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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This girl seemed really frustrated with him! It was starting to make Guy get a little more anxious, but he did his best to maintain his calm. He prided himself on being able to do that, and he was sure that this could get cleared up sooner rather than later, if the stranger (or was she?) would just listen.

If she had tried to contact people from her planet, then chances were she wasn't from Auldrant. There were enough people here who came from his planet that someone would have surely responded. So, this girl was probably not Noelle (after all, Luke had made it sound like she was nice), which meant this very well could have been a misunderstanding after all.

"Your planet," he said after the girl had finished her mini-tirade, "is it called Auldrant? Because that's where I'm from. If you're from somewhere else, then... I'm sorry, but there's really no way that we can know each other." Unless he'd met her here, but Guy wasn't even going to try and deal with that possibility at the moment. He made sure not to let his gaze leave her face, so that she could be sure he was telling the truth. If she didn't calm down after this, then he was going to have to deem it a lost cause.

Though Rita didn't know Flynn well enough to have an intricate knowledge of his mannerisms, she found herself bothered by the way this man talked. The voice itself was a little lower than she remembered, and his words were a tiny bit more casual and familiar than what Rita was used to hearing from that prim and proper model knight.

"Auldrant...!? Don't be stupid. I'm talking about Terca Lumireis!" she shot back at him, clearly frustrated. How could he say something so ridiculous while acting so sincere? For a moment, she tried to consider the possibility that this wasn't Flynn, but that face was just too similar. It wasn't as if Flynn could have a twin brother on another planet. So what other explanations were there...?

"You're... Flynn Scifo, aren't you!? Don't tell me you went and got brainwashed like an idiot." It seemed that one of the goals of this place was to break down people's identities and make them believe in the new ones that were made for them. Could that have happened to Flynn? But if that were the case, wouldn't he believe he was from Earth instead? Damn it, none of this made sense.

So this clearly wasn't someone he knew, if she was from some planet he'd never even heard of. Guy watched her for a moment, wondering why it was that she was so convinced they'd met before. He tried to speak up and tell her that he had no idea what Terca Lumireis was, but the girl just kept on, eventually asking him if he was... someone named Flynn Scifo.

Ignoring the strangeness of the last name (which he couldn't judge too much, considering what his full name was -- he'd mainly abandoned it, but it was still his), Guy simply shook his head. "No, my name is Guy Cecil. You must be mistaking me for someone else, since... I'm from a planet called Auldrant, and I've never heard of this Terca Lumireis place."

Honestly, he felt kind of bad for the girl. She had clearly thought she had finally found someone she recognized from home, only to be disappointed. It made him think of Ilia, who also hadn't been able to find any of her friends. Guy knew that he was lucky, in a way, to have so much support from his closest companions here.

Though now that they were talking, Guy didn't see why they couldn't try to get to know each other. He was a bit curious about this Flynn Scifo person, and he also wouldn't mind hearing a bit more about the girl's planet, once she calmed down.

Auldrant. When she heard that name again, Rita realized it wasn't the first time she'd heard it. That meddling stranger who tried to encourage her over the bulletin two days ago... she also claimed to be from Auldrant. Could this man be one of those friends she mentioned in that note?

The more Rita studied the man's face, the more subtle differences she noticed between him and the Flynn she knew. His name was 'Guy Cecil'? That didn't even leave room for the idea that he could be a relative. "... That can't be true." But even as she denied it, her softening tone suggested defeat. Her arms dropped to her sides, her shoulders tense and her hands balled into fists. "Two people from two completely different planets just happen to look that much alike?"

Ridiculous. That sort of coincidence couldn't just happen.

... No, perhaps Rita was being too unwilling to consider the possibilities. The fact that she wanted this person to be someone she knew, or for him to at least have some connection to the home she left behind, wasn't going to make any of those things true. She had to consider the facts and only the facts, like a researcher should.

It seemed that the girl had finally accepted that he wasn't pulling her leg or anything like that, though the way that all the anger seeped out of her and just left her looking down didn't really make Guy feel any better about the situation. While he knew that it wasn't his fault that he looked like someone she knew from home (so that's where the confusion had been), he did have to wonder if there was something he could do to cheer her up.

"Well, I may not be this Flynn Scifo, but that's no reason for us to not talk now that you're here." It would be for the best, actually, since what Guy really needed right now was a distraction from his own bothersome thoughts. Albiore, Noelle... All he could do was dwell on that and feel sorry for himself, and that wasn't bound to do him any good. The least he could do was trying to make this girl feel a bit better.

