Day 17: Music Room

[last_roivas]

Sighing to herself as the nurse herded her into the music room, Alex resisted the urge to rub her temples. Eventually she knew she was going to have to check Skadi's memories to see just what she had been up to, but she had a feeling doing that right now would just make her headache worse. That would teach her not to be specific when she told

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[muted_flame]

The colonel truly had been looking forward to continuing that lesson Greed had been giving him in the cafeteria, but it was cut short. Roy found himself a bit unfulfilled as he entered the music room, scowling at whatever was playing as he located somewhere comfortable to sit down. Greed could be a very hard-to-find homunculus at times, so he wasn't sure when he'd be seeing the sin again. Still, he had the basic idea as to how to shield, so he could continue practicing on his own.

Yeah. He didn't need Greed's help every step of the way

[muted_flame]

The radio. Oh, the radio. It would continually send them on those wild goose chases. "It may have been. The radio just gives hints. You have to interpret them yourself. It could have been in the kitchen, it may have been outside wherever fruit might be growing." There were a lot of different ways to think of it, which was what made it so frustrating.

Sometimes, Roy wished he didn't mention alchemy, but there wasn't any easy way to avoid it. He sighed, but maintained his patience. If he were in Luffy's shoes, he would have been curious as well. The colonel simply wasn't used to people not knowing what alchemy was.

"Alchemy. You take materials and transmute them into something else. If I had a few small knives, I could break the components apart and then form them into one long sword. The basic principle it functions on is equivalent exchange--you can't gain something without giving something in return."

[tripleswordflow]

Zoro hadn't even entirely understood what Roy had meant, but the important thing was that he claimed he could make him a sword -- all Zoro had to do was get the ingrediants.

"So if I find these knives, you'll make the sword for me," Zoro said seriously, not wanting any kind of assumption or misunderstanding between the two.

He figured he could get by with one. Two would be preferred, but if he absolutely had to settle for it, he could do with one.

Better than the current prospects, that was for sure.

[muted_flame]

Was it that hard of a concept to comprehend? Roy supposed that as a completely foreign concept, it might seem far-fetched or impossible, but to him it had been a way of life.

He hoped he still could do it. His alchemy had been weaker ever since he'd gotten that lovely little transplant job, but turning knives into one sword was not a complicated transmutation by any means. He was sure if that if he put enough energy into it, a decent sword could be made.

"Yes," he replied, nodding confidently. Really, it didn't sit well with him to know children were running around without even a way to defend themselves...

[rubbermancan]

At first, the only thing Luffy could do as Roy explained this "alchemy" to them was stare at the man with unsettling, glazed eyes. He'd never even heard of such a thing back home. Sure, they had things like Devil Fruit, which allowed you do some interesting things if you ate one, but it sounded like that was very different from this transmute thing Roy was talking about.

All weird words aside, Luffy knew it all boiled down to one thing: somehow, Roy was able to change a bunch of knives into a sword!

...How cool was that?

Mouth dropping open, the pirate clapped his hands together. "That's amazing! You can seriously do that?" Getting a better look at Roy now, Luffy nodded, thoroughly impressed. "Man! You must be pretty powerful!" His mind could barely wrap around something so ridiculously awesome

[muted_flame]

Well then. If there was one thing Roy couldn't refuse, it was praise. This Luffy kid seemed sincerely impressed with what he was able to do. Being a skilled alchemist was no small feat, so Roy felt the compliments were founded. He deserved that sort of appreciation!

"I can," he confirmed yet again. "And yes, I'm fairly powerful. I've used alchemy in war before." He didn't want to brag--Ishbal wasn't something he was proud of. But he did want to give an example of his power. Granted, it was diluted here, but

[tripleswordflow]

Shrugging off the mention of war, Zoro's mind now seemed focused solely on getting to the kitchen and getting the knives in question. He'd have to wait until night and make good use of his time this time around. He'd spent far too long waiting for an ally who'd never showed his face.

Frowning that thought away, Zoro was back to thinking about his plans, obsessed with the prospect of regaining a weapon. Still, he was beginning to realize that he didn't exactly have any good ideas on how to go about getting what he needed. Looking up towards Roy, he frowned.

"Do you know where the kitchen is, by chance?" he asked, though he noticed Roy's gaze was elsewhere.

[muted_flame]

Roy shouldn't have been staring. Granted, Hughes and Quistis were probably a bit too occupied with each other to notice, but... she was crying? She had always seemed so together before and the fact that she was now some sniveling child--

...He was being harsh, mainly because he was feeling bitter. But Hughes had been telling him the night before how hard it was to always being helping everyone else who was breaking down. Couldn't people manage on their own? Why did they always have to rely on other people? Roy kept things to himself and he'd gotten by just fine.

Well, maybe that wasn't true, but at least he hadn't dragged anyone down with him.

Glancing back at Zoro, he sighed and collected his thoughts. "Everything was moved around, but my guess is that it's connected to the cafeteria."

[rubbermancan]

Luffy gave a determined nod, taking in Roy's words and trying to commit them to memory. If he noticed that Roy had been looking at Hughes and Quistis, he gave no indication of it. Instead, he casually scratched his cheek in thought. "That would make sense, since they make food in the kitchen," he stated simply. "Zoro and I were gonna go last night, but we never got a chance." He gave the older man a confident grin. "But tonight is definitely gonna be different."

