revivalproject | ♤ I'd Like to File a Complaint

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♤ I'd Like to File a Complaint

WHO: Cayde-6 and the usual suspects
WHERE: The Librarary
WHAT: After being disarmed by her less than charming personality, Cayde goes to inform Jon and Tony of Catra's troubling life decisions.
WHEN: After this and nowish or something? /*slides numbers around*
WARNINGS: Mention of robot dismemberment?

He hadn't been so much in shock as exasperated the last time he'd gotten his arm shot off. There was a lot going on, he had a vital part of a mission to be completing and it was easier to be frustrated over the fact that he could only commit to one thing or another and not multitask while shooting space rhinos. It was a busy day, but all in the line of duty.

This had caught him completely off guard.

True, Catra or Prime or whoever was picking the cat girl's new hairstyle and questionable fashion taste had been acting off enough that he'd been cautious. But then it was also true that he'd gotten a bit careless, trying to rile up an unknown entity that had apparently moved in and set up shop with no hint as to the actual Catra's whereabouts. Maybe he'd wanted to believe that he could find a chink in the armor, coax out some hint of the guarded, knife-thieving but sincere girl that he was more familiar with. It was always hard finding your enemy wearing the face of a friend, and it was that mismatch that shook him, especially outside of some twisted fantasy realm.

Cayde arrived at the library with a bottle of Corellian ale in his remaining hand and his right arm slung over the same shoulder in an obviously impossible position were the thing connected where it was supposed to be. He sought out the couch he'd brought in a few months back, dropping down on it without much ceremony, using his jaw to pop the cap of the bottle before taking a swig, watching as a couple of mothcats flitted over to paw at the rolling bottlecap once it pinged off the floor.

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The library had started to feel surprisingly empty lately as the Countess' litter grew and went out into the wilds of Agra-10, and while Tony wouldn't be telling anyone that he felt any particular way about that, he was clearly happy to see some of the mothcats returning to the warmth of the sanctuary they knew on particularly cold days. Happy enough that he cradled one like a baby in one arm as he wandered down the hall, and swayed slowly as he sang for them, "To hold me...to scold me...'cause when I'm bad, I'm so, so--ah?" The sound of the bottle cap hitting the ground had the animal perking up immediately out of its drowse, looking sharply toward the sound then kicking off of Tony to pursue it with its siblings. Tony watched after it with his nose wrinkled in irritation, slowly brushing the downy feathers it left behind stuck to his shirt, so when his focus swung around finally to Cayde he was startled into a statue with a hand against his heart. Cayde didn't look particularly traumatized, at least not as traumatized as Tony felt at seeing him dismembered like that. "You're only supposed to cut the sleeve, not the whole limb," he chastised without the energy he was aiming for. "If you want to look like Ronan, I'm sure he'd be happy to give you those kind of insider tips."

Cayde leaned back against the couch with a heavy but breathless sigh, glancing over at Tony before raising the bottle in mock toast. "I'll tell Catra to hit him up for tips then, 'cept I wouldn't want him ending up like me." He paused, watching as his arm slipped from where it had hung over his shoulder, sliding down onto the couch beside him. The metal plates of his face scrunched up as he looked down at it before he lifted his drink for another guzzle.

"Not Catra," he corrected, glancing over as one of the mothcats hopped up onto the couch with him, coaxing a faint grin from him as he set the bottle down beside him to reach over and scratch the fuzzball's head as it clambered into his lap. "That you Tony? How've you been?"

Okay, maybe Cayde was in shock. It was either that, or he was already drunk and Tony was walking in on the after party, because the arm sloughing off of him like that certainly looked a lot like how drunk felt. "Great. Always," Tony answered automatically, mouth moving with his focus still on the arm and not entirely sure what to do with the whole situation. He knew there was something very wrong wit Catra. He didn't know it meant violence for the rest of them.

Putting the problems in order took a sharp breath and Tony's sudden, determined approach as he asked, "Does it hurt? Are you...?," not quick able to bring himself to finish, both because he didn't want that to be the case and because of a flash of remembered heat as he snarled at Cayde begging for his pain not long enough ago. He knew even as he did it that there was probably something very impolite about suddenly picking up someone's limb, but he was nonetheless holding the arm fast enough that it startled the mothcat on Cayde's lap and it raised a curious, batting hand to the dangling fingers.

The Exo wasn't feeling up to correcting his friend on which Tony he'd meant but not at all against having a response either way. He winced a little as though Tony's very inquiry reminded him about just how uncomfortable it was having your arm lobbed off. "Trying not to think about it," he said, not completely sure if he'd just gone numb or there was a shut down or however it worked there. The cut was clean, like someone had shorn through leathers, metal and wiring with a blade.