"I am sorry about that, by the way." He knew that an apology wasn't really necessary, and yet he felt obliged nonetheless. "So you know my name... what's yours?" He watched her patiently, hoping that she would take a seat rather than just stand there looking lost and upset. He couldn't give her a hug or even grab her wrist to pull her into the seat across from his, so he'd just have to hope she'd move on her own.

And there was one other thing he felt compelled to ask. He hoped it wouldn't be pushing any buttons, but he figured they were already on the subject, so why not? "So, who is Flynn, anyway? A friend of yours?" It probably had to be, if she'd been looking for him so fervently, but he wanted to check anyway.

Was this guy trying to make her feel better? Hmph. The last thing Rita wanted was anybody's pity.

But she didn't have anything else to do at the moment, and she did want to find out for certain if there could still be some connection between Guy and Flynn, one that she hadn't yet considered, and so Rita finally pulled up a chair and sat down in it, her arms crossed. "Rita Mordio. I'm a researcher," she answered, making her introduction clear and brief.

When asked if Flynn was a friend, Rita shrugged, somewhat dismissively. "I wouldn't call him a friend - more like a friend of a friend. He's just some do-gooder knight who turns up just about everywhere me and my friends go." Okay, so maybe Flynn and his squad had been notably helpful from time to time, but Rita didn't feel like going into great detail about it.

While the girl hadn't completely lost her moodiness, she had decided to sit down and talk to him (rather than standing there and yelling), so that was an improvement in Guy's mind. She was also keeping a good enough distance that he was able to sit in his chair casually, though he certainly wasn't giving off the impression that he was bored or anything along those lines. He was far too polite for that -- not to mention that he was interested.

"Nice to meet you, Rita," he replied with a nod as he wondered just what it was that the girl researched. She seemed young for that sort of thing, but Anise seemed young to be in a branch of the military and Ion seemed young to be an ambassador of sorts. It was all a matter of perspective.

But her description of Flynn could only make him think of one person. Someone who showed up all the time and didn't really count as a friend; other than the do-gooder part, that was Asch in a nutshell, wasn't it? "Ahh, I think I know what you mean. I sort of know someone like that, too. Was he the sort of guy who could never really relax, too?" And this mention of her group of friends had him interested, too, since it sounded like Rita had been traveling. But he'd take things one at a time.

The sort of guy who couldn't relax? Hmm...

"You could say that. He's always chasing princesses or bad guys or whoever he feels he needs to go after. It looks like he's been flying through the ranks because of it, though, so... good for him, I guess." It was unclear whether she was being sincere or sarcastic, as Rita didn't seem especially interested in the topic. Her eyes wandered, looking over the devices with the colorful screens, before returning to Guy.

"That guy you were just reminded of; is he anything like that?" She supposed it wouldn't hurt to ask and find out how far their similarities went. It seemed unlikely at this point that there was any connection to Terca Lumireis or the people that she knew, but she didn't have anything better to do.

Princesses and bad guys. Thinking of it that way, Guy could just fill in Natalia and Van to fit those spots, and it still fit for Asch. When it came to flying through the ranks, that didn't really apply, mainly because Asch was already about as high as he could get without being the Commandant himself. And Guy got the feeling that Daath wasn't going to let someone so young take that position. Not that it mattered now, seeing how they were all stuck here and Asch wasn't even supposed to exist, back home.

"Yeah, he kind of is," he said as he brought his hand up to his chin and though it through. "He tended to show up to bother my friends and I whenever he felt like it, usually just to give us some information and then run off just as quickly. He was also trying to stop the same person as us, but he insisted on working alone. And he's known a princess since childhood." Guy didn't know if he wanted to start dropping names just yet, simply because there were a lot of open wounds between Asch and Natalia and he didn't need to broadcast that to someone who had randomly mistaken him for a zealous knight in her own world.

"So you also went traveling around with a group of friends?" he asked instead, wanting to see just where the similarities ended.

So there were a lot of similarities, after all. It was still too little to be sure that it was anything more than a coincidence, however.

"That's right," Rita replied. She wasn't sure how much she could say about the journey without sounding crazy, however. Most people wouldn't believe that she was from another world. How many would believe that she was just a day away from saving that world? It seemed prudent to be vague enough to sound believable. "We spent the better part of a year traveling all over the world. Another day, and we might have completed our goal... if I hadn't wound up here." The word here was spat out with contempt.

