damned_institute | Day 53: Sun Room, Morning

Entry tags:

Day 53: Sun Room, Morning

With breakfast finished and a new acquaintance made, the Scarecrow's mind turned to his other friends. The disappearance of Depth Charge's friend had brought back memories of how he'd felt when Kaiji went missing: helpless, useless, as though he should have and could have done something more to find him. If only he had his brain, then maybe he could have thought of something!

As much as he didn't like to admit it, it was unlikely his former roommate was still within the Institute's walls at this point, though the Scarecrow wouldn't know for sure unless Kaiji returned to visit him as Dorothy had, encouraging his supposed recovery. There was still the concern that Landel, despite his vile methods, was actually right and he was suffering from the delusion of having been a scarecrow in Oz. After all, that movie had been a pretty elaborate trick. Would he have planted it in town on purpose, knowing the Scarecrow would be taken there the night of the enchanted doors? And how could he guarantee that once he did find it, he'd take it and actually watch it? There was so much guesswork involved- it seemed the Wizard Landel either liked coincidences or he had more power on his side than any of the patients could have guessed.

The Scarecrow stopped by the bulletin board before heading for a seat, considering writing a note to his friends to check on them. He'd heard from Depth Charge, Remy, and Kibitoshin within a day's time, so he figured they were probably fine (as fine as Depth Charge could have been after last night, anyway). He'd seen Mele and Scar the day before. He put a finger to his head, thinking- he'd not heard from Abe or Sangamon in a day or so, but being professionals, they were probably very busy. Perhaps a note would be best for them.

[Kibby]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Joy," Mike replied, committing that comment about sedatives to memory.

The way he said it made it sound like sedatives were used regularly on unruly patients. His eyes narrowed as he glanced away from Niikura, watching the room around him. And, sure enough, there were some muscular, male nurses that could easily hold down patients until the drugs did their work. Mike had almost discounted them as an outright threat due to their demeanor, but now, he reconsidered.

They would likely get in his way when he finally attempted to escape.

Niikura continued talking, and Mike turned to listen to him again, only to blink twice at the hand offered to him. It took him a moment before he took Niikura's hand, giving it a firm shake. Least he could do for who he suspected could be a good source of information.

"Mike," he replied, not quite ready to give out his full name to a complete stranger; the next part was obvious, so he had no trouble telling the truth. "Just got here."

"Fun times await ya, Mike-san," Niikura promised. "This place is pret-ty interestin'. Y'see, it's a peaceful mental asylum filled with tons of people supposedly sufferin' from dissociative identity disorder by day..." He gestured briefly around the room and then leaned in again and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "...haunted house by night."

Niikura straightened up, an ironic twist to his smile. "We got the occasional brainwashing, virgin-eating birds, horror films come to life..." He ticked them off one by one on his fingers. "...creepy intercom messages, randomly exploding light bulbs--I could go on. And it sounds completely crazy, I know, but every other patient here will feed ya more or less the same story, so it just might be the truth."

He sat back again. "Or else you can check things out for yerself at night if yer patient, catch a sneak peek while yer headin' out the doors or whatever. Bulletin board over there's not too bad either." He jerked his head in the direction of the board. "People post some interestin' information, all of it poorly disguised."

Mike's eyebrows shot up. That was a rather long list of stuff that would almost be unbelievable if someone in this place hadn't not only revived him already but either transformed him or transferred him into the body of a human. His back was straight and inflexible, but other than that, there was no indication that he had ever been a turtle.

Then there was the fact that coming up with all of that on the fly would be too much for anyone to lie about so quickly. Except if he had rehearsed, and even then, it'd be difficult to prepare for any of the multitude of questions that Mike could ask.

And he didn't like the idea of virgin eating birds; he'd have to look out for them.

Mike stared at him, then stated point blank. "You do sound crazy. But too crazy to be crazy. So the board is how people communicate?"

Simple questions first.

A-ha, finally, something other than a blank stare! Was that a success on his part or a testament to the outrageous nature of the Institute? Probably the latter, although maybe some congratulations were in order for picking the properly shocking aspects. He wasn't so sure Mike would've been impressed had he mentioned that one time he got lost and ended up in the womens' blocks.

"In the day, yeah, mostly. I've used it myself to get some details." Not that the details had given him any relief; all he'd ended up with were more questions - especially a desperate urge to know why no one knew a thing about Akumetsu.

"Sounds useful. Thanks."

He would have been less than impressed if he heard about the time he got lost, no. Mike was pretty good at making mental maps for himself by now, and sometimes he forgot that others didn't focus on those sorts of things. Of course, you had to wander around first to make the map, but that wasn't the point.

Using the board mostly during the day made sense. People weren't in the room at night. Now that the simple questions were answered, he went back to the more pressing ones, wondering why for a moment it felt like he was quizzing an NPC for world building questions.

"So can you tell me more about what to expect at night? Besides the birds." Mike seemed centered again as he once again kneeled down to pet the cat to stop its mews of annoyance at being ignored. "What sort of monsters are out at night? And what sort of brainwashing?"

"Can't really say 'bout the monsters," Niikura said with a slight shake of his head. "But if you've ever seen the Ju-on movies, eh...they kinda got that deal goin' on. Like ya know the house? Well, if ya haven't seen the movies, 'course ya don't, but anyway, there's this creepy-ass house in that movie, and I swear it was sittin' out on the field we got here the other night followin' me around."

He sounded like he was babbling, he really was. But even if he'd put on a pretty good front, Niikura had been genuinely scared for a bit there. It wasn't every day that you suddenly became the next protagonist in a hit horror film series.

"Anyway..." He dismissed the topic with a wave of his hand. "About the brainwashin' - seems like they 'recruit' some patients some nights and get 'em to play guard dog. So like, these guys come outta nowhere and try to prevent ya from gettin' anywhere. My first night here, I clashed with this guy who swore up and down he was a pirate. Still don't know if he really was, but he was packin' these crazy grenade-things, so who cares."

And the even crazier part: he and Usopp had met the next day in the shower. What the hell.

"I've heard of 'em," Mike stated after a long moment; he could barely remember, but, somewhere, he had heard about them on the net forever ago.

But since Niikura waved that topic away, he didn't bring it up further. Details later. Overview now. This guy didn't seem like a details person, anyways.

"So the brainwashed patients get goodies to go along with the reprogramming and get in your way," Mike summarized, his eyes narrowing as his expression darkened. "Sounds like this place is a real fun house."

Of course, the effect was ruined by the fact he was petting the cat still, but Mike didn't pay that any heed.

"Huh. So yer from around here, then," Niikura said, moving his index finger in a small finger. "This world--Earth. Nice. What year?" Actually, even if Mike wasn't from exactly 2007, it was still nice; it'd been a little weird trying to explain the concept of Ju-on to a girl with purple hair from the year 3004 while Ju-on was actually happening.

Although, the way his luck was running, this guy wouldn't know anything about Akumetsu.

He nodded at Mike's summary, not even seeming to notice the way the man's expression had changed. "Aye, that's about what it is. At least there's, uh..." Something positive. Well, there were a lot of positive things, but his definition of positive tended to be unorthodox-- "...free food." Everyone liked that, right? And Niikura had to admit, the cafeteria here was not that bad.

Well, that answered Mike's next question before he asked it. He had assumed he was on Earth, but now he knew he was on Earth. Or at least, that's what they were all told. It seemed like Earth, anyway. Not nearly as polluted as he remembered it being, though. And the fact he was asking about what year he was from made it sound like their captors were able to time travel or, at least, pull people from different times. And from different planets, too, guessing on that other comment about being from Earth.

Great.

"Yeah, you could say that," Mike replied, his expressionless mask going back up. "So they can take people not only from different times but from different worlds? Where are all the aliens, then?"

He didn't want to answer the question about what time he was from. If he was from this guy's future, the guy would undoubtedly ask questions that Mike wouldn't want to answer. The last thing Mike needed to do was to utterly depress this guy talking about billions of dead, labor camps, and pollution.

The mention of food, however, made Mike perk up, if even just slightly; as much as he tried to hide it, it had been forever since he had a decent meal. "... Free food?"

Wait, Mike hadn't told him when he was from. What gave? It wasn't like he was going to ask him to spoil the future for him, assuming Mike was from the future...well, maybe he was going to ask. But it was only about Akumetsu--it would only ever be about Akumetsu.

Oh well. Maybe he'd just have to catch the man off guard some time, if that was possible. "Ah...I don't know - I mean, they all look human now. Could be anyone, although, if they slipped up, I guess you'd know." And then there were those like Recluse who just screamed Not Human.

Niikura smiled as Mike seemed to brighten when he mentioned free food. Hook, line, and sinker right there. "Aye, of course. I mean, rules of the game, right? If yer in a hospital, even if it's just pretend, they gotta feed ya, right? Since we're all invalids incapable of livin' in normal society."

Mike wasn't going to take any chances. He'd rather not discuss Earth's future in any aspect. Best to keep that to himself, especially if he was somehow not on the same earth. At this point, it was possible. Mike was certain he wasn't from this time, now. Shredder wouldn't have done anything remotely like this. So that meant a new enemy.

So the man had no idea that he wasn't originally human. Mike was fine with that for now. It'll be only a matter of time before someone notices that he can't bend his back, but Mike would rather delay that discovery. Even then, Mike would just claim it's been that way since he can remember, because, technically, it had.

"Guess the game's over if they starve us," Mike stated, but he still seemed lighter than before. "First good thing I've heard so far. Is the food decent?"

"Aye, I'd say it's decent," Niikura said with a small nod. "Their Japanese food's a little lackin' since this ain't exactly Japan, but ya know, decent. I chow down." Actually, he tended to eat anything as long as it didn't taste like dirt, but he had yet to see anyone skip a meal in protest of the quality. "I guess it's an upside of bein' insane, free meals." The kinds of things they took for granted in their sanity...

And how long was Mike going to be there petting that cat? "...ya like cats, Mike-san?" Ugh, it always sounded weird, adding honorifics to clearly Western names.

"An upside to being insane--three hots and a cot," Mike stated, almost sounding sarcastic for a moment.

Good food was... well, good. Hard to find, back home. Unless you stole from the Foot Police or their higher ups, but even then, it was generally a crap shoot for quality.

Mike was going to pet the cat as long as he damned well pleased. But at the question, he turned to regard the cat that was purring away at his touch. He watched the cat, wordlessly, and started to scratch it under the chin. Somehow, it began to purr harder.

"Yeah," Mike finally answered, his posture and expression softening just slightly. "I like cats."

Klunk.

((OOC: And just to ruin the impact of that. Klunk was his kitty's name.))

Edited 2010-12-02 01:53 (UTC)

Shit, a joke? What part of his soul had he sold for that one? Laughing, Niikura slumped further back against the couch. "Hah! Man, that was pretty good; you got that right." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see one of the nurses watching him suspiciously...apparently she didn't know laughter made for a great medicine.

"I...figured." Especially the way that cat was purring; it sounded like its vocal chords were going to explode sooner or later. "Ya got a cat back home or somethin'?" He could see the picture in his head: Mike sitting alone in his arm chair watching whatever Western men liked watching on the television with a cat curled up on one of the arms...it was almost painfully domestic.

His sense of humor wasn't dead. It was just on life support in a coma. A coma it managed to wake up from every once in a while only to fall back into it again. A joke was just rare, but not impossible.

"A prison's a prison," Mike shrugged. "No matter what they call it."

He also saw the nurse, but quickly discounted her as a threat. For now. If she had reason to call over one of those burly male nurses, he'd change his mind.

"Had," Mike spoke after a long silence with a tone of finality.

The cat didn't seem to mind, and when Mike drew his hand away to tease her, she immediately rubbed at it in an effort to regain his attention. After a moment, he began to pet her again, and the purring started anew.

"Oh." ...awkward. "Heh." Niikura's eyes slid to the path of ground next to the cat, one hand idly rubbing the back of his neck. For one moment, with a thin smile playing on his lips, he actually looked somewhat...sad. "Me too, actually--well, I have one. Two of 'em, actually."

Zaizen and Mikemike (Huh. Name ping.)...one of 'em was the one he'd fished out of the river, the day he'd - or rather, the original Niikura had finally accepted the mission Katsuragi had given him. The one with the funny M-looking mark on its face. He hadn't really seen it in a while; he was rarely around the clone plant since he had to keep up appearances. It was just that Mike had mentioned having one, and he'd happened to--

Sheesh, what was this, a soap opera? Niikura looked up, smile widening into his usual grin. "They're sooooo cute!"

Mike rolled his head up towards Niikura, giving him an "are you really serious?" look. While he agreed that cats were cute, the way that Niikura said it... Well, all he could hope was that the kid was just trying to break the ice.

He wasn't good at this small talk thing. Not anymore. But he genuinely liked Niikura. It wasn't often that a stranger would approach him. Most were too intimidated about either him being a turtle, or about all the multitude of scars on his body. ... Not that he was a turtle at the moment, but that was besides the point.

"What are their names?" Mike finally asked when he thought of something keep the conversation from going into silence.

Ah ha ha ha...oh, that look. Niikura had seen it often before; typically, it was from his classmates, who couldn't believe how ridiculous he was being - again.

And if Mike wasn't good at small talk, that was just fine. He was capable of talking enough for the two of them, anyway, and when you spent a lot of time talking to yourself (or rather, yourself but not really yourself because you both are clones so technically you're the same person but not the same person--), you tended to be good at just rambling on and finding something interesting in what you were saying.

"Zaizen and Mikemike," Niikura said promptly. "I've had 'em for a few years."

"Mikemike?" Mike smirked slightly. "Guess we have something in common, th--... ow."

He glanced down slowly at the cat that had rolled onto its back to play as it had grown slightly irritated with just the petting. It was trying to chew on his finger, and had bitten a little bit too hard for play. She was a young cat, so she was still learning.

Mike didn't fault her for it, and slowly tried to draw his hand away. Predictably, she grabbed it with her paws and attempted to chew his knuckles, which started a game of "keep the knuckles away from the cat's little fangs".

"I guess so, huh?" Although names were about as far as the similarities got. Mikemike was a cute little tabby and Mike was...well...er...he was...small? Ish? He wasn't ever saying that to the man's face, though. Niikura liked putting way more than just a toe over the line, but not when it didn't do him any good.

He smirked and tried to hold back a laugh as he watched Mike "play" with the cat. It didn't work. This whole image didn't work either - and how many times was he going to say that?

"PFFT--" Yeah, his poker face was failing. "Ha ha ha! Aw, that's just...priceless."

The man wouldn't like that one bit. Yes, he was short, but he made up his height with solid muscle and speed. Besides, people always underestimated the short people, and Mike used that to his advantage. Underestimating someone just meant you were one step closer to being beaten.

Mike didn't get angry at Niikura's amusement; he wasn't that kind of former turtle. Instead, he continued to play with the cat. There was no used getting worked up over something that was true.

"Guess I've still got it," Mike replied, watching the cat.

Cool. He hadn't gotten punched. Niikura could have and would have probably dodged if Mike had taken his laugh the wrong way, but still. Nice to know the guy was alright with subtle and not-so-subtle jabs. Useful information for later, actually.

"Got what?" he asked curiously. The ability to interact with cute, fluffy animals without exploding people's brains? --okay, that was pushing it. He ought to be giving Mike some more credit.

He was supposedly the youngest of four brothers. Mike had learned to have a bit of a tougher skin from that. You could only live in a family like that for a short time before you learned to take some jabs. Then again, Raph had never really quite figured out how to do that....

Mike was older now, too, and his other experiences made a difference. Things like that just weren't reacting to anymore. Took too much focus away.

"Nothin'," Mike half-grunted, slightly put out that Niikura hadn't gotten his 'joke'. "What are you cats like?"

The question would at least give the kid something else to talk about. Keep him talking instead of letting him pry too much. It was something that Master Splinter had taught him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 53: Sun Room, Morning

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject