damned_institute | Day 52: Game Room

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Day 52: Game Room

Lunch had taken his mind from his worries, if only for a few minutes. But after the intercom sounded and the nurses began leading patients onto the next activity, one look at the bulletin board brought everything back in full force. No replies from Ashton, Dias or Dad. By now Claude felt like he was practically counting down until the end of the day, when he was going to have to finally grapple with the real possibility that most of his friends from before Landel's, as well as his own father, had fallen victim to the institute.

And now he was going to have to deal with his mother being here on top of that. It didn't seem like a coincidence that she'd show up right when his father's whereabouts were so up in the air. But what did it mean? Why couldn't Landel leave his family out of this?

Normally, the announcement about new video games would have made him perk up, but his eyebrows only knit together with concern as his nurse led him into the game room. That didn't seem to stop her from trying to get him to unwind, though.

"Oh, come now, Thomas, you've worn that expression for most of the day!" she told him with a frown. "Why don't you have a bit of fun now that your eyes are all better? I'm sure you could use it."

The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of his "sleep studies", he darkly thought to himself. But before he could protest, his nurse had sat him down in front of one of the television screens. There was an old gaming console, one Claude had never seen before, and he glanced at her with a confused expression. "Go on," she encouraged as she placed one of the controllers in his hands. "I know how much you enjoy these kinds of things. Someone will come play with you soon, too, I'm sure. Doesn't that sound nice?"

He didn't have time to answer her, because she'd soon bustled off to tend to some of the other patients. Claude watched her leave with a sigh. He realized the daytime staff meant well, which made knowing what they turned into at night even worse to think about. But now he was just being negative for the sake of it, wasn't he?

Taking in a small breath, he reached over to the console and turned it on. As long as he was waiting for some kind of answer from the bulletin, there probably wasn't much he could do except pass the time. Claude watched the title screen appear on the television, his expression growing more curious in spite of himself. Super Mario Bros....

[For Prussia!]

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"Long time no see," Mele said as she took the seat opposite the tall woman, then tilted her head, as if that would help her remember where she'd met the other woman before. Something about wet and a new city or other—

Ah. "Taura, was it? What are you playing?"

Anything to get her mind off what she and Yumeno had been discussing prior to lunch would be great. It was part of the reason she'd actually come to the Game Room, since it was something to do, and she'd been almost halfway curious what that gibberish on the intercom was all about. Didn't seem to be anything special after all, though. What a let-down.

The guy started to move off and Ritsuka wondered if he'd said something to offend until the stranger decided to answer. And in a most unexpected manner. He looked modern enough, and old enough, he should at least know some of the games in here, right? There were a lot of American games, English games, things he'd seen in movies, even if the guy didn't know video games. Ritsuka followed after him and pulled out a chair, not yet sitting down.

"You don't play games then? Or, uh, didn't? Even as a kid?" Not that Ritsuka could remember playing games either, but he was certain he had. There were photographs of him playing, so he must have done it. Just what kind of life had the guy led? Ritsuka hoped he wasn't weird like that Nana person he met in the video game world. Those people had all been 'observers' too and had made his life a hell of a lot more complicated with their weird rules about yes and no and not telling him everything or telling him just enough to confuse him. "....you're not someone like the Septimal Moons, are you?"

"Heya," Taura said, looking up. "Mele, yeah?" She smiled and waved a vague hand at the seat across from her. "It's called Battleship." She held up the titular piece. "Two-dimensional. Seems so limited, and yet the sea was once a wider gulf than space."

It certainly simplified the game. Taura slid the blue set across to Mele, with the rulesheet face up on its lid, and keeping the red for herself. "I haven't played it before, but it looked less mind-numbing than listening to myself think."

Elle was about to give up on her search for the perfect gaming partner when she saw him. His face was vaguely familiar-- a special in the Company files, maybe, but not one she worked with directly. It was probably just coincidental, right? How many people from home could there be in Landel's? But, from her home or not, this guy was pretty handsome, and that alone was reason enough to bother him. Elle had kind of missed her toys.