Rita's knowledge was going to be vital when it came to dealing with the Adephagos, which meant that her friends could only get so far without her. If she didn't return soon... then she wouldn't have a place to return to anymore.

The better part of a year, huh? That didn't quite reach the amount of time that Guy had spent running around with Luke trying to stop Van, but it was pretty close, and it wasn't anything to sneeze at. "It's the same for me," he said with a small smile. "My friends and I visited almost all of Auldrant on our journey, though I have to admit that I was more or less settled before I was brought here."

Except for the fact that Luke hadn't yet returned, but he was here now and that was what mattered. Getting him back to Auldrant might not be so simple, but that wasn't something Guy could start worrying about just yet. Not when there were so many other items on his plate.

He also didn't want to think about the fact that all of that traveling had been done in an airship that he couldn't remember.

"So I guess we have a good amount in common after all, even if I'm not Flynn," he pointed out. "Though I was wondering... you said you were a researcher. What do you research, exactly?" Maybe Rita would be willing to answer him now that she had mellowed out slightly.

"I guess so," Rita agreed, though she didn't sound particularly enthusiastic. Things really would have been a lot easier if he was Flynn, rather than some alien lookalike. All these correlations between their experiences still didn't confirm a connection. Perhaps it was just the result of Landel selecting individuals with similar lifestyles. After all, fewer differences between them meant less variables to worry about while they were subjecting them to experiments...

The topic soon changed, however, and it was to something that Rita was considerably more willing to speak about at length. "I research blastia," came the simple answer, but Rita knew she would need to elaborate if she wanted that to make any sense to Guy. "In other words... magic and magic technology. I'm an expert in the field." Rather, she was the expert in the field; there was virtually no one in the world who knew as much about magic as Rita did. That didn't mean she knew everything, however. No matter how much one knew, there was still much more yet to be learned.

"Lately, I've been looking into alternative forms of magic and technology, though. My newest focus is spirit magic." Rita found herself wondering what forms of magic might exist on Auldrant. Was it aer-based, mana-based, or something different entirely? Learning about that could potentially help further her research.

It seemed that that question had been the right one to ask, since Rita was quick to switch from their previous subject to a full-blown explanation, one that happened to trigger Guy in a few different ways. The second that he heard "magic technology," he was more or less hanging on every word that the girl said after that, even if he did his best to be subtle about it. He didn't know if magic technology was quite like fontech or any of the fascinating things that he'd seen on Earth, but he was curious to find out.

While it was hard to know whether her comment about being an expert was one that he should take with a grain of salt or not, her confidence in herself seemed sincere. In fact, this was the first time in the conversation that she'd lost her attitude and been completely straight-forward. Whatever this blastia stuff was, it was clearly her passion, and that was something that Guy could appreciate.

But even more shocking than all that was when she brought up alternate forms of magic -- that sounded shockingly similar to his own mission to find a new energy source. "Is that so? Then we might be in the same field, or at least close enough for us to exchange notes. Our main energy source on Auldrant is going to be running out soon, so I've been trying to look into other possible methods while here at the institute." Thus far, what he'd heard about heraldry seemed to be the most promising, but Guy had to admit that he hadn't really found many other candidates. Maybe Rita would have one for him.

However, it looked like this was going to have to wait for another time, as the intercom chose that moment to go off. Guy was invested enough that he sighed and shook his head. What terrible timing. "Do you mind if we talk more about this soon?" he asked the girl, polite as ever. He knew that his physical resemblance to someone else she knew might be weird for her, but hopefully she'd be willing to chat with him about this, anyway. She seemed interested enough in it that figured it was a safe bet that she'd say yes.

When Guy mentioned that his planet was also about to lose its main energy source, Rita's eyes widened in surprise. Another similarity - and this was a big one. Her surprised look quickly faded, however, as she fell deep into thought. "So we have that in common, too..." she murmured, mostly to herself.

The interruption of the intercom caused Rita to shoot a sour look at one of the nearest speakers. It was just her luck that the shift would change right when it seemed like she was about to finally learn something useful.

She found Guy's suggestion agreeable enough, however, and so she gave the man a quick nod. "I don't mind. I want to hear what you know about the subject." While Rita's current theories regarding spirit magic and mana were fairly solid, it wouldn't hurt to consider other alternatives as well. The more options they had, the sooner their civilization could get back to living comfortably and progressing normally, without any crippling setbacks.

"I'll see you later." Rising to her feet, Rita gave Guy one last look, which didn't seem to contain any particular emotion, then turned and made her way out of the room.

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Day 52: Game Room

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