towerofanimus | For Diarmuid

Entry tags:

For Diarmuid

Characters: Suzaku Kururugi and Diarmuid Ua Duibhne and potentially Waver if he is around
Setting: Diarmuid's room, mid afternoon
Format: Either
Summary: Suzaku returns, finds out about Rolo and Lelouch's disappearance and then goes to find Diarmuid
Warnings:

The only thing keeping Suzaku sane was the fact that he had never taken the new collar fluid. His power, his curse, was not real. If he was stuck on this dead world until the power left the tower he would die with everyone else... at least he hoped he would. It was the reason he had refused to take it, he didn't want to be forced to live on, stuck on a dead planet for all eternity if they failed.

Still he was relieved when he woke up in the tower once more. It was still here, there were still people. He dressed quickly and left his room, Arthur in his arms. The cat had attached himself to Suzaku's finger when he had woken and hadn't let go yet. Suzaku guessed that meant he had missed him.

The first room he went to was Rolo's his breath caught as he read the name plaque, no Rolo. There might have been another room change... but somehow he doubted it. He closed his eyes, then opened them and moved on to Lelouch. Same thing. He was gone.

Suzaku paused, his waking had been devoid of sullen angry comments about him having being gone. He returned to his room, heart heavy in his chest. He checked the plaque, Ventus- someone new, Sephiroth - of course he was still there... But no Shinji.

He tried to ignore the fear he felt as he moved towards the last room he had to check. He didn't know what he would do if Diarmuid was gone... He breathed a breath of relief when he saw his brothers name on the plaque.

Still it was a moment before he knocked, he stood outside, cat in arms focusing himself. He had been alone so long, and he had lost so many people. His face hardened, his posture straightened. The look of a perfect soldier. He needed to know what had happened when he was gone, from the look of those he had seen it had been something big. A report, that was what he needed and Diarmuid was the best person to ask for it.

That was why he was here. He knocked sharply.

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"Yes, I don't know the details, and I don't really care. What I do care about is that Zo was hurt trying to stop him and as a result, a group of people in the Tower were sent outside of it..." Diarmuid pauses a moment, eyes growing sad and distant, "One of them...didn't come back. Rick died out there. Died...permanently."

There is another period of silence before Diarmuid adds, "I don't know if it helps any, but when I was sick and talking to Lelouch, he made it sound like he really did want to help you all start understanding each other and getting along again. I just wish you had gotten the time to do it."

Suzaku nodded, he vagually remembered hearing that Zo had been hurt after he had woken up from being dead but before he had ended up on his world.

He froze though when Diarmuid spoke, "Rick died..." Permanently... He didn't know the man very well but he had fought with him before... to know he was gone forever...

He blinked at the final words. "There's a lot of power in wishes." Something Lelouch used to say a lot. "But only when people fight to make them come true, if we get out of here maybe we'll have that chance."

"Yes..." there is both anger and grief in Diarmuid's eyes. "From what the boy who was with him when it happened told us, there was an accident in the building they were exploring and Rick died. He thought Rick would revive here like normal, but...it never happened. Not even after he waited and waited..."

No one deserves to die like that, but in Diarmuid's mind, Rick deserved it even less than most.

"I hope that you will get that chance. Wishes are indeed powerful. Sometimes they are all that keep us going."

Suzaku nodded, closing his eyes again. He wondered who had been with Rick and how he fared. To believe the world would run on the rules it had made clear to you before, to instead change... For someone not to come back.

"Let's hope they are enough." Because they didn't have much else going for them.

"It will be. We have made a lot of progress in a short time. I don't see why that would stop now. We just need to keep fighting a little longer," Diarmuid gives Suzaku a reassuring look.

"From what you said, am I assuming correctly that you were sent home shortly after the end of things with Sephiroth?"

It was always a little longer, one last fight. The next fight would win all, change all. It had been that way since Suzaku was ten and he very much doubted that any 'last' fight here would truly be his last.

"Yes, I died and I remember waking again but I can't have been back more than a day before I ended up on my own world."

But isn't that life of a knight? One battle and then the next. The only end comes in death. Of course, for Suzaku, that is a much more complicated thing than for Diarmuid.

"That would explain why you didn't know about Sephiroth or what happened with Zo," Diarmuid nods his head in understanding. "And so much has happened even since then. Are you ready for me to tell you some more or should we speak of other things for a little longer first?"

"I am ready to hear the rest." He knew that until he had a picture of what had happened he wouldn't be able to place events within it. Best to know the whole first and then to narrow down to specific events and learn the details if they were needed.

Diarmuid nods, "If you need me to stop at any time, just say so. Also feel free to ask any questions that strike you. After everything started to settled down from what happened with Sephiroth and Zo, Zo brought in one more group of people. Oddly enough, it seems most of them were here once before. I don't know if he thought that might give us an extra boost when it comes to finishing this or if it was just a coincidence, but in either event no one else has been brought in since."

"People who have been here before..." He thought of all those he had known who had disappeared. He knew he shouldn't hope for them to be in this place, but it was better than on their dead worlds.

He nodded for Diarmuid to continue, it was interesting. Had Zo's power declined, so he could only grab those with a prior link to the tower? Or just a coincidence? Or was it done purposefully?

