damned_institute | Day 32: Cafeteria, Breakfast

Entry tags:

Day 32: Cafeteria, Breakfast

Sylar's gears were still turning as the nurse and a burly orderly escorted him down long halls and through a strange, sunlit room. He'd been forced to drop his pen when the orderly had seen it, and since then, he'd realized that this place had better security than he'd originally anticipated, as well as a large population of patients. It looked like he'd have to bide his time for now, pretending to be this 'Zachary Blaine' and trying to figure out how the hell he'd gotten here.

His mind went over and over the events in Mohinder's lab, tracing every second that led up to his unconsciousness. According to the computer logs and the decked-out loft, Mohinder was working for the Company now, so had that woman with the electricity been an operative? Was this all a Company front? Even so, it didn't make sense for them to drop him off somewhere without any close supervision. They knew how dangerous he was. How special he was.

But right now, his abilities had been nullified and he was left only with the option of playing along. It was a very good thing that it was something he excelled at, even with his sudden loss of the cure clouding his thoughts and telling him to do something drastic.

Still, it was fun to take ahold of strings and let someone think they were pulling him when in fact he was the puppetmaster. Who knew? Maybe he could find a new toy now that his last one had worn out.

Sylar took his syrup-covered waffle to a table and tried to keep track of both the security and the people flooding in. Soon, he'd find an opening, a weak link he could exploit. It was only a matter of time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[[reserved for the rest of the Symphonia crew]]

Raine woke up with more of a start than usual, and wasn't sure why... until she looked at the other bed. Empty. Her heart skipped a beat; did that mean...? When people vanished, they usually didn't come back, and she hadn't seen Reinforce in over a day now.

When the nurse came in, she demanded, "What happened to--my roommate?"

"Oh, Jeanne, didn't anyone tell you?" the nurse said, sounding concerned. Raine's blood actually ran cold, even before the woman went on, "She went home."

No... She could hardly say she wasn't used to being abandoned, starting with some childhood friends, making the most impact with her parents, and continuing with more than a few friends in her teens and adulthood, but... Reinforce had been the first person in a long time to get that far past her trust and abandonment issues--and now she was gone, too. There was--little doubt in her mind that she hadn't chosen to go, but that didn't make it hurt much less.

Raine wasn't much for emotional displays, though; the last few times she cried had been because of her mother, and after a few moments she felt numb more than anything else. Not saying another word, and tuning the nurse out, she simply followed to the cafeteria.

Paying little attention to what she got--she wasn't that hungry anyway--she sat down in a corner somewhere and simply wondered what now.

As he was dragged through the corridors of the Institute, Zelos looked around as he flirted with the nurse (who, to his disappointment, didn't say anything about where he was or why he was really here).

Entering the Cafeteria, he inspected the number of people dotting the room. And his eyes caught a familiar head of silver hair.

Zelos always thought that if he survived the betrayal, Raine would've been the one most openly suspicious of him.

He tried to veer the nurse away from moving towards the Professor, but the woman in white seemed to get the idea that he "needed company". So he was plopped across from Raine. Shit.

Forcing up what he hoped to be a casual smirk, he spoke.

"Hey there, my Gorgeous Professor!"

Maybe she'd believe in amnesia.

Raine had been finally at least attempting to eat, but seeing Zelos sit down across from her made her drop her fork. How long had he been missing, a week now? When people vanished she knew, too well by now, that they likely weren't just being kept somewhere inaccessible.

But... if you wait around a bit, you might just run into a Zelos Wilder, Version 2.0.

She just stared at him, with no thought given to if she was making him uncomfortable, for a long moment. Finally, she said, "Where exactly have you been?" Even if he didn't remember having been here previously, his answer should tell her a few things.

To say the least, he was surprised. The only thing that would come out of his mouth would be:

"What?"

A dozen different answers buzzed in his head, the most prominent one being, "Oh, you know, just betraying you guys at the Tower of Salvation and hey, did I mention you guys killed me?"

Uh-huh. NO.

So he just answered in the most vague fashion possible.

"Tethe'alla."

Raine raised her eyebrows; well, that answered that. "I see." So, as far as he was concerned, he'd never been here before.

To her knowledge, the last thing he'd remembered previously was Flanoir--although when she demanded an explanation for what he'd done, he knew what was she talking about due to having planned it out.

The kind thing to do would have been to simply fill him in on where he was and what he needed to know. However, Raine wasn't really inclined to do anything of the sort at the moment, especially not to someone she still didn't much like. "Where exactly in Tethe'alla? Flanoir--or the Tower of Salvation?"

