damned_institute | Day 46: Lunch

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Day 46: Lunch

The mere fact that she'd been susceptible to whatever hold the Institute had had on her yesterday was sufficient to leave Ayumu both upset and angry - no, not angry, downright furious, both at herself and whoever was responsible for that. But there was also the fact that because of it, she'd lost out on an entire day of work, and in several ways had ruined some of what she'd done already. That little conversation with Himura the day before, for instance, was something she'd sincerely prefer not to remember if she'd had any choice in the matter.

Unless the man was a complete moron, which, unfortunately, was one thing she couldn't believe of him, he had to have realized just who her brother was. After all the effort to keep that fact quiet (not exactly a secret, but certainly not advertised; half the Shinsengumi probably never even realized it because there was no reason to) she'd gone and chatted about it with him. Told him all about it, practically painted a bright target around a weakness that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

She'd spent the shift in the Sun Room pretending to sleep, while in truth forcing herself into calm. After years of practice she could shunt away the useless and distracting emotions, focusing only on what was important and needed to be at the forefront of her mind, and by the time the intercom signaled the lunch period she was feeling considerably calmer. The time to silently observe others had, as well, alerted her to something she probably should have noticed earlier: Mello was back. Would her previous objective be reinstated now? He seemed to have far less of a bulletin presence this time, so perhaps not. Still, though, it bore investigating.

None of her thoughts were visible, of course, as she moved through the line, examining the lunch selection somewhat dubiously. Now with the benefit of Yuuko's memories she might recognize the food, but she certainly didn't share the enthusiasm for it that her imaginary self apparently had. Ayumu skipped past that part and settled for the salad bar and some bread, then positioned herself in a place where she could watch both the door and the rest of the room, setting her journal open in front of herself as though planning to write something. There was far too much that she'd missed, too much work to do now.

[for Okita]

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Okay, so that had been pretty cool. There might not be other Digimon here, but there were loads of people (well, two so far) who were actually giant robots. Sure, he knew some metal-type Digimon, but the idea of things like that from out in the Real World was a new and weird idea to him. Now, if only they weren't all jerks or grumpy old guys, then things would be great.

Actually, things were great anyway. He'd never had pizza before in his life, but now that he had, wow! Beelzemon started chomping on a pizza slice with enthusiasm. If there was one thing the Real World could do right, it was definitely food.

[Sylar! Come and get yer Digimon!]

While some of the information Wally had ended up spilling had already been obvious to Sylar from his previous observations, some of it... hadn't. For one thing, Clark Kent seemed to be out of the picture entirely at this point, which erased most of Sylar's original intent in befriending Wally in the first place. Disappointing, maybe, but it sounded like there were a hell of a lot of other interesting people who Wally knew. Maybe they'd show up again, like missing patients sometimes did, and if not, at least Sylar knew for a fact that he was closer to Wally than anyone else here. The man was becoming more and more malleable by the day, and soon he'd probably implicitly trust anything that came out of Sylar's mouth.

Sylar couldn't help but grin as he one-handedly set down a plate of pepperoni pizza and chips. Now, now, he was in a damn good mood. In fact, he was feeling so high in spirits that when he glanced up and saw the tattooed man in front of him gobbling down a slice himself, he smiled and said: "Good stuff, huh?"

Beelzemon looked up, at the new guy, swallowing a big bite of food. "Yeah! Never had this stuff before. 's great!" He wondered why Japan didn't have any of this stuff. Sure, Takato's mom and dad made really good bread, but this was different. Maybe even better, and that was saying a lot.

"'m Beelzemon," he said, for once remembering to introduce himself right from the get-go, but taking a moment longer to remember the handshake thing. He wiped a hand off on his pants, holding it out to the guy, giving him a big grin full of sharp, filed teeth.

Sylar paused when he heard the guy's voice. It was a strong Brooklyn accent, the kind that he sometimes heard from non-regulars who'd wandered into his shop back in the day. The voice matched the tats and general body language of the guy, but not the complete lack of knowledge about pizza, of all things. Was this another weird case of alternate dimensions or something?

In the end, Sylar didn't care that much about someone new after having gotten an 'old friend' under his thumb, so he easily gave a good-natured laugh as he watched the other man. "I'm Z–" he paused, then corrected himself: "–Gabriel. You know," he continued, leaning back in his chair as he grabbed a slice and took a bite off the edge, "I grew up in New York. I'm guessing you did too...?"

