damned_institute | Day 30: Cafeteria, Breakfast

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Day 30: Cafeteria, Breakfast

Hitsugaya woke with a start.

His entire body ached, but the pain was nowhere near as bad as it had been the night before. His injuries had been tended two with clean gauze and bandages, and he found every movement wasn't agony. He wasn't in the best of shape, but thanks to the miracle of landel's strange time distortion, he had mostly recovered from the vile poison without having to waste anyone else's talents.

And in his hand, still...there was the key.

He dressed quickly, sliding the key onto the key ring from his desk drawer and stuck it into his pocket. Whether the key stood to gain them anything or not, it stood as a vital reminder that they could succeed in this place. There was hope, as insignificant as it often seemed. They could beat this place.

That small shred of hope made getting up worth it.

The nurse who escorted him to breakfast was cheerful, and commented idly about how wonderful it was to see young Tommy Winters up and about again after his unfortunate run-in with a bad case of food poisoning. He smirked slightly, knowing that any lies the institute forced into their heads were only that: lies. He wouldn't buy it for a second. And on top of that, the concept of muffins sounded almost appetizing. While he still preferred his authentic Japanese cuisine, the food here was slowly becoming more and more bearable. He would have preferred a warm bowl of sweet nattou over rice over the mufffins, but they would do. The plain yogurt and fruit, on the other hand, was excellent. He piled his plate high with fruit as usual, and got several small bowls of yogurt as well.

Finding the most convenient table to the end of the food line, he took a seat and scanned for the new arrivals. New arrivals meant people who would be lost and confused. Renji did a good job of making a bulliten post last time...he should recommend abarai-fukutaicho do the same again this time.

[Waiting for Angel]

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Okay, he could understand if someone wanted to gather up a bunch of powerful people in one place and use them for something. He'd been the victim of a few other plots like that. But what the heck would someone want to do that required so many people? And most of them probably had really varied powers, too...

"Well, it's not like they exactly advertise what they want from us," he said. He remembered someone mentioning something about a radio a few nights ago, and how some people here always carried them around. Danny was pretty sure it wasn't for music, since music would either distract them or attract a monster. If people found them that important, then maybe information was broadcasted? Maybe. It was something he could check later on tonight. "We have radios. I don't know what they're used for, but they might be useful."

Although he couldn't exactly bet on that--this place seemed to be anything but helpful, and he wasn't sure they would give everyone something that could give away vital information.

Vlad decided that Daniel must mean he didn't know what the radios were used for in the context of this situation; whatever his grades were, the boy at least followed popular music ("Dumpty Humpty," really, now) and some of that was through the radio.

"I see. I'll certainly have to ask around, see if I can't find out some more information. I don't suppose there was anything about the abilities you observed that linked them together in any way, hmm? Perhaps something not immediately obvious?" Vlad prompted. Daniel had obviously not been greatly observant thus far, but so long as there was a line of dialogue open, he couldn't neglect trying to get as much information from the lad as he could without inspiring hostilities again. Then, an addition, a bit quieter in tone, "I don't suppose any of them resulted in any... odd chills, for example."

Danny tried to understand what Vlad was asking, but he must've stopped paying attention somewhere along the line because he wasn't quite sure what Vlad was talking about. Linked what together? What wasn't obvious? The radios? They were radios, what wasn't obvious about them?

"What are you talking about?" he asked, somewhat irritated by the sudden onslaught of confusing questions. He'd been able to follow the conversation until now, but Vlad had pulled some other factor into the conversation, as far as he understood (which wasn't very far at all).

"... You said you observed people with unusual powers. Or abilities. Yes?" Vlad spoke slowly, resisting the urge to lean forward and either look the boy in the eyes to make sure he was paying attention or slap him beside the head. "Did any of those abilities seem similar to each other? In particular, did any of them result in... cold.... breath...?"

He couldn't say he was exactly pleased with the way Vlad was talking to him at this moment--it wasn't his fault Vlad was being vague. But he didn't mention it right now. Instead, he sighed irritably and left it for another time. Like when they were out of this horrible place.

