damned_institute | Day 40: Recreational Field

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Day 40: Recreational Field

Kio's breakfast ended on a much happier note than it had started. However, for once the announcement truly surprised him. He blinked as his nurse came to pick him up. Recreational Field? But.. but if they had a greenhouse, he wanted to go there. The prospect of gardening was a truly liberating one, an island of joy in this hellhole. He thought about going to the Sun Room and lying down, but it occurred to him that he hadn't had proper fresh air since being here. With a cheery goodbye wave to Honey, he followed his torturer outside.

It was much better than he had expected. The sun wasn't too hot (what time of the year were they in, anyway?), so he walked slowly along the walls, fascinated by the size of the field. He wondered if Sou-chan was alright. He hadn't even checked the board. Well, if Soubi wanted to apologize, Kio would be willing to listen. The place was so crisp and clean. He had to think if anyone had ever gone over the walls. What was out there? Freedom? Or a different sort of monster?

Leaning against one of the walls, Kio took as much advantage of the sun as he could. He desperately wanted a lollipop. One was quietly nestled in his pocket, but he would need to wait until the nurses were busy with other patients before he tried anything. Soubi had gone to some trouble to get them, the least he could do was make sure they didn't get confiscated. So with bated breath, Kio waited for a shift in the mood. He was, for once, content. Not happy, but not going crazy either.

[Sou-chan! Team Loveless deploy!]

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Sanzo's face soured, at both the question and the large grin. Was he insane? And why did this suddenly remind him of someone? Several someones, actually.

With the patient population so concentrated as it was, and growing, he shouldn't surprised. Just by sheer numbers alone, there were bound to be some actual batshit ones in there somewhere. It didn't help that Sanzo's idea of 'sane' was pretty limited. He was sane. The people he traveled with were questionable. Everyone else around here, he could count on one hand who he'd consider sane.

"What the hell?" Sanzo folded his arms, cocked his head. "Fuck no, I don't want to race. I'm not nine. And neither are you."

For one, it was childish. Sanzo also didn't strain himself if he absolutely didn't have to. And even if he did suffer a moment of temporary insanity himself, he wasn't in any shape to go running around: he was still recovering from that night in the basement.

Wow, this guy had to be a professional lemon-sucker or something, with a face like that. Who would have thought suggesting a race would have gotten a reaction that bad?

"No, I'm not nine," he said evenly, "but running's something I'm really good at and that I really like, so what's wrong with wanting to do it now? But... I can get if you don't want to." He glanced over at the other man and grinned. "I'd probably win anyway."

Of course, all because he didn't have anyone to race, didn't mean that Wally was going to keep still. He didn't even really keep still much when he was supposed to, much to the League's annoyance, so asking him to do so now, when he was outside and it was sunny and nice? Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

"So anyway," he said, bouncing on his toes some more, "do you have a name to go with that face? Or do I make one up?" Huh, déjà vu. This was reminding him a bit of when he'd met Tony, but at least Tony had a sense of humour.

That touched a nerve. If there anything that annoyed him more than the usual bullshit, it was suggesting that he was as frail as the other monks. He wasn't delicate, for fuck's sake.

Maybe Goku and Gojyo were rubbing off on him. Sanzo repressed a shudder. It was better not to think about it. He wasn't like them. At all.

"I doubt you'd win," He grumbled. What face? This better not be like Kid. Sanzo didn't think this patient would be, considering he hadn't started the bad pick-up lines from the start. There was hope yet. He wasn't in a hurry to get more idiotic nicknames though, so he added; "It's Sanzo."

..Except for the fact that this man just couldn't seem to sit still. Sanzo was finding it distracting. It was one thing to enjoy running, but would it kill him to actually stop moving. "...Stop that."

"Wally West. Nice to meet you? But no, I'm pretty sure I would win," Wally answered with a smug grin. "Of course, if you wanna prove me wrong... Then all you've got to do is beat me in a race. It doesn't even have to be a long one." He bounced up and down a couple more times, eager for movement and speed. Even the speed of moving at human speeds would be better than walking and sitting all the time, right?

