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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"Oh! Ah,.. yes." Leon blushed briefly. He'd run around asking about Claude's whereabouts to several people that night. It was almost a bit embarrassing that this was remembered. "I am Claude's friend. My name is Leon."

So this was Guy. Claude had mentioned him and Ashton had asked about him. Now it looked as though he was finally meeting him - only to find out they'd already met! Funny how that turned out...

He nodded. "I did agree to write out a few things on heraldry for you, yes. Now even the basics could take a while to get down, but I'm going to try and streamline the information as best I can." Mentioning this caused some of his nervousness to fall away. He was never above bragging when the occasion allowed for it.

Even if Leon seemed a little nervous, it was soon becoming obvious that he was way more mature that a lot of other kids his age. He might even surpass Anise, though Guy also knew that a lot of the girl's behavior was something of an act. Still, once Leon started to explain himself, Guy immediately felt like he was carrying on a conversation with an equal.

"Yeah, that sounds great. And it's no rush, really. I mean, we probably won't be getting out of here for a while, so you don't need to worry about it. Just whenever you get the time and feel like it, I guess." The boy was doing him a favor just by being willing to compile the information, and it was nice to be around such genuinely sincere, helpful people. There were a good amount of them in this place, strangely enough.

"If there's any way I can repay you for your help, you'll have to let me know," he added, even though he wasn't sure what he could do. Even if it came down to being a bodyguard of some sort (though there was always the chance that Leon was more than capable of taking care of himself), Guy would be willing.

That would be the second person here to owe him a favor, not the Leon knew what he was going to do with this advantage. "I'll see," he smiled, though it faltered as he went on. "I'm more of a spellcaster than anything else, and my abilities are fairly limited here." 'Fairly' was being kind. He could hardly manage two weak spells in a night. One slightly stronger one. He'd been lucky so far with the company he kept at night, and the fact that he had friends from his own world.

He didn't like how Guy said it was likely they wouldn't be getting out for a while. Thinking and admitting that felt as though he was giving up. But how else could anyone look at this situation? All these resourceful people and yet not one had found a method of escape. He didn't want to dwell on these thoughts. Guy obviously wasn't.

"Anyway, if you're a friend of Claude's then it should be worth it."

There did seem to be an implication there that Leon might need someone who could fight to come along with him at night, but Guy wasn't going to push it just in case the kid was insecure or something like that. "Well, just let me know whenever you need a hand," was what he said instead, figuring that was vague enough that Leon could collect on the favor however he wanted whenever he wanted.

When Leon mentioned Claude, Guy only laughed. "Hey, I'm sure you've known him a whole lot longer than I have." He didn't want to make any of Claude's old friends jealous somehow. The two of them had just connected during their time here, but that hardly meant that he wanted to cause any problems between the other blond and his old friends.

"Anyway, you're an expert on this heraldry stuff, huh? Even at your age?" he asked. He got the feeling that Leon had quite the story to tell, so why not find some way to spend the time?

"And a scientist," Leon was quick to add. "Of course in my world, those two professions are strongly linked. Machinery is still a new concept there, mostly brought along by outside influences." And he could ramble on that topic for ages, but he stopped himself before he delved into things Guy might not care about at all.

"But yes." He nodded. "My parents w- are experts in the field, so I simply inherited the best genes, it seems." He tried to ignore his own slip-up. If Expel had been restored, then his parents were fine. They had to be. If he could survive that storm then he knew they could as well. They'd likely found their way to the Eluria colony by now - were perhaps even back on Lacour and worried sick for him. Maybe they even thought he was dead.

He couldn't afford to worry about that right now. "You're lucky to have me." A layer of bravado was quickly thrown over everything else. "I'm one of the top minds on my planet."

While Guy knew that Jade wasn't very good with kids (then again, he and Anise got along rather well, so who knew), he got the feeling that the colonel and Leon would have been able to have some interesting conversations. He was sure they would meet at some point, but for the moment it seemed like any so-called interplanetary dealings were up to Guy.

He was getting more and more of an idea of what Expel was like, and it was interesting to try and imagine the other world. Though he would unfortunately never get a real picture of it, unless it turned out that one of Claude's friends was really good at drawing or something.

"Yeah, that's really impressive," he said with a smile, quickly picking up on the fact that Leon was proud of himself. And why shouldn't he be? To be so accomplished at such a young age was quite the achievement. "So how has this place been treating you?" While Guy was eager to get a better idea of how heraldry worked, he knew that the boy was going to be working on that, so there was no point in drilling him about it now. Better to get onto other subjects.

Leon couldn't be sure of how sincere Guy was being with his statement, so he gave the man a discerning look before deciding to just go with it. He never minded a little praise if it was deserved. Besides, Claude trusted the blond. That should be good enough for him.

