Chapter 12: 12. Surprise, Surprise

Zeff simply sat there on the floor, weeping into his hands, tears rolling down his cheeks and crimson smoke rising slowly from his body. "Idiot!" he cried, still with the deep, guttural, dragon-like voice. "IDIOT!" With that, he slammed his fists on the wood floor with a loud *Pow* that resonated through the air, kicking up dust and leaving two small divots on the floor. 

Dr. Sylvan could only look on somberly. He had highly overestimated the boy… Or rather, he had seen too much of himself in him. Not that he thought of himself as being particularly strong. Dr. Sylvan knew too well what guilt felt like. But the mature guilt and regret of a seasoned adult, though still bitter, is of a far less potent sort than the guilt of a young man soon after his transgression. Zeff had just found out that he had killed a man and had had it broadcast to the world beside a slew of falsehoods and fabrications. There was no way that wouldn't effect him deeply.

'You're a fool, Sylvan.' He thought. 'How could you be so thoughtless…'

He slowly approached Zeff and said gently, "Zeff-boy… It wasn't your fault…"

"How can you say that!?" Zeff screamed angrily. "I killed a man! I did."

"I know. But you didn't know what your body was capable of."

"Do you think that matters to the dead police officer?! To his family and friends?!" Sylvan fell silent but Zeff continued on, "The whole world thinks I'm a murderer, now! And they're right!"

"No, they're not! Murderers want to kill people! You don't. It was an unfortunate accident, boy. Nothing more." Sylvan was just at Zeff's side now.

"An unfortunate accident?" Zeff scoffed in frustration. "Tell that to the dead cop!"

Sylvan could only repeat, "It wasn't your fault." as he put his hand on Zeff's shoulder.

"I know…" admitted Zeff, then added with an bloodcurdling depth and anger "…It's yours." As he spoke, he turned his head to look Sylvan directly in his eyes.

Sylvan's heart did a somersault. Although tears were still streaming down Zeff's cheeks, in his piercing, saffron eyes was a rage and a pain so deep that Sylvan thought it might swallow him whole. He took a big step back, instinctively. If he didn't choose his next words wisely he could really die.

Zeff stood slowly to his feet, his eyes gleaming, focused on Sylvan. "You gave me the ring… I should have run but I stayed to protect you—"

Sylvan backed up a few more steps and raised his hands as an early sign of submission.

"You interrupted my peaceful life! You came into the diner looking for handouts! You got me fired from my job! And now my parents will think I'm a murderer all thanks to you, you, you, You, YOU! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!" With inhuman speed he exploded across the room, his fist raised to strike the doctor with all his might.

*THOOM* said Zeff's fist as it cut through the air, creating a powerful gust of wind by its sheer speed alone. *TUOOCH!* went Sylvan's—

'W-Wha…' Zeff couldn't quite comprehend what was happening. Surprisingly Sylvan was still standing before him completely unharmed, his left arm raised, his eyes misty. He had caught Zeff's fist with one hand like it was little more than a pebble thrown by a child.

Through the crimson smoke that his own body was producing, Zeff could just see Sylvan's face, which was wearing a somber and sympathetic look.

"'He's a dim boy', indeed." mused Sylvan with a sad chuckle.

Zeff didn't know what he had meant by that. In fact, his brain was too scrambled to care. It was dancing between questions it wanted to ask and if it still wanted to unleash its rage on Sylvan.

Before Zeff could make the decision, Sylvan had grabbed him by the face with his other hand, covering his mouth. Zeff swung his free arm instinctively at Sylvan to free himself, but Sylvan merely bent his right elbow to deflect the blow and then, using the momentum as he straightened his arm again, he lifted Zeff off of the ground and slammed him down head first with devastating force.

"Kagh!" Zeff rasped as the wind was knocked out of him. Almost instantly, as Sylvan slowly released Zeff's face from his iron grip, the crimson smoke began to dissipate until it was completely gone.

Zeff simply laid there breathing heavily looking up at the ceiling in shock. His senses clearer, his reason returned.

"Zeff-boy… It's about time we talk." said Sylvan finally, extending his hand to Zeff.

Zeff looked at him quizzically and then flinched with surprise. Running, yet again, out of Sylvan's ears and nose was blood but it was as black as death.

