Trying to keep a hold of my somewhat-improved spirits, I glance down at my bracelet, finding that the time has just about come to head downstairs to the second set of Chromatic Doors.
Guess I'd better be going.
As I move to exit the warehouse, I make the very conscious decision not to reenter the crew quarters again to do so. Not only would I prefer to avoid my initial site of death as much as humanly possible, but last time I left from there at roughly this point in time, I ran right into Phi, and to be perfectly honest I'd just really prefer not to have to talk to her again right now. Maybe later, when I've sorted through my thoughts on her a little better, and she's hopefully at least a little less suspicious of me.
This in mind, I avoid the cyan door and make my way through the yellow door instead, deciding to take the path through the infirmary. In doing so however, I end up running into someone else anyways — two someones, in fact.
"Hi again Miss Clover!" Quark says brightly, turning and waving at me as I enter the room.
"Hiya, Quark." I reply, waving back as I approach. "...you too, Tenmyouji."
Tenmyouji, having apparently taken Quark off of K's hands at some point, doesn't even so much as acknowledge me, simply continuing to stare at the medicine cabinet he's currently got his head buried in. I feel a small, sharp pain in my chest at that, but try to ignore it.
"You two heading downstairs yet?" I ask the smaller half of the pair, figuring that I'm not going to get a response from the larger one.
"Grandpa wanted to check what kind of stuff this room has in it first." Quark replies. "We're gonna walk down together in just a minute."
I nod absently. "Right. Well, I get the feeling your grandpa doesn't really want me around, so I'll leave you two alone."
I start moving towards the door, only for Quark's eyes to suddenly light up. "Oh hey, wait a second!"
He plunges his hands into his pockets, rummaging around in them for several seconds before pulling out a large pink-and-black lump. He then holds the item out to me, at which point I realize that the lump is actually a fuzzy, scrunchie-like bracelet.
"This is yours, right?" Quark asks. "It matches your outfit."
I glance down at my matching pink-and-black spotted "top" for a moment, before quickly looking back up at the offered item.
Well, he's not wrong. Plus, I think I actually remember having this on my wrist when I first woke up — when did it fall off?
"...uh, yeah, it is." I say. "Thanks. I didn't even realize I'd lost it."
Mostly because this isn't exactly my normal wardrobe.
I take the bracelet and slide it back onto my right arm (my left one already equipped with a similar, but significantly more dangerous accessory), sitting it next to the small silver chain loop already residing there. Despite the elastic inside the band, it's actually a fairly loose fit — so much so in fact that I'm pretty sure it'll slip right off if I so much as rest my arm at my side. No wonder I apparently dropped it.
"Where was it anyways?" I ask, sliding the bracelet further and further up my arm, until it finally stays put just below my bicep.
"I found it on the floor in the AB room me and Mister Dio used." Quark replies with a grin. "I kinda forgot to give it to you earlier, but I remembered this time!"
Ah, it probably fell off just after I woke up then, when I was still distracted by the shock of the situation... or maybe it was when K did that rocket jump through the roof.
"You know, Grandpa feels pretty bad about picking betray." Quark suddenly says. "I think he wants to tell you he's sorry."
"Quark…" Tenmyouji mutters, his eyes narrowing as he speaks for the first time since I entered the room.
"What?" Quark asks, innocently looking up at his caretaker. "You are sorry, right Grandpa?"
"This isn't something you need to-"
"You got all quiet when Miss Clover walked in," Quark continues heedlessly, "and you keep looking around with that weird face you only get when you're feeling really bad about something. If you wanna apologize, you should just say so. You're the one who taught me that, remember?"
Tenmyouji stiffens, then almost immediately slumps, his apparent willingness to argue the point rapidly leaving him as he sighs in defeat.
"...so I did."
With that, Tenmyouji slowly turns around to face me, his expression drooping in apparent regret.
"For what it's worth, I am sorry about betraying you, Clover." he says, self-consciously rubbing the back of his head. "I didn't mean to put you in more danger than we're all already in. Guess I'm just more paranoid than I thought I was... think you can forgive me?"
I blink. He's asking my forgiveness, when I still feel like the one at fault? He really must not have received much from across the MGF other than vague feelings then, just like Alice... damn it, now I feel even guiltier than I did already.
Still, while I may not feel like I deserve it, of course I'm going to accept Tenmyouji's apology — like hell I'm going to burn this bridge twice over when he's the one offering to repair it. Though, I can't just act like what he did doesn't affect me, because it does, even if it might well have been justified in a way, so I'm going to have to be careful about how I phrase this.
