Forgetting what it was I came to find...

[thechillyacademic]

Even, after his discussion with Szayel early in the morning, had stepped out into the garden to experience it properly.

It was a curious place. The sky, be it projected or a magical window to somewhere far away, felt real. The temperature had risen as time progressed, but it hadn't got too hot. The height of Summer was long gone and things were cooling down. The breeze was like a breath of cool air, not the stagnant atmosphere that ordinarily lingered and loitered in caves. The grass smelled pleasant, but there was another scent there, the subtle odour of dull decay mixed with the sweet smell of fallen fruit, as though Autumn was on the horizon.

He found that he wasn't sure whether those particular notes were borne on the light wind blowing in from who knows where, or whether they came from the garden itself, the tangible expanse he could see before him. Almost everything seemed so ... normal. There was grass, both mown short and left long, there were cultivated flowerbeds close to the kitchen door, not far from the little slab-covered patio that the doors opened out directly onto. Once upon a time there must have been a canopy or veranda, he noted, for there were pillars at the corners of the brickwork that stood freely and supported nothing. Further away from the palace he could see the heads of the season's last wildflowers bobbing back and forth in the wind.

Flowers hadn't surprised him much. He was used to them, given his original home. Their beauty wasn't lost on him, but it wasn't something he cared for. Flowers carried memories best forgotten, and not all of them were of Radiant Garden.

It was the trees that had shocked him. According to what he'd heard, the garden had been discovered late, and yet trees grew tall and thick trunked. Not immense, old trees, but ones large enough to be too big to have been grown naturally in the time that was reputed to have passed between the garden's discovery and the present. He didn't doubt that Marluxia had a hand in encouraging their growth. The ivy that climbed up old ruined buildings dotted out further afield appeared, at least, to be natural.

The low hum of an insect caught his attention and made him wonder whether the miles and miles between the location he stood in and the place where the weather came from was able to be crossed by creatures coming in from the air. Perhaps they had been imported in from somewhere manually, in little boxes with tiny air-holes and kept in hives. He wouldn't put that past Marluxia -- he, of all people, would know that insects were important for pollination. Insects and birds, he had thought, and listened, in a pause between steps, to the musical posturing competition that was birdsong.

More than the garden, Even was paying attention to the palace itself. He had walked some distance, but not far enough to arouse the Malboros' ire. They were larger close up, but not the biggest he'd had the misfortune of meeting. The palace extended up to and beyond the position of the greenhouse, he'd seen. The windows were black and lightless and a layer of dust was visible on the insides thanks to the light of a faraway sun. Nothing past a peculiar glass sunhouse positioned near where a deep ditch dropped away from the palace seemed to be inhabited.

Upon returning to the building itself, he worked out that the area of the Palace that those ground-level windows corresponded to were not occupied, but he hadn't yet worked out how to reach them. It was entirely possible that they were blocked off entirely. It would make sense that the palace might not be entirely whole after sinking beneath the ground, but it would take further investigation to confirm that. He had a brief look in the general area, but found nothing of use.

Since he would need help to try and work out the route, he decided to explore already charted areas of the palace instead.

Even's first port of call was, of course, the library. He pushed open the doors and looked around from the doorway. It was ... large. Probably not as big as the one in Radiant Garden, but it spanned two floors and extended some distance under the mezzanine layer. Heavy curtains covered the windows, but the room was already lit despite the fact that it appeared to be quite unoccupied.

Comments

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

"Professor Hojo," Hojo replied, his expression betraying no hint of an inkling that he might have realised he was being rude, or cared at all. Hojo was well practiced when it came to having no cares for the thoughts and feelings of others. It was a knack.

He didn't follow up with a question as to who Even was, either. Hojo already had the information he needed on that count. What Even called himself didn't matter. Hojo knew how he was going to be noted in his records, and that was the only designation Hojo cared for.

"I'm a scientist," he added, a touch unnecessarily, perhaps. The white coat should have been a giveaway, but Hojo had found it paid not to overestimate the intelligence of others. So often, Hojo had found they fell short of the mark, and the few he'd met in the Palace certainly had up to now. "I study unusual specimens such as yourself," he continued, "though you're the first Ryoka I've had the opportunity to personally observe."

[thechillyacademic]

"Obviously," he said, waving a hand dismissively at his lab coat. "Observe somebody else."

He had no interest in being another scientist's pet experiment. He wasn't the only Ryoka in the palace. Either this Professor Hojo had only recently arrived and hadn't run into Ienzo and Marluxia yet, or they had already instructed him to keep his distance.

"Where is your laboratory situated?" He asked.

