damned_institute | Day 35: Bus 2

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Day 35: Bus 2

Wally woke as the intercom crackled to life and was surprised to find himself back in his room. The last thing he'd remembered was feeling relieved at finally beating off those dragonfly-lizard things. There'd been that weird intercom message, then... he wasn't quite sure what had happened after that, but he was certain it hadn't involved falling asleep. He'd be half-wondering if he'd dreamed the whole thing if it hadn't been for the nagging ache on his back and ankle from where he'd been bitten. A quick check revealed they'd been bandaged, apparently while he'd slept. He wondered if he had Kal to thank for that. Maybe he'd get the chance to ask later.

He jumped as the door swung open to admit the familiar face of the nurse who'd woken him yesterday. "Up already, are we?" she said cheerfully as she busied herself pulling out clothes. A blue shirt and a pair of jeans were passed to him. Wally blinked, he hadn't been here long, but he'd gotten the impression that the grey-and-smiley-face combo was standard.

"Does this mean I'm being released?" he asked, hope creeping into his voice.

The nurse turned back to him, pity etched on her features. "I'm afraid not, dear." She smiled brightly as she continued, "but today's when all the patients get a special field trip into town! Won't that be a treat!"

Wally stared at the clothes, his mind working away. He'd been trying to get into town and to a phone last night before he'd been attacked. But if they were going in today, this might be the perfect chance for him to contact the Justice League. He smiled warmly and thanked the nurse as she left to allow him to change, then happily allowed himself to be led to one of the buses, picking a seat about halfway down and sliding in to look out the window. It seemed like today was going to be brighter than yesterday, at least in the area of possible phone calls and rescues. About the only dark patch he could see was that the contents of his paper-bag breakfast were going to be nowhere near enough to fill the yawning pit that had taken the place of his stomach, and even that was tolerable when he was positive he wasn't going to be here much longer.

"And you say that time goes rushing by, but it seems so slow to me, and you see a blur around you fly, but it takes too long, it seems so slow to me..." he sung absently.

[Oh Captain, my Captain~]

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When the nurse entered Danny's room and he woke up, his first reaction was to pull the covers over himself with both hands. He couldn't help it, it was a reflex--he always slept in on the weekends, especially since his idea of a good Friday night was catching every ghost he ran into.

But the nurse threw off the sheets anyway. "Come on now, Daniel! You've got to get up. It's the weekly trip to Doyleton! Aren't you excited?" Not particularly, but he couldn't say it was a bad thing, this weekly trip outside of the stupid building.

And his mood only improved when he saw that his arm had its cast removed! But...just a few minutes ago, he had been with Chopper, trying to hold all his items with his injured arm! He could barely believe it, but if this place could take away most of his powers, then healing an arm probably wasn't too far of a stretch!

His nurse handed him an outfit--a pair of jeans, red sneakers, and a red shirt with a white oval on the front. It was extremely reminiscent of his trademark outfit back home, and it felt both strange and comforting to wear it. It was the same, but at the same time, it wasn't...

Danny still wasn't fully awake, so when a bagged breakfast was shoved into his hands and he was pushed into a bus, he barely stumbled into a nearby seat. At least he didn't trip. Giving himself a moment to gather himself, he turned to the girl sitting next to him.

"Uh...hi."

Way to go, Fenton.

Seiya was a little surprised when someone younger came and sat next to her, although her first thought when she looked over him was that he'd certainly gotten a better deal on the fashion front. Not that he was likely to volunteer to trade shirts. He was sort of cute in a gawky little brother way, and she smiled at him, leaning back as much as she could in her seat to try and relax a bit.

"Hiya. My name's Seiya. Nice to meet you...?" He didn't look too awake yet, either. Well, it was no surprise. The nurses had seemed to be in an awful hurry to get them on the buses this morning. She pulled her ponytail around to the side of the seat facing the window, wondering if maybe she shouldn't just let her hair down and hope that covered the shirt. No... then she'd be 'fluffy' and have acres of hair loose everywhere. She'd just have to get by with her natural charm and figure nobody else here picked out their outfits either.

"Seiya, huh?" It was another weird name, and it was strange to realize that all these "weird names" weren't so weird anymore. He was getting used to them, and they were becoming the norm. The idea of it made him squirm--how could anyone get used to this place?--so he avoided the idea, pushing it to the back of his mind as much as he could.

"I'm Danny," he responded. He took a look at her shirt (not her cleavage, not her cleavage, not her cleavage). It...definitely wasn't the style he'd wear, but that was a given. Heck, only Paulina would've worn something like that--Sam and Valerie would definitely never wear that.

"Nice shirt," he commented, pointing at the cat on Seiya's shirt.

"Thanks." No getting away with it, huh? She looked down, pulling the bottom of the shirt out a bit to see the cat a little more clearly. "I didn't exactly get a vote in it, unfortunately."

It wasn't that she minded that it showed off a little cleavage... she was old enough to consider casual flirting to be a perfectly normal and respectable hobby, and there was nothing there to be ashamed of. For that matter, her usual fighting uniform emphasized her chest (among other assets) far more obviously. But this shirt wasn't her decision, and that alone was annoying, 'fluffy' was really just the icing on the cake.

She grinned wickedly and leaned towards Danny a bit. "If you like it so much, though, I'd be willing to trade you." Danny's shirt was even in one of her favorite colors. The nurses wouldn't let patients start slipping their clothes off on the bus, especially the female patients, but a little teasing never hurt.

"You too?" he asked, looking down at his own shirt once Seiya did. "I just got lucky they picked something I'd actually wear..."