"She was damn fast. Didn't know Kit-Kat's claws were that sharp- did you?" She would've made short work of Tony's armor when they were peeling him like a sardine can, if that had been the case all the time. He glanced at Tony as his arm was picked up, looking vaguely bothered seeing it where it wasn't supposed to be. He scooped up the mothcat with his remaining arm to keep him from batting at his inert fingers.

"Catra is still in there." Jon points out as he approaches the oddly familiar scene. He can't say he is surprised to find out Cayde has found himself some trouble again, but it remains disconcerting that the being currently possessing Catra's body is now using her to harm her friends.

He casts a glance between both Cayde and Tony with the exo's hand in his own and raises a questioning brow at both before asking one question at each of them respectively. "Cayde, do you know if it's possible to reattach you hand? And Tony... Christ. I don't have to ask if you would help him." Yes, Jon can easily answer that question himself. "Do I have to get any medication?" Would that even work on Cayde? He frankly doesn't know the answer to this one.

Trying to ignore it was one way of dealing with a problem, and Tony looked back at Cayde with a guilty apology for intruding on those plans even as he peeled the clothes back from the cut with the weight of the arm balanced awkwardly against his chest. "I didn't think she'd use them..." Tony was starting to mutter as Jon joined them, all focused business and making Tony guiltier still for hesitating as much as he had.

"Of course, we're going to fix this. That's why he brought it," Tony surmised more confidently. "Unless you were hoping to plan a funeral, in which case, I'm out. It's cold out there, I'm not standing around a hole and watching you cry. Omega's been helping me set up a workshop in the hospital, you might as well help me break it in."

"Whoever this Prime thing is, they're being pretty stubborn about letting her come out to play," Cayde noted. He'd tried to see if he could find her somewhere in there, but button-pushing hadn't worked. Slicing his arm off had been more of a suggested underline to a statement. "Not too crazy about their line of questioning either." He wasn't about to hold an open house for some sort of parasite.

The Exo looked over at his arm again. "It should be, I mean, the last time I had it shot off and it was a lot messier but that was in the middle of a fire fight." And while you didn't quite expect to get your arm shot off, any sort of damage was anticipated, especially when you were running lightless.

He dragged his attention from the arm to Jon and Tony who was holding the thing. "Sundance can probably do her thing but...I was thinking...around here, between things happening and our connection to the Light not a guarantee all the time..." Cayde shook his head, forcing a grin as he looked at Tony. "-anyway you've been wanting to take a crack at me from day one so here's your chance."

He looked a little hesitant as Jon spoke of medication. That wouldn't affect an Exo, and his usual fixes were near instantaneous that he wasn't sure how this was going to go.

Tony at least seems very much in his element with a severed mechanical limb in his arms. Jon on his end feels very much left hanging with his question unanswered and little else to offer.

With a slow shrug of his shoulders, Jon turns to Tony. "You need any assistance or should I give you two some privacy?"

That was an unexpected generosity toward Tony's curiosity that Tony would have been happier to accept under less gruesome circumstances, and he thought he would have been getting Sundance's help with. He narrowed his eyes with some suspicion at Cayde's stiff grin, then glanced to Jon with meaningfully raised eyebrows to get some confirmation that this was weird, and he was right that Sundance not appearing lately was a concern, but Jon looked mostly awkward like they were taking up his space and left Tony feeling like he was being overly sensitive to Sundance, Cayde and Catra all at once.

With a deep breath to try to suppress that and hoisting the awkward arm up more securely, he said, "I don't know if this is something Omega should see, so I am short a nurse," with a tip of his head in invitation toward the hospital. "And we should figure out what's going on with Catra before she does this to someone who can't be soldered together," he continued, gaze sliding inquisitively back toward Cayde. That 'line of questioning' would probably make it pretty clear what this thing wanted. He swayed back a few steps, focus flitting vaguely upward with a flick of a few fingers peeled away from Cayde's arm that called the glinting shards of the armor toward them from their neat stack, through the halls in a glow of their repulsors and polished shine that brought along with them a parade of the hunting mothcats.

Cayde would offer further input if he knew any pertinent information that he'd thought would be helpful. Jon had brought up a good question- it was something Cayde had never considered and it made him wonder just how painful manually fixing a severed limb might be.

"Maybe you can use your eye thingy to figure out how Exos work," he proposed to Jon, only half joking. "Sundance can help monitor things." He ruffled Tony the mothcat's fur, who perked up with a prrt? upon catching sight of the shimmery movement and that of his siblings.

"Obviously Catra wasn't on board with this Prime thing making her a vessel, and from what it sounds like, she's not the first and not the last if this thing has its way."

"A nurse." Jon remarks flatly in Tony's direction, combining these two words with a scowl before directing his attention to Cayde, adding a quizzical tilt of his head when he asks. "And you can't simply tell us whether or nor you're feeling any pain from this." The Archivist gestures towards where Cayde's hand should be attached to the rest of his arm. "And since you mentioned her: What about Sundance? Shouldn't she be able to fix this? Ghosts bring their Guardians back to life, but if severed limbs are their limit I imagine that would paint some rather gruesome pictures for non-Exo Guardians."

Jon lets that thought trail off with a small shrug. Someone has to ask, right? And he has crossed his fair share of battlefields and seem enough terrified, legless soldiers crawl through the mud in futile attempts of escape. Key ingredients of a good apocalypse, he assumes. At the very least Jon feels certain enough that an Exo wouldn't have to go through the process of bleeding out over and over again if constantly revived.

Tony responded to Jon's scowl with a bright grin as though this had been an enthusiastic agreement, and tossed his head to get them all moving so they weren't just discussing how much pain Cayde was potentially in. The Iron Man armour had coalesced behind him with curious mothcats pooled at its feet, looming its extra few inches over his shoulder like it really was his bodyguard as Tony glanced between the other two until his impatience won out. He shifted the arm again to try to balance over his shoulder like Cayde had carried it in, so he could free one hand to pull Cayde up out of the couch and help him walk if he needed it. The Iron Man approached Jon to herd him toward the doors, some of its plates peeling back to expose the dark cavity that vented warm air to combat the wintry chill gusting from outside.

"This would be much easier if you had just let me run some experiments, Hot Stuff," he pointed out to keep them lively in their trek. "Sundance could relax, Jon wouldn't have to cast his spells on you, maybe I could have made you a better arm that didn't fall off because a little girl looked at it."

"Oh, it's not the telling you I'm in pain part that's the problem, it's the um, stopping the pain part given medicine proooobably isn't going to work like it does on squishy bodies." He gently nudged the mothcat in his lap to move so he could accept Tony's hand up, bracing his legs against the couch for leverage. "-I'll just tank it or something, no problem." He hoped he sounded more convincing than he felt anyway.

Cayde nodded at Jon. "Sundance can fix this, yeah. But like I was saying- if something weird like the storm or...or something else-" He felt he didn't have to specify the Something Else- "Then Sundance can't fix me." If the Light cut out on them again then she couldn't even manage any quick fixes. Anything that had gotten extra toasty from the Eyepocalypse had to wait until things had gone back to normal.

He gave a little snort at Tony as they started heading out. "How many of those experiments would've left me in pieces, huh?" he asked with the arch of a brow, but not without a lopsided grin before allowing for distraction as he had to glance behind them at the Iron Man. "-I didn't know your suit could move solo, did I?" He would have tried poking at it if he had an arm to spare.

Edited 2021-12-17 22:47 (UTC)

"If Something Weird happens, I will be as cut off from the Eye just as much as you will be from the Light."Jon points out in a conversational tone while allowing himself to be directed through and out of the library and towards the nearby hospital. "And I am not casting any spells, Tony." Is this correction necessary? No. But it feels good to make it.

Having the Iron Man walk among them is... Strange. Especially with its function being reduced to act as some sort of mobile radiator for their admittedly short journey. And yet Jon won't deny that the armor is pretty effective to prevent him from simply stopping.

A stray thought crosses Jon's mind and he risks a glance over to Cayde. "Is there maybe like- A- uh... A fuse box on you somewhere? Can we turn any pain off...?" Look. He knows everything. But that doesn't mean he understands half of the things he knows.

"Don't get any ideas. He's too young for you," Tony muttered to Cayde as he wrinkled his nose at Jon and tipped his head side to side, not hearing a strong argument for what it was that Jon did not being spells. If anyone could explain the logic to him, he was happy to embrace this new science. "I'm still controlling it, just--over there," he elaborated, twisting a hand in the air. "It's not like I'm doing that lifting while I'm in it, it's too heavy for that." See, he was a genius, he could make his own life that much easier and they shouldn't even have to speculate about what kind of crisis it would be when both Cayde and Jon were cut off from their powers because Tony could handle it and make their lives easier, too, and this conversation was stressful.

