damned_institute | Day 46: Sun Room

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Day 46: Sun Room

Peter woke up suddenly, his body twisting in the bed and then forcing him to catch his breath in pain. Pain, which was coming from his middle because of the thing that had scratched him last night, and after that...

After that, Zach had jumped in front of him like some kind of martyr, like the exact opposite of everything Sylar stood for, to take the next hit for him. It got pretty fuzzy after that, so night must have ended right around then.

The man let out a pained grunt as he straightened himself up in bed. For some reason, he got the feeling that he'd slept in. There was no way for him to really tell without a window in the room, but he just knew. The fact that Sam's bed looked long since vacated was another clue.

Sam, but was he Sam again? Had the brainwashing worn off, as he and Roland had hoped, or was he going to have to go through this nightmare for even longer? He didn't know how long he could handle "Zach" and "Harrison" before he started going batty himself.

Pulling himself out of bed, Peter lifted his shirt and saw that he was tightly bandaged. The scratch most likely wasn't nearly as bad as the bite that "Zach" had received, but it still smarted. He let his shirt fall and then had to deal with a nurse chiding him for sleeping through the morning announcements. Not that Peter really cared at the moment. He was too busy thinking about last night and the fact that in a way, he now owed something to Sylar. Except it hadn't been Sylar. That was something he was sure of now.

Lost in his thoughts, Peter reached the Sun Room right as the rest of the patient populace was trickling in from breakfast. Sighing to himself, he headed over to the bulletin board and then saw a note written in familiar yet unpleasant handwriting. Holding his pen in a vice grip, Peter scribbled out a reply and then stalked over to an armchair and fell into it with a huff.

While Sylar was maddeningly frustrating, there was one good thing about the fact that he was himself again. It meant that Nathan was too.

[For Spock!]

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Ryoji was relieved to hear that Minato was okay, but he hadn't realized that's what Junpei had meant. But for some reason... the idea of that guy fighting something didn't really surprise him that much. He couldn't put his finger on why; it was somehow easy to imagine him fighting (would he use a sword? That seemed to fit the mental image, but so did a gun...), and so he laughed.

“Then maybe I should have asked instead if the people he fought are okay?” he asked cheerfully. “I'm glad to hear he's alright, though. I take it he's not brainwashed now?”

Ryoji was taking this far better than Junpei had expected. Well, he might as well move onto the stickier parts.

"Yeah, he's fine and I think everyone he fought's okay." He paused. "Ryoji... there's something I need to tell you about Minato... and me. And Yuka-tan."

How he kept losing so much time, he didn't know. After running into Ken, Aya still refused to even consider thinking of him as 'Andrew', he'd tried to find Yohji and make sure the same fate hadn't befallen his other teammate with no success. Another bruise to nurse in the myriad of blemishes continuing to build over his perception of usefulness.

When morning came around again Aya was determined to see what he could do to break Landel's hold over Ken. At least today he was more successful in tracking the other man down. Aya steeled himself, pushing down that flickering flare of anger over the words exchanged during their last conversation.

He'd do whatever it took to break all of them free from this place. Ken, Yohji... and his sister.

"Ken." Just to set things straight, right off the bat. He wasn't going to coddle the fake identity Landel's had painted on, but he was going to try to keep this conversation from devolving into flying fists once again. That last punch had been pretty solid and it hadn't done much good. No use injuring Ken even more.

Aya watched his teammate, waiting for the twitch or wince which would tell him how to continue on. He blinked, noticing the cat in Ken's lap since the thing was starting to purr up a storm with all the attention given. Cats...?

"Well, in that case, you'll just hafta improvise. I'm pretty laid-back, though; I'm sure you'll be able to figure something out." To be honest, Xigbar was having quite the amusing time of yanking the soldier's chain, but he wasn't going to admit it. Not when hearing that confusion made him want to snigger.

Kurt's question brought on a stretch of silence. Words stopped dead still in his throat as he recalled the so-called 'Immunization Clinic' of so long ago. Then Alex went and suggested that the two of them could act as bait, to which Peter could only respond with a withering glare.

"Okay, has anybody actually confirmed this 'virgin-eating bird' thing?" He wiggled his fingers at the phrase in his most exaggerated display of skepticism yet. "Maybe they just go for the skinny little sick ones because they're easier to carry, and it's got nothing to do with that at all. Or like, old people are chewier. I don't know. How can they even tell if you've danced the horizontal hustle anyway?" He gave a derisive snort and moved on.

