"You remembered something?" Tao asked eagerly, leaning across the table.
M-21 just nodded, smiling to himself. "It's not much, but it's something. It's proof that the memories weren't completely wiped."
Nobles could suppress memories and nudge people to create new memories to fill the holes. The Union couldn't do that, or if they had modified humans who could, they weren't going to waste them on either experiment material or witnesses when it was so much simpler to have minions use chemicals or just kill them.
Or see if any of the labs needed new test subjects.
They always did.
"That's great, M-21! Leave it to me, any scraps of data you remember, I'll put them together!"
Carefully sipping from his drink, Takeo frowned. "If we find anyone connected with you or your comrades now, when we're at war with the Union…"
Tao frowned at him. "But the trail's already cold! I'm Tao, but I'm not a miracle worker. Sure, Boss is, but he's not a fan of using search engines to get data."
"I may not be a fan of it," they heard as the elevator doors opened behind them, "but I believe I told you that was because it was too easy?" Meaning yes, Frankenstein was good at finding information online. "What I am not fond of is… Ah," he said, looking at the table under the umbrella. "No food, and all of your drinks are lidded. Good."
Tao was quick to say, "We'll bring the table back up…"
"No," the scientist said, tapping the tablet with a stylus without using a bit of enhanced strength, even when it was a movement that seemed idle. "It's important to make Master's friend comfortable. What else should I do to make this room un-lab-like…"
"Sir?" Rael asked, standing at Raizel's side after bringing him a new cup of tea, and the Noblesse looked up at him.
He hadn't felt right disturbing his silence as they studied together at night, and during the day there were always humans, enhanced or not about. And Regis. But they had gone down to that lab, where the training rooms were. So unless that Tao was spying on him, this was his chance to ask.
The Noblesse's patiently waiting expression made him want to apologize for disturbing someone like this, but he was waiting for Rael's question.
"Why do you let those humans stay here?" he asked. "Sir?" Rael knew he should have had the presence of mind to add that to be polite, but it had just slipped out.
That earned him a frown. "This is their home."
"Yes, sir!" Rael did not flinch. "I understand. I… didn't mean to imply that it wasn't?"
He was given a nod of forgiveness. "Then, your question."
"Why… why did you let it be their home?"
"They had nowhere to belong," Cadis Etrama di Raizel said so simply it took Rael a moment to realize that wasn't actually a simple thing to say.
The Noblesse had returned his attention his tea, but looked back towards him when Rael said, "Enhanced humans don't belong among the other humans anymore." Now when they had betrayed their species for power, and were even likelier to kill other humans than they were to kill nobles. No wonder the humans didn't want Union toys, even if these ones didn't want to be traitors to humanity. "But why should nobles take them in?"
"I took them in," he corrected Rael. "I did it because I wished to, and it was their wish as well." Once again, he seemed to think the matter was resolved.
"But… why?"
Turning back towards Rael, patient red eyes examined him. Rajak never had the time to just sit like this with Rael. Gejutel and the other clan leaders thought they were older and so superior, but Cadis Etrama di Raizel did him the honor of considering his question. "As the Noblesse, I was always alone," he said.
Rael's eyes widened and he wondered at the ache. Of course it wasn't right for someone who should be honored to be alone, but something else made those words affect him and he didn't understand.
"Both because of my power, and because it was my duty to remain apart, so that I would judge the clan leaders without hesitation if they lost their honor as nobles. The children were separated from their own kind, and from the families they were born to. If I can give them a normal life, then… then I am worthy of the gift Frankenstein has given me."
That left him blinking, as boggled as Regis often was. "What, but… of course you are?" How could he not be worthy?
"Ye Ran High School is a place he created for my sake. That is why I have warned you that you must not cause difficulties there."
A place built to honor the Noblesse? Then, by freezing the humans there to get Seira's attention… no wonder Frankenstein and the other enhanced humans were so annoyed! He might as well have behaved disrespectfully in the Previous Lord's sanctuary!
"You have a place to belong," he told Rael, "but you do not feel that you belong there."
He cast his eyes down to his shoes. House slippers, not shoes. The Noblesse's bonded insisted that Rael not bring in dirt or trash to befoul where his master lived. Yet he still let the Union's discarded toys live here. "Yes," he said quietly. "How can I remain with the Kertia when I am the reason their Clan Leader may not be able to protect them?" It wasn't only Rajak at risk! The Kertia were one of the largest clans left, and what if Rael was the reason they died like the Landegre?