Beelzemon tilted his head just slightly to one side, confused when it looked like the new guy got his own name mixed up. Maybe he was one of the people who'd thought they were someone else yesterday too?

"Nice t' meetcha!" he replied, all loud cheerfulness. "Nah, 'm not from there," he only knew that New York existed thanks to being 'Derek' yesterday. Or that people thought it existed, he didn't know. "I'm from the Digital World. ...An' just goin' off of a pattern here, bet ya don't know what that is, huh." Things were so much easier when a big hole had opened up in the sky over Tokyo and then a giant program bent on world destruction had fallen out. Well, at least when it came to talking about stuff. Everyone he was going to know, knew about the Digital World.

[ Sorry for the wait! ;; ]

Other than a slight frown, the guy seemed as boisterous as any idiot could be when meeting a complete stranger. Of course, it didn't make any sense why someone who spoke with such a distinct accent would claim to not be from Brooklyn, but whatever. Maybe this "Digital World" was just some other curveball in Sylar's ever-changing Landel's world.

"No," he said with a casual smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. He took another bite of pizza. "I don't."

[Not a problem! We can backthread as much as you want, I'm up for it.]

D'aw, another one. This was starting to get to be a pain. "'s another world made outta computer data. 's difficult ta get to th' Real World from there--stuff like this, I mean--or th' other way round, but I've done it. An' lemme tell ya, it's weird ta be human this time." He wasn't real sure, but something here seemed a bit off. He just couldn't place it. Prolly nothin'. "Aaaand I'm gonna have ta explain that too, ain't I?"

It might've been hard for Sylar to understand everything that the guy was saying if he weren't so used to the accent, though that didn't mean he knew what the hell any of it actually meant. 'Computer data', being in the 'real world', being 'human'... It stunk of all the usual far-fetched stories that people here told, and at this point, they were blending together so well that it was getting hard to tell which were even worth pursuing.

But when a moron like this was handing out personal information on a silver platter, Sylar found he couldn't really say no to it. He continued to humor the man, frowning as if in confusion.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said mildly. He'd let the guy ramble on for now.

Great. Well, he was used to that look coming from Loz, so it wasn't like he wasn't going to answer. "I was made outta data too. A Digimon. Most everyone was really different from each other, so 's not like a bunch a humans runnin' around..."

Dah, this was hard to explain when he couldn't just show it. "Used ta have an extra eye an' wings an' a tail, but they just tattooed 'em on this thing," he gestured to where the tattoo was on his forehead. He'd only seen the thing once in the bathrooms, but it sorta made sense. Renamon had the symbols from her face and her gloves too, so...

Ah whatever. "An' I was loads stronger than a human. I mean, sheesh, even before I, uh," No, I ain't gonna go through explainin digivolving again. That's a pain. "Before I got stronger, I could throw fireballs, and those couldn't even scratch the guys that I could rip ta shreds now. Well, if I wasn' just human." And man did that piss him off. Okay, so there were a lot of things that could do that, but this was a big one.

Eyes and wings and tails and tattoos... and Digimon? Wasn't that... a fad that was really popular a few years back? 'Gotta catch 'em all' or whatever?

Either way, Sylar found himself paying more attention to his meal than he was to the guy's tall tale. He took up a handful of chips and let his teeth crunch them down and drown out the man as he gave the appearance of staring intently at him. In truth, the person who was really on his mind was Grell Sutcliffe, the bastard from earlier. The more seconds that ticked by, the more Sylar felt that letting the opportunity go would be a bad idea, all smug claims and weird flirting aside. Since Grell already knew he was a killer, there wasn't much more he could lose in terms of compromising himself, and he'd been looking for–

"I could throw fireballs..."

Sylar's attention suddenly snapped back to reality, and he found himself staring at the man in front of him with much sharper vision. He swallowed his mouthful of chips and gestured loosely with his hands, putting on an air of skepticism as he asked: "Wait – so you're saying you were some... thing that had... superpowers?"

If the way the guy had talking so far was any indication, he'd probably jump at the opportunity to defend the strength he'd previously wielded. Sylar couldn't help but smirk wryly as he recognized the irony of his logic.