"Yeah, sure. Um, gimme a sec," he muttered, fishing out a folded sheet of paper and a pen he used for the bulletin from his pocket, scrawling out a list on his knee. But Alex's next remark gave him pause, the pen stopping halfway through crossing a T.

"Terry?" The other boy had his full attention. It wasn't so much a surprise that he'd been using a fake name as it was for why he was doing it. "Why would they call you by your real name, but give everybody else a new one? That makes no sense." He blinked for a moment, running through the possibilities. "Have you checked your file? Because-"

The intercom sounded off. Nurses swooped in and began carting the patients away. Peter swore under his breath and looked at his list in despair. He'd barely even gotten started.

Nonetheless, he tore it off the page and passed it to Kurt. There were only six items on it, each longer and more impossible to pronounce than the last. Things that he'd usually have to pay a pretty penny for, or even order in the mail, so the likelihood of finding them in a mental institution? Somewhere next to zero, but he couldn't afford give up hope that easily.

"Crap. Okay, um, here's the first few ingredients. Don't worry if you can't find them all, some things I can fudge or extract from another couple of chemicals, depending on what equipment they have. And be really careful, these last two are caustic like crazy. I'd even use gloves to grab the containers in case some dripped down the side. There's a reason why you can't find this stuff in a classroom lab." He saw his nurse approaching, and stood to meet her before she could catch the end of their conversation.

"I'll see you guys later, all right?"

He'd expected disbelief, but it was still painful to watch since he knew that look. He knew what it meant, what exactly these lies of his had done. And there was no easy way to say 'yes' to his twin's eventual statement; saying it wasn't intentional was just a bunch of bullshit, because he'd definitely made the conscious choice to hide information about when exactly he was from. It was always easy to keep lying, but he'd already fessed up on one thing; it'd be pointless to keep hiding things now.

There was a single, hesitant nod, and the redhead's mouth suddenly felt very dry. Saying his time had been simple enough. Correcting everything else that had resulted from the time difference would be difficult. "I just thought the earring would look cool," he started, opting for the simpler answer first. He wouldn't say the entire reason, that it had helped him to see himself as more than Rubedo, to more completely immerse himself in his alias. But in the end, it all boiled down to how cool he thought it'd look.

"And I've been perfecting my shot for a long time now. I've got a collection of guns when I come from. Antique handguns, and they're all..." Junior trailed off, realizing that now wasn't the time for getting into the details of his hobby. Albedo had wanted an answer, and it had just kind of started to come out once he'd started explaining. "So that's how I know what's what, and what kind I picked up in the basement. I taught myself the differences."

Definitely new if she wasn't used to the idea of different worlds - or from a place that didn't have a theory of parallel universes and interstellar travel. Ritsuka's world certainly didn't have that yet, but there was always talk buzzing about it online and in the newspapers. Probes were being sent into space and movies about aliens were rampant. Another thing: Yuna was apparently accustomed to monsters, or fiends as she called them. She seemed surprised that he wouldn't be, which made Ritsuka wonder if this girl lived in a video game-like world.

That'd be kind of cool, he supposed. Except for the part where there was no reset button if he screwed up and got dragged into a lake by a giant monster and drowned or something.

"Uh...no. They're only in stories and books and things." He didn't want to say they were imaginary or that his world was more advanced or anything. That would just be rude. "You'll find a lot of people here come from worlds different than your own. Some places have moved out into space, some are pretty far in the past, all kinds of things."

“Oh?” Ryoji's curiosity was piqued. Junpei was his friend, and so were Minato and Yukari (sort of), so if there was something Junpei thought he needed to know about them, he was all ears. “What is it, Junpei-kun?”

Usopp finally dropped the grin for a slight frown. That must have been another one of the ways people were weaker here, as Sai had said last night. Chopper's abilities made it easier for Usopp, especially as this wasn't exactly the strangest shape he'd seen Chopper in by a long shot, but losing the ability to change shapes entirely had to be strange too. Brushing that off with a cheery lie didn't feel right, but Chopper's mood seemed to have improved anyway, so Usopp relaxed a bit.

"Okay. If I meet someone who looks like Zoro, I'll just ask some cleverly leading questions to make sure it's Zoro first. And if someone who looks like Zoro comes up to me, it's probably Zoro anyway, right?"

The nurses looked ready to start mobilizing again, so Usopp looked back to Chopper with a little regret. "I think they're going to ship us off to the next thing soon. I'm glad I found you, though!" Even if Chopper had technically found him. "Maybe we can all have a big meetin... meety some night. Brook suggested one this morning."

"I don't know what you mean." This was so confusing, but like everything else, he just chalked it up to the fact that Xigbar wasn't military. But still, this seemed even more befuddling than normal, especially when he thought he'd finally been getting a handle on this stuff.