Crap. If he chose Flanoir, she'd know he was lying, but if he chose the Tower of Salvation she'd...

...Hey. Wait a second.

"Whoa there, Professor? Why so interrogative today? I haven't done anything wrong, have I?"

He fired a large grin at her.

There, at the least this could stall for time while he thought up a good answer for her. That and he was curious about why she would ask something like that.

"Time doesn't work the way it should here," Raine replied, fully aware that wasn't much of an explanation. Her voice was still emotionless, but he knew well that didn't say anything about the state of her temper. She was calm now, relatively speaking, but if he said anything especially bad she might not even think before reacting. "So what do you last remember?"

She was curious if the last thing he remembered was the betrayal; she'd certainly wanted to hurt him badly when it happened. She had no way of knowing that in his memory, she--and everyone else--had done more than that.

...on the one hand, it was--something to know that vanishing for a long period of time didn't mean a person was gone for good. On the other, if Reinforce reappeared in a few days or a week but didn't know her... the idea wasn't much less depressing than never seeing her again. The fact that she was torn between missing her already and knowing that it might even be a good thing that Rein was out of this place only made things even worse.

...Well, that didn't tell him anything.

His stall tactic didn't work as well as he hoped, and if he started questioning her, well, she'd probably get even more suspicious (if that was even possible).

Even though in the Tower of Salvation, the whole party seem to forgive him in a way, he still couldn't help but feel they would hate him afterwards.

There really was nothing to lose, was there? She already knew about his betrayal, and if she was just looking for a simple confession, well, he could at least give her that much.

So with a charming smile that had a bitter edge, he answered.

"The betrayal."

He revealed his hand to her, so what would she do?

Raine just sighed; so he'd already done it, in his memory. "I see. I don't remember much beyond that, although Kratos does."

She didn't much feel like talking, so she would wait to see what he asked. He had to have a lot of questions, so she'd start with answering those and fill in whatever he didn't think to ask.

Well, that was anticlimactic.

Wait, what? Kratos? Although Zelos probably could've started out with a smarter question such as "Where the hell am I?" and "What do you mean about remembering more?", he ended up blurting out, "Wait, Kratos is here?"

Great, after his one good deed of pointing Lloyd in the right direction before he finally kicked the bucket, Kratos had to go missing so that everyone else couldn't be rescued from the traps. Just perfect.

She looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Yes--he arrived a while after I did. Why?"

That was... unexpected. Why did it matter to him if Kratos was here? If they'd ever spoken, beyond the time Kratos rejoined them long enough to help take down that human ranch, she wasn't aware of it.

It was possible there was more to the betrayal than she knew, but... at the moment she couldn't bring herself to care; Cruxis and the Renegades were irrelevant here. Of course, it was always possible the Idiot Chosen wouldn't realize that.

Wasn't today just a whole bag of surprises, now.

And he had a feeling that he might have revealed something he certainly did not want to explain. Zelos made a memo to himself to talk to Kratos privately.

"So what was that you were saying about 'remembering more', oh lovely Professor?"

He knew he was avoiding the question and being really obvious about it, but he had a lot of other crap on his plate now. Like how Mithos would destroy and worlds because Kratos wasn't there to help Lloyd.

And he thought things would be easier after he died.

Raine folded her arms and gave him a Look; she had even less patience than usual for him right now. If she'd still been angry about the betrayal he would have had a bloody nose by now at the least. Still, she answered, "The last thing I remember is in the Tower, but the last thing Kratos remembers is shortly after Lloyd defeated him to allow Sheena to make a pact with Origin."

She was aware that he wasn't as idiotic as he seemed, so she let him pick up on his own that she was not in the best of moods. Luckily for him, while she hadn't forgotten what happened at the Tower, it just seemed so long ago... even if it was also a reminder that she didn't know how much he could be trusted.

Okay, he was sorta confused now. Either they both had amnesia, or something really weird was going on.

He saw her Look, but ignored it in favour of asking another question. "Alright then, why does Kratos remember more then us, hunny?"

He knew he was playing with fire here, but he couldn't bring himself to care at the moment.

It was an effort not to hit him that time. "I don't know, and neither does anyone else." Reinforce had... had a few theories, but like everyone's else's they were all speculation. "And the last time you were here, you only remembered spending the night in Flanoir, not what happened afterwards."

If she was lucky, for once in her life, Kratos would take over explaining in the new few minutes. If not, she might end up sedated again. Shortly.

"Last time?"

Pretty weird, but if he looked back on her conversation opener...well, he probably should've expected as much.

