, Ed had managed to hone right in on the biggest problem with his plan, the reason why his plan wasn't really even a plan just yet, but a goal that felt just out of reach.

"It... depends. If someone had an Exsphere attached without a Key Crest first, you can't just take it back off. Their mana will go out of control if you do, and they'll... they'll turn into a monster." Like his mom. Like Marble. Dammit, how could fix this? There had to be a way somehow. There had to. He couldn't accept the idea that there wasn't. "They'd need a Key Crest first, and even then I'm not sure if it'd work." They hadn't tried it yet, for good reason.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed blinked a bit as he took that in. "Please, no turning into a monster. We get enough at night, it looks like."

He paused and look at his brother. "Don't hit me."

Then Ed started working on the second sandwich. "So it sounds like the people that already have them will have to keep them?"

[armoredsoul]

Al settled for just glaring at his brother, then stabbing his next bite of salad harder than strictly necessary.

Al frowned as he thought over what Lloyd said. "Is there no magic that could help with that whole problem? Or are the Key Crests the only thing that could affect the Exspheres?"

[redcladidealist]

Lloyd shook his head. "You don't have to worry about me. My Dad made sure I had a Key Crest before he ever let me even touch the Exsphere. I can take mine off without any problem. I just... I can't yet." He jabbed his salad again, frustrated. "I'm not strong enough without it to do the things that need to be done. I still need it to save my world." But as soon as the world was safe and reunited, he swore, he swore he'd find a way to make it so no one ever needed to rely on Exspheres ever again. Not even him.

"Magic?" He echoed the word with a frown, rolling it over in his mind. "As far as I know, there isn't any magic that can take an Exsphere off. The closest I've ever seen is..." He trailed off. The sudden thought all but caught him off guard. Could that...? "I have a friend who knows a healing technique. She saved someone who'd become an Exbelua. One of those monsters. I don't know if it would help, but... Maybe..." He suddenly, desperately, wanted to talk to Kratos.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed chewed on his food as he mulled over what Lloyd was saying. "I'm afraid I don't know enough about your world to give you any intelligent advice. Sorry."

[armoredsoul]

"It sounds like something worth pursuing, though," Al added encouragingly. "Do you have anyone here you can ask about it?"

[redcladidealist]

"I... Maybe." He didn't know if Kratos would have any idea if Raine's technique would be any help. He wasn't even sure Kratos would tell him even if the man knew anything. Still, he had to try. "There's someone else from my world here, but I don't know if he'd know if it'd work. I'll have to ask him next time I see him." And that was really the most he could do about it right now.

Lifting a bite of salad to his mouth, he chewed, then quickly swallowed. Blegh. Maybe it didn't have tomatoes, but that didn't mean it was all that great either. Even so, he found himself wolfing it down. Hey, he was hungry, and something was better than nothing. Besides, he half-expected the nurses to start moving in to collect them any minute now. They'd spent a lot of time talking during lunch. The shift was probably near over.

[fullmetalheart]

"Hopefully you'll be able to get information out of him," Ed said before settling in to finish wolfing down his own food.