Huh? Nigredo shot an incredulous look, the former strain becoming caution in an instance. People did not trade information for benign, selfless reasons, himself included. And what could someone like Nigredo offer in terms of facts that would interest another? He suddenly didn't want to know.

"...What kind of questions?" the boy asked.

The way Axel phrased it -- "have them go against each other" -- didn't really sit well with Zack, but he might have just been sensitive or misinterpreting. He'd seen his fair share of friends who ended up fighting one another because of circumstances, and while he knew this was much more minor, it still snagged at him.

"Well, I don't want to set up some sort of deathmatch," he pointed out with a smirk. Besides, how were they supposed to convince anyone to do things like that? He had no problem with gathering information, but getting others involved seemed like it might be going a little too far. Ahh, or maybe he was just being a spoilsport?

The prize was another matter. Both of those things sounded pretty good right about now, and he laughed in return. "Not sure if they've got coffee here, but I guess a foot massage could be arranged." In fact, Zack wasn't sure when the last time was that he'd gotten pampered like that. Most SOLDIERs were a bit too macho to admit they were any good at that sort of thing.

That sounded fun! Stories and books and things...would be great if no one became fiends. At least...at least...Sin...would become just a story, with time.

"So I'm coming to realize," Yuna replied, smiling into her hand. "What kind of world do you come from, Ritsuka?"

ZEX listened patiently to his somewhat halting explanation, although it gave him a very strange mental image. So monkeys had tails then, like VUX? Interesting.

He smiled more naturally though at Sech's enthusiasm for a battle. "Hee! Hee! Hee! Well then, in that case we'll definitely have to arrange it. I wonder if you'd be more suited to piloting an Earthling Cruiser or a VUX Intruder?" ZEX had wondered idly about how a human would go about piloting his ship, but they'd really just been glancing thoughts. He hadn't given the matter deep thought, exactly.

If nothing else, at least their discussion had somewhat lightened his mood, and being flirtatious was something that felt comfortable and familiar. "Yes, I don't think the nurses would approve of what I'd hope for us to exchange." Still leering at him. "It's something better discussed in the dark, I believe. If your room is too busy, you can always come to mine... I'm in Room M66." And if ZEX was kidnapped again, hopefully this time someone would know and do something about it.

Asking leading questions to make sure it's Zoro... “That's a great idea!” Chopper cheered. As expected of Usopp! And of course, there would be no reason for Jean to approach Usopp, so it probably would be Zoro in that case!

Chopper glanced at the Cat Ladies running around; it did look like they were starting to take people to lunch... That was a shame, but at least he'd gotten to talk to Usopp today. “Yeah, another meety would be great! It's been too long since we got together last time!”

Suspicious, wasn't he? It was a good trait to have, but it crossed a line somewhere that one so young--no matter what he was--had deemed it necessary to keep. It was a matter of survival with Digimon--but not all creatures were created only to fight. Renamon kept her expression peaceful, but she supposed it wouldn't matter if the boy was truly distrustful. Nigredo, was it? The boy was discerning.

A large part of her respected that, even at odds as she was in her judgment. Perhaps, because of that, the Digimon didn't add any human tact to her explanation. Truth, it would be. Nigredo could take it as he would. "I'm curious about other worlds," she said evenly. "And you're not entirely human, and I'm interested in that as well." She watched him, teal eyes comfortably neutral. "And I'll put forward whatever you wish as well."

Junpei fidgeted a bit before continuing. "NBow, you're probably not going to believe me, but I'm not lying, okay dude? But back home there's this extra hour at midnight called the Dark Hour that most people don't know exists. During the Dark Hour, Shadows come out and attack people. They're the real cause behind Apathy Syndrome."

Steeling himself for the instant disbelief he figured was coming, he said, "There are some of us, me, Minato, Yuka-tan, Mitsuru-senpia, Akihiko-senpai, and some others, that have this ability to fight the Shadows. We call it Persona. It's a manifestation of our psyche and lets us cast magic and stuff. Like, I can set stuff on fire with my Persona."

The was logic and then there was simply emotions. There was something like anger bubbling, something like tears threatening, something like a light bulb flashing and feet running. There was too much in this. Rubedo had stopped saying what Albedo had asked--he had simply seemed to ramble, explanations that had seemed important and now suddenly they weren't. They weren't important at all. They weren't. On his knee, his right fist clenched.

