damned_institute | Day 22: Brunch

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Day 22: Brunch

Cid usually liked sleeping in, especially in a place as messed up and uninviting as this, but this happened to be one situation where he really wished he hadn't.

Right there, on the bulletin board. The Head Doctor and he'd fucking missed it? Some part of him wished he'd been there to take his eye out and another part of him knew he wouldn't have been able to. No man that powerful who hid for so long went to dangerous places without some kind of entourage.

Brunch sounded like it'd be filling, at least, though he nearly stopped in his tracks when the bastard announced TEA. TEA. It'd been a damn long while since he'd had some fucking tea, though with all the stress this place had found fit to rain down on his fucking head, it hadn't really been the first priority on his mind. Kinda nice, even if Cid was sure this was just some game the mother fucker was playing to get them all stuck neck-deep in Stockholm Syndrome.

He scanned the mostly-empty room for any sign of a familiar face once he'd piled waffles and sausages and syrup on his plate, though the person he really wanted to talk to was that Reynolds guy. "Spaceship" was the last word he remembered clearly before waking up in his bed, and dammit if he wasn't going to keep it stuck like glue in his mind.

He found a table where he could watch people come into the cafeteria and grabbed for his mug. The steam rising from his drink and the bag of herbs in it was nearly enough to make him grin despite it all, and it was with marked leisure and a little relief that he drank his goddamn tea.

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Reinforce sat with her tray, leaving her crutches propped against the table. To her ever-wary mind the younger man's 'for me' sounded a bit possessive, but his smile looked genuinely friendly enough. "I'm called Reinforce. Pleased to meet you, Yohji. You're from Japan?" She'd picked up on the reversal.

The older man was the reason she'd come here, but he seemed lost in thought so she'd give him a few minutes...

Qui-Gon happened to look up and caught Reinforce looking his way, as if she was expecting something from him.

"Qui-Gon Jinn," he introduced himself, glancing between Yohji and Reinforce.

He was still very concerned about Martin Landel, but felt that meditation on the matter was probably best reserved for a later time. Now he had to make sure he ate and provided the fuel his body needed to recover, both from the events of last night and his injury from his last day on Naboo. There wasn't anything he could do about the Void he had sensed around Landel at the moment anyway.

Yohji finally forced himself to eat a couple of blueberries before setting aside his spoon. His stomach protested and he turned an embarrassed smile to the other two. He gave a small bow to both of them. Politeness seemed to be a better idea here instead of trying to get away with his normal behaviour.

"Yeah, I'm from Japan," he replied. "Yokohama originally, Tokyo later on." He stared down at the food for a moment before pushing the plate aside. "You?"

"I wasn't born in Japan, but I lived in Uminari. I found myself there, so it's very close to my heart." Really, she danced around the truth the same as Schuldig... but it was her truth. Her right.

Reinforce's attention returned to Qui-Gon. "I'm honored." She didn't know that she should be, of course, but he had an air of tranquility about him that she found admirable, especially in the midst of this chaos. Like Signum, though she doubted they had much else in common.

Well, that was the problem with having such a small world to reference. She proceeded to her question without preamble. "Have you been here a long time? Your age sets you apart from the others."

Qui-Gon couldn't say he heard about Japan or any of the places they had listed. And he didn't expect them to recognize where he came from, but it was only common courtesy to return the favor of introductions.

"I'm from Coruscant," Qui-Gon said. "The Republic."

The graying Jedi took a small bite of the sausage links - he wasn't hungry, but he needed to eat and he wanted to heal. Doing so required that he eat even if he felt slightly nauseated at the prospect of eating the entire plate. Being so close to Martin Landel had left a bad taste in his mouth and left his appetite wanting.

He was considerably surprised that Reinforce got to the point and was rather...blunt about the matter of his age. Qui-Gon didn't harbor any wishes to be younger, but he did have to admit his body simply was not as capable as it used to be, and joints sometimes became stiff in ways they hadn't before. It was hard to keep up with the likes of Obi-Wan these days. His advanced years was a valid question though, and looking around, he did see how he could stand out when everyone seemed to be at least half his age.

"I haven't been here a long time, actually," Qui-Gon replied. A few days, maybe? It had seemed like only a while ago that he had woken up from his last memory - apparently dying in Obi-Wan's arms - and mistook Landels for some kind of honest medical facility. It seemed like a foolish mistake now that he looked back on it, but he had been so surprised (and relieved) to be alive that he hadn't asked many questions. "I believe I've been here less than a standard week."

Yohji smiled at Reinforce, suddenly missing Japan, even if he'd never heard of the town she named. "Yeah, it's a nice place to live most of the time." He'd actually enjoyed travelling around in the van, seeing parts of Japan he'd never been to. Even if that had been where things really got bad.

He was a little surprised at Reinforce's bluntness, but she seemed young and not everywhere had the same attitude as Japan; he knew he'd been accused of rudeness enough.

He took a moment to glance over at where Aya was sitting, wincing at the sight. He shouldn't be here. And his last comment about being glad Yohji was alive... how could he believe it when Aya said it so emptily? He didn't need to bother with false words; Yohji would help him as he could, let Aya do whatever he wanted. He didn't need to pretend there was anything between them anymore except Yohji needing to pay for what he had done.

Reinforce completely missed their reactions to her phrasing and responded with a simple "Ah." She didn't intend to be rude, of course, but she didn't see why a valid question should be couched in unnecessary evasive phrasing.

She was a bit disappointed that her little thought hadn't borne any fruit. A week was longer than she'd been here, but hardly a generation. It seemed he was either an honest exception or a product of the same twisted Landelian reasoning she'd already given up on trying to analyze. Either way she wouldn't gain insight into the place from him.