Red eyes looked at him over the cup of tea Rael was allowed to make for him. "I do not know what it is to be someone's son, or a younger brother, but to prefer death to being the reason others perish… The previous clan leader of the Kertia split his soul so that you would be protected. He is not the only one among the Kertia who wishes to protect you. But, until you understand that you have somewhere to belong, you will belong here. This is your home too," the Noblesse promised him.
Rael fell to one knee before him, and felt him reach out to lay a hand on his shoulder in benediction.
Was this why that disgraceful traitor Urokai Agvain was so angry? Thinking that he had been denied this in favor of a human? Being jealous of a human enough to betray the Lord and the nobles and try to send the Noblesse into eternal sleep: how disgusting. Caring about humans, about any human enough to value about them and their business more than the lives of the Loyard and the Landegre was…
Then Rael realized he'd compared Seira and Regis' parents to their killers, as though they were no better than the traitors, and no wonder Seira, who used to be his friend, had nothing but cool disdain for him since that day. He had no right, no right at all, to be angry at Seira's parent for failing to fight for their lives. No right to accuse them of fighting for the humans but not to come home to their children.
It was the traitors' fault her family was forced into eternal sleep, not their fault.
It was not his father's fault: it was the will of the Lord, and of course the nobles would obey. His father was honorable, not like the traitors who killed Seira and Regis' families!
Just thinking of them made him grit his teeth in anger and disgust.
"You are very like Frankenstein," said the Noblesse, touching Rael's shoulder again to remind him of his presence. "It angers you, that the world is not right."
Comparing him to… to a human his father found worthy of acknowledgement? Rajak had even said that Ragar mentioned he missed Frankenstein. No, more than that, was the Noblesse comparing him to his own bonded? Rael felt heat on his cheeks and knew he was blushing.
Thank goodness he'd waited until everyone else was occupied, imagine if Frankenstein walked in now! Or worse, Regis.
Frankenstein was humming when the Takeo and the others came back down carrying the things he'd sent them out to get. "Honestly, that hack calling me a traitor to the human race. Me!" Frankenstein's grin was full of too much vicious satisfaction for him to have taken it seriously. That was a relief. "For stealing back my own research and setting back their plans to conquer – which species? Humanity – by, oh, wait, a thousand years and they still haven't caught up to me. Claiming to be the greatest expert on human enhancement? Throw enough darts at a dart board and eventually even someone like Crombel will get lucky." M-21. "A traitor to humanity for saving it from the Union… If anyone was going to be accusing me of betraying my species, it had better be for enrolling nobles in a mathematics course."
Takeo looked at Tao, who looked thoughtful and snapped his fingers a minute after putting the shopping bag down on the picnic table. "Logic!"
Frankenstein nodded, looking pleased, although most of his focus was on the data on the screen. "Unfortunately, mathematics is a language, so we would have lost that advantage the instant a noble was in the presence of a critical mass of people who knew calculus, or programmers, for a sufficient length of time. Even Master's powers aren't any help to him in an actual mathematics course because the children around him don't understand the material. Or rather, the instant they understand the material, the class moves on to the next topic, so without studying he would be perpetually behind. I've been keeping an eye on their assignments, and as with humans, actually learning a language is helping Miss Seira and Regis. I was worried I'd have to put them back a grade in their Korean class."
Ouch, Takeo thought, that would be hard on Regis. "Their Korean is better than mine," he said, just in case. No thanks to Tao.
"Their reading comprehension was excellent. Their ability to write an essay?" Frankenstein shook his head. "Fortunately, they were able to make the mental leap to treating written Korean the way they treated mathematics, and Miss Seira has become quite the prolific letter-writer in addition to her reports. If they hadn't before the class reached writing poetry, I really would have had to take steps."
"Poetry?" Takeo asked.
"Poetry is about using a language and all of its mechanics for maximum effectiveness. Most of the traditional poetic forms have additional rules put in place to make it more challenging. Supposedly because challenge inspires creativity, but mainly to show off."
Tao looked boggled. "You've written poetry." Right? Boss was a thousand years old, he must have somewhere in there. Those lines by the school gate were from a poem, too.
"Of course," Frankenstein said, as though it was obvious. "Because poetry is so difficult, a great many times and places have used it as an IQ test. Someone who couldn't write and analyze poetry on the spot would have been laughed out of intellectual circles. Creating a sequence of words and symbols, in accordance with certain rules, that will be interpreted by an engine capable of performing calculations, in order to create a specific outcome." From his expression, he thought that surely Tao understood now?