Gaah. What was wrong with the humans here?! "Compared ta humans? Course I did!" Sheesh. What a maroon. "I--daah, whatever," He made a vaguely dismissive gesture, giving up. "I ain't gonna say it all again. This ain't worth it." Sure, he had his pride. ...Well, loads of it, but he'd always been liable to just decide it wasn't worth it. Usually with Pinapple Head, that little dinosaur was just too hard to talk to sometimes. That, or when Renamon was teasing him again.

Of course, now the loudmouth decided to shut up, and Sylar couldn't help his lip curling slightly in contempt. Still, he knew what he'd heard the words 'shooting fireballs', though whether or not this guy had been a fire-breathing dragon in another life had a lot to do with whether or not that information was of any use to Sylar.

"Sorry," he said with a soft chuckle, raising his good hand disarmingly. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just –" he paused, trying to think of a good angle of attack, and then continued: "–it's just that I used to be able to do... some stuff like that too."

Beelzemon glared at the guy, just daring him to escalate the thing. He might've been trying to be a better person, but that still didn't change the fact that if someone pissed him off badly enough he'd beat them over the head with the closest solid object.

And then things took a turn for the confusing. "Wha? A human doing that sorta stuff? How?" That didn't make any sense. None at all. Humans just helped Digimon digivolve and either keep them sane or drive them out of their heads. That was pretty much it. How could a human do things like a Digimon?

Looked like Sylar had regained the guy's attention. He shifted his eyes left and right, trying to look half nervous and half conspiratorial as he leaned forward on the table with his good elbow.

"Abilities," he said quietly. "You know, like... telekinesis?"

Not too much to make the guy feel threatened or outdone, but not too little to leave him unimpressed. Sylar let his mouth twist into a very sincere frown as he looked back at Beelzemon. "I'd show you, but... it doesn't work here." He paused and gestured at his tablemate. "How about you? If you're a human, do those fireball things... do they still work?"

And the moment of truth...

What? Couldn't Taomon do something like that? With one of her talisman thingies? That was... How could a human do something like that anyway?!

"Nah. 've been trying, but I got nothin'. Not even low-level stuff or... or what I absorbed from other Digimon." He didn't really want to talk about that, but it certainly seemed like Leomon didn't feel like helping him out this time at all, if he was still out there somewhere. He didn't know how that could be possible, but it had almost felt like it that one time...

Sylar nodded slowly, and though his frown deepened slightly, he tried to play it off as confusion rather than very crushing disappointment. Then again, what the man said as he continued was a little more intriguing.

"Absorbing...?" he asked as he arched an eyebrow. The 'Digimon' part he decided to ignore on the principle of the goddamn matter, but the rest of it sounded similar to what Peter Petrelli could do.

Beelzemon winced, running a hand through his hair. "I don' do it anymore, but... If a Digimon gets killed, then any Digimon there can load their data. Makes ya stronger, or gives ya their abilities." Sure, at the time if he hadn't done that, he would've been dead. About six times. But if he hadn't been acting so crazy, he wouldn't have caused all that mess to begin with...

"I don' do that anymore. Feels good, but 'm not gonna do it." Not after what happened to Leomon. Everything else that had come after that was his fault.

Scratch Peter. This all sounded familiar in a much more interesting way, and just as Sylar was about to cut in with some question about how exactly the process worked or what the hell that 'data' thing had to do with it, the man went into territory that Sylar hadn't exactly expected.

The tone, the words, the hand through his hair... this man felt deep remorse over what he'd done, and as Sylar found his teeth grinding against each other inside his mouth and his hand cracking a chip between its fingers, he realized just how much that fact bothered him. If this man had a chance to be more than he was, why wasn't he taking it? The moron Poké-Man was scared, probably, and pathetic. For a second, Sylar wondered if he should just let the subject go like Zachary Blaine would, but then he realized he wasn't using that name anymore. He didn't need to act like it.

"Really?" he asked slowly as he dropped the pieces of chip from his fingers and flicked them back onto his plate. "Because if anything, I'd figure you could... help people if you had more abilities."

He glanced up, expression open.

"Or is it something else you're avoiding?"

Edited 2010-01-07 22:44 (UTC)

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Day 46: Lunch

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