Actually, now he thought about it, it was probably a good thing that he couldn't run at superspeeds anymore during the day. Otherwise he'd probably snap or slip up and then goodbye secret identity. It was too bad that his mind hadn't slowed down as well. The constant feeling of 'too slow' was like an ever-present itch that was just out of reach. Irritating, but something he'd learned to live with.

But that didn't mean it didn't have its side effects.

"Huh? Stop what?" And then the bouncing did stop. But only so Wally could wandering around in a tight, random pattern near Sanzo, pausing only to stretch out a muscle on occasion.

That almost got a rise out of him. For one second, Sanzo was on the brink of telling him to piss off and showing him otherwise. Fortunately, that urge didn't last long. He didn't need to prove himself to another prisoner. This was something the cockroach would take up, or Goku.

"I'm not interested in making an ass out of myself for the sake of proving you wrong," Sanzo replied dismissively. He could leave that to someone else immature enough to take the bait.

Wally'd stopped bouncing on the balls of his feet. There wasn't even much of a pause. Instead of actually stopping, he was now pacing around the monk. Did he even realize he was doing this?

Sanzo doubted it. Wally was fast on track to putting Goku to shame in terms of sheer energy.

"That," and Sanzo jerked his head at Wally. "Are you incapable of ever sitting still?"

"Your choice," Wally answered, entirely unaffected by Sanzo's tone. While he would have really liked to race against someone, or just to be able to run around and stretch his legs in general, he wasn't so bored that he'd push someone into something they didn't really feel like. Besides, he could just as easily work off some of his energy just by wandering around while talking.

Unless Sanzo had a problem with that too, which it sounded like he might.

"What? Oh." And then he did stop, though it was only for a couple of heartbeats at most until he was back to moving about again, wandering around Sanzo and glancing over at what some of the others in the area were up to. "I can sit still sometimes. Well, almost still. But it's not really my thing. I get kinda bored easy."

"....You get bored of sitting still." Sanzo repeated. There was a decidedly pained look on the monk's face at that answer. Wally was acting as if that was a completely natural response. Sanzo didn't see how it would be under any normal circumstances. Even his ward could sit still at times; it was the babbling that didn't stop.

Yeah, Wally'd stopped moving, but just barely, before he was back at it. It was draining just watching the man.

"Yeah, I like moving around and doing things all the time. Sitting still with nothing to do is just boring, and even if you have something to do, it can still be really boring. Gimme outside any day." Wally grinned broadly again and winked before suddenly flopping down on the grass near Sanzo.

To be honest, even Wally knew he wasn't normally this bad with wanting to keep moving, but with how long it had been since he had really, really gone running, he was having serious trouble with not just running a few laps around the other patient. Which probably wouldn't go down well.

"Talking to new people is interesting though," he said from his new position. "So, if you think wanting to run around is weird, what do you do for fun?"

Of course, even if he was now seated, Wally was never still for longer than a moment or two if he could help it, and the current method of keeping himself interested without pacing around in circles or running laps seemed to be picking at the grass as he stared up at Sanzo.

Sanzo looked down at him dubiously, even as Wally finally sat down suddenly. The monk didn't follow suite just. He wasn't even sure what to make of Wally just yet. He was strangely carefree for someone stuck in this prison; it pointed towards the fact that he might be more well-adjusted than most of the others here.

"I don't see how a little peace and quiet would be boring." Even if Wally showed the rare ability to actually multi-task, it was bordering on overkill.

Sanzo sighed silently and looked out over the field, at the wall.

"I meditate." This was seeming familiar, except Wally didn't seem nearly as immmature was Kid. But he didn't exactly do much that he'd consider fun. Relaxing, maybe. Reading and smoking by himself, drinking had its merits sometimes.

"I didn't say peace and quiet is boring," Wally corrected. "I said sitting still is boring. It's kind of complicated for me. I guess you can just say that I'm a really active guy."