He could have asked more gently, he thought, but this man had little regard for anybody else's comfort, if what he had said so far was any indication. He didn't view people as ... people, Even suspected. Besides, if he started with a softly-softly approach with people like him, there was the chance that he would be considered a walkover, which he did not want.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo gave a haughty snort at Even's instruction for him to observe somebody else. Specimens didn't get to dictate who observed them, when, why, or how.

"At the far end of the West Wing," he answered, "past the training grounds and servants quarters. The facilities were," he paused to sneer, "not up to my usual standards, but they were better than I'd had in my exile. Their previous occupant had been little more than a hack, obsessed with jutsu," he said, with a specific stress on the word 'jutsu' that indicated it was a bit like a scientist claiming to study astrology to his eyes. It might have been real, but it was hardly science. Not true science, and in any case wasn't as arduous as crafting a perfect soldier, for example.

[thechillyacademic]

Even listened, staying quiet as Professor Hojo prattled on about his substandard facilities. He knew better than to interrupt a supercilious cretin like this when he was in full flow, so he stood and waited until he had finished.

"Good," he said, talking another step into the library. "I will be sure to make my own laboratory far away from yours."

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

"Your laboratory?" Hojo regarded Even as if he was a snail that, against all reason, had climbed into the centre of a circle of salt.

L hadn't mentioned scientists among the Ryoka. If he had, Hojo definitely would have paid attention. That was interesting. Of course, they wouldn't be as learned, and scientifically advanced as this world, but they might take different approaches to things, which might yield some good results for them.

Far away from his, ha! The Ryoka would have a job, there. It was months of work to set up a reasonable laboratory from scratch, and that was without it being in a secret underground location. L was useful, for that, and there was plenty of brainless muscle around to move things, but it would still be like setting up the facility in Nibelheim. Still, if that was what he wanted to do, Hojo wasn't going to discourage him.

[thechillyacademic]

Even crinkled his nose at the scorn and incredulity with which that question was delivered. His lip curled, but he kept his visible irritation to a minimum.

"Yes," he said, shrugging. "Assuming I can find suitable equipment on this world."

He sounded displeased and gave a sharp sigh edged with impatience. Spira was a curious place. In some areas, it seemed advanced of what he was used to. In others... it was woefully backwards. It amazed him that a world that could construct a massive feat of engineering like Midgar hadn't yet achieved space travel. The dark age that Spira had suffered in the wake of the War of the Magi had crippled advances to the point where even airship travel, once ubiquitous, had only recently been brought back and even then, it was less developed now than it once had been.

He didn't yet know what that would mean for the equipment he would require, but he was sure to find out.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo murmured thoughtfully. He made a mental addendum to his notes that this particular Ryoka was of a scientific bent. He could be useful, more useful than merely as an object of interest; he'd be better positioned to yield relevant information.

Or hide it, there was that, too, Hojo considered.

"If you require equipment," Hojo said, almost conversationally, "speak to L. He can source almost anything." Hojo glanced over at L's adopted terminal. He had a few locations around the Palace that he worked from, this being one of them, and if you found one empty, it usually only meant he was working at another. Hojo had to admire the work ethic of someone so much like himself.

"Though sometimes he can be unfortunately reluctant," Hojo muttered, half to himself, remembering L's resistance to shipping in some live samples for him.

[thechillyacademic]

Even followed Professor Hojo's gaze to the terminal. He wasn't the first one to have mentioned this "L". The name had come up during the conversation with Szayel earlier in the morning, as the target of a 'brutal attack' by Ulquiorra.

It had stuck out because prior to that, Ulquiorra had seemed disinterested in practically everything. A stiff boy, seemingly unlikely to do anything without orders from whoever ruled him.

"I will do that," he said, stopping and giving a nod. "I dare say I will grow accustomed to the differences in the equipment I once used and what is available here... but a suitable location is the most important thing at the moment."

Somewhere out of the way. Wherever it was, it would require a complete makeover, unless he happened upon some sort of ancient, still serviceable infirmary. Cleaning, tiles, fixtures, lighting, plumbing... those came before more specialised apparatus.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

"You're welcome into my laboratories if you need to see equipment," said Hojo, a spider inviting a fly into its web. "I keep an open door policy, when it comes to my laboratories." This was, at least in part, due to the fact that he didn't need a closed door policy to keep people out.

He'd relish the opportunity to observe this one up close, and to get a sense of their scientific and technological capabilities. They'd come from elsewhere, a strange and nebulous term that in case designated somewhere other than this planet, and with the strange and varied sapient species on this planet, both recognised and not, it would be interesting to know what another world was like. Of course, they couldn't be more advanced than Spira, because their means of arrival was not, apparently, a route back, but it would be interesting nonetheless.

"I'll have some experimental subjects you could aid me in testing, before too long," he added, partly to himself again. "Perhaps you may even survive them."

