Day 42, Noon: The Twin Pine Restaurant

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie took the long way around, practically making it a tour of the entire town. She collared--not literally, since the nurses would've thrown fits--a few random citizens along the way, asked as many inconspicuous sounding questions as possible, and then moved on. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sneaking a few covert glimpses into stores and windows confirmed what she'd been talking about with Sam earlier; no dates, no explicitly mentioned locations outside of the town itself… how weird was that? Even the most insular of towns back on Gaia would've coughed up some kind of connection with the outside world.

It was almost like a living ghost town.

Well, maybe she was just thinking too hard. Maybe she was throwing shuriken too hard at the wrong target. Back home, she had a concrete frame of reference. Here, she couldn't take anything for granted; she had no local or international knowledge whatsoever. All she could try to do was get a profile of the immediate area and build it up and out from there. Theories were already budding, popping up like weeds hit by Quadra-Haste, but without facts to back them up, theories were like sand in a desert.

Not that she didn't want to share those theories, sand or not. She did. A lot.

Once she'd developed a viable mental map of the place (as viable as she was gonna get given the time constraints), Yuffie swung back around and jogged back to North Street. From there, she took the alley; a quick right turn; slow to a trot, and there. Her cheeks were tinged pink from the cold winter air, and they stung as she poked her head in through the door.

Okay, so maybe she was a little early after all. That was cool. Very cool. She had some time to set things up, to pretend that she wasn't hideously under prepared for this lunch date. Stepping into the warmth, Yuffie surreptitiously cased the place out as she headed to a table. Homey, in a way that almost reminded her of some of the up-and-coming rural towns. Automatically seeking out one of the more strategic seats--one with a good view of the rest of the restaurant, and one that didn't leave her totally vulnerable to mutant chairs or murderous sandwiches--she made herself comfortable, whipped out a few crumpled pieces of paper and a pen, and began to jot down her findings.

[Closed to Edgeworth.]

Comments

[aleaderwillrise.livejournal.com]

Peter sounded pretty damn sure of all of this, and the longer Nathan thought about it, the more he realized that, ten minutes ago, he thought Peter was dead, gone, forever. And the first thing he did when he got Peter back was question what he said to him? His eyes moved to the table, studying the wood grain there, turning everything quickly over in his mind.

"Okay," he said, finally, giving in and going along for now. He knew already that he'd have to think more about this later, when Peter was practically staring him down with that serious expression on his face. Still, he had to admit that Peter had been here longer, and probably knew more than Nathan did, for now. He needed to back off just a little and listen to what Peter had to say. "Well, I definitely don't remember that. Either of that." He hesitated, lifting a hand to rub at his chin, noting absently the small marks of stubble already growing in there.

Harrison Campbell. A weird name. It wasn't strange on its own -- it sounded practically plain, really, and very all-American -- but Nathan couldn't imagine it belonging to him. "They're calling me that, though." He frowned. "The, ah, nurses. What, you think they're trying to brainwash me again or something?"

Nathan did not like the idea of being somebody's plaything one little bit.

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

If Nathan really remembered none of it, then maybe Peter's visitor had been a fake after all. Peter found that hard to swallow, and he didn't like the idea that he'd been working to save someone who wasn't really his brother in the first place, but he knew that having Nathan back now outweighed all of that. He'd just have to put it behind him and keep going.

Peter could understand Nathan's concern about the name, but he quickly shook his head. "Everyone gets called by weird names. I'm Ethan Campbell to them," he explained. "We can only hope they don't do anything like that again." If they had done it in the first place -- now he really couldn't be sure. He knew they were at least capable of abducting people from different spots in time and space, limiting their powers, and even wiping their memories, though. That was enough to worry about.

"Anyway, can you tell me what else you've found out about this place so far?" Peter was fully prepared to tell Nathan everything he knew, but there wasn't much point in repeating things Nathan had already figured out for himself.

Peter's hand brushed over the menu and he remembered that they were also supposed to be eating. He picked it up and gave his brother a sheepish look. "You should also find something you want," he suggested.