But once she leaned in, Danny leaned back towards the other direction, grabbing for the seat to balance himself before he fell out of his seat completely. The one good thing about this place? He couldn't accidentally go intangible in his human form and make a huge fool out of himself. At least, he didn't think he had enough power for it.

"N-no! It's okay! I mean..." He sat normally in his seat, the initial idea of him in a fluffy blue shirt losing its shock factor. "It looks good on a girl, but it'd look plain weird on me."

She felt a little guilty for picking on him, even if he had been the one ogling her first. It wasn't his fault he was a teenage boy. Danny didn't seem too much younger than Seiya herself, but it was obvious he was still pretty young in some ways. She leaned back again, and winked at him.

"I was just teasing, sorry. I don't think it'd look right on you either. It might bring out the blue in your eyes, I guess, but you just don't strike me as a 'fluffy' type." Not that Seiya had ever really thought of herself as fluffy either, but she guessed there were worse things to be. "So, Danny, I'm still pretty new here. How about yourself? Have you seen this Doyleton before?"

A casual tone for a business question. As much fun as it was making friends with other people--or picking on them a little--she did want to know what she was about to get into. Some kind of illusion like the Institute, of course, but details wouldn't hurt.

Internally, Danny agreed with her--he definitely wasn't a 'fluffy' type. He was a ghost-fighting hero in his hometown--the last thing someone would call him was 'fluffy.' Well, maybe Dash and his friends would, but they were a completely different story. As far as Danny and his friends were concerned, 'fluffy' was a word best used when describing the cat Vlad should've had (but didn't).

"Yeah, I've been to Doyleton before. Last week." Had it really been a week already? No, he'd been here longer now. What were they doing in Amity Park? Were the local news stations making a big deal out of his absence? What about Mr. Lancer? "Doyleton's...a pretty small town." It was quiet and tranquil--completely the opposite of what Danny had always lived with.

But Doyleton did have something going for it--the food didn't glow and it wasn't sentient.

Well, that didn't help a whole lot. Seiya frowned a little, although not too directly at Danny, and tilted her head. "Well, is there anything to do there? Shops, or game parlors, or karaoke, or anything like that?" It was too early in the day to try and find a club, even if the words 'small town' didn't sound promising along those lines anyway. Dancing... it was crazy, considering what was going on around her, and all she had to think about, but for the moment, just going out for some dancing sounded really good. Of course, there was no way that was going to happen. And she wasn't sure she'd want to try to get into a club dressed like this anyway.

She thought about asking her seatmate if he had any hobbies, but decided to wait until he had the chance to answer her first question. Instead she dug around in her sack, and pulled out the muffin. Well, it looked all right. The hot breakfasts were better, but maybe a change of pace would do her some good.

Danny paused to think, scanning his memories from the last time he was in Doyleton. Well...there wasn't much. This place was too small for lots of shops, really. All he could remember was a mechanics store and some other stores like it, that place called Tasty Burger (wasn't there some old legend that Nasty Burger used to be called Tasty Burger?), and a park. "There are plenty of shops, but I dunno about game parlors or karaoke..." But if there was a video game place, he was all over it. Maybe they had Doomed in there...or maybe he could do the responsible thing and take a look around the town. Maybe make a break for it or something!

He looked at his own bag. Making a break for it didn't actually seem like a bad idea. He had food, and they were going to give them food coupons, right? Maybe this wasn't so bad...but he would still have to go back anyway. He wanted to find out how Vlad remembered the ghostly aspect of his life but Jazz didn't. Maybe Jazz was being kept there! Maybe she had been brainwashed!

He wasn't going to leave today, no matter how tempting it was.

Seiya felt a little sorry for him, watching his expression. It wasn't that he looked too depressed or anything, but he was a little younger, and it made her think of the little girl she'd seen outdoors that night with the giant birds. She was used to this sort of thing, but how many other people here were? It was obvious that not everyone here came from the same sort of--of cosmic set-up that Seiya was used to, but they had to have some way of surviving, otherwise they'd have already...

Vanished, like...

"Well, thanks anyway." She cut off her thought by answering him, smiling a little more warmly. "I guess it's too much to hope for serious entertainment around here. A change of scenery'll be nice, anyway. So what do you do for fun back home, Danny?"

What did he do for fun? Now that was an interesting question. He wasn't about to say 'saving the world from ghosts and crazy ghost hunters,' definitely not. The question made him think about what he did back home, other than fight ghosts. Unfortunately, it left very little between school and avoiding his parents' inventions.

"I guess...video games. And hanging out with friends, mostly." He shrugged, keeping it vague. That was what he did for fun. Unfortunately, hanging out with friends often led to hunting ghosts. He couldn't even begin to count the number of late nights he'd pulled with Sam and Tuck, coming home late only to be grounded and do the same thing again the next night.

"What about you?" Maybe Seiya would have a more interesting answer. He would've given a more in-depth description if he wasn't hiding the fact that he was half-ghost.

Those were reasonable enough answers for a young teenage boy. Seiya took a bite of her muffin before answering. "Me? I love going dancing, I like singing... I play football at my school." She didn't think there was a need to specify 'American' considering Danny's name, but she could always clarify later. And it didn't really matter, it was all just part of the cover anyway.

Some days she just really needed that cover. "I don't look like a football player, do I?" She grinned at him. Even as a guy, 'his' build was slight, but there was enough strength and agility in it to make up for the fact that Seiya Kou wasn't a wall of muscle. Since Danny had survived so long at Landel's, maybe he was tougher than he looked too, but for now they were both playing 'ordinary teenager' and she wouldn't pry.

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Day 35: Bus 2

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