She approached the couch, and took a seat close to Isaac. Too close. Awkwardly close. Personal space was not a concept she had picked up on in her Company upbringing.

"Hi." She smiled brightly, possibly for the first time since her arrival. "I don't think I've ever seen you around before."

Javert had never held much truck with formalities in his own time, and it was almost reassuring that they were even less important now, but he was finding it difficult to stop here. Force of habit, perhaps.

"It does appear that many of the established club leaders seem to have vanished in the past week." It seemed improper to call it release; the word left a bad taste in his mouth besides. "It's either a sign that they were growing too close to the truth for Landel's liking, or it's entirely random. That, I expect, is the problem with a place like this."

He was growing heartily sick of chasing leads that went nowhere and following after clues that could have been anything. With luck, Sechs's note would prove useful in changing all of that. "That said, there must be some healers out there--either veterans or newly arrived. Has anything come up on the bulletin board?"

Cloud laughed, watching as he friend dealt the cards. "I'm sure there's a lot of things I could beat you at." Not that he was really up for the competition at the moment. It was still a bit of a surreal experience for him - mostly because that wasn't idle boasting. He knew there were things he could probably beat Zack at now that he never would have been able to before. Hopefully they'd be able to avoid anything more than cards for now.

"Tifa told me about the weapon when I spoke with her earlier. You guys actually got further than I did." Not a difficult task. He'd made it a pathetically short distance - only to Yuffie's room and not even out of it. On the plus side, at least their ninja friend was still with them. Things could have been a lot worse.

He sighed, but it turned into a chuckle. "You'd think they didn't want us to get anywhere important. ...So what are we playing?"

It was probably a foolish hope that she was going to be given enough time on her own to really find any semblance of order for all of the information she'd been given in the few hours since morning--still, with the new area 'nurse Anna' had shuffled her off to Tomoe kept clinging to that meager hope.

She had caught glimpses of Kenshin in the cafeteria, and even now in this 'game room' as Anna had called it. The part of her that was crying out for some semblance of normalcy wanted to approach and stay near him--but then all of those factors that broke said normalcy again.

There was no normalcy here, even where she hoped there would be. Her husband was not her husband. Fourteen years older. He had to be a different person in that much time. He had to have a new family in that time. He had to have a new life in general, one that had no business having a shadow such as herself thrust upon it--even in this place.

Still... he survived. That was the important part. That was all she cared about when she had acted. That was all that mattered: that he didn't die by the Yaminobu's hands. Whatever was happening now and no matter how many mistakes she had made then... that was all that really mattered.

Or at least she kept trying to tell herself that when her mind drew back to that in between trying to rationalize waking in the institution itself... and what it would become at night.

As she had each time she'd been dumped into a room, she tried to seek out a secluded corner, pausing momentarily to watch in a combination of muted awe and confusion at...

...

Well, in truth she had no idea what she was looking at. She could only assume it was some sort of Western technology (just like all of the other gadgets and machinery she'd caught glimpses of)--though despite that more... apparent explanation, she could only think that it was some kind of... enchanted mirror... After all, that was much more plausible than a box displaying thousands of still images in rapid succession via an electrical signal...

Tomoe gave her head an abrupt shake, tearing her eyes away from the television and continued moving, finally taking a seat in a corner, carefully hugging her arms, simply watching the room for the time being.

[open]

Matthew almost felt guilty at Scott's annoyed tone towards the question about how long he had been playing. Matthew didn't like to bother others, and he was clearly distracting him from Super Mario with such useless questions. So if the blond hadn't realized the older youth was Canadian, than he probably would have just left or shut up and watched silently from then on out.

But nope, he had just found a Canadian citizen in a American mental institute that had some rather hidden criminal activities going on in it, and therefore he would be rather insistent.