Of course, people could be interesting in their own rights. As far as she knew there was no 'Republic' that named itself so simply on Earth. Could he be... "Coruscant is?"

"It's the Core of the Republic," Qui-Gon answered. "It's a city-planet, essentially. The Republic is made up of thousands of planets and systems."

He had explained about Coruscant before - to Renji, he believed - but it seemed that those he told about it found the idea of a planet's surface entirely covered by city to be hard to swallow. Or even downright alarming. Qui-Gon admitted that it was hardly the pure, gleaming jewel of the Republic (contrary to Coruscant's public relations would have you believe) and that there was a great deal of corruption and violence in its upper and lower levels that not even the Jedi could combat...yet it was still the closest thing he had to home.

Coruscant? Yohji was kind of glad that Reinforce had asked because he certainly didn't have a clue. "Thousands of... planets?" His eyes widened as Qui-Gon said that. But that... it wasn't possible! Humans weren't that advanced! Then again, hadn't Cliff hinted as much with his talk of women crossing space for him?

"I'm used to weird things," he said softly, "but this is..." He rubbed at his temples for a moment, feeling a headache coming on. Demon ressurections, psychics, clones... those he could deal with, why should this be so different?

"It sounds like some legend of Alhazred..." Midchilda and the Administration Bureau had hundreds of outposts, and surveyed and kept order amongst thousands of worlds, but it hardly governed them all. Neither had Belkan rule encompassed nearly so many...

How could she, the living archive of Belka, have no knowledge of such a vast coalition? Just how far-flung were the spaces the patients were taken from?

She was surprised at Yohji's comment too. "Are you? Like what?" If he was a mage she hoped he hadn't been a victim of her Knights. That would be a little hard to explain, and for their sake she'd have to.

Qui-Gon was still surprised to see that the idea of other systems seemed almost foreign, mythical, even, to the others he came across here. Even the most unadvanced civilizations had known about the existance of other planets, other life, and had certainly had an inkling about the Republic, seeing as Jedi help or advice had been requested.

But it was true that the universe was a very large place indeed, and even the far-flung Republic was surrounded by what had been named the Wilds - the unknown, where exploration parties went and vanished, more often than not, to never be heard of again.

He simply nodded. Perhaps Coruscant and the Republic were like some legend of this "Alhazred" that Reinforce mentioned, if it helped them to understand the idea of countless systems and other intelligent beings on them. Lacing his fingers together before him, as finished with his plate heaped with food as he could be, the Jedi Master turned his attention to Yohji.

Yohji shifted slightly when all the attention turned to him, a little uncomfortably, like he was being interrogated. He ran a hand through his hair and then rested his arms on the table, nodding to Reinforce.

"Like a girl who was in a coma for two years but didn't age a single day during that time." He took a breath, forcing himself to continue into the more bizarre aspect of his job; things he hadn't thought possible before he'd joined Weiss. "Psychics; a kid who could stop bullets in mid-air or throw you across a room with a thought. Others who could read minds or see the future. Demon ressurections," he smiled ruefully at that one, still not entirely convinced that it would actually have worked, despite some of the evidence. "People being turned into monsters."

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "And before I was sent here, clones with the power of a god, nearly." Hell, it sounded crazy even to his own ears and he'd lived through it. Maybe he was crazier than he'd thought.

A thought that had been nagging her since she talked to Ed was suddenly nagging a lot harder. There were effects that might be mistaken for the seemingly occult events he described in magic, but that level of activity would have attracted her Knights... she wasn't sure everything he said couldn't have happened, but it seemed impossible that she knew nothing about it.

"Did you ever see anything like this?" As she had for Nowe she cupped her hands and formed a small diagram, a glowing white symbol of power that floated weightlessly between her hands, slowly turning.

Yohji's eyes widened at the glow that seemed to come from the girl's hands suddenly. He leaned closer, staring at the symbol which seemed to be floating in the air. "What," he began, before blinking several times to make sure he wasn't seeing things. "What is that?"

He tilted his head to take a better look at it. How bizarre. Some kind of illusion? Maybe she was a psychic which would lend credence to this being an Esset facility. "I've never seen anything like that."

"It's magic for controlling magic." Reinforce answered thoughtlessly, letting the symbol fade into nothingness with a consterned look.

"There shouldn't be any strong magic not of that form on Earth." She hated the way this place defied reason. "But you say you're from Japan and have seen such things." Normally she would have just assumed he was deluded, but she'd already seen so many strange things here it'd seem wrong to do so now.

She was not the type of person who could just gloss over ignore a contradiction like that. This was going to keep bothering her....

Magic? "It... magic doesn't..." He bit his words off sharply because really, who in their right minds would believe in telepaths and monsters and demon ressurections if they hadn't been through what Weiss had been through? But that wasn't magic, not really. Probably. "It wasn't magic," he said finally. "It was science. Mutations of DNA and experiments and cloning. I've never seen magic. No-one I know on Earth has."

It would be so easy to deny that magic existed, but what he had just seen...

Such a similar reaction to Ed's. Something about the word 'magic' just seemed to bother people, as if it were necessarily excluded from reality- whatever there was in the world, wasn't magic. She considered just making up a new word for it, but the idea offended her sensibilities. Belkan magic was older than Yohji's civilization. She was older than his civilization. The word would remain.

"No one on Earth is supposed to." She felt tired. Was it not being able to put this together? "What I call magic is purposefully engineered and well-explained by scientifically derived principles. Whatever you call it, however it is created a power beyond the physical body's has to have a source. They should have that in common." And that was why her not knowing, the Administration Bureau not knowing about the incidents he described was impossible.

And at Landel's the impossible was disturbing rather than easily dismissed.

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Day 22: Brunch

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