V paced an idle, irregular route around the roof. In front of him, the pod drifted with screen still up and operational even though he was no longer reading. He had already absorbed the details of YoRHa, the recent summary of the conflict, and, most interestingly, the Gestalt reports.
Humans separating their souls from their bodies wasn't a novel concept. Not given his own birth. It interested him more that they had managed it on a mass scale, and more still that they had done it to escape a disease brought to them by some sort of extra-dimensional event. To suddenly exist in another dimension, even one similar enough to his own to contain a bible, was much easier for him to believe than that he alone had been brought thousands of years into the future. It was the way the report spoke about the decade between 2004 and 2014. His memory-Vergil's memory-from that time was spotty and blood-stained, but surely he would have taken note of humans turning into salt.
Or maybe he wouldn't have.
The edge of confusion had fallen away over the long hours, and left peace that bordered on boredom in its place. Similarly, V had grown weary of considering his elsewhere self. Without the shadow of death, the threat of Urizen, or his duty to make right his own foolish choices, what reason was there to think or act with Vergil in mind?
A shape beneath the table caught his eye. Glasses. Sleek, black and, upon retrieval, not actually corrective. They were surprisingly clean, and he sat them on the bridge of his nose.
"REPORT: TEXT SIZE CAN BE ALTERED AS NECESSARY TO ACCOMMODATE VISUAL DEFECTS."
"I'm sure it can," said V with a faint chuckle. "But I'm merely enjoying my own good mood."
He sat the glasses back down and looked up to the shifting rays coming through the thinning clouds. "What more can you tell me about maso?"
"MASO-RELATED RESEARCH WAS HIGHLY CLASSIFIED." The screen retracted, and the pod efficiently clicked back into a simple box shape. "DATA IS LIMITED."
"The research doesn't interest me. I wish to know if it still exists."
The silent seconds stretched, and the stretch became a yawn, and the yawn became a vast and empty pit, but V remained patient. He had come to learn that the amount of time it took to fulfill a data request reflected the data's obscurity.
"MASO SOURCED FROM 'DRAGON' LIKELY STILL ATMOSPHERICALLY PRESENT. CORRUPT MASO FROM SOURCED FROM 'GIANT' DESTROYED SOMETIME DURING THE 33RD CENTURY. PROBABILITY OF SUBJECT V CONTRACTING WHITE CHLORINATION SYNDROME: 0%. END REPORT."
He began to laugh, gently at first, but the longer he went on, the more openly it came. He hooked the head of his cane around the pod and pulled it close enough to take its tiny alloy fingers in hand. The pod's antennae stood, but it went along with the blithe outburst and allowed itself to be pulled along in relaxed twirls.
Maso particles were the catalyst that set off everything that had happened in this world. For all the trouble it caused, humans had still managed to make use of it. It fueled their Gestalt Project, it fueled the development of their androids, of certain pod programs; it even fueled weapons development that Pod had not been able to expand on.
V suspected it was also fueling him.
Wouldn't that be a just reward? Expelled along with Vergil's nightmares, born from the act of being cast off, weak and intended for death so that there would be nothing but power left. And not only had he re-united, not only had he righted his wrong, but then he was transported to a place where he might taste what it meant to thrive. As himself.
Through some whim of serendipity, V got to have that which Vergil chased but never tasted: Triumph.
"CONFIRMATION REQUEST: DANCING?"
" 'Affirmative'." He gently spun the pod round before releasing it into the air, where it continued to turn on its own.
"REPORT: ENJOYABLE."
"Gross, " Griffon interrupted, yawning noisily from his perch atop the table. "Can we get on with whatever needs getting on with, preferably without you two getting it on? I'd love to watch you flirt, really, it's fascinating, but I would love it a lot more if we had a plan. You have a plan after all that, don't you?"
"Think in the morning, act at noon. Best we settle for the oncoming night and make decisions tomorrow."
"NEGATIVE. DUE TO PLANETARY TIDAL LOCK, THIS SECTOR NO LONGER EXPERIENCES NIGHT CYCLES."
V shared a blank look with Griffon, who was quick to shuffle around, go back to sleep, and leave V to figure it out by himself. He shrugged and slung his cane over his shoulder.
"Alright... Let's start from the top."