Rather oblivious to the consequences of violence during dayshift, Zelos continued. "Well, willing to give me some pointers about this place?" He gestured towards the rest of the Cafeteria.

"This isn't heaven, that's for sure."

He looked down at the uniform distastefully.

It was nice waking up and knowing for once that there would be no awkward talks awaiting him throughout the day, and Kratos walked into breakfast in slightly better spirits than the previous two days.

That was, at least, until he noticed a familiar mane of red hair seated across from Raine. Martel...did it have to be him? Kratos sighed, already feeling the onset of a mild headache. Ah, well, he might as well get the niceties over with. Walking over, Kratos set his tray next to Raine and sat down.

"Ah, and for once something sensible comes out of Wilder's mouth."

Raine was just confused; heaven? It wasn't as if Zelos was looking at giving up his life anytime soon. Unlike Colette, he couldn't bring himself to even think about self-sacrifice.

The fact Kratos then sat down next to her and said something she actually agreed with didn't help her state of mind.

Her eyes narrowed as she realized something else--everyone she'd spoken to remembered either falling asleep or being knocked unconscious before being taken here. Had the betrayer become the betrayed? "Why?" she asked. "After you had Colette captured, did your supposed allies turn on you?" She wouldn't be remotely surprised if he said yes; when she was new here and had asked about the betrayal, he'd said that his apparent changing of alliances was a sham. If so, it was possible his supposed new allies knew it and were using him in turn to get Colette.

Through it all, at least part of her couldn't help but think it served him right.

Zelos eyes narrowed as he leveled a glare at Kratos before turning back to Raine.

Her words caught him by surprise, and he wondered if she was just being sarcastic. Well then, if she wanted to play that way, he'd go along with it.

"If by 'supposed allies' you meant yourself and everyone else, you're absolutely right, Professor."

Karma wouldn't let up, would it?

"So you failed to get Aionis and instead got on Lloyd's bad side." Kratos arched a brow as he took a sip of water, ignoring Zelos' glare. "How interesting that according to my memory, our plan succeeded. What led to this change of events in your time?"

Capturing the Chosen- well, therein was enough reason for Lloyd to take some sort of drastic action, but the boy had a habit of clinging onto friendship even through betrayal. Then again, if people got between him and Colette, Lloyd had a habit of trying to mow them over...

Raine just gave Zelos a very strange look. "What exactly are you referring to? The last time I saw you in Tethe'alla, you were abandoning us to fight the people you'd led us to believe were your current allies."

This did not add up.

Looking at Kratos, Zelos replied, "Yeah, well your memory's shot, old man."

And there it was again, except worded a bit differently. His time?

Hearing Raine speak out wasn't exactly an encouragement either. What the hell was going on?

Giving her an odd look, he said with a skeptical tone, "Uh...remember? Tower of Salvation? Big fight? I had wings?"

And then it clicked into place. Zelos turned to the other angel and asked him with a serious face, "Kratos. From what you remember, was I alive at that time?"

"First you claim that my memory is shot, and then you ask something of it?" Kratos asked, sounding mildly scandalized. "But yes, you were alive. You retrieved Aionis. Lloyd had in his possession everything needed to gain the Eternal Sword."

He gave Zelos a cold, searching look. "As far as I am concerned, this battle that you speak of in the Tower of Salvation never happened."

"I've never seen you with wings," Raine said, frowning. "There was a big fight, but it wasn't against you." She remembered what had happened well--she'd had to heal Lloyd several times more than usual because he was so angry and upset that he wasn't nearly as cautious as he'd finally learned to be.

Kratos hadn't been in the fight, but Zelos could hardly claim Raine hadn't been; she was rarely not actively involved in their group's battles, being the healer. Why was he referring to something she and Kratos were both sure hadn't happened?

The fact that those here were regularly accused of just that didn't escape her recollection.

Zelos responded to Kratos with a cold look of his own, but his eyes shone with a rare honesty that said that he really believed what he was saying.

So apparently Kratos thought that he had been the one to retrieve the Aionis... not completely far-fetched, as that was an option he had been considering. Both of them had never remembered anything about fighting him and Raine even said that they fought someone else.

There was something missing in this picture, and Zelos held the last piece. He just didn't know what to do with it. Should he tell them what he remembered? He didn't want to, but that part of him was being smothered by the part that wanted to know why the hell were their memories not matching up?

So mentally took a deep breath, and went for it.

"Alright then, I'll come clean with you guys. After I betrayed your little group to join Cruxis, we ended up fighting each other. You guys won, I told you where Colette was, and then I died."

He left out some little details, but he thought they wouldn't care about them either way.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject