towerofanimus | No real escape

Entry tags:

No real escape

Characters: Elian Zigmarl and Ryuho Ryu
Setting: Room 1-12
Format: Prose
Summary: Elian has to help out a friend from his world. It's not going to be easy.
Warnings: Death talk, emotional breakdowns, and seismic upthrusts and a lot of other things that might not make a lot of sense.

With the arrival of Ryuho came the complicated matter of taking care of his leader. He had to choose his words carefully considering now that he had no memories. Elian made his way through the halls from his current location at the infirmary, to his friend's room. There really wasn't much that he could do other than to help Ryuho understand what was going on.

The navigation came easy to him, since he worked on these floors. It was a menial job but it had its benefits. The trek through the halls allowed him time to think. It was important to make sure that Ryuho knew precisely what was happening and he left very little to chance. It was a gamble he chose not to take by leaving his friend to face his issues alone.

The otherwise stoic boy didn't show any happiness on his face through his walk. It was as if it was business as usual with the same impassive expression. All those years of discipline and training made him socially invisible and rarely has he gone out of his way to explain anything other than to those that needed to know.

This was one such incident. His small hand reached up to knock on the door upon his approach to room 1-12.

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"We had to evacuate before I could track anyone. Your power signatures and bio-signs changed when you had gone into the Other Side. It took several months to find a signature remotely close to yours. Dread Red was the tip-off." Elian took a little time to think about what Ryuho had said.

"I would assume that the Administration can do more than just travel in time. It is also possible that you were here before me and in stasis before they decided to release you." He was more than likely over-thinking things a bit, but he didn't dismiss any possibility whatsoever.

"I have also met others here from different worlds and timelines that have met their doubles. I have seen doubles myself."

"I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the 'other side'. What exactly happened?" He assumed it had something to do with the upheaval though.

"But if I was in stasis, how would I have been in your memories? Unless they made a duplicate somehow."

Explaining different worlds was going into a territory that would require a lot of math to figure out and his head was already hurting from all of this. He shook his head. "It's not important. I was only musing."

Addressing the issue about the Other Side took precedence. "You and Kazuma engaged in battle. The hatred that the two of you felt for one another was intense enough to cause the Second Uprising. It was then that both of you had vanished for several months...eight, I believe."

"I think we must have come back before that, at least I was wander the Lost Ground for awhile."

His hair hadn't grown out though, and he didn't remember cutting it.

"I wasn't able to find you until the Native Alter that had captured you set off my sensors. That's how we managed to find you. Mujo wanted you captured along with Kazuma." He drew his knees in tighter. He could never compare to the power those two possessed by a long shot.

"When we found you, it was as if you returned without any change at all other than your loss of memories. It was...it was hard not knowing what happened to you that made us worry. We weren't sure if you were alive or dead. My father told us to keep looking and we did."

"Who is Mujo?" Ryuho asked, avoid the question of Kazuma for now. It alarmed him how angry he got just from the mention of that name, the same way he had when Kanami had asked him.

"I must have caused a lot of worry for all of you, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Your presence here helps." Elian wanted to curl in around himself just then at the thought of explaining this man. Not only was he one of the forerunners of the Alter project, he cloned his brothers and himself for the sake of opening the door which failed miserably due to Elian's lack of emotional response and Martin's lack of paternal instinct. He remembered the torture as clear as if it happened yesterday.

"He pushed to have the bill passed that Alter users to be classified as non-humans for the sake of his gain. He's a bad man. If he hadn't come..." Elian became very quiet as if there was a block within his own mind. The psychic backlash he suffered from Mujo still hurt to remember.

"I'm glad that I could at least do something." Ryuho frowned, really wishing that he could remember. Mujo sounded like an enemy, but at least Elian said that he would do something with him in the futre, and stop him.

But what had that accomplished if the world was gone?

"Kanami..." He said suddenly, remembering that little girl from the mining town, the one he had protected. She would be dead now if the two of them were the last from their world.

Elian's head shot straight up and fear was present in his eyes. He didn't know what happened to her or his brothers since Mujo's defeat. He looked to Ryuho with that same fear that he felt when he thought he was about to die.