Tao's fist hit his open palm. "Computer programming!" he exclaimed, eyes animated.
It was good to see him having fun, after their talk about Muzaka. Genuinely enjoying this, not just trying to be upbeat for everyone's sake.
"Exactly," Frankenstein said. "Much famous poetry was composed purely to show off. In cultures where intelligence was valued, the rich would hire ghostwriters, which is why many intellectual gatherings made games of tossing poetic challenges at people and well, they'd best be able to think fast." He chuckled. "I had to master those games, if only to save my coat from the mud. Unfortunately, while most human students of poetry can feel how effective their work is, a noble has no way of knowing, and Master refuses to let me listen to his attempts to produce something harmonious."
Ouch, Takeo thought, wincing. Given how importance elegance was to nobles, and not being noisy, Raizel would hate the thought of making Frankenstein listen to terrible poetry while Raizel tried to figure out how to write something that wasn't terrible.
Tao looked confused and interested, clearly wanting Frankenstein to go on, and M-21 met Takeo's eyes, gesturing at the other two with a shoulder. Did they want to stick around the lab while Tao buttered up the boss by being curious? They'd come down to bring him his things and see if he was injured or needed to be calmed down from the kind of rage at the Union's latest atrocities that let Dark Spear get out and hurt him, but he seemed fine.
Takeo smiled and gestured with a shoulder for M-21 to go on ahead. After the last time Tao played a prank on him using language, this was something Takeo might want to know about.
Judging from how he leaned back against the wall, M-21 seemed to feel that if both of them were staying around, he had to stay around too.
Frankenstein did look happy to see that they were interested in something. "Poetry is designed for the human brain, not the noble soul… although that would be a challenge," he mused. "I do have a captive audience, so I wouldn't have to inflict doggerel on Master… another time. The human brain is a pattern-finding machine. Correctly structured poe..." He frowned, looking disapproving and maybe slightly worried.
The data kept scrolling by on the screen. Tao might be able to read it at that speed, but Takeo was barely managing to pick out phrases and strings of numbers before they were replaced by the next set.
Frankenstein's frown deepened, and they saw his eyes narrow angrily a few times as the silence dragged on. Takeo kept an eye on him instead of the screen, planning to ask another question to distract him if he got angry enough for Dark Spear to act up. Judging from his expression, he was seeing things he'd expected to see, even if he didn't like them. Not fresh outrages to stun him enough Dark Spear could slip loose outside battle.
The seconds dragged on until Frankenstein shook his head in condemnation of the Union's research. More to himself than to them, he mused, "If the Union succeeds, I've no doubt that ten thousand years down the line they'll have lost all history, logic and civilization. I would not be surprised if a sentient species evolving on Earth, or elsewhere, and going down the Union's evolutionary dead end is the origin of werewolves… If so, I can't let their history repeat with our species."
Fortunately, it looked as though Frankenstein realized how M-21 might take that before Takeo had to try to do something.
"What about the nobles?" Tao asked, to change the subject. "I know you said we won't know unless we find some evidence, but you've got to have a theory."
"They're shapeshifters, so their bodies are artificially designed, but not in an organized fashion – aside from what's been mandated by the Lords," Frankenstein said, half of his attention still on the screen. "Most of what humans can observe of them either comes from us or was engineered by the Lords, so it's hard to discern what noble traits are inherent and which are cultural. I can't make guesses about their nature when I can't tell what's nature and what's nurture." He shrugged and said, "Let the nobles wonder about where they came from; it's one of the major existential questions and uncertainty is good for them."
"You don't want to know?" Tao asked, stunned.
Frankenstein gave them a half-shrug. "There are a lot of things I want to know, like how to give you a part of Dark Spear's power without it using the agony to drive you insane enough for it to take over. Even I have to prioritize."
"What?" Takeo asked, paling.
