DAY 20: LUNCH

[prisonerofdeath]

While Arts and Crafts wasn't all that bad, Gray Fox was greatly relieved when an intercom announced Lunch. He had almost reached the point where he was going to start eating more of the building materials

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[gun_fire]

As her nurse escorted her, asking her how her first therapy session had gone, Riza began to wonder towards which side of the spectrum the other staff fell. Her doctor seemed closer to the patients than to whoever was behind all of this, but what about the nurses? Were they genuine?

But it seemed her nurse, at least, had enough experience not to engage patients in any important conversation, and it was difficult to tell.

Once released to the cafeteria, Riza took brief assessment of the patients already in the room. There was a pretty red-headed woman, a man about her age who seemed quite tall though he was seated, and another man with similarly-light hair who looked better left alone.

Roy, though, was the first one she noticed. She nodded to him as she passed, but he seemed tired enough to fall asleep in his food. When she got hers, she sat at the same table, but further down: close enough that he could get her attention if he needed it, but not so close that he'd feel the obligation to converse.

Dr Wilson's sandwich seemed to have piqued her appetite rather than the opposite, and so her hamburger suffered her unwavering determination first.

[lustful_thing]

"Another soldier? My, my we're gathering quite a collection."

Lust, for once, wasn't in the mood for male company. She'd enjoyed her conversation with Snake in Arts and Crafts, even though she'd had to explain things to him. He'd been pleasant enough company. Any other questions he had could be answered by others, Lust decided.

She'd spotted the blond soldier as soon as she'd entered the cafeteria. She'd remembered her quite well - women in the Amestrian military were rather rare. Despite being on technically opposite sides, Lust had to admire any woman who made it in what was mostly a man's world. She set her tray down and sat across from the blond - Hawkeye, wasn't that her name? - and gave a brief nod down the table to Dias and Mustang.

[sasuke_of_sound]

Sasuke was about to snap a response -- doubtless rude -- to Yohji's comment when a nurse appeared, smiling a mind-numbingly bright smile. The metallic voice that had awoken him spoke again, something about lunch. Finally, he thought, but before he could turn around and say anything else, he was bustled away and out of the sickly-sweet room with what appeared to be a mass exodus.

Disgruntled that he hadn't been able to sneak out any of the candy for use as a weapon, he growled a request for something from each food group at the medic-nin serving lunch and stood with his lunch (whatever it was), glaring around the room.

Yohji had turned out to be just as confused as he was. Sasuke needed to find someone who actually knew what was going on.

Setting his tray down with a little more discreetness than his dark expression implied, he sat near enough two women to listen to their conversation. One looked capable, and the other looked like she knew something.

Keeping an ear out for anything of note, Sasuke set about trying to figure out how to eat his lunch.

[gun_fire]

Riza looked up at the voice, her eyes following the woman as she sat down across from her. Soldier. Though Riza didn't immediately recognize her, the other patient must have known her if she were using that particular term.

"I'm sorry," she began, "have we--"

Riza stopped with a thoughtful frown. The pale complexion, the undeniable beauty, the curious eyes . . . It was only the woman's almost friendly nod in the colonel's direction that threw Riza off slightly. "You're Lust," she said quietly, as though only informing herself. "I suppose no one is safe from being taken here," she said, her voice now more conversational though her smile was careful.

As she looked over the woman's face, the eyes seemed more obvious, and she wondered why she hadn't noticed those first. But though she had heard of this particular characteristic, she hadn't seen it up close until . . . a few hours ago.

Riza glanced in the colonel's direction, her concerned frown brief before she returned her attention to the woman opposite her. She didn't seem like the enemy she'd heard reports of--at least, not here.

[lustful_thing]

Lust grinned at being so easily recognized. "I am. And your Riza Hawkeye. Lieutenant, I believe? I'm afraid I don't pay that much attention to the military." The homunculus extended her hand in formal introduction. She followed the woman's gaze to to the Colonel.

"Don't worry, the Colonel and I are on friendly terms. I'm not your enemy, I have no reason to be. And no, no one is safe." Lust chuckled some. "But at least we find ourselves with a rather capable group of people."

She noticed the young man who sat a few seats down from them - probably new, she didn't recognize him. If he didn't want to be friendly, there was no need to force it upon him.

[sasuke_of_sound]

Lieutenant? Military? Sasuke's attention perked as he glanced surreptitiously at the two conversing. They definitely didn't look like ninja -- maybe they were like Yohji, and lived in worlds where the military used different techniques?

At any rate, the dark-haired woman seemed to know what she was talking about; her words had a certainty about them that made Sasuke feel confident that he'd picked the right source this time. Still, he'd hold off on actually approaching the conversation until he could be certain there was something to learn.

Having figured out how to eat the meal -- largely from observing others who seemed more familiar with it -- he took a bite and grimaced, still listening intently.

[gun_fire]

She took Lust's hand when she extended it, clasping it in a sincere greeting. She was still wary as always, but she knew the colonel would have reacted by now were Lust not telling the truth.

"I hope to be of service, myself," she said, releasing Lust's hand and returning hers to the meal she knew better than to skip this time. "I'm still rather ignorant of what we're up against, however."

Additionally, she still needed to secure some kind of weapon. Somehow she doubted her skills in hand-to-hand combat would get her very far here.

Speaking of weapons . . .

Riza opened her mouth to speak, then corrected her volume to speak more quietly. She was aware of the boy sitting a few seats away, and though she honestly couldn't say whether or not he was listening, she preferred to remain discreet.