Even if those letters were true, Ryuho had a better chance to survive than Elian did and he carried the hope of their kind which was more than what Elian could say for himself. He wasn't tall, or even remotely genetically superior. Pragmatically, Elian wasn't anywhere near Ryuho's caliber when it comes to how the survival of a race were to come about.

He sighed and slumped his shoulders in resignation to that stinging fact. Still, he had to respond. "I cannot say. My brothers...I don't know their fate either."

"They may still be alive, since you didn't know I was alive." There was always that chance, although what were the odds that they had saved everyone?

It was depressing to consider. It would mean that Kanami and the villagers, and even the old lady he had rescued were all dead.

It was hard to think about. If he let it go, that would only mean that he failed them. Ever since his arrival, Elian wasn't sure how to save them. This wasn't his primary objective. He was a watcher, first and foremost. It wasn't that he didn't care. He cared a great deal. He wasn't a hero like the others. His value on life was mostly seen as an objective than a reason.

The part that hurt the most was that he couldn't stop it. He didn't have the power to stop it. Ryuho did and so did Kazuma. He looked to Ryuho with a thoughtful expression. Thinking about all the times he watched and understood what was going on, he needed to hear that everything was going to be okay. Deep down, he knew that Ryuho was right. It was proving it that was going to be difficult.

"Yes. Perhaps it is an illusion to keep us from discovering a way home. Then that would mean that we are held against our will. The question remains, for what purpose?"

"It may be, but if thaty is thecase, I don't know what the purpose would be. Are we the only alter users here?"

Perhaps they were studying different powers. If they were all alter users, he might suspect the mainland, but here it didn't seem likely.

"Yes." Elian responds. "Everyone else that has powers here were either taught how to use them or they manifested later in life and had to be trained to control them. They were born with them, but they are not like us where our abilities showed immediately after birth."

"Then I don't think that this is the mainland. Perhaps they are collecting people with strange powers. I don't know if there was a reason they chose to take me from the time they did though."

"My guess is they wish to control you and Zetsuei. I wish I knew for certain why." Elian hated being controlled in this way and his powers were near to completely being useless other than his ability to manipulate air pressure. It was a terrible fate for them both.

"I wonder if they need us then, or if they are merely sudying us. Not that I have much to study in this condition."

He tugs at his collar, as though noticing it for the first time. "What are these for?"

Elian looked over at Ryuho's collar and his movements and nodded. "I'm not entirely sure myself. No one really knows the truth behind them. Some say it suppresses powers. Others believe it is to keep us from abusing our powers. I wouldn't hold it passed them that it's for tracking us through the Tower. My powers were suppressed randomly. If they are not maintained, the staff will knock you out and bring you to the infirmary for maintenance."

"How do they know you out?" He really didn't like the sound of that. It was like being a slave again.

"Are most powers suppressed here?" It would be infuriating if he worked so hard to recover his alter and found it wasn't possible to summon it here anyway.

"I'm not sure how. I hadn't thought to test it and I didn't ask anyone to know for sure how they do it. It's simply not recommended." Elian stood up after a period of rest that he needed to regain his strength to make the trip to the cafeteria.

"Come. We still have to eat."

"Oh, right." Now that he thought of it, he was hungry. In fact, he didn't remember eating within recent memory, although the rough men who had been grabbing unfortunates for the mining town had promised food.

"Where do we go?"

"The first floor. This month, the food is better than it was last month. It's not far to walk." At least to him it wasn't compared to the 38 floors that he walked before and was winded by the time he reached the tenth. Short legs really didn't help at all in tackling stairs.

"I'll follow you. Although, the note said something about oatmeal?" He wasn't sure why that was.

Elian nodded his head. "Yes. Your first meal must be oatmeal otherwise you would become violently ill unless you ate it. I didn't take that chance."

He was always one to follow instructions and now he sort of wished he went outside of the box just to see what it was like, that is, he did up until he saw someone get real sick for not following the instructions.

"I suppose I don't have much choice then." Not that it really mattered. He's been eating scraps the last few weeks, or whatever charity he was offered.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much. Once you have it as your first meal, you can have anything you want thereafter. It's relatively filling." Elian actually preferred it from the choices he had his first month here. Nothing was appetizing and the oatmeal at least was familiar.

"Come. You need your strength."

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