Of course, he wasn't sure which he was more excited about: the prospect of getting a decent weapon for Zoro, or getting to see Roy use those awesome alchemy powers of his.

"But, until then, I guess we'll just kick those monsters' asses the simpler way," Luffy mused with a grin, and he idly cracked his knuckles. "Good thing I don't use any weapons."

[muted_flame]

"If you pick one thing to do during the night and really focus on it, usually you should have the time to get it done." It was when people got too ambitious with the tons of things they wanted to get done that they ended up disappointed--and tended to get nothing done. Taking it step-by-step, while a bit taxing, was the best way. Slow and steady wins the race...?

"That is good," Roy told Luffy seriously. "Getting weapons takes time and if they break or dull, you have to waste more time replacing them. Being able to rely on your hands and feet is beneficial in this place." Now that Roy was part-homunculus, he might be able to use claws instead of fire. The concept bothered him, but he knew that it was more practical.

[tripleswordflow]

Zoro knew what Roy meant. He'd broken plenty of swords before. Still, he was pretty sure he wasn't entirely useless without one. He could probably throw a punch if he absolutely had to.

He'd just... rather not. Zoro was a swordsman, before anything else, and he wasn't entirely sure he could trust his hand-to-hand combat abilities.

Still, he nodded towards Roy, shifting a bit. He was confident he and Luffy would be able to replace a sword for him.

[rubbermancan]

As Roy spoke, Luffy was even more glad that he didn't need to rely on something like a sword or a gun to defend himself. The pirate didn't know what the swordsman could do while they were looking for knives anymore than Zoro himself did. Maybe he'd have to coach the man in how to deliver a good punch, though he supposed Zoro's brute strength might be enough to get him by. He'd seen him spend countless hours training and toning his body, a sharp contrast to how Luffy liked to laze around and stare at the sea all day.

Yeah, Zoro would probably be fine. Still, Luffy didn't intend to let anything happen to the swordsman either way.

Eyebrows raising, the pirate suddenly remembered something. "Hey, Brock said something about people being weakened in this place. Do you know anything about all that?"

[muted_flame]

Roy was tempted to place his face into his palm. Of course he knew all about that. But Luffy was asking nicely and he was new, so it wasn't his fault that he didn't know anything. The alchemist had simply figured they would have heard most of this by now. Well, he preferred people that asked for help over people that flung themselves crying into another's arms, so...

Okay. Time to get over that.

"Yes. Anyone that has powers--such as my alchemy--will find it significantly weakened in this place. We're not sure how it works, but the point is that you have to be extra careful because of it." He was used to causing huge explosions, enough to tear apart a whole hallway in this place, but it simply didn't work that way anymore.

[rubbermancan]

Blinking, Luffy stared at Roy while taking a moment to think over what the man had just said. So, Roy's powers had been severely weakened, yet he was still able to change knives into swords? If it were possible, Luffy was even more impressed with this fellow. "Wow, I'd love to see you do this alchemy stuff outside of this place!" he laughed. "You must be amazing!"

He was in the middle of thinking what kinds of awesome feats Roy was capable of when an entirely different thought occurred to him.

"--but, wait." His cheery demeanor faded a little. "That means my powers are weak, too, right?" Brock had touched briefly on something like that earlier, but, for some reason, the idea that he'd be at an disadvantage hadn't fully sunk into Luffy's skull until he'd actually spoken to someone who'd been a victim of this "power down." (Come to think of it, he wasn't too sure whether Brock had any strange powers or not.) Because he had yet to try and use his powers, though, Luffy had no idea how his body might have changed since his

[tripleswordflow]

Frowning towards Luffy a bit as the boy practically swooned over Roy, Zoro shifted some, staring down at the man as he thought on his words. It was clear that Roy was getting annoyed with Luffy's endless questions. Sometimes Zoro forgot just how irritating Luffy could be -- Zoro had gotten used to it long ago.

Still, upon the realization that Luffy's powers would be diminished, Zoro was beginning to think that this trip to the kitchen to get knives was going to be very difficult. With Zoro practically helpless (a fact he didn't like and wouldn't readily admit to) and Luffy's powers cut way down, Zoro was beginning to feel actually uneasy.

"We're going to have to be very careful," he murmured.

[muted_flame]

Roy chuckled. He couldn't help it, the boy's enthusiasm was infectious. The fact that Zoro seemed more or less unaffected by the other boy's antics made it rather obvious that the two had known each other for a while. Similar to how he could stand idly by while Hughes went on and on about his daughter.

There seemed to be a lot of pairs of good friends in Landel's. Hughes and himself, Roxas and Axel, and now Luffy and Zoro. He wondered if there was some sort of relevance there, though it was probably just coincidence.

"Well, my specialty is flame alchemy, so that's where the weakness really becomes apparent." It was difficult to admit that he was weak, but the fact that everyone else was in the same situation made it a bit more bearable.

"And yes, they will be. I'd suggest you two watch yourselves when you go exploring at night," he reiterated. Glancing at Zoro, he could tell that at least he would make sure of that. That was good.