With a thousand lies and a good disguise

[midgarhorizon]

Characters: Reno, and any and open!
Setting: Beginning in 1-04 ROOMIES BOTHER HIM, Cafeteria, then the Meadow
Format: Honestly whatever you prefer.
Summary: Reno has been gone six months. The entire Tower has changed. Also, he is wearing the jumpsuit and a bedsheet because SOMEONE TOOK HIS CLOTHES, so characters may not recognize him.
Warnings: Well there might be some cursing... some tearful reunions...




1-04
Coming to consciousness was a sudden affair, sitting up so suddenly it almost cracked his back. No... Not here again, not again...

Not wearing this ridiculous jumpsuit again.

That was when he noticed the orientation of the room and his bed was all wrong... wait, what the hell? This wasn't 2-12. And he was wearing the jumpsuit... muffling a curse, he slammed his fist into the bed, cursing his luck that he'd gotten free of Hell Tower only to get pulled back.

He'd escaped... no horrors, no having to watch the people you care about being tortured... maybe it was selfish, but he didn't think he could take being here again. Especially if... no, they would be here. Had to be here.

Quickly, he jumped off the bed and checked his trunk, only to find it- empty? Empty. Cursing again, he yanked the blanket off his bed and pulled the sheet off to wrap himself in it, leaving an ample hood around his face. The last thing he wanted right now was someone to recognize him and know he was back in the Tower while he was scouting out for clothes.

There was no knowing who else was still in the Tower, after all.
---



Cafeteria

It was a hooded figure dressed in white that snuck out of the elevator, and was it just his imagination or did it take a lot longer than it used to? He would explore later, right now it was probably a good idea to get that damn oatmeal and find some place to hide and think before he faced the Tower again.

Grumbling under his breath, he grabbed a bowl of the stuff and started to head for the staircase again. Then he paused, and went back. Was that beer?

---


Meadow

Still no sign of clothing he could steal, but it seemed to get less important the longer he was here. It wasn't hard trudging up the staircase to the Meadow. He'd done it many times before, and was well versed in avoiding the hazards along the way, even on auto-pilot.

There was this overwhelming, smothering feeling that the Tower had shifted somehow while he was gone. Things looked right, but they didn't feel right, if anything could feel right.

He sat down in the flowers here, holding some wine he had taken from the Cafeteria, wondering when they had started serving alcohol there.

Being in the meadow reminded him... oh, Shiva. Elena... Elena. How long had it been? Weeks? Years? She'd been all alone... Would she even be here?

Somewhere along the way, he had stopped thinking, started forgetting. The wedding; Ruana, and Zo...
Ganondorf's party crashing, the way Elena looked walking along the aisle, Axel, Shion, and Xion.

He needed that drink more than ever.

Comments

[midgarhorizon]

He... honestly doesn't know how to feel right now. Nothing about the entire incident with Ganondorf he blamed her for, it was his own stupid ass that agreed to the entire plan in the first place. But there were a lot of vague, very undefined feelings regarding Zelda and Gandalf. He didn't really know how to answer the question.

"Take your pick. I expected a lot more people gone. Six, seven months is a long time here."

[sageprincess]

"It is, and many people have gone in that time, but most have been the kind that awaken and then disappear just as quickly."

Perhaps Zo gets used to holding onto certain souls after they've been in the Tower for a significant amount of time, or perhaps the power cores dying has something to do with it - she can't say for certain. But there is one person she knows Reno knew that has disappeared in the time he was away.

"Gandalf, for one, vanished a few months ago."

[midgarhorizon]

Not visibly surprised at all, he shrugged. "It happens." Though, it was one less ally on his side. One less person to talk to. It wouldn't have been completely beyond the scope of the Tower to have lost all of his allies, really.

"The kids told me there's been a lot of incidents while I was gone." Something he'd ask Shion to write a report on later, that kid was great with paperwork. "They behave themselves?" Or rather, what he really meant, did they do something really dumb and stupid while he was gone.

[sageprincess]

"To put it lightly," she responds to his comment on the state of things, quietly and under her breath. The past seven months have been... exhausting, and it's hard to imagine there's at least ten more to go.

... Though maybe she isn't the best to ask about their behavior, as she hasn't exactly been "behaving herself" by the Tower's standards. "They have been doing as well as anyone can here, I think. Better, maybe, given their recent contributions towards finding a way out of here. Admittedly I do not know Shion very well, but Xion has grown into a very brave young woman since I first met her, and I know both are helping with the project to analyze the collar fluid."

[midgarhorizon]

Subconciously, Reno puffed up a little with pride, when what she said just sunk in. "Wait, the collar fluid?"

They got their hands on collar fluid? And... analyzing it? Suddenly, he was very interested, looking at the papers in her hand with a sharp glance. "The rainbow colored crap they force into our necks? You've got some? What'd you find out so far?"

[sageprincess]

And as his attention turns to the papers in her hands, she flicks idly at their corners.