"Tao asked Master for the power to protect all of us, and Master respects his will and asked me to grant his wish. Power that didn't extract a price from anyone but himself. If I had sane ways to give you power quickly, obviously I'd have used them already." Frankenstein took off his glasses to polish them: cleaning something made him feel better. "Dark Spear is composed of people. Human beings. I'm one thing, but even if they will try to hold themselves back, they won't be able to help themselves. I don't want them to have the torture of a fellow victim of the Union on their consciences. They have agreed, they want to help you fight the Union, but they will still try to take you over so they can do it themselves. Can kill more of the Union's agents. Can kill people who might be a Union agent. Kill people for the crime of not fighting the Union. Of living peacefully and happily while the Union still exists. I may be able to extract the souls of the Union Elders I fed them and give those to you, which will give you fewer wills to fight against, and weaker wills, but Dark Spear will not like that. Some of them will, must, be part of the piece I give you, and they will be the angriest ones, the ones who would not let go no matter what I offered them. I need time, Tao. I need time to try to come up with something before I do this to you."
"I can't wait forever. I wish I could," that Tao didn't have to do this at all, that they weren't in danger, "but I can't."
"You won't have to ask Master to order me. We both respect your will. We both understand the need to save those we care about, and it isn't fair for us to stop you when you can't stop us." Blue eyes looked down at his glasses, his hands still. "And there might – might – have been enough of… something to create a single, weaker iteration of Dark Spear that should have been safer, but I've already used all of it I can spare trying two things to save Master when I knew that neither of them would work."
"Boss?" Tao said, smiling. "If I asked before you did that, and you didn't try to save him because of me? I'd have to do something. Something big. Big enough that whatever you did to get back at me for it would hurt a lot more than Dark Spear, okay?"
Frankenstein stared at him and laughed, not a cackle or something mocking but wow, that was ridiculous.
As though he'd ever be that angry with Tao.
…but did that mean that Dark Spear hurt just that much? Takeo remembered being stabbed through with it: was using it even worse?
Tao tapped his forehead. "I have the schematics of all the local infrastructure, including the water pipes," he said, lips curling up at the ridiculousness of it. "This is him we're talking about, so I'm sorry, Boss, but not even Ye Ran is sacred."
"Do you know that since human psychic energy fields respond to each other, you can make someone else's aura copy the way yours is resonating?" The Boss wondered, smiling pleasantly. "You can use this to set other people to constantly generate certain psychic effects, provided it's something simple enough, like enhancing their own healing."
Well, no, they had no idea. Who but him and possibly Raizel knew things like that?
"Try me," he warned Tao, "and you'll fry every electronic device within three meters of you for, oh, four months."
Tao shuddered, then snickered. "I guess I'm the one who started playing dirty. We were talking about poetry?" he added quickly, before Frankenstein could turn back to the screen with the Union's data.
He started reading again, but he still answered Tao. If giving him a distraction, something better to think about, was all they could do? At least it was something.
"Master can't appreciate music, or poetry, except through me. The mechanism that causes mathematical patterns to give humans pleasure is not there. The noble mind, at its root, has next to nothing in common with the human brain, the way their existences have so few of our evolutionary pressures. Which is much of the reason uncontrolled power from a noble's soul will destroy a human mind," he added. "The reason that we can speak with nobles and come to understand each other is that much of the software running on that hardware comes from us. One way or another, we were involved in the uplift of both other species on this planet, and that's why we can communicate so well with nobles and werewolves. Otherwise, humanity's position on this planet would be far more…"
His thoughts had clearly taken a darker turn again. "We could very well be at the mercy of incredibly powerful beings whose actions we couldn't predict; it wouldn't be possible to reason with them and they'd have no ability to grasp what matters to us, so even if they were kindly disposed, their ignorance might make them more dangerous than hostility would. I don't appreciate H.P. Lovecraft's work, or anyone else who thinks that ignorance is some kind of defense or that humanity is fundamentally helpless and cannot change that situation, but…"
"Oh!" Tao exclaimed. "I thought your personality was because of Dark Spear."
"What?" Frankenstein was the one to stare at him now, turning away from the screen and its listing of some percentage of the Union's crimes. "No."
"But when you use your power, you're all…" Tao wiggled his fingers: was that meant to look like the arcs of dark lightning in the air?
"I may have enhanced my pain tolerance, but even if I can keep it from incapacitating me, summoning Dark Spear hurts like hell. Anyone would be a little annoyed with the reason they were in that much pain."
And Frankenstein wouldn't want to take it out on Dark Spear, not when they were victims. So that left the reason he had to call out Dark Spear.
Yet he'd done it all those times just to train them, when it was Takeo's idea to ask him? When he gave reasons training them wasn't practical, he hadn't even mentioned how much it would hurt or endanger him. Because that wasn't important to this man, not compared to their odds of survival against the Union.