[thechillyacademic]

Even thought it strange that Professor Hojo would so casually invite him to drop by his laboratory, but every scientist was different, he supposed. There was no accounting for taste when it came to privacy or policies.

He opened his mouth to respond to the testing aid statement that Hojo made, then swiftly closed it again when he added the later comment about survival.

"Survive them?" He asked, raising his eyebrows as he did. The way he said what he did seemed to imply that, by 'testing' the subjects in question, he intended to have him battle them, especially when he added the second part. "I'm non-combatant."

Such a statement wasn't strictly true, because he could more than hold his own in an altercation, but he wasn't the best person to have fight something to test its strength.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo paused at that statement, and then looked at Even with open curiosity. Hojo was used to soldiers, and SOLDIERs, and the one thing they had in common was elevated reiatsu levels. It wasn't a trait common to non-combatants. You found the occasional anomaly, of course, people with natural talent, for example, or alchemists, and people who had already been experimented on but had yet to hone their abilities, but even they rarely had reiatsu levels as high as he estimated this ryoka's to be.

Could he be estimating wrong? No, that was preposterous. He merely required more data to explain that statement, if it was factually accurate.

"You have no combat experience?" He asked, still wearing that look of abject curiosity, and sounding a little disbelieving.

[thechillyacademic]

"I have limited experience," he told him. "My abilities in this world largely fall into the 'support' category," he said, shortly, waving a hand as if dismissing what little experience he did have. As a support specialist, he didn't consider himself a fighter, or a warrior, in any regard, but it was a half-truth at best. Certainly, Sentinel, Saboteur and Synergist were support classes, but Commando and Ravager, the ones he happened to be currently learning since mastering two of the others, were not.

"Battle is not something that I personally take an interest in," he said.

Hence his creation of combat-ready replicas in the past.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo clasped his hands behind his back and turned to look Even full in the face. No interest in battle, well that wasn't unusual. Battle was the realm of young idiots who felt they had to prove themselves. Hojo's only interest in battle was in the performance of those young idiots, and the data it provided, but it was so unusual to find someone with this sort of power level who had no combat ability.

"What are your classes?" He asked. 'Support' usually meant mage or sentinel. Mage would explain the strength of his reiatsu if he considered supportive magic to be non-combatant, despite the fact that a white mage, or suitably inventive and powerful saboteur could turn the tide of a battle despite weaknesses in one's allies.

[thechillyacademic]

"Mainly Sentinel, Saboteur and Synergist," he said.

He had mastered the Black Mage arts in order to combine that with the physical arts he was attempting to grow accustomed to, but Ravager wasn't as easy for him as strictly support-based magic. Black Magic came easy to him, but he was so deeply slanted towards the Ice Element that the other elements didn't come anywhere near as easy. He could use them, but not anywhere near as proficiently.

Professor Hojo didn't need to know any of that, however. He didn't need to know anything, but Even was prepared to give him that much. It was possible that he'd find out sooner or later with his own research anyway.

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo looked Even over with deep consideration. Sentinel would explain it, in part; as a class, the users benefited from high chakra levels. Pairing sentinel with synergist and saboteur was uncommon, but, for the tactically minded, very, very smart. A good saboteur could ruin an enemy, as Hojo well knew since it was one of his own classes, and to be able to then switch to sentinel and both draw and weather any retaliation....

That combination of classes would be best wielded by someone who was highly analytical. Under the right circumstances, and with patience, this ryoka would be dangerous in a fight on his own. But even Hojo had to admit that the combination of classes was not ideal for combat, at least not without an appropriate team behind him.

"Yes," he muttered to himself, "that explains it." Then he straightened up, "I may have use for you," he concluded.

He needed more detailed data. This one was an interesting subject.

[thechillyacademic]

Even raised his eyebrows.

He didn't like being considered either a commodity or a tool, and this man seemed to be looking at him as though he was both. It was odd for a scientist used to looking at others that way to be on the other side of that particular table and he didn't approve at all.

"Mmmn," he said non-committally. "We'll see."

[doesthissmellofchloroform]

Hojo paid no attention to the obvious reservations the ryoka had about participating in experiments. Of course, not all of Hojo's experiments were combat oriented.

"Yes," he repeated to himself, "of course first we'll have to find your parameters." He may have to get L to find him some sturdier equipment, just in case this one exceeded expectations.

"I'm going to be very busy," he said, sounding delighted about that. He'd spent too long stuck in Daguerreo, and L was so reluctant to provide him with new, sapient subjects.

[thechillyacademic]

Well, Professor Hojo was persistent and difficult to dissuade, if nothing else. Even shrugged and gave a nod and then continued into the library. He wanted to look around and see what sorts of titles it stocked while it was quiet.

Something told him that it never got particularly full.