The sudden mistake in the Canadians otherwise perfect play through of Mario caught Matthew's attention, and he winced as the pixelated man on the screen shrunk back to normal. "Oh crap." Well...since his questions really were clearly distracting him; maybe he'd wait until he was finished with the game, and then ask how he was doing here. After all, he seemed abit too focused to actually pause it-

Oh wait, there was the pause. That made things somewhat easier. As the youth finally turned around to face him, Matthew nervously tensed at the suspicion in the youth's voice and expression. Oh right, it was unnatural to tell that a person was Canadian this quickly. Normally when he spotted a Canadian he'd just ask what country they were from, instead of bluntly asking if they were Canadian. But he'd been abit too shocked at meeting another Canadian here to really remember that at the moment.

"Oh don't worry, I'm Canadian too!" He waved his hand reassuringly. "From...Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia." Well, that was where he was born. Though he'd spent the last several hundred years with his main household in Ottawa, moving between different provinces for several years at a time when he had the chance.

"I could tell because I've...traveled around Canada alot, and I've gotten very good at recognizing the different accents we have. Where are you from in Canada?" Matthew asked cheerfully, pretending he didn't already know. Well...he got out of that mess fairly quickly. Finally calmed down from trying to explain himself, he took the time to look at the youth's appearance. He stared.

And he stared.

He momentarily adjusted his glasses.

And he stared some more.

...Orange hair, early 20s, somewhat large eyes...

He had gone to Toronto for afew hours in the weekend before he arrived here. During that time, he'd seen this face plastered everywhere. On the outside of comic stores, movie posters, on the covers of wrapped comic book sets in book stores...

"Um...what is your name?"

Edited 2010-10-07 03:04 (UTC)

What world. So, Natalia was still in her little delusion -- then again, if Claire had the option, she'd probably take her freaky delusion world where she was a princess over her real life, too. Faintly, she wondered what one had to do to qualify for that kind of severe separation from reality. What kind of trauma did someone have to go through? Better question: how had something Claire experienced not been enough to push her that far?

Truthfully, she was grateful for it, because it was all fake anyway. What good was a lie? No matter if she were to force her mind into that kind of protective delusion or not, she'd still be in the real world and the real world would still suck. At least Claire was facing it for what it really was.

But, she found her way to a smile, weak as it was, to offer Natalia for her efforts. Looking well didn't necessarily mean being well and that wasn't a concept that was entirely exclusive to the institute, for Claire. In fact, Claire and being thoroughly screwed over but looking fine had been best friends since about a year ago. She did, however, realize that Natalia was probably implying more along the lines of what had happened to Soma the night before.

The memory hurt, because it brought back the rush of emotion that had been instigated by the fear gas in the previous night, but Claire forced it back and just nodded, moving her hands away from the stack of games and folding her arms instead on the table in front of her, leaning in intently.

"I'm fine," she assured. There was no sense in worrying someone who was practically a stranger, especially one as nice and naive as Natalia seemed to be. It was almost reinvigorating to see that she'd kept the brightness in her expression despite the past few days' struggle. "Well, not totally fine, considering we're all still stuck here, but … relatively." She chuckled a little, though there was a hollow ring to it.

"If I see him again, I'll ask him about his world for you. Speaking of," she had to ask. It seemed polite. "Have you seen any of your friends here?" Between Damon, Stefan and Elena's situation and her own with Peter, Elle and Sylar, it seemed sensible that most seemed to come in with a few people they knew.

Isaac certainly wasn't expecting anyone to actually speak to him. His attitude turned people away more often than not, and nothing about his body language at the moment read "friendly". He only raised his eyes briefly enough to be sure he didn't recognize the woman who had just joined him on the couch.

He didn't recognize her, which was almost a relief. Peter was more than enough to deal with for the time being, along with the knowledge that both Claire and Sylar were wandering around the facility somewhere as well. The only thing off-putting about Elle was her overly cheerful smile and her behavior.

"Probably because I've only been here one day--do you mind?" He leaned away, pushing himself against the arm of the couch. He felt boxed in by how close she had decided to sit. If there were any way out of this conversation at all, he would have gladly accepted it.

Jump, jump, barrel roll, jump jump, golden letter. The levels were easy since he'd been doing them for so long, but there was still a sense of accomplishment as he hunched in front of the TV, moving his fingers smoothly over the buttons. He knew this thing backwards and forwards and it wasn't until he heard his human name being called that he broke out of his single-minded focus to listen to the person who was apparently joining him.