*****

Zeff had his back against the kitchen wall with a cup of black coffee in his hand. It was still too hot to drink, but even when it was cooler Zeff probably wouldn't drink it. He had never drank coffee in his life, and it certainly wasn't on his to-do list at the moment. Dr. Sylvan, after helping Zeff up from the floor and cleaning the blood from his face, had casually walked into the kitchen and started making the stuff without a word.

He had just poured himself a cup and was about to sit down when he suddenly decided he wanted 'something sweet' to go with his coffee.

In a matter of seconds, Zeff heard his triumphant "Aha!" as he exited the pantry with a bag of Double Smuffed Ureo Cookies. "I knew they'd have the good stuff in a place like this." he said with a half smile, opening the bag and setting it in the center of the table.

Nobody touched it, though. Nobody drank even a sip of coffee, either.

In the minutes that had passed since Sylvan had introduced him to the living room floor, Zeff had thought about a lot of things and now he had more questions than he knew what to do with.

Just when he began to open his mouth, however, Sylvan cut him off. "Let's start with the easy ones and work our way down."

''Down', eh?' thought Zeff critically.

He had no idea what constituted an 'easy' question at the moment, so he just asked the question he had thought most recently.

"Why didn't you save me?"

Sylvan blinked hard, confused.

"In the park yesterday. Why didn't you save me? Y-you obviously could've…"

Sylvan sighed. "I told you I injected myself with the virus. Did you ever consider what that meant?"

Zeff hadn't even thought about it, not that he had had much time to. He had had the impression that Sylvan had simply used a needle or something to inject himself with Dracophage, but without using the dracoRex. "You put on the dracoRex?!"

Sylvan nodded. Though he seemed to smile, Zeff could see something in his eyes that looked akin to shame. "So you must be—"

"Subject-03. The only one to make it to 49% of 5… I suffered 'Critical Error:011'."

"What does that mean? And what does that have to do with why you gave yourself up without a fight in the park or why you didn't help me in my apartment…?" inquired Zeff.

"I have no idea what it means, honestly… I can only tell you what's wrong with me now and that will answer your question." Sylvan finally took a sip of his coffee and sighed. After a second more, he went on. "The dRas suffered a critical malfunction when I hit 49% of 5 that seemingly makes it unable to regulate its own replication."

Zeff tilted his head to the side like a puppy, obviously confused.

"dRas is also called the 'nanoManipulator'…?"

"Sooo… I had, like, a semester of university. I don't think I saw this one in 'Biology 101'…"

Sylvan sighed. "Right now in your body there are trillions upon trillions of nanobots. All of them didn't come from the ring. Once in your body, the nanobots use fatty tissue and waste to replicate themselves in seconds so that each cell in your body has its own nanobot."

"So that's why I got super thin and haven't taken a dum—"

"Y-yes, exactly. But what if the dRas system didn't stop replicating?"

"You'd… I'don'know… Explode?"

"Precisely."

"Really?!" Zeff asked with a satisfied smile, glad that he might be right.

"Well, sort of. Right now my body is supersaturated with nanobots giving me extreme hypertension, also known as high blood pressure."

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"Oh…" Zeff said looking unimpressed. "Is that it."

"Imagine feeling like you were running a marathon every second of every day… while drinking nothing but energy drinks… on only a diet of bacon and donuts."

Zeff's eyes grew wide as realization set in.

"If I exert myself too much I suffer horribly for it. Even If I rest, my blood pressure still rises because dRas is constantly replicating. So essentially my heart is overworked. And on top of that the Dracophage virus leaves me sick and weak as my DNA never made it to the stable 5% baseline."

"But that still doesn't explain—"

"Ah, yes, of course. I only made it to 49% of 5 when dRas malfunctioned. So unlike you I never even reached the 'starting line' for using the dragon's DNA at max efficiency. To use my skills I have to let myself kinda…" Sylvan paused in an attempt to find the right words. "…'charge up' first. Because of that, I can only use my skills once every 24 hours or so for about 10 minutes. And whenever I do—"

"You bleed from the strain on your body…" Zeff finished, nodding his head in understanding. Sylvan's story made sense but there was still something bothering Zeff. "So yesterday before you were in the park… You must've also used your powers just before then, too? That's the only way you couldn't have used them in my apartment, right?"