"Yeah, I did. And no, they didn't." He was about to mention that he hadn't been able to transform or use his powers anyway, so what would it have mattered, but then realized maybe that wasn't the best thing to say to an enemy, truce or no truce. "What about you?" he asked instead. It was a subtle enough question to figure out if Vlad had his powers or not (or if he hadn't been around any ghosts last night).

"Ah. Thank you." Manners, manners. He leaned back, gauging Daniel's return question. The boy might not always pick up on everything at first shot, but in all honesty, Maddie's child couldn't be stupid, simply... untrained in organized thought. That would explain the math grades, for example.

"I haven't observed anyone behaving in a manner that couldn't be described as human," although the table act was a bit over the top, "if that's what you mean." But that wasn't all of what Daniel meant, Vlad was sure. He added, a bit begrudgingly, "There has been a strange sensation since I arrived."

Much of what Vlad said didn't register with him, partially because there was nothing really of interest in what Vlad just mentioned and partially because the last bit particularly caught his attention. If someone was acting human, that didn't much matter to him, since that was pretty much a given. But the other thing he mentioned...

"Strange sensation?" he asked. What did he mean by 'strange sensation?' Danny had felt it at first when he arrived, a little, like he was far weaker than he should've been, but that might not have been the same thing. "What do you mean, 'strange sensation'?"

"Oh, I don't know... why don't you tell me? Have you felt anything unusual? As though something were not quite right?"

Frankly, this was the exact opposite direction the conversation should be going, but it was bound to out for them both eventually if what he'd seen last night was any sign. Better to be aware of it than not.

Danny still didn't want to admit to it before Vlad did. Even if there was a big chance that his powers were gone too, there was also a chance they weren't, and he didn't want to admit he was powerless. It didn't really occur to him that Vlad would find out in due time anyway.

"I felt...something," he said warily. "What do you think you felt?"

Well.

This might last a while.

Seize opportunities in the face of the inevitable. "In the name of our little truce... honestly, a weakened sensation. As though I had been somehow limited. I haven't been here long enough to test my... unique traits." Vlad raised his eyebrows at Daniel. "Now, since I've been frank, what about yourself?"

So Vlad had been weakened too. Maybe he didn't have any of his powers at all? He didn't know, but Danny did have some of his powers up until last night...they somehow disappeared entirely.

"Me too," he said, sighing. "But I don't think we're the only ones. Some other people I saw were having a lot of trouble with their powers." At least, he thought it was trouble with their powers. Maybe it always happened to them that way, but he still couldn't be too sure about it. And besides, why would they take away his powers and not anyone else's? Danny didn't think the head guy had something against him. At least, he hoped he didn't--who knew around here.

"I see." Well, at least that had been wrestled out on both sides. With them alone here, the odds of his alternate identity being a secret to the individuals actually running this place were slim to none, and in privacy, he could test out exactly how badly he'd been weakened.

In a way, it was infuriating. Unlike the boy, who seemed to have come into his powers with nothing more than an awkward bout, he'd suffered before gaining the power he needed to balance out the scales again. Some days, he had to admit he thought of himself more as Vlad Plasmius than as Masters altogether.

But there was no time for having fits. He gave Daniel his best benign, parental smile. "I suppose that, in circumstances such as this, it's for the best that we've called a truce, hm? At least we can keep an eye out for each other." Granted, that applied in all senses of the phrase.

Danny didn't like the look of that smile. And that smile combined with that sentence made him feel all the more awkward. It was moments like these that really made Vlad creep him out more than anything else. It was also moments like these that justified his suggestion that Vlad should simply get a cat.

He had to wonder if Vlad would've been at least a bit less of a creep with a cat.

"Yeeeaaah," he said slowly, inching away slightly again. The last time he saw that face was when he asked Clockwork to change the future so that Vlad didn't get ghost powers, and that didn't even count since that wasn't part of the real timeline. "Right..."