But even as he waited there was no notice of a Player 2 entering the game. Instead, he could feel the person hovering behind him, uncertain as to what to do. Japan landed a jump and then paused the game, closing his eyes for a moment as he returned from the 2D paradise he'd just been in. Back to the real world. Sigh.

"Super Donkey Kong is a wonderful game and quite easy to pick up," he said by way of introduction. He turned his head then, looking up to see who the person was.

And summarily dropping the control out of shock.

It was....It couldn't be though! His hair! His symbol was still there, yes, but his hair! How could anyone make a mistake on that hair?! It was almost perfect, almost so completely perfect that its imperfection was what stuck out about him the most. Japan had been so accustomed to seeing complete replicas of each character he'd come across that seeing this, a clear mistake, was jarring and almost....heartbreaking. ".........p-please...sit."

Jo wasn't all that sure that she wanted to sit around a game room and just waste her afternoon away, but it didn't seem like she had all that much of a choice. After a less than satisfying lunch, she was shuffled into the room by her nurse, and cheerfully deposited over in the corner of a room. Encouraged to talk to the others and give the games a try, Jo shot her nurse a sarcastic grin and turned away, glancing back over her shoulder a few moments later only to notice that she was gone. Oh well.

Her eyes trailed over the others in the room, and she knew that she looked like a paranoid freak by this point in the day. She hadn't quite reached the acceptance phase of being stuck in an asylum, and was still convinced that this was all some kind of hallucination. She wasn't sure what would cause it, other than a djinn or maybe one of the power crazy angels. Cas would know something about that, but he wasn't here. She was alone in this, and had to figure it out on her own.

She remained standing in the corner for a while, looking over at the door as people were escorted into the room one by one, and her eyes eventually fell on the old TVs and game systems. She was a master at duck hunt, and any games related to shooting and hunting, so she was a little disappointed that the old system, didn't have a dog chasing ducks on the screen. She recognized Mario and Donkey Kong from games she played as a kid, though, and games Ash would sometimes pull up on his laptop back home.

It was only nostalgia that drove her to go over to the systems as one cleared out, and she picked up the rectangular Nintendo controller and started up a game of Mario. It didn't take her long to get into the game, and within minutes she had brightened up considerably, and was insulting Mario out loud. She didn't care if anyone heard heard her, it was just nice to get a break from all of her paranoia and angst. Even if it was only for a few minutes, and even if it made her miss Duck Hunt like crazy.

[]

Jeeze, no one had talked to Kay at all the last two shifts! Seriously, was she invisible or something? She was even wearing her little cardboard Yatagarasu pin that she'd made, but no one had wandered over to ask her about stealing the truth and bringing criminals to justice or anything.

Well, at least Ema seemed to be okay, from the glimpses she'd caught of her friend, so Kay wouldn't have to worry about her! That was good, at least. And in the meantime, Kay could go bother someone instead of waiting for someone to approach her-- like that pretty girl over there, who looked rather quiet and lonely. Kay would have to bring some brightness into her life, yeah!

Kay went over, smiling cheerfully, and greeted, "Hey there! I'm Kay Faraday. Who're you?"

"I've been here three." She still wasn't sure if it had been three at all-- time was confusing, the longer she stayed. It was tempting to start making marks on her bedpost. That worked in movies, right? But Isaac didn't need to know any of that. Elle kept smiling, not deterred by his body language. It was unlikely that she'd noticed at all. "I could show you the ropes."

Since he moved, Elle took it as a sign to move even closer. She was practically in his lap now. Who wouldn't want her in their lap? "What's your name? Not whatever the nurses told you your name was, your name. I'm Elle."

This was definitely the most fun she'd had since waking up at Landel's.

Boy, now this was really Future. Carter scorned the simple board games and dice in favor of investigating what they'd done to the television. They had some funny boxes hooked up to them with wires and wires going to other things (not bombs, of course, nobody would put bombs there), something the televisions in Doyleton had lacked. They were also bereft of the wireless controllers and had other things hooked up to them with wires which presumably took the place of the 'remote'.