"Yes, I don't know if any of them are people who you knew," Diarmuid pauses a moment to think those those he remembers returning to the Tower and then lists off a few names, "Sheeba has returned along with the wizard from Legolas' and Samwise's world, Gandalf. I believe he is rather well-known here because he was around a long time before being sent away. Feferi Peixes was returned as was a young man named Marty who was an assistant to Doctor Brown. He was an invaluable help to us when Riki pulled what he did."

Suzaku nodded, he didn't know any of those people well but he had heard of most of them. People who had helped before in the past and would hopefully be helpful again now. The more people who could try and bring some good out of all of this the better.

"There are many others including Lancelot. I know he was your roommate for a short time, though, he is apparently in a different room now," Diarmuid could continue, but he figures that Suzaku has a good idea now and there are more important things to discuss.

"After that, based on some information gathered from the hacking attempt in March and though some discourse with Aria, it was decided that we needed to go down and get control of the machine that allows Zo to control his abilities--the one that was used to drain our soul energy. Apparently there are many things it can do, so many that not anyone knows them all. Since Waver was Aria's point of contact, he set some of it up, but in the end he and I both decided to stay up here..."

Well, Waver stayed because he isn't good at that kind of fighting and Diarmuid stayed because otherwise Waver would have followed him down.

"It's probably a good thing we stayed because not long after the group went down we started noticing something odd was happening. Our energy was being drained from us."

Suzaku nodded, he knew Lancelot and was glad the man was back. It was a good thing, since they knew how vulnerable those on their dead worlds were to Ruana.

He listened carefully as Diarmuid spoke, a machine that could drain soul energy and also control bringing people from their worlds. It was a very important thing to control.

"Riki knew what they were doing? Was it like when he took our soul energy?"

"It's hard to say if he knew or if the timing was just a coincidence. It was kind of like the machine draining us, but more gradual... Though, we did end up having nightmares with both come to think of it..."

That realization does not sit well with Diarmuid. Just how close had they come to possibly losing their souls then?

"After some searching, it was found that on certain floors, the draining was stronger. More searching revealed that there were chips hidden on those floors that could not be removed. They couldn't be physically damaged either. Real magic was able to short them out for a while, but in the end it took an EMP burst to disable them permanently."

Suzaku frowned and nodded, it did seem similar and he worried. How much soul energy could be taken from them before it dwindled completely.

Chips that drained power, Suzaku frowned again, "EMP?"

"Oh...um..." Diarmuid has to pause a moment to remember what he had been told that stood for. "It stands for 'electromagnetic pulse.' I don't understand how it works, but it is very damaging to electronic equipment like the chips. Marty made a gun that people could shoot off in the room to cover the whole area just in case there were more chips per floor than what we were able to find."

"Oh." Suzaku nodded as Diarmuid explains, "I know how it works." Probably just like a Sakuradite disruptor. He was impressed that Marty had made such a thing. "It's a useful tool to have, though I would imagine it would be rendered useless if the glamour went out."

"Maybe not. He made it from parts of the equipment on the hidden floor at the instruction of the AI that Xion rescued. Since that floor was built by Aria and her people, it might be that the gun will still work even with the glamour out. We never had to use it with the glamour down, though, so it's hard to say for sure..." Though, the thought strikes Diarmuid then that it might not be a bad idea to find out if the gun still works with the glamour down. Just...in case.

Suzaku nodded, so not something to rely on until they knew if it would work with the glamour down. And he was sure it would go down, out of all the power it would likely be first to go.

"Perhaps someone should check it. Is the glamour glitching at all?"

"The glamour is always glitching now it seems," Diarmuid shakes his head. The glitches are a constant reminder of just how short their time is getting. "All we would need to do is make a trip up to the hidden floor to check on it. I believe Marty said he would leave it there just in case there was need of it again."

"Would you like to go now? I can continue explaining things on the way."

Perhaps working on something as Diarmuid is telling his brother the rest of what he has missed will help it not be quite so overwhelming...

Suzaku nodded, "Yes I would like to see it." He was intrigued, though a lot of what Lloyd had worked on went right over Suzaku's head his time in the engineers had given him an interest in such things and enough knowledge to work out how things were made and worked.

"Then I will be glad to show you," Diarmuid stands from the bed and moves toward the door to the room, pausing to wait for Suzaku. "Marty actually made it so that it was easy to use by just about anyone. We only had so many people left up top. It wouldn't have been much help if how it worked was so complex no one could use it..."

Suzaku followed him, blinking away the slight dizziness. Maybe he shouldn't have drank the cider so fast...

"I would imagine it would have to be, and it is impressive that he managed to make it simply."

Diarmuid seems to realize that Suzaku is unsteady and reaches out steady him, "We can go slowly. Don't push yourself to quickly." He gives Suzaku a look and then moves slowly out into the hallway.

"Marty spent a lot of time alone on his dead world. To keep himself focused and stop himself from giving up, he studied and learned as much as he could from Doctor Brown's research. To be honest, I was very impressed when I met him. I don't think most people would be able to handle that much time alone on a dead would even with something to distract them."

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