"You lied to me!" Because angry was so much easier than tears. Albedo glared up at his twin, noticing the nurse close-by in a moment, shaking her finger at his yell. He swallowed the rest down on instinct, something prompting what was left of rationality. There were still holes. He still needed to understand. He still needed to--

His breath was sharp on the intake, and he looked away, unable to keep his rage. What had happened to all the joy he had harbored? Had it flew so quickly in the face of the unknown? Oh, so weak. How weak he was. "That doesn't make sense," he whispered angrily, his voice harsh and hurt. "You're still the same age."

"Mr. Dent," von Karma nodded as he gave his seatmate's hand a firm, businesslike shake before releasing it. He was about to go through the customary motion of declaring this a "pleasure" when Mr. Dent asked him the last question he cared to answer right now. Blast it!

Still, as the older man strove to conceal his dismay, he had to admit to himself that this Mr. Dent wasn't merely an ordinary patient with the intelligence to match. Something about how the man queried him was reminiscent of his days in the courtroom. von Karma couldn't quite put his finger on it just yet, but until he was certain of just who this man was, he would have to exercise more caution around him.

After a moment of quiet deliberation, von Karma responded in a calm and steady voice, his face betraying no emotion as he looked straight at Mr. Dent. "No, I avoided their attacks, thankfully. The one accompanying me that night was less fortunate. However, aside from a nasty wound, he seemed to have suffered from none of the alleged ill effects mentioned on the board. It all sounded like poppycock to me, anyway," he scoffed. "Have you happened to encounter anyone who actually has suffered from those effects?"

Minato nodded slowly at the instructions, keeping his head down once he had a better idea of what the woman looked like. "I can do that." He had no idea how, but if she was able to get her hands on a big knife like the one she had thrown at him, he could find something if he searched the institute more. Maybe the kitchen. That could explain why she had been trying to get past him in the Sun Room.

"I'll get it as soon as I can."

"Good." One least item to acquire herself. Hopefully, the boy was resourceful. She was curious, though.

"What was that thing last night? It is a rare person that can take a bullet to the head and survive," she said with a light tap to the barely visible metal plate in the side of her head.

Another dimension and another Legion then. He'd been in favour of that explanation, since it had seemed the most likely. The different team line up and minor details Robin had mentioned were reinforced and clarified by Impulse's information. Though some of it was... unsettling.

The draft was a major part of that. While his Legion was still funded by the UP, there'd been no suggestions of doing anything like that, and Brainiac 5 imagined that it would only cause problems if the suggestion had been put forward. Another factor was how the Legion both Impulse and Robin had met was not inspired as heavily by Superman himself, so it was entirely likely that, if anything had happened to their Clark before he'd become the hero of legend, then the Legion wouldn't be as affected.

"Thank you, Impulse," Brainiac 5 said distractedly. "That helps a lot with what I was concerned with... was there anything else you think might be important to mention?"

Unknown. She wasn't really surprised. The second child could understand Shinji being here, but her presence was clearly a mistake. But to have caught all three of them... something didn't add up. So then maybe the patients weren't supposed to know the reason for capture. It made it all the more terrifying for the victims, knowing this could all just be for appeasing a sick fetish of their kidnappers. Yeah, pretty terrifying, she had to admit.

"His [i]destiny[/i]?" Whatever Kaworu had alluded to concerning her 'survival' was forgotten for this more alarming information. Shinji had a destiny, huh? Well, if it encompassed his usual cowering for survival then he was right on track and Asuka wouldn't lose sleep over it. But these experiments didn't sound very settling. "Mmmm..." The redhead doubted they were anything simple like NERV's experiments, but she looked to the white-haired boy for more information. If he had any.

The term "not entirely human" confirmed two truths: Renamon somehow knew he wasn't normal child, and the method she used to uncover said fact involved something beyond casual conversation. Nigredo had heard a few Realians had the capacity to scan the genetic map of living organisms; perhaps this held the same concept. Then again, with multiple planes of existence involved (as she so conveniently mentioned), she could be utilizing something else entirely.

In either case, Nigredo did not like the arrangements of this exchange. Likely because at this point, he had little choice in the matter. "What makes you say I'm not human?" he questioned, almost defeated.

Wait, had they actually mentioned anything about their mission? Now that he'd had a (subjective) minute to think about it, Bart wasn't so sure. He was pretty sure the phrase "technical failure" had been thrown around, though given how excited he'd been to actually meet some of the Legionnaires Jenni had told him about, he thought he could be forgiven for missing some of the little details.

He shook his head. "No, that's all I can think of. But I'll let you know if I remember anything else." Of course he and Brainy would be meeting up again later! They were practically teammates!

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Day 46: Sun Room

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