"We do. It took quite a bit of doing to get our hands on it and the equipment needed to analyze it, but we do." She hesitates a moment before continuing, however, looking down at the notes with a bit of frustration creasing her brow. "Unfortunately, research has been slow going. I am not the best to ask about the specifics of it, but the components making up the fluid are alien to us - completely unique to this world, I would guess. In order to understand what it does and how to separate out the parts that allow the administrators to control us, we must first identify the 'base structures'."

Another pause, debating if she said that correctly.

"At least... I think that is it. Doctor Brown would be a better source to question than I."

[midgarhorizon]

He nodded, shifting his weight to one foot. "That sounds about right. Typical science junk."

By no means any kind of scientist, he had read up on what he could during his first few months in the Tower, searching for an explanation for what had happened. Catching her frustration, he then added "Wonder if there's anything that'd help speed it up." That was his own way of offering to help out, when he was feeling up to it.
If it meant a chance to figure out this place, he'd happily volunteer as a guinea pig for once, or go find the materials they needed. Anything but actually having to sling chemicals around.

[sageprincess]

"I do not know," she says with a sigh and a half-hearted shrug. "The only thing I can think of is if we could find some information that would at least give these components names. But... the majority of our options for reaching the administrative levels where such information would be held have been eliminated, I think."

The main elevator (and its shaft, but no one is using that method again, even if it were still viable) is certainly out, and the spontaneity of the glamour glitching makes it impossible to use the retrieval unit elevators connected to each dorm room. ... Though, perhaps Aria could help again. She may just have to ask at her next collar check-up.

[midgarhorizon]

Reno was (blissfully) unaware of most of what went on during his absence, but he shook his head. There was a way. There was always a way in somewhere. A decade in the Turks had taught him that there was no such thing as an impenetrable position. There was always a weak point, a tactical position that could work.

"Let me get in gear, babe. Scope out the Tower. I could probably handle something like that for ya once I do. Hell, it was my job back home, and I've been down there before."

Although, if only she knew how often he had to climb down elevator shafts back home...

[sageprincess]

"'Babe'...?"

That gets an odd look, but she quickly brings herself back to focusing on what's important. She shakes her head.

"I appreciate your readiness to get back into the thick of it, but please believe me when I say we must wait until the situation changes to plan another assault. It is no longer just a matter of not being caught by the administrators while down there - the lower levels are all thoroughly contaminated with a poison that can kill us in a few hours. Psychoradiation, they call it."

[midgarhorizon]

He gave a half grin, a touch mischievous. "Would ya prefer 'Sweetheart?'"

Talking with Zelda, especially after that whole body swap incident, well, it made him feel awkward to say the least. Trying to be more familiar with her was his way of getting by that. How many people treated her as a normal person, anyway?

As for the rest... "I'll figure something out. Believe it or not, I was really good at that stuff, but what the hell is psychoradiation? That makes it sound like someone dropped a psychic bomb down there."

[sageprincess]

Aside from matching that mischievous grin with a raised eyebrow of her own, she (fortunately?) does not comment upon her apparent choice in nicknames. It's not something worth bickering about.

(Perhaps once upon a time she longed to act and speak like a normal girl, but it's been so long and the formalities and respect have become so commonplace that they are 'normal' now. She's grown into her crown in the time Reno's been away.)

"... We shut down the main structures that provide power to the Tower while you were gone," she reveals with no small amount of inner conflict. She doesn't regret it, no, but the screams of the residents and everything that was discovered afterward still haunts her to this day. "They were never meant to be turned off the way we forced them to, however. It is likely they will be leaking that poison for years."

A pause, and then she remembers to add:

"The Tower is running on a backup system, now. It is not as powerful as the original, but... it should last us long enough to figure things out, I believe."

Dax would give them plenty of time, right? She has to believe that. She refuses to accept the alternatives.

[midgarhorizon]

His face fell a little bit as she spoke, until he looked rather grim. Zelda wasn't one to lie or mislead someone, despite what the phantoms of Ganon's memories said. He understood what taking out a power generator meant, having seen several mako reactors explode in his day. The mako radiation lasted years afterward, corrupting life where ever it touched. One of the many reasons why Shinra had viewed Wallace's cell so seriously. If the power went out permanently... survival would be a torturous, horrid affair.

"I uh... how long do we have?"

[sageprincess]

She casts her gaze downwards, her stoic expression telling how aware she is of the consequences should they not be able to fix things in time. It has been three months since the glamour failure, so...

"Nine months, roughly. There is a more accurate countdown display on the terminals now, if you are interested."

She doesn't particularly like looking at it, though.

[midgarhorizon]

His silence seemed to stretch on a bit after that, one hand coming up to rub his chin. It seemed like this had been a bad time to come back. Countdowns...

The countdown to Meteor. The devastation in the populace. Suicides... he let out an involuntary shiver.

"I've had enough of countdowns."