Sylvan had been bringing his coffee to his lips, but when Zeff asked that question he stopped mid-sip. "Well…" He began, putting his cup down. "I would save my 10 minutes of power use for fast travel, to evade Zayn and his men."

"Zayn?"

"When you transformed into the dragon you called him, 'the Tender-Man'?"

"Ah! The guy who shot me in the neck!" Zeff declared, suddenly furrowing his eyebrows in anger.

"Yes."

"But—" Zeff began. "Why did you come to RedBob's that night after just using your 10 minutes evading Zayn? And—", his eyebrow furrows and his voice grew suddenly deeper, though not with anger, as he asked "How did you know which apartment was mine…? There's no way to know which was mine unless you've seen me go in there before…"

Sylvan fidgeted awkwardly. After a long moment he begged, "Please, Zeff… There are things you aren't ready to hear."

"Bull crap. At this point, nothing could surprise me."

Sylvan only raised an eyebrow, as if to say, 'You'd be surprised.' After another sip of coffee and an Ureo, he said, "Well, I can't tell you that today. Though I might not look it, I'm in a very bad way and need—"

"Don't give me that!" Zeff interjected. He couldn't have known that the doctor was, indeed, in a great deal of pain and was struggling with everything he had in him just to speak without seeming too weak and vulnerable. The only thing that kept him going was Zeff's enraged accusation from earlier. "It's all your fault." Zeff had screamed angrily.

He had no idea how right he had been.

Sylvan sighed and rubbed his temples. "Sorry, you'll have to endure my secrecy for a bit longer, boy."

Zeff huffed his disagreement.

Sylvan scratched the back of his neck nervously. "B-but I can give you a bit, I guess."

Zeff at once sat up straight, anticipating what the doctor would tell him.

"What did you think of Zayn?"

Zeff was taken aback, but he didn't answer.

"What were you thinking just before he shot you in the throat?"

Zeff scratched the crown of his head as he tried to recall what he had been thinking. "Um— I think I was thinking I could scream for help if something happened."

"And that's why he shot you in the neck." Sylvan simultaneously stated and confirmed.

"I don't follow…"

"He read your mind, boy." Sylvan said tersely.

"Haha. *Yeah*, he did." Zeff admitted with a wry chuckle.

"Yeah. *He did*." emphasized the doctor.

"Yeah? He did?! Really?" challenged Zeff.

"Yes."

"No! I wasn't even about to scream. I was only-"

"Thinking about it?" finished the doctor.

Zeff, eyes wide with wonder and disbelief, slowly brought his coffee to his lips and drank. He instantly spit it out, however, with a loud "Uegh!" but his mind was still racing.

"What about the woman?!"

"The woman?"

"There was this suspicious female cop in my apartment."

"Zayn was the only G.I. that we've ran into, as far as I know." Sylvan said with a shrug.

"G.I.?"

"It stands for Gifted Individual."

"OoohKaaay. So, there are 'Gifted Individuals' running around with super powers and… you have super powers, too? You read my mind and that's how you knew where I lived, is that it?"

"Not exactly. Remember when I told you I'm 'not that kind of doctor'? Do you remember what I do for a living?"

"One subject at a time, Doc!" demanded Zeff exasperatedly.

"Isallgonneckted." Insisted Sylvan, his mouth full with the last Uero, then he swallowed hard and said, "Just go along with it, boy. I'm painting a picture for you."

"Weren't you an arthropologist and —er— a palpatinologist."

Sylvan's frustration showed clear on his face as he made half-lids at Zeff. However, he was quite pleased that Zeff seemed to be in a much better mood and didn't want to kill him anymore.

"Okay, okay. Asks me for answers to simple questions that he only told me yesterday like I'm a complete dunce, but can't take a joke… Yeah. You're an archaeologist and paleontologist, what about it?"

Sylvan sighed, not from frustration this time, but nervousness. He sat back in his chair and asked "That ring on your finger… I told you how it came about."

"Yeeeah." Zeff was beginning to get a bit uncomfortable, as he saw Sylvan's clear change in demeanor.

"Who do you think found the dragon DNA that's inside…?"

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