Takeo wanted to ask what he'd done to deserve this, but it wasn't possible for anyone to deserve something like this. It was a gift, and all he could try to do was become worthy of it.
"Master took it upon himself to help guard my mind from Dark Spear before we even contracted. If I was being unduly mentally influenced, the Noblesse would know." So Tao had just inadvertently insulted Frankenstein's master.
Twice over, by implying that Frankenstein's bond to a noble, to Raizel, had changed Frankenstein's personality, driven him slightly mad, when free will and people being themselves were so important to both of them.
No fool, Tao backed off hurriedly with a flurry of waving hands.
"There's no need to worry, Tao: if you choose to go through with that experiment, Dark Spear won't influence you. Unless it takes you over. I realize that being from the Union, you are used to incompetent scientists, but I do in fact know what I am doing." Frankenstein gave them a look that was disgusted, but not with them. At the inferior craftsmanship that used to distort their bodies?
They heard the hiss of the tea cookie machine depressurizing.
Frankenstein paused, smiled, and hit two buttons to pause the playback and power down the lab's computer. "Excuse me."
His master's afternoon snack was ready.
Raizel's classmates weren't visiting today, so when Takeo returned from patrol and removed his shoes and earpiece to put on house slippers, Frankenstein and Raizel were drinking tea at the coffee table undisturbed by bits of chips falling on the couch. Takeo smiled, took a cup of tea and joined them. He closed his eyes, inhaling the smell of the tea, and when he opened his eyes again there was a plate in front of him and some of the tea cookies had migrated from Raizel's plate to his.
It wasn't Rael's doing, even though he was standing at Raizel's side, eyes closed and one of his arms in front of him, attempting to look respectful and serene instead of bored stiff and slightly terrified. Takeo was there for Frankenstein's lecture on proper posture and how the previous Kertia Clan Leader had often attended the Previous Lord in this manner.
So, since Rael was in considerable trouble for running away to the human world, then he might want to learn how to show proper respect to Erga Kinesis di Raskreia, unless he wished to suffer the wrath of the Lord.
Or else she might do something even worse than responding to Rajak's request for Rael to be allowed to train by sentencing him to Frankenstein for ten years.
Takeo found himself smiling when he saw that yes, there was just the slightest edge of a smirk to Frankenstein's smile as he enjoyed this moment of peace and his master's company. He was sure Frankenstein enjoyed being better than the nobles at their own courtesies.
M-21 joined in this sometimes: it was seeing him there with the two of them that reassured Takeo that it was okay to intrude on what seemed like private moments, or shared private moments of zen. M-21 said that it was not that bad… sometimes, to just sit there with a cup of tea. To spend awhile doing nothing but being there with the others, but Tao was too active to stand sitting still for long periods unless his mind had something to work on.
Takeo was modified as a sniper. Stillness was a requirement.
To meditate on how the others were here, and safe, and they were at peace for now was much better than having to center all of his attention on putting a bullet through someone's head.
Seira joined them, done with her homework, and Rael shifted his feet. Takeo didn't look at him directly, but out of the corner of his eye he could see that Rael was looking flustered, maybe worried if he was doing this right, until Frankenstein cleared his throat pointedly and he froze, then quickly refroze himself in the correct posture.
With Seira in the room, the ambient serenity was almost doubled. Raizel and Seira seemed to radiate it, all of their movements elegant. A meditative perfection that Takeo found calming instead of alien now.
Maybe they were radiating calmness, Takeo realized.
Was Takeo sensing something? Was that why it was so easy to relax and just be in the moment when Raizel was sitting here? It would be rude to stare, so it wasn't as though Takeo watched the noble drinking tea, or paging through his class notes in the middle of the night, when most of the house but him and Frankenstein had gone to sleep?
That would explain why when they sat down like this he always had the sense that Frankenstein was basking, a cat who had found a sun-warmed spot… or gotten into the cream, and was quite deservedly smug about his cleverness.
He looked up from his tea, blinking, and looked across the coffee table to see Frankenstein smiling at him, pleased with a student. Good, Takeo had finally noticed.
Frankenstein's eyes glanced at Rael significantly. He was not impressed with the fact the Kertia still hadn't caught on.
Takeo didn't really think that was fair: it took Takeo this long to notice, and Rael hadn't lived with them that long.