Carter came and hunched over one woman's shoulder, a hand over his grinning mouth. He had no idea that the moving humanoid had an identity or that the little gold ovals had any value to them, but they were colored and moving and that was interesting enough. With the way the woman's hands were moving and the way she was talking to the screen (did it understand her?) she seemed to be controlling the action in some fashion.

"What does that mean?" the young sergeant interjected as Mario went down a pipe and made an odd wavery tone.

Lunch was....Well, it had been... Franziska still wasn't sure what to think of it. She had even less of a clue as she was marched through the Sun Room and into the Game Room, apparently because she spent "too much time alone" or some rubbish. Her nurse had apparently missed the part where she'd been entertaining people nearly all day, with less entertainment and more irritation on her part. Asking to be left alone so she could sort out her thoughts was apparently out of the question because her nurse stood and blocked the doorway with an orderly at her side. Before Franziska could even threaten to force her way out, the woman was reaching into her pocket for a needle and it didn't take a prodigy to figure out the best course of action here was a strategic withdrawal.

Spinning on her heel, Franziska marched off into the Game Room only to see that it was filled with....people. People busy rotting their brains with foolish games that did nothing but increase hand to eye coordination in situations that would never come into play in the real world. When Franziska had wanted to get better at her aim, she had simply gone out and used her whip on people. The freshmeat lawyers she'd gone up against in Germany had been excellent target practice.

She smiled as she recalled the first person she'd ever hit and the way he'd gone down in his surprise and the pain. If only she had her whip here, she could do so much more damage. And hopefully not have people like Ushiromiya Battler walk into her field of fire.

Stopping halfway through the room, she glanced down at the man sitting nearby at a table and noted with some distaste that he was watching the televisions like everyone else. "That will rot your brain, you know."

Jo just smirked a little as she was interrupted, having heard the man approaching. It felt like she was a kid all over again, in the moment, and she had to say that it was a welcome feeling. "It means we're going underground to a secret tunnel. There's coins down here," She starts explaining, and pauses in order to move Mario across the screen to collect all of the visible coins.

"And then you just hit the pow over there," She does so, and concentrates in order to collect all of the coins that are made visible in the time limit. Once she accomplishes the task, she grins for herself, and turns to glance up at the guy who was questioning things.

"What, you don't know Mario?" She wondered what kind of deprived childhood the guy had, and felt a little sorry for him. "It's just a video game, that's all. I used to have this when I was a kid."

She felt the need to explain, just in case he was also curious about why she had been talking to the pixelated man on the screen.

Even though it had only been a little over a day since Ema had last seen her sister, it really did feel like a lot longer. At least one good thing could be said about the institute and the misery it had put her through: it had made Lana a fixture of Ema's life again. There were still uncomfortable moments where they still bickered and Lana reverted to being distant and frosty, but over the past several days they really had grown a lot closer than they'd been in years. Ema honestly couldn't remember the last time they played a board game together like they were going to this shift.

Really, for a day in imprisonment, it had been a pretty good one. Kay's hypothesis about her sister's ultimate fate had lifted a weight from Ema's shoulders; not completely, but enough that she could breathe a little easier. Plus, over the course of her three waking shifts she got to talk to Mr. Spock again, she helped cheer Agatha up and got to brainstorm science, she was going to have some quality time with Lana (and ask her about this Mr. Dent person!)... if it weren't for the hovering nurses and the atmosphere, it would have been a great day.

With a bounce, Ema crossed to her sister. "Hi!"

Games. Seriously. Did it look like Grell wanted to play games? Did he even remotely seem capable of playing games right now? Where did "I just spent the last shift screaming at some kid about how he almost ate me alive last night" and "I have a giant HOLE IN MY NECK" equate to "oh yes, let's play a nice little game of cards with betsy and john from down the lane"? Where? Apparently in this hellhole it did because his nurse wasn't letting him out.