The next question made him sigh. "How does this place treat anyone?" Granted, he'd done better than some others. He'd yet to get himself seriously injured - or injured at all, really. If anything, he was simply exhausted after the end of a troubling night. With all those he'd seen in wheelchairs (and after what he'd seen happen to Ashton) he could consider himself fairly lucky. He just didn't want to jinx himself by saying this out loud. "I haven't been able to meet up with my friends as much as I'd like, though I joined one of the clubs and that's at least provided me with companions for exploration..."

Guy hadn't expected the kid to seem quite so jaded, but it was already obvious that Leon had been through much more than someone his age should have to deal with. Though it wasn't like Guy didn't understand how that was, having been forced to face the reality of how cruel the world could be when he was only five years old.

There was no way he was continuing on that train of thought, though, and he quickly detoured the moment Leon gave him good reason to. There was the mention of clubs again. Guy didn't see anything wrong with them, but he hadn't had any need to join one. He knew Anise and Ion were trying it out, though he wasn't really sure how they felt about it.

"Oh yeah?" he asked. "What's it like? And which one are you in?" Guy hadn't done much research on them, but he knew the basics just from what he had seen mentioned on the bulletin board.

"The Cooking Club." It was a bit surprising to Leon that Guy didn't know much about them despite the fact that he'd been hanging around with Claude. Then again... Leon himself hadn't known much to anything about them before Kadaj had invited him to join, so he wasn't about to say anything on that subject. "I think it's rather large."

At least it seemed so, mostly because so many of the people he knew were in it. "Hasn't Claude mentioned it to you? I know Ashton's in it. You know Ashton, right?" Or did he? Bother. It was so hard to remember who knew who. He supposed if Ashton had come to him asking about Guy then they hadn't met yet, had they? Of course, they could have spoken to each other since then...

"In any case, the person in charge just assigns missions and groups over the bulletin and then you report back with what you find." Simple enough, though he didn't know if even an organization their size was having much success in figuring this place out.

Thinking back on it, Guy didn't remember Claude bringing it up, but maybe that was because the two of them always got distracted by other subjects. It was a little surprising that it hadn't come up, though, considering that so many of Claude's friends were a part of it. Maybe the man had mentioned that his friends were involved in them, but it was obvious that Claude himself didn't have that much interest in it.

"Yeah, I've met Ashton before. The first time was actually a week ago, and then I saw him again yesterday," he explained. Now Guy was fairly certain that the only friend of Claude's that he hadn't met was Dias, unless there were others around that he just didn't know about for whatever reason.

Having a specific mission to carry out each night did sound somewhat convenient, but Guy usually could find his own things to do, and Peony almost always had some idea, so he'd been glad to just keep working among his friends. "So you like it, then?" he asked. "I mean, as much as you can like anything in this place," he added with a brief laugh.

So they had met each other. Well that was a confusing and generally unimportant matter as far as he was concerned, so Leon didn't think anymore on it. Ashton hadn't brought up Guy the previous evening (though he hadn't had much chance to). Whatever was going on between them wasn't any of his business.

"It's not bad," the mage shrugged. It did give him something to do. Though, the first night he'd been assigned to an area he'd already been to several times before, and last night his group hadn't gotten much of a chance to do what they were assigned. This should improve, hopefully. "I'm still not sure of their overall goals."

It seemed like Leon didn't have much of an opinion, but maybe Guy was just used to children being more excitable than this. The blond glanced out the window for a moment before looking back to the other patient with a shrug.

"Well, escape, I'd imagine. Though just how we go about doing that is the real question." Even with all this talk of going over the walls, Guy wasn't sure if that was the real solution. There might be something to find in the area surrounding the institute, but it seemed like the real answers had to be within it. They were just hidden away, and with their limited time and resources each night, uncovering any of it had proved difficult.

Leon muttered a faint "Mmn," staring at the seat ahead of him. Escape should have been something to talk about more often, but the young mage found it only caused him to feel depressed.

"Do you think escape is even possible? I mean," he shook his head. He shouldn't be thinking of things this way. "You'd think with everyone searching..." Sure, some patients had disappeared. Maybe if you found an escape route there was no going back. But somehow...

It was true that this was taking longer than Guy was used to, and maybe they should have been successful by now, considering how many people were working at it, but he wasn't one to let thoughts like that weigh him down too much.

Which meant that it was that much more troublesome that someone as young as Leon was already getting that sort of pessimistic view on life. Though Guy could understand why, when the kid was being put through something as terrible as this.

"There's no way we're just going to be stuck here for the rest of our lives," he offered. "It might make time, but someday..." Someday it would work out. He had been willing to wait for as long as it took for Luke to return, after all. He could be a very patient person, and that was what they all were going to need here at Landel's. Patience and determination.

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Day 35: Bus 2

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