"If you become much stronger than this, I'll have to teach you how to notice and respect mental boundaries," Frankenstein said to Takeo, before, standing up and taking Raizel's near-empty cup. He bowed over his arm. "Master, allow me to fetch you a new cup of tea."
Raizel gave a dignified nod and Frankenstein went to the kitchen. Rael looked a little dejected that he wasn't allowed to make the tea this time before he managed to remember his dignity as a noble, but if Frankenstein wanted to do something there wasn't much Rael or anyone else could do, Takeo thought, smiling over his own cup.
Beside Takeo, Seira studiously ignored Rael's disturbance, focused on imitating Rai and Frankenstein's composure.
Frankenstein turned to smile at her, and Takeo. "Thank you for helping me set a good example for Rael."
Rael's gaze darted around the room the same way Regis' did when he was certain he'd missed something and that was why he was so confused. But Miss Seira gave a dignified nod, and he settled down, trying to hide that he didn't know what the human was talking about when Miss Seira clearly knew.
"It's our pleasure," Takeo said for them both. Finished with his own cup of tea, he stood and went to the kitchen to wash his cup and saucer. He hadn't seen Tao in awhile. He was probably just working on the security system, but it was a good idea for Takeo to make certain Tao wasn't up to something.
Next to him at the tea machine, Frankenstein chuckled. "What are they teaching them these days… I never thought I'd need to tell a noble 'don't think, feel.' I think the Previous Lord succeeded in erasing a little too much tradition. Still, it means the clan leaders are being forced to learn, without any preconceptions about what nobles are and are not capable of."
"And preconceptions about what humans are capable of?" Takeo wondered.
Frankenstein's smile wasn't that scary, not compared to the expression he'd worn when a certain piece of Union scum dared to threaten his… Raizel. Sick and injured, and dear to him. "Be careful, or I'll assign you to teach Rael how to meditate and become consciously aware of what you just noticed."
Takeo blinked. When the blond kept examining him, he said, "Sir, do you think I…"
"Miss Seira is learning through imitating Master, but she has a great deal of natural talent. Rael didn't have adult noble role models able to spend time with him. Regis and Miss Seira are much younger, so he couldn't pick up from them what they hadn't learned yet." Frankenstein shook his head. "I'd be tempted to open a school on Lukedonia, but that would be imposing human solutions on noble problems, when they need to develop solutions that work for their own species."
"Then I really don't think that I could help him," Takeo said, wondering why he felt disappointment.
"No matter what, it will be a valuable learning experience for him," Frankenstein reassured him. "Rael wants to learn. It also won't hurt for him to learn to respect more humans." From his expression, Frankenstein knew something Takeo didn't know, but then, he knew a great many things. "In exchange, he can teach you how to use your powers. It will be good practice for when he needs to train other clan members."
Takeo couldn't back down and just agree to this without full understanding, because he didn't want to end up being used in some plan to break Rael's pride down even further, when even Frankenstein admitted that he was trying.
Frankenstein looked a little more thoughtful. "You're aware that the Union tampered with your neurology. M-21 is the only human in this household who isn't neurodivergent, one way or another, and none of you three were normally socialized. M-21's friend had noble instincts affecting his actions and emotions. Then all of you ended up in this house, with myself, Master, Regis and Seira. Your main examples of how to act like decent human beings have been myself and three nobles."
Takeo didn't need to look past Frankenstein to know that Raizel and Seira were both determinedly Not Hearing this conversation, but Takeo reminded himself that he had to pick his words carefully when Rael was listening and, well, he was one of them now. "I would be honored," was the first thing that came to mind. Not because it was probably the kind of thing that would placate Rael, but because Frankenstein really wanted him to help teach someone?
For a second time. He hadn't gone to so-helpful Tao to demonstrate something for Raizel, had he? M-21 had been with them longer than Takeo, and Frankenstein still asked Takeo.
He bowed his head. "Thank you, sir. I will do my best."
"It's noise," Regis said, sounding put-upon.
Since Tao had put headphones on their little noble's head, that was certainly justified, Takeo saw when he walked in to Tao's room.
"It doesn't make you want to move?" Tao asked eagerly.
"It makes me want to leave."
"Let me try another genre… Hey, Takeo!" Tao waved.
"Are you experimenting on Regis?" Takeo asked, raising an eyebrow. He looked down at Regis, wordlessly offering assistance.