"You need to relax, Geoffrey," she said in her most soothing tones. The sort of voice that Grell found increasingly irritating the more he listened to it. "We wouldn't want you to harm yourself again."

Anger meter rising, Grell started imagining ways he could sick the human-demon face muncher on her instead of him. Maybe if he tied steaks to her ugly face. Even if the demon only mauled her, that would still be an improvement.

"Will you behave?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am," he said, trying not to clench his teeth as he pushed the words past the burning hatred in his throat. His nurse released him and he turned, trying his best to find an open seat far away from where the demonspawn was sitting. He could see him. It was impossible not to notice him sitting there with the Doctor, the man with the impossible aura. It was impossible not to....sit in the same general vicinity. Grell made a face and sat with his back to the men, hoping they wouldn't see him. He hoped no one would see him today. He wasn't in the mood to put up the innocent act even if, in this case, he truly was innocent.

[For Lightning!]

Though he appeared attentive to the nurse, Edgar had other things on his mind. The bulletin board still proved to be a frustrating method of communication- no new information on how to reach the basement, and the day was nearly through. Perhaps cryptic questions meant to dodge the attention of the nurses only garnered cryptic answers, or there were other reasons the patients didn't share such information lightly.

While Edgar felt that ending Landel's reign of torture and kidnapping was paramount, it was likely not everyone felt that way. They had a common enemy, but were unwilling to see the need for cooperation. He could understand those who wanted to protect others- he felt the same way, that not everyone should go wandering into the more dangerous areas of the institution- but surely they could see the benefit in spreading the information that was known. If all who knew the entrance were to suddenly disappear, those left would be back at square one.

However, it wasn't all bad news: Locke had replied on the board- thankfully, he'd not vanished so soon after his arrival. Knowing there was someone who'd be on his side he could trust, one not hiding every piece of vital information under lock and key, was encouraging. There was also Gren, whose help had been life-saving. The man in the library, the rebel, had called for the patients to rally together. Not everyone was so reluctant to ally themselves.

Finding a seat on one of the brown couches, Edgar thumbed idly through a deck of cards he'd found sitting on the arm. It seemed nostalgia was everywhere these days.

[Free]

Isaac was weirded out, but at least he could confirm that he had never met Elle. Drugged up or not, he was sure he would have remembered someone so...clingy. "No, I don't--"

He sighed. Truth be told, he could have used someone to show him the ropes, but he was too stubborn to accept any help that easily. Besides, Elle's behavior was making him uncomfortable. Rolling his eyes, he made another attempt to move away, only to find that there was nowhere left to go. He just didn't have the social skills for this type of interaction, let alone a normal interaction.

"Isaac, but I'd appreciate if you got off of me."

Tomoe glanced up at the younger girl walking in her direction, at first just for curiosity's sake, being attracted by the girl's movement. And then said girl continued to get closer... and closer. Good lord, did she have a sign on her forehead that said 'please bother me'?

She nodded shallowly to the girl. There didn't seem any point to fighting the socialization in this place, no more than there seemed any point in fighting the concepts being forced onto her: the impermanence of death, the concept of multiple worlds, the fallacy of time--and of course whatever happened in the facility at night. In the face of all of those... railing against casual conversation seemed quite silly.

"Himura Tomoe," she answered quietly, not bothering with full pleasantries for the moment. Responding was enough at this point.

When the intercom jingled, Kirk's gaze returned to where Spock and Uhura were still talking, three tables away. The conversation with Battler had distracted him from properly stalking the couple(???), not that Kirk was the type to stalk anyone, no matter how it looked to some people in the Academy. Really, he'd been trying to condense the entire Starfleet training program into three years; he didn't have time to follow the every movement of a hot cadet with a completely different focus from his. But if his and Uhura's social circles happened to overlap sometimes, well...

Here, it was his job to look out for his crew, but even beyond his professional responsibility as the captain, he could be genuinely concerned. After all, he'd known Uhura for three years without even having drunkenly made out with her once, which had to be some kind of friendship record, and he and Spock were best friends in an alternate reality, which to the least put them at the same level as Kirk and Older Alternate Universe Bones. Ergo, he was both captain and friend, and could therefore be concerned in both a professional "what the hell is Landel planning for us now?" way and a more personal "how did you guys even meet?" way.

