damned_institute | Day 32: Cafeteria, Breakfast

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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.

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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.

If allowing for what appeared to be parallel universes was another one of the Institute's schemes for causing confusion, it was certainly working effectively.

"You died," Kratos echoed. It was an interesting twist, he had to admit. When he considered himself against Zelos, Kratos would not have picked Tethe'alla's Chosen to be the one to die first: Zelos Wilder was supposed to be primarily concerned with saving his own skin before anything else as opposed to Kratos Aurion, who was striving, for lack of a better word, to end it all as honorably as possible even though anything to do with honor was out of his reach. "Out of all the things I expected from you, Wilder, dying prematurely was not among them."

He had almost too many questions to count, most of them concerning Lloyd, but those could be saved for a later date- meaning when Raine wasn't around. It was embarrassing enough to have to ask Zelos for information on his son...

I certainly wouldn't have expected it, either... To the point that Raine wondered if Zelos was lying to get sympathy, but in all honesty that made little sense.

Not that illogical always meant untrue.

However, that wasn't the only revelation she was concerned with. "I see that you two are more well-acquainted than I thought," she remarked--in a tone that sometimes meant her apparent calm was entirely deceptive. "How did that happen?"

Uh.

Well to be honest, he probably should've expected Raine to start questioning him the moment he decided to reveal he was dead. But then Kratos had to go and make it worse.

...He really wasn't cut out for this explaining stuff. So he directed a look at Kratos that clearly said, You tell her.

Damn Wilder for shifting the spotlight.

Several centuries' worth of experience were required as Kratos tried to maintain a casual air, although some particularly choice words in Angelic were running through his head as he launched into the straightest explanation he could muster: "Throughout the years Cruxis has tried to maintain somewhat close ties to the Chosen; I merely made use of them in order to get Aionis, being unable to move as I wished at the time."

No, they had not made the most honest of deals, but it had all been for the worlds' sake in the end.

All in all, this was hitting a very sore spot with her. "And once the two of you had managed to get it, what was your intent?" Raine asked, voice dangerously quiet. While they were here, she trusted Kratos; he'd proved that he didn't mean her any harm. But if they ever made it home, or Colette appeared here, that might not last--she still wasn't certain what his goals were in regards to her, and seriously doubted she would be able to fully trust anything he said on the subject.

Her opinion of Zelos had never been very high, and the betrayal had left her almost completely unwilling to trust him at all. The first time she'd spoken to him here, he had said that he'd done all that he had so that he could get Aionis for the group; she supposed she understood why simply launching an open attack to get it was impractical at best, but ironically enough she didn't like it when supposed teammates kept secrets from the group. Personal matters (like race) were one thing, but something as important as this...

Adding to her ire was the fact that the last thing she remembered before coming here was the disastrous aftermath of that damned secret plan of theirs. She could hardly claim it was their fault that they were here, and she didn't honestly think either of them had wanted the group to be put through multiple death traps, but that didn't do much to keep her temper in check.

"Well, he," Zelos jabbed a finger in Kratos' direction, "wanted to get it for Lloyd. I was gonna help, buuuuut, I changed my mind...and I already told you where I ended up, so that's that."

It was all said with a smile, but there was something hard and brittle about it.

In a way, he thought they had deserved it. Okay, so he hadn't been completely truthful about everything, but they even trusted Mithos more readily than him. Zelos had already been with them through most of their journey and they still didn't seem to trust him all that much.

It just got tiring sometimes.

Kratos sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Things were escalating more rapidly than he had expected, and already Raine had reached that tone that meant that both he and Zelos were treading in dangerous waters. "More specifically, I required Aionis for the Ring of the Pact; at that time I had all the other necessary materials. Wearing the ring allows a human to use the Eternal Sword, although of course you would still need a pact with Origin.

"Obviously I intended Lloyd to have it." He had intended to die, as well, but the plan had exceeded expectations (specifically, Yuan had exceeded expectations...). Apparently the opposite held true for Zelos- looking back now, though, Kratos saw how very easy it would have been for everything to go awry from the beginning.

"I suppose I can guess why neither of you told us anything," Raine replied; her voice had gone a little flat. The angelic being who had betrayed their trust and the Chosen who had never earned it--she wasn't the only one who would have been less than willing to go along with anything planned by the both of them.

There was little doubt that they were telling her the truth on this much at least, and yet--she didn't believe them, or at least didn't want to. Just habit, at this point...

It wasn't their fault any of them were here, but she was upset and homesick and missing her friend; she wanted someone to lash out at. Even as a teenager she'd recognized that finding a scapegoat didn't do her or anyone else any good, and she wasn't about to start doing it now... she should have been able to calm down on her own, but under the circumstances it was debatable. She would have gotten up and left, especially since if either of them said anything to set her off she would almost undoubtedly do something to warrant sedation (and she was tempted enough already), but there was nowhere to go.

Day 32: Cafeteria, Breakfast

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