Sanzo didn't seem to want to sit down, so Wally bounced back up to his feet a moment later, stretching out his arms over his head and following the other patient's gaze to... the wall?

"Really? Meditation? I have a friend who does something like that. It's kind of cool." Mostly because J'onn's eyes glowed when he was doing anything like that and he was often distracted enough that he didn't notice minor changes around him. Like the Flash turning off the lights the get the full effect of glowing red eyes in the shadows. Somehow he didn't think Sanzo's eyes did anything like that.

"I don't think I'd be that good at it though. My legs end up falling asleep and then the rest of me does the same. Then you wake up with pins and needles everywhere." Just the thought made his muscles ache a little, so he stretched them out again.

"So, staring at the wall for any reason?"

Yeah, he was getting that.

"You must be doing it wrong then." He'd rarely ever had limbs (completely) fall asleep. Or maybe he'd just gotten past the discomfort. It was hard to say at this point. Meditating was something that was second nature. He was still trying to get it down to where he could do it in the jeep with the two idiots behind him going at it; it didn't usually work.

Sanzo glanced at him as Wally shifted back up to his feet again.

"...I'm tired of being stuck behind them." Sanzo admitted. He wasn't the only one frustrated at being trapped here. It wasn't like the sutra was keeping him here anymore; he'd finally gotten it back. But now Goku and Hakkai were off somewhere. The Head Doctor was still alive. "Someone needs to put Landel down. It's the only way this is going to end."

"Probably," he said. "But that's fine. I have my own ways of winding down, so it's okay."

Wally went quiet for a couple moments as he held a stretch, staring at the wall as well. "I'd say that maybe you should try getting over and outside tonight," he said eventually. "But I've heard that doesn't help much. It seems like the real walls to this place are a lot bigger and a lot further away than those ones."

His brow furrowed as Sanzo spoke again. "I agree that Landel needs to be stopped, but I don't know about 'putting him down'. It sounds too much like killing him. Besides, has anyone actually seen the guy? He could be anywhere or anyone. How would you even find him?"

That was news to him. Sanzo hadn't kept nearly the same tabs on anything related to the walls since he'd started the search for the sutra. The only thing of note he'd heard recently were rumors that the walls could be scaled now. Interesting to know.

Sanzo's look was a cool one. "Killing him is exactly what I meant." It was the only way to be sure that he couldn't continue this. There was a good chance he wasn't doing this alone, but as it stood, Landel was the very representation and hand behind the prison. Cutting off the head might be enough to throw the others into chaos.

"People have seen him before. He showed his face during the day to give a speech to the prisoner body earlier." Finding him was a good question. The only place Sanzo knew for sure that he'd show was the South Hall, but there had to be other places the man lurked. He didn't sit there all night. He had to have an office somewhere.

Wally frowned. That hadn't been the answer he was expecting. "Hey, I get that what he's doing is wrong and that you have every reason to be mad about it all, but don't you think that killing is taking it a little too far? We can't go around saying who deserves to live and die. It's not right."

And it didn't help any that apparently Sanzo knew exactly what Landel looked like, which was what Bats had told him to look into. Wally just hadn't thought that he'd find anyone who'd actually seen Landel, and especially not when he was trying to relax and work out some extra energy. So much for this being a good day.

"You've seen him?" he asked, both curious and slightly doubtful. "What's he look like?"

Sanzo didn't see the point of adhering to that. The rat-bastard certainly didn't follow any real rules.

There were a lot of things 'not right' in the world. The only constant was 'kill or be killed'. The ones left standing were the ones with the will to survive; there wouldn't be any discrimination between good and evil. The gods certainly weren't going to help them, and Sanzo wasn't going to wait around. This needed to be taken care of.