"I take it your ability is also weakened, if you haven't made it out yet."

[lustful_thing]

"We're up against a great deal," Lust said, completely blunt and frank. Her flirtatiousness and coyness were all dropped when speaking with another woman - another woman she doubted would care one way or another for her charms, at least. "A building that shifts itself and changes its structure at will. Monsters with amazing strength at night - chimera like creatures, massive and twisted versions of normal creatures. Doors with locks that resist picks. A mad man calling all shots from behind an intercom, a radio that claims to help but speaks in riddles and seems to mock us. And most likely other obstacles that I and my usual companions have yet to encounter. And of course the exerimentations that they liked to do to us."

She started on her own meal. Red meat. She found it somewhat disgusting. Thick and heavy and clogging, almost.

"Yes, my abilities are weakened." Lust drew down the collar of her shirt, displaying bare skin where the mark of a homunculus should be. "I'll be honest with you, lieutenant, I'm more human than not in this place. They've experimented on me on top of normally weakening me."

[sasuke_of_sound]

The blonde woman dropped her voice, making Sasuke tense and wonder if he'd have to join the conversation to learn anything.

Then the other one spoke, and it was no longer really a choice. When Yohji hadn't mentioned a loss of abilities, Sasuke had simply assumed that the man either didn't have non-physical abilities or didn't want to share. But a building that was alive? Monsters? Madmen? It sounded almost like Orochimaru's lair, but Sasuke was positive that wasn't it.

And a woman who also found weakened abilities.

"Then everyone in this place is weakened? Permanently?" Sasuke demanded, shifting to face the women, and then colouring slightly as his rudeness dawned on him for once -- this was part of why he didn't usually go undercover, damn it -- and appended: "Um, miss."

[gun_fire]

"I see," she murmured, not without sympathy.

Riza was still absorbing the information Lust had given her--mostly just what the brigadier general had said, stated differently--when the boy addressed her companion. It was only now that she noticed how young he was . . . twelve, maybe thirteen. This place really was indiscriminate. But he seemed to have been through more than the usual childhood.

Of course, he still had a childishness about him. No doubt he had some true gift that balanced out his rudeness.

[lustful_thing]

"Joining a conversation without even introducing yourself?" Lust chuckled and raised an eyebrow, appraising the boy carefully now. He looked about Haru and Kyo's age, not uncommon in this place.

"But to answer your question, yes. Everyone with any sort of ability is weakened in this place. Not permanently. When patients are in the grip of the hospital's mind control, their powers are at full strength. It only lasts while they're released from the hospital's grip. However they're weakening us, it isn't permenant. I imagine it doesn't extend beyong the place's walls." She chewd idly on a bit of vegetable. So this boy had some kind of ability, then, a power. How interesting.

"And you needn't call me 'miss'."

[sasuke_of_sound]

"Sasuke," Sasuke said immediately. What had the 'Lieutenant' called her? "And you are -- Lust?"

He held his hand out, remembering that the two had shaken hands earlier, and falling back onto stiff formality to cover his earlier mistake. "I am pleased to meet you, Lust, Lieutenant. So this hospital isn't a regular facility? Do you have any idea how they weaken abilities?"

It wasn't so much that he was weakened, he realized as he analyzed his state more carefully than before. He'd assumed it was simple chakra depletion, but now that he thought about it, it felt more like suppression.

[gun_fire]

She nodded to the boy--Sasuke--when he introduced himself, remaining quiet as she listened to Lust's explanation. Riza didn't entirely mind his intrusion. She was new enough that any conversation she had access to was bound to tell her something she didn't know.

She was starting to feel somewhat lucky that she did not have some kind of ability like the colonel's or Lust's. Certainly having it at all was better than not, and yet she had never become accustomed to having that sort of power. She didn't feel the handicap that they did.

[lustful_thing]

Lust took the boy's hand and shook it.

"I'm afraid, Sasuke, that I don't have the answer to your question about abilities. But this place is nowhere near a normal hospital facility. Monsters come out at night and the building changes, as I was telling the lieutenant here. Im sure you must have heard." Lust's voice was teasing, her entire manner changing when interacting with a male. Even a young one. He was probably the same age as her lover, after all.

"I take it you have some ability, then?"

[sasuke_of_sound]

Sasuke returned the handshake and withdrew his hand, forgetting about his half-eaten lunch in light of the rapidly dawning comprehension that shit, this is actually serious.

"I hadn't heard anything," Sasuke said, frowning with the realization that he didn't, in fact, know anything, and that he would as a result need to depend on someone else until he could do more effective reconnaissance. "I woke up this morning to a medic who called me by the wrong name and then met someone who told me that this was a mental hospital and not a prison. Do you know why we're here?"

He paused before answering his question, wondering about how much information he should reveal and what could possibly be a trump card without his chakra. "It's not so much an ability as a force that lets me fight," He said finally, leaving out the Sharingan or the Heaven Seal.

[gun_fire]

Though she didn't stare, Riza took to observing Lust with some interest as she spoke with Sasuke. Almost from the moment he revealed his eavesdropping, her manner had been different. With Riza, Lust had been straightforward and practical. But with the boy, she seemed to call upon all the traits of her namesake.

Riza was certain she only did this to her advantage, especially when she chose which people to use it on. It was just what Riza had hoped never to do in her life. Instead she had chosen to elicit equal treatment by encouraging the men around her to forget that she was different from them at all. In fact, she often overcompensated for the differences she couldn't change. And for the most part, it had worked, with some large sacrifices.

They both had ways of getting what they wanted. Riza respected that.