Well. They seemed be dealing okay, at least as far as Kirk could tell when he couldn't hear a single word and only a quarter of the people involved seemed to be capable of expressing emotion. (Again, not that he wanted eavesdrop.) Luckily, the sight of a determined nurse bee-lining his way reminded Kirk that "therapy" sessions were also slotted for the shift, and he quickly got up and followed the other patients into the game room. On the way, no one tried to redirect him to Kisugi's office. One plus for this entire crazy day.

Kirk settled in a quieter corner of the room, empty except for two chairs and a table set with a disordered game of chess. He was long overdue for a few seconds alone just to... process. So. Three nights ago, Spock and Bones got a glimpse of the Enterprise in Bones' timeline. Two days ago, Chekov disappeared. Today, Uhura was taken, and apparently remembered nothing beyond escaping the black hole — in other words, more or less the same point as him, where Spock and Chekov had been able to remember at least a few days after...

As he mentally ran through the events of the past week, he picked up one of the chess pieces — a white king — and began resetting the board.

[Spock]

Edited 2010-10-07 08:43 (UTC)

Scott was still dubious that someone could recognize someone else as being Canadian just by virtue of being Canadian as well. Maybe you could do it if someone spoke with some crazy Newfie accent, but Scott Pilgrim didn't speak with one and neither did this guy. Was there really that much more to accents than he realized? ...Wait, what if there was? Was this like British people insisting they didn't have an accent? What if he had had some kind of crazy accent this whole time and Ramona had just been too polite to tell him? He had never said "aboot" to anyone before, had he? He was pretty sure he hadn't. But how did he know for sure? How did he know?!

Good god, he was feeling self-conscious now.

And then it happened: a realization struck his brain. A Canadian who had travelled around a lot and knew Canadians well enough to pick other citizens out at just a few words? This guy had to be the Canadian representative that Honda Civic had been talking about earlier. Ohhhhhkay, that made sense, then. If their super secret club was as mysterious as Honda made it out to be, then maybe this was, like, Canadaman or something. Maybe back in his world, he had, like, a kung-fu beaver sidekick, a Canada Cave, a Maplemobile - the works. That would actually be kind of kickass, Scott thought. He hoped he was right.

"Northern Ontario originally. I moved down to Toronto during high school, though," he answered when asked where he was from. As he spoke, he suddenly felt very aware of just how much the name "Toronto" ran together when he said it (more like "Tronno"). "What's it like in Nova..."

He was being stared at.

"...Scotia..."

And being stared at some more.

Scott blinked awkwardly. He hadn't done anything. Why was this guy looking at him like that?

And then he was asked his name.

"Uh, Scott Pilgrim. Why, what's yours?" he asked with an "ulp" in the back of his throat. Why did he get the feeling this wasn't going to be good?

Woody glanced toward the box, and sure enough, it was a game of checkers. He allowed himself a tiny smile. "Aw, Scrabble's not that bad, is it?" he said with the smallest trace of a laugh, though his tone was slightly warmer than it'd been all day. "But, nah, checkers is a good game, so let's just go with that."

Judging off of first impressions, Kairi seemed like a nice, polite girl who was easy to get along with -- no teenage attitude problem like Rita, and no...well, whatever Kaworu's bag was (seriously, someone even younger than Andy didn't need to be thinking themselves that far out about everything). Heck, she was probably the kind of kid who took good care of her toys during her earlier years.

That thought helped Woody relax just a bit for the time being, and he willingly followed Kairi over to the table. Now, if they could only have a regular game of checkers in order to pass the time while waiting for this terrible day to end...

When she asked what color he'd like to be, Woody didn't have to think twice about it. "I'll take red, then." It meant Kairi would get the first move, which suited Woody just fine in this case.

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Day 52: Game Room

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(omg tomoe <3333 does she mind a cheerful teenager getting all up in her business? :3 )

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(she probably minds a lot, but she won't say so! XDDD)

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