"Well… I can't exactly pretend it didn't happen." I finally reply, feigning hesitance as I cross my arms and look away from him. "This was kind of a big deal, Tenmyouji."
Tenmyouji closes his eyes, stoic and accepting of my apparent refusal — but I'm not finished.
"That being said," I continue, prompting the elderly man's eyes to pop back open, "I don't really like holding grudges, and even if you betrayed me, I still think that you're ultimately a good person at heart. So... I'm willing to try and move past it if you are."
Tenmyouji takes a moment to process that, then smiles at me. "Of course. Thanks, Clover."
He raises one hand to the back of his head, still seeming rather sheepish. "Promise I'll make it up to you. Somehow."
I smile back at him. "I'll hold you to that."
...though, honestly, I doubt I'll truly be able to. Still, the fact that Tenmyouji is making the gesture is nice, even if I doubt he'll actually get a chance to follow through on it.
With the air between us somewhat cleared, the three of us end up walking our way to the elevator together in relatively comfortable silence. After descending to the lower level of the facility, we move into the antechamber containing the second set of Chromatic Doors.
...where everyone else is already present.
"Well, look who finally showed up." Dio says. "Took you guys long enough."
I scowl, hiding my expression behind Tenmyouji's back. Apparently our conversation in the infirmary held us up long enough that we ended up being the late ones this time, rather than Dio.
"It is good to see that the three of you are alright." K says. "We were beginning to become concerned."
"Sorry about that." Tenmyouji replies. "We miss anything?"
"Yeah, but you can catch up later." Phi says. "Clover, you still have those files from earlier, right?"
I nod, and from there the conversation proceeds much as expected, with the topic of the secret archives being the main point of discussion. Having no reason to listen to it a second time, after passing my pages along and checking to make sure Phi isn't watching me, I turn my thoughts inward again.
Okay... so. If I'm going to be trying to improve my epiphany levels — if you can even have "levels" of that — I should probably start by going over what questions and mysteries I actually intend to try and answer. That seems like a logical first step, right? Yeah, let's go with that.
Thinking it over, I dismiss my more major questions right off the bat — on subjects such as how I ended up in this situation, where Clover's mind might have gone, or why any of this is happening to me specifically, I can do nothing but wildly speculate, as I have no way of gaining any real insight into them right now. Instead, I think I'd rather focus on the smaller mysteries that have popping up here and there, whose answers are presumably closer at hand, and which I therefore might be able to actually "solve". Stuff like why Alice seemed so scared about the idea of being anesthetized, and why Tenmyouji is so invested in the mystery of All-Ice, and especially what was up with Future-Phi asking me how to remove the bracelets, along with my other assorted minor questions.
I nod to myself. Some of them are probably less important than others — I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of the things I've been wondering about turn out to be trivial to answer, or else completely irrelevant — but I'm not going to dismiss anything outright unless I'm absolutely certain it's pointless. Under the circumstances, finding answers to my questions is more important than whether or not they actually matter anyways... or so the theory goes, at least.
I cross my arms. There is of course also the oddity of why the described mechanics of SHIFTing don't seem to line up exactly with my actual experience with it, and the clear discrepancies between how it functions in VLR and ZTD, but I've dwelled on those topics an awful lot already, and I'm not sure there's much point in continuing until I've actually done it a little more-
"Chromatic Doors have opened." the walls suddenly declare, snapping me out of my thoughts as the doors in question slide upwards. "Five minutes remain until Chromatic Doors close."
"Looks like we're out of time to talk about this." Tenmyouji says, exactly as he did last time. "We need to decide who's going with who."
"Yes, but who should decide that?" K asks. "As with the last round, a single choice will automatically make everyone else's for them."
"Why don't we let the people who are at the greatest disadvantage right now decide?" Phi asks.
"What do you mean?" Sigma asks.
"The people who only have 1 BP." Phi clarifies.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that be you, Sigma, Clover, K, and Luna?" Alice suddenly cuts in. "In other words, most of the group? I hardly see how that helps."
"And what would you suggest?" Sigma bitterly replies, obviously still upset about the last AB round.
Alice shrugs. "If we're going to decide by majority anyways, we might as well make it fair and just take a vote from everyone, don't you think?"
I nod in silent agreement. Normally I'd actually be more in favor of Phi's method, but the plan is to get me grouped with Quark this round, so I'm perfectly fine with Alice giving herself a say in the matter if it helps us stack the odds in favor of that.