All in all, that had gone very well, Vlad thought. True, Daniel looked a bit intimidated, but that was understandable. After all, given the circumstances, Daniel had just been informed he was probably not in reality he knew as home and both of them were weakened.

And even after the clones, Daniel was still apparently willing to make efforts at bonding... well, not bonding, but mutual non-killing. He granted circumstances were forcing them together, but even with his powers taken against his will and faced with a Daniel that by all rights another timeline of himself ought to have killed Vlad couldn't help feeling a bit cheered.

He'd simply not ask what had driven him to decide the boy was better off dead. It was just as likely Daniel had no idea himself, the poor dear boy did tend to be a bit insensitive that way. No, this odd prison was a second chance for them both. He finished his glass of milk with satisfaction, feeling nothing needed to be added.

It was getting more and more awkward by the second now. With nothing to talk about, sitting next to the man who had a vendetta against his own father and an obsession with his mother felt just plain wrong. Well, being within fifty feet of him was always wrong because of the reasons he usually breached the fifty-foot-range. This time, Vlad was being fatherly again. Sometimes, he thought he preferred the Vlad who was hellbent on killing him and his family (except for his mom, of course).

It was just his luck that there was a distraction at that moment. Turning his head around, he expected to see the same guy who was shouting about the moon earlier to be causing some more commotion. No, instead, it seemed to be a full-scale fight. "Whoa," he said simply, stunned into silence by the sheer amount of patients and staff getting involved. Danny decided he was going to stay far, far away from that group--he could spot some of the nurses with needles. The last thing he wanted was to have a nurse inject him with something. Especially since he couldn't be sure what those were--maybe sedatives, but there was a chance that it was something else entirely.

There he'd been in a wonderful mood and then some idiots had to go and start a riot. A perfect example of how people, left to their own devices, tended to follow whatever moronic impulses were suggested to them without a second thought. Particularly if they were in large groups.

It was possible that they could use the riot to their advantage, but he certainly couldn't transform in such a public space, and without ghost powers neither of them stood a chance against the small army of nurses and orderlies running into the room bearing needles. Judging from the way those injected behaved afterward, they were being sedated, and Vlad had no intention of spending part of the day drooling on himself in drugged oblivion.

Other people were screaming, telling everyone to join in, one girl was singing something... It was loud enough to be offensive on that front alone. His posture slumped a bit as he scowled around him at the crowd. "I don't suppose you've seen this happen before," he asked Daniel half-rhetorically, considering that the boy's gawking 'whoa' had already answered that question.

He shook his head, simply staring at the mass chaos, not even trying to sort it through his brain. "Nope. Never seen it happen during the day at all." Unless that moon-guy had really started something up. He had no idea how it happened, but that was the only reason he could think for it. How did a question about the moon break out into this fight?

Man, he certainly hoped the nurses wouldn't come this way with needles. They didn't look like they were going to fight, but with all the commotion, it was possible that they would just come around drugging the first people they saw--this place looked pretty professional, but he wasn't trusting anything that sent enormous birds to eat chunks of his back out.

Maybe the nurses had suddenly turned on them and decided to make it like nighttime, except twenty-four hours? Then again, they probably would've just let everyone continue fighting straight through breakfast.

"So it's a welcome party, fantastic," Vlad muttered not quite inaudibly, before raising his voice a bit to add, "If they start throwing things, I'm going under the table."

It might not be a bad idea anyway. People technically were throwing things, they were just throwing other people and not very far. Trying to weave a path in human form out of the crowd might have worked, if the entrances weren't already stuffed with nurses and orderlies either entering to help in the fight or glaring out as though daring any patients to try and escape. He might look mature and dignified enough to argue his way past, but Daniel was young and rather scruffy looking. For now, he'd simply be grateful Daniel wasn't giving into his ridiculous "superhero" urges and jumping into the fray to try and beat up some "villains" or anything like that. Truce or not, he wouldn't go wading in this mess to pull Daniel out if the boy tried.

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Day 30: Cafeteria, Breakfast

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