The little Landegre blinked up at him, seeming caught between 'I'm a big kid and don't need any help,' and 'you're the Tao expert, do something!' when their gaze was broken by Tao sweeping down and yanking the headphones off Regis head.
Something classical that sounded fast-paced and dramatic came from the speakers now, and Regis turned away from Takeo to give Tao another look. "I knew you were talkative, but now you're being noisy too?" Regis folded his arms, looking offended. "You're the one who decided we were going to be his knights, and made me join you to add some class. If this is some battle tactic of yours to distract the enemy…" Then he looked hesitant, because they were fighting the Union, when the Union killed his family. If it was inelegant but it worked?
"Isn't it exciting?" Tao asked.
"Is what exciting?" Regis asked, for what looked like the umpteenth time.
"The music?"
"It's noise. What if Takeo hadn't closed the door, and all this noise you're making disturbed him?"
"Isn't it cool?" Tao asked, looking from Regis to Takeo. "Even Classical doesn't have enough class!" he said, and laughed.
"It's noise," Regis repeated.
"I might as well be showing him a rock, and not even a cool-colored rock," Tao went on, attempting to lean over Regis and use him as an armrest, not really expecting to succeed. Regis' hair was pointy, and hard to ruffle. It had sprung back into that point as soon as Takeo removed his hand from Regis' head in the helicopter.
Sure enough, Regis ducked away and started looking at Tao's tech setup as M-21 came in the door. He must have wondered where everyone went off to, and now he was wondering what Tao was on about now.
"When we first met them, he was a weird kid, you know," Tao went on, waving a hand in Regis' direction.
"I know," Takeo said, smiling as M-21 nodded in agreement. Regis' willingness to let himself be hurt to protect the other children… he was glad he hadn't been kept back at the hideout. Better to get thrashed by Frankenstein for threatening Raizel than to be ordered to attack a kid for trying to protect good people like Shinwoo and Yuna. "In a good way. He wasn't like anyone we'd seen before. It wasn't even because he was a noble, now was it."
"Well, we thought it was back then," Tao said, but nodded. "We thought that little Regis was like Boss and him because they were all nobles." As for why M-21 also was willing to go so far to protect people, even when he couldn't win… perhaps it was catching?
Maybe they'd hoped it was.
Regis appeared to have figured out which devices were the speakers and was too busy tracing the cords back into the tangle to object to Tao calling him little when he was within a year of his majority. It looked like Ikhan teaching Regis about technology was starting to pay off, Takeo thought, amused by both of them. Or actually, he wondered if Regis was pleased enough at being compared to Frankenstein (his master's loyal knight) and the so-elegant Noblesse to ignore the rest of it.
"But now it's just, he's a pureblood clan heir, and that's useful the way M-21 has a werewolf heart. But M-21's still an enhanced human like us, you know? I guess Regis really is a noble."
Takeo frowned, but from Tao's excited grin he was fairly certain that Tao just thought it was cool. He wasn't saying that Regis wasn't one of them. That was good: Takeo was used to intervening when Tao got enthusiastic enough to put his foot in his mouth by now (though he couldn't complain when it was good to see Tao happy enough to be like this), but he'd rather avoid hurting Regis' feelings in the first place.
The noise – the music – cut off, and Regis straightened, and turned around looking pleased with himself. "Of course I'm a noble."
"Hey, you couldn't tell whether or not Boss was a noble either," Tao reminded him.
"He might as well –" Regis started to say, and quickly thought better of it. He folded his arms and nodded, pleased. "Not that the Bonded of the True Noblesse would abandon humanity for power." He looked starstruck, the way he did when Frankenstein did something that Regis thought was so admirable! …those same things often had Seira and Raizel sighing, but Regis really was a kid, human or not. "Becoming so strong without abandoning his honor because of his will to protect…"
"Look, we all know the weirdest person in this room is Tao," M-21 muttered, knowing that all of them would hear it.
Takeo chuckled.
"And Frankenstein just put Rael in charge of getting everyone to show up on time when Seira's cooking," M-21 warned them. So they'd better get downstairs for family dinner before the annoyed scientist unleashed the assassin.
Without Crombel around to keep the pressure on, the upgrade path may be different... Or not. I'm not going to be able to advance this relative to the webcomic's plot until we have a lot more info on the other threats and what those threats might do with more breathing space, but since the household isn't as embattled as in canon, Frankenstein has the luxury of hesitating to give Tao Dark Spear instead of being forced to realize that if he doesn't do this, and soon, they're going to die.