"Fine." Phi says, capitulating surprisingly quickly. "Who do you want to go with then, Alice?"
"I think I'd like to go with Luna." Alice replies.
"Alright, we'll call that Option A." Phi says. "That would mean that K goes with Dio and Tenmyouji, and Quark goes with Sigma and Clover... I'm actually fine with that. Anyone else?"
"I'm not." Tenmyouji says. "I'd much prefer it if Quark went with me. I can keep him safe that way."
"And I'm sure as hell not grouping up with the tin man here if I can help it." Dio snidely follows up. "I'd way sooner go with the kid than him."
"That is unfortunate." K says. "I would have liked to go with you and Tenmyouji, myself."
Tenmyouji gives K a weird look upon hearing that, but K doesn't elaborate on his reasoning. I'd assume that it's similar to last time, in that he doesn't want to accidentally kill anyone if he feels he has to betray.
"That's three votes for Option A then, and two for Option B." Phi says. "Luna, how about you?"
Luna looks down. "Option B... I'd like to go with Sigma and Clover, if I can."
"And I'm okay with going with Grandpa if that's what he wants." Quarks adds with a smile.
I bite the inside of my lip. Shoot, that's four votes for Option B. If Sigma and I don't both vote for Option A, then we'll end up going with Luna, which would mean that come the AB round, I'll have to either blatantly ignore Alice's earlier instructions, or almost certainly "kill" Luna. Neither of which are exactly ideal scenarios...
"One minute remains until Chromatic Doors close."
"Quick, anyone else?" Phi hurriedly prompts.
Sigma opens his mouth to speak-
"Yeah, me." I interrupt, drawing everyone's attention to myself instead. "I want to go with Quark. He seems like a pretty cool kid, and I'd like to get to talk to him a little more."
Smiling widely — and falsely — I turn to my partner for this round.
"You're okay with that, right Sigma?"
In the face of my somewhat leading question, whatever Sigma was about to say seems to leave him, rendering him momentarily speechless. Come on, quickly!
"Uh... yeah, I guess that's fine." he eventually says.
My smile becomes more real. "That's five votes for Option A then, right?"
"Guess so." Tenmyouji says.
He looks over at Quark, then nods at me with what seems like tacit approval. A pang of guilt hits me upon seeing that, as the only reason Alice and I even pushed for this choice is because Quark is the only one here I can safely betray, but I'll deal with that when I get to it... if I even get to it.
"Oh come on, seriously?!" Dio protests, glancing at K.
"You cast your vote, and you lost." Phi says matter-of-factly. "Looks like it's decided-"
"Ten seconds remain until Chromatic Doors close. Nine... Eight... Seven..."
"-and just in time." Phi finishes in a rush. "Come on!"
The tiny room briefly becomes a scramble of bodies, everyone bumping into everyone else as we rush to our respective groups and doors. Thankfully, Sigma and I are already standing next to the red door, and Quark is only a few feet away, allowing us to make it through the opening just before the countdown hits zero.
"Chromatic Doors closing."
The door shuts behind me, prompting the bracelet scanner to begin rising over us. I sigh in relief — it was a close thing, but Alice's plan worked out in the end, with just a tiny bit of manipulation on my part. Sorry Sigma, I-
I stumble in place, despite the fact that the door leading out of the scanning chamber hasn't even opened yet. Wait a second, did I just cheat Sigma out of getting the final decision at the Chromatic Doors again?!
I glance over at Sigma's shadowed form, the lack of light hiding my grimace. Damn it, how the hell do I keep managing to do this? Has he managed to decide even a single one of the door choices thus far?! I can't keep-
No, hold on. Sigma did still have a choice that time, right? I may have lead him towards the one I wanted, but he had the option to refuse, and his vote was ultimately the deciding one. As such, the timeline should still split there like it was supposed to, right? I mean, unless for some reason Sigma literally can't bring himself to vote against me when he comes back to that particular juncture a second time. Assuming this isn't already the second time, in which case-
I toss my head back and groan under my breath. I really can't worry about this right now...
The door opposite the crimson one at our backs finally raises, light spilling back into the small room as another long hallway is revealed. The three of us begin proceeding down the corridor in a rather awkward silence, all will to initiate conversation seeming to have left us in the interim.
...and then the silence is broken, and it somehow gets even more awkward.
"I'm sorry, I have to ask this, or I'll never get it off my mind." Sigma suddenly says, looking over at me as he does so. "Clover, why aren't you wearing a shirt?"
And so it begins...
