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Damian's nostrils flare slightly. They are working on this, Kyle!

Though his mouth also twitches slightly at the idea.

"They are not quite that addle-brained. Sadly. And we have no authority to make them go through such scans."

Also sadly.

"But they are not making whatever they're drinking. Not themselves."

He was only thinking out loud, but he keeps it in mind, and tones down the curiosity in his body language, shifting instead to demure, deferential.

'How do you mean, not making it themselves? Someone's forcing them to take it?' How? Mind-control?

"Not forcing. They are definitely not forcing them. The kedan in question are tight-lipped, but not intimidated into what they are doing. At least not the ones we have managed to find, so far."

Beat.

"Rather, provided. We are attempting to trace by who."

It really makes no sense.

"They are also fastidiously not administering the substance to others. Only to themselves."

A nod, and almost imperceptibly, he relaxes. Whatever it was, it wasn't spreading, which was good. 'Think you can lure one out, for a secret scan? My ring's working again.'

Paaaause.

"That would make sense, would it not, if your hands have been healed." Which means that Zatanna has her magic back, which means that the rules are different again.

"Maybe we might, if we can play on their renewed confidence because their powers have returned."

'Exactly. Any ideas? I think they'd notice if she tried to cast a spell to do it.'

He lets Damian have the control, the kid needs it much more.

"Why, how could they resist attempting to corner an obnoxious child who has been asking too many questions too sharply if they can catch him on his own?"

'How indeed.' His own comment is wry, injecting a bit of the dark humour they both occasionally shared. 'Tell me when and where, all right? We're in this together.'

"I have to talk with the others." They will run interference, probably. And at least Grayson would be unhappy if left out of a situation where Damian is setting himself up as bait.

Watching over them doesn't only mean making sure they don't get killed or permanently damaged, after all.

'That goes without saying.' They were Damian's team, after all, and Kyle deferred to their decision too, if it was sensible. He didn't doubt it wouldn't be, not with Dick, Bean, and Ender on it, but inexperience was the undoing of many.

'On the bright side, all that training is paying off. Served me well in the field.'

He might not want to discuss the torture, but he was willing to disclose other details.

And Damian would be the last person to call them team. Least of all his team.

But until things started calming down (the return of powers would be the beginning of that, he thinks), he's thinking of them as a unit. For this investigation, at least.

He tilts his head to one side.

"At the end? What happened?"

Pause.

"And are you sure they are all gone?"

'Would it be cheating if I said civilians!!?' He's joking, of course. 'Cover got blown, too easily. I'm not irritated, we still managed to accomplish the mission, but I really didn't expect Xi's team to be so.. enthusiastic about cleanup.'

Damian listens with his head canted to one side. "All of them? No connections to anyone outside, no stragglers who were late for getting to the gathering and might start it off again?"

Because cults have a way to spring up again.

"What was it a cult of, anyway?"

'There might be a few stragglers, but the majority are definitely dead. Unless Xi was in on it and they've all gone underground.' But you could rarely fake the smell, or the feeling of corpses under your feet.

He describes the rest of their beliefs succinctly and clearly. Kyle had no way of knowing about the religious inclinations of the kedan, so he kept his tone fairly mild and non-judgemental.

Damian listens, taking in the information, teeth clenching a little. Why the hell had Xi had thought it a good idea to send foreigners into a cult that practiced blood sacrifice and was exclusively anti-foreigners?

Though he reacts to the unspoken certainty of the death with slight relaxation. Small little thing, but definite.

"You know that you five will need to watch out for any stragglers, or even not cultists but people who believed them a little, don't you?"

More than the rest of them.

"And if Xi was in on that and sent you there on purpose, I will have a word with her."

The kind of word that might push against Father's approval, though not breaking it outright.

They were expendable. Kyle knew this going in, and he'd always known it, being here. Damian maybe knew it too, but if he didn't, Kyle wasn't going to be the one to put it out there. As much as he acted otherwise, Damian was a child. A very angry, protective child (his lip quirks upwards), but a child nonetheless.

The slight relaxation doesn't escape him. As much as he thinks the no-kill rule is a guideline, it's still admirable to him that people can stick to it. Kyle doesn't think he has the mental fortitude for that level of commitment, and in his darker moments, he would say he couldn't indulge that kind of naivete.

'I'm keeping my eyes peeled. I've no reason to believe she would have but.. you know how little we actually know about these people.'

He's much more wary than he was several months ago. Damian's influence, perhaps.

Damian knows, way too well, that death - eventual death - is inevitable. Should not be avoidable. But there is a great distance between that and wasting lives. Even more, wasting the lives of the few people who haven't gone away on him. No matter whether they come back like Grayson. The should not be just thrown away.

He'll keep to his word. Probably. But there is much to be said for the finality of a clean solution, and a part of him will never not be relieved by that. Not when the safety of the people that matter (now that there are people who do matter) is concerned. But he would argue at length about this being naivete, with himself. It's not, more the dam that keeps him from becoming... what Mother meant him to be. Or worse.

He tilts his head to one side.

"Maybe we can - should - try to see why even the ones that don't hate us keep themselves quite so separate."

Paranoia: the gift Damian inflicts on his... friends.

'We're not like they are.' The statement is deceptively simple. 'I don't know, though, the Emperor and Evandau aren't exactly kedan, are they? So where'd they come from?'

Damian is quiet for a little while.

"She is not human, either. She has lived for a very long time."

'You've talked to her.' What did she tell you?

"I attempted to talk to her. Others have had more success." Damian looks away.

"Mostly that she doesn't owe us anything, and that the threat was not on Tu Vishan. Which she is apparently no longer right about."

He squeezes Damian's shoulder briefly. I wouldn't have had much success either.

'The powerful never do owe anything to those below them,' he agrees.

Rylan did well. Kyle can't know he won't until he tries.

... and then the boy just hisses at these words. "Don't say that." He pokes at Kyle's hand. At the ring.

He lets a silence lapse. 'I'm aware,' he says, quietly. 'Why do you think I told you how to stop me? "Less likely" to be corrupted doesn't mean "immune", and never will.'

"Start by not saying things like that. As though the 'powerful' have no other option."

He's seething. And he can't even think of why. He knows what Kyle meant; he knows very well what he answer means; he's not rejecting any part of that.

But just hearing it said, and said by Kyle, makes him want to lash out.

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