"Maybe you haven't seen the way he fucks with people. He's been torturing and killing prisoners here. He's been messing with the taboo." Sanzo still hadn't caught a glimpse of exactly how they were doing it, but he was willing to bet that half the creatures here weren't naturally occuring. He was a good example himself of what Landel had done. Sanzo's lip thinned into a line. "The man's a sick prick. Talking to him won't solve anything, and he'll keep on doing this. It's a game to him. You can't reason with that."

As much as Sanzo hated getting sidetracked, this was far too dangerous to leave alone and move on.

He glanced out at the other patients.

"Dark hair and dark eyes. Tall. A charismatic son of a bitch." It was hard pinning down exactly how to describe Landel. The fucker was smug, confident in his superiority.

Okay, so he had a bit of a description to go off, which was more than Bats had probably expected him to find so soon after the last time they'd spoken. "But how do you know it was him?" he asked. "I mean, I don't wanna be a huge sceptic or anything, but I've been here nearly a week and I haven't seen him anywhere. How do you know it wasn't someone pretending to be him just to mess with you? What if you killed the wrong person?

"Look, I agree that what he's doing here is wrong, and I've seen some of the effects myself. But that still doesn't give us the right to act like executioners! There's got to be another way to stop it all without having to kill people." There always had to be another way, he believed. It was just that sometimes the other way was harder than killing someone, so it was easier to justify it than to come up with an alternative. And he'd seen how justifying things like that could lead to just doing them more and more...

No. If it was at all possible, he was going to make sure no one made that mistake.

"You can't know for sure what will work and what won't. And besides, if we lock him up, then he can't hurt anyone else. That's why we have prisons after all." Something Sanzo had said caught up to him.

"What's the taboo?"

"I'm absolutely sure it's him." Sanzo said simply. Landel hadn't exactly made too many appearances (or any) during the dayshift, so it wasn't surprising that Wally hadn't seen him. Not since that speech in the Chapel. Something had happened between Landel and Jack after that; either he'd killed the man himself or gotten someone to do it for him. But he'd seen him that night in the arena, and everything about the man just cemented who he was. "There's no decoy, no games. It's him."

He listened silently as Wally spoke. It was idealistic, and in Sanzo's mind, incredibly naive. Considering how the world was, it was always something of a surprise to find people (honestly) like this. Surprising still that they were still alive.

"Tch, prisons aren't absolute. They can be broken out of. People can be bribed." He didn't have faith in the average person, period. And Landel was slippery; the monk could see him worming out just by words alone. It was too risky. "You want to bend over and keep taking it? Let him continue killing people?"

That's exactly what this was coming down to. There were cases were law, courts could settle things, like the affair with Cho Gonou. That had been an act born from grief. But Landel wasn't the same; the entire thing reeked of something else. It was calculated, deliberate.

Sanzo continued. "The mixing of magic with science. Or whatever you want to call it. Either way, he's tampering with the laws of nature," more like giving the gods and nature a giant middle finger. "He's able to pull people here who've died. The creatures roaming the hall are potentially spawned from patient experiments."

That last was still a hunch, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense with the dissappearances, special counciling and experimentations.

Sanzo sounded really sure about it, so Wally didn't push the issue. Besides, it was more than he'd been able to find on his own before now. "But even if you know what he looks like," he said, "how will you be able to find him? It's not like the guy has an office anywhere we can find. Or at least from what I've heard."

Of course, judging from what Sanzo was saying, Wally doubted that would really stop the other guy. But he had to try.

"No, I don't want to let him do anything! But there's other ways to get around it without killing him. My world has prisons designed for people with powers and things. Something like that could hold him. And we could destroy whatever he's using to bring people here so that he couldn't do it anymore. Killing people isn't the only solution." It was something Wally had always believed in his heart, and he wasn't going to let someone like Landel change that about him. It would be too much like letting this place win and he'd rather stand by his morals, even if people like Sanzo thought they were stupid, than become something that he wasn't.

"Look, I know that what he's doing here is... Well it's wrong and twisted and upsetting and it really hurts people. I want it to stop, but if we kill him... What's to stop us from becoming like him?"

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Day 40: Recreational Field

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