My first instinct is to glare at Sigma and tell him that I have the right to dress however I want. My second instinct however tells me that, likely motive for asking aside, that's not actually an unreasonable question, as I've been wondering pretty much the exact same thing since the moment I got here. Unfortunately, I can't actually say that, nor give Sigma the insipid "official" explanation behind my outfit without also explaining SOIS.
Meaning, I'm stuck just making something up instead.
"For your information, this is technically a top." I say, verbally stalling while I try to think of a convincing enough reason. "As for why I'm wearing it rather than something more 'substantial'... let's just say the place Alice and I work at tends to get really, really hot at times. It honestly only makes sense to dress in clothes that we won't immediately end up sweating out of."
Come to think of it, that might even be true to some extent. I'm not really sure where SOIS's main "base" is located, but Alice did make her first appearance hitchhiking in the middle of the Nevada Desert...
Sigma raises an eyebrow at me. "No offense, but I'm kind of surprised your outfits meet the workplace dress code."
"There isn't one." I say, deciding it probably can't hurt to let this small tidbit slip. "In fact, we're actively encouraged to dress as oddly as possible."
"...seriously?"
"Seriously." I nod, shivering slightly as I do so. "Of course, had I known I was going to be kidnapped and taken to a freezing cold... whatever this place is," I gesture at the metal walls surrounding us, "I would have made sure to throw on a couple extra layers first."
Seriously, I'd kill to have a jumpsuit like Sigma's right now. Even if it would make me look like an extremely tacky mechanic.
"I could lend you my hat for a while if you'd like, Miss Clover." Quark chimes in.
I look over my shoulder and smile at him. "Thanks Quark, but I imagine you need that hat even more than I do. Besides, I don't think it'd sit right on my hair, do you?"
I reach up and pat the pair of fuzzy ornaments nesting atop the crown of my head, which would naturally prove a significant impediment to any attempts at hat-wearing.
"I guess you're right." Quark laughs. "Tell me if you change your mind though!"
I nod in agreement. A few seconds later, the three of us emerge into a chamber nigh-identical in appearance to the one leading into the B. Garden.
"Three different doors..." Sigma says, looking around the room.
"Which way should we go?" Quark asks.
I shrug. "Whichever way we're allowed to, I'd assume."
Not seeing anyone else about to do it, I step forward to pull the lever at the center of the room-
"Wait!"
I startle and freeze at Sigma's panicked cry, my hand still outstretched towards the lever.
"Don't just pull that without thinking!" Sigma continues. "What if it's a trap?! For all we know, it could explode the moment someone touches it!"
I sigh exasperatedly. "I appreciate the concern Sigma, but I can't really imagine we're being forced to play this huge, intricately-designed 'game' with about a hundred separate rules to it, just so Zero can randomly blow one of us up with a booby-trapped lever before the second round even starts."
Before Sigma can protest any further, I reach out and yank the lever forward. A moment later, the door directly across from us dings, and slides up into the ceiling.
"See?" I say as I walk into the newly revealed hallway. "Nothing to worry about."
Sigma doesn't have a response for that — or at least not an external one — and so we once again continue on, Quark lagging behind just a little. Jeez, this is taking longer than I thought it would...
Finally, at the end of the hall, we come across another door, which slides up as we approach it to reveal a medium-sized room in the shape of a quarter-circle. At its center is a dual-level table of the exact same shape, covered in various strange-looking devices, as well as the safe we'll eventually need to open to leave. Four rectangular alcoves are built into the room's two flat walls, each containing a roughly chest-level shelf on which to work, connected by a tall shelving unit occupying the corner. In contrast, the curved wall is made entirely of narrow glass tanks that stretch from floor to ceiling, each of which is filled with a mysterious, glowing green liquid.
Ah, the laboratory. Can't say I remember much about this room... or really anything about it, honestly.
"What is this place?" Sigma asks, peeking over my head to look into the room, his roving gaze catching on the liquid-filled tanks. "...and what is that?"
"Lemon-lime flavored soda?" I suggest.
Sigma gives me an odd look, not seeming to realize I'm joking.
"...somehow, I don't think that's it."
I shrug. "Well, the door did say this is the 'laboratory', so maybe it's some sort of experiment then?"
Although, I don't particularly recall anything about the Nonary Game that would require a bunch of radioactive-looking goop bubbling away in giant fluid tanks... unless...
How did they grow K again, exactly...?
I shake my head to dispel the slightly creepy thought. "Let's just start looking around so we can get out of here."
Sigma nods in agreement. We step into the room...
And behind us, Quark abruptly collapses to his knees.