The space that had been claimed for this inorganic clinic wasn't too deep into the hospital, Tony's socks still soaked with the melting ice from outside and leaving damp prints as he lead them through the doors and the lights flickered on. One still stuttered, broken, to the side of the room, but the space was clean now, and weird tongue-pest free, as far as Tony could tell. "Strip for us, Hot Stuff, and pick a seat," he instructed, inviting Cayde to the row of what looked like Agrii-long dentist's chairs, uninvitingly hard and molded for alien bodies. Along the counter at the back of the room, cupboards hung open as an organizational system was still being devised, but most of what they would need was probably here, somewhere, in the pile on the countertop. Tony gathered a few tools awkwardly around the juggling of Cayde's arm, and turned very slowly to look as neutrally as he could manage at the Exo at Jon's question, which made for a very intense blankness with Tony's gaze darting between the pair. Could they turn...other things off?

"Hold," was the only warning he gave Jon before he was heaving Cayde's arm into Jon's care, with nowhere better to put it to start this surgery. Jon might be stuck like that for a while.

"Which is why we're doing this now so Tony doesn't get any wires crossed if this were a real emergency!" Cayde piped, sounding a bit more like himself as he grinned at Jon. "-not that this isn't an emergency- it very much is, that is my favorite arm."

"So does that make him my little brother?" he asked as he swung his head towards Tony again. "I've already got a little talking cat with a cape calling me big brother, may as well expand the family."

He wasn't sure what to expect of the medical facilities Tony had mentioned earlier. The last time he'd been to the hospital he'd almost given Billy a heart attack entering through the window. "Cozy~" he said as the metal plates of his face pinched in an expression that suggested otherwise. He bit off a comment as he supposed it would be easier to do things without his gear on, which he paused to stare down at himself as he considered the most methodical approach to doing so with one hand. "No laughing at my hair," he said as he worked at tugging off his hooded cloak. He tossed it onto one of the chairs, eventually followed by whatever accessories he could manage to peel off before he paused to look between Jon and Tony at the Archivist's next question.

"I don't even know where my food goes, so your guess is as good as mine." He supposed it made sense but at the same time it was kind of a disturbing thought.

Not expecting to suddenly have Cayde's arms dropping into his arms, Jon gives a short noise of surprise at the event itself, but also at the unexpected weight of the limb. It takes him a moment to sort himself back out before taking in the assortment of gear.

Somehow it feels weird that Cayde even is capable of taking anything off his body at all. For some reason Jon has always assumed everything on the Exo is simply part of him. And seeing these pieces on the counter now, he can't even attempt to identify a single piece of them. Well. Aside from the cloak. That one remains self-explanatory enough...

At Cayde's reply, Jon grimaces... A little. "...but you have looked in a mirror at least once." He pauses to look over at Tony. "We're only going to attach the arm, right?" Just fix what's broken. No need to do a full examination. Though.... Jon would be curious about getting some answers, yes.

One of the mothcats was intrigued enough by the Iron Man's glinting heels that it had followed them through the snow, though Tony didn't really notice it even as it batted at the sliding plates as they collapsed back into a neat stack against the cupboards, a tiny gap missing in the reformed surface as one gauntlet peeled away to close around Tony's hand. Tony was distracted by the unfamiliarity of Cayde without his gear, too, staring at the Exo and trying to determine if he looked so vulnerable because of the missing layers, or the missing arm. Tony really had to stop being so surprised by how human Cayde was. He shook himself out of it and finally noted the mothcat as it curled up on the stack of what used to be the Iron Man, basking in its residual heat.

"Of course," he responded to Jon, clipped and efficient, though his glance up at Jon through his lashes with his eyebrows raised very clearly admitted a conspiracy of curiosity. He definitely wasn't trying to justify what might happen as he continued, winding a loose hand to cover all of the very theoretical possibilities, "If it's clean enough and straightforward enough that we don't have to investigate any deeper problems..." He piled the tools he gathered at the edge of a seat. Without lingering, before Cayde could object too strongly, he demanded, "Tell us what Catra was asking. The thing in Catra. Whatever."

Extra help was definitely going to be required in peeling his chest armor and sleeve off. It was probably strange enough seeing what gleam of blue metal was revealed underneath. "Mirrors don't show you insides," Cayde muttered around his glove as he tried to tug it off by holding it between his jaws. Those optics did flick over towards Tony at Jon's next question, noting the look on the former. But then of course Tony was curious.

Suggestion that things might be more complicated stirred up that bit of anxiety that he figured would probably be a case of butterflies in the stomach if he had one still. He eyed the tools and then the seat he was supposed to be getting comfortable in, once again making a face before he moved to settle in.

"Oh, you know, those sorts of creepy things that set off warning bells. What I was and what was inside me- totally normal stuff." Except not, and Cayde didn't bother to hide his distaste. "When I politely declined, Prime suggested they'd find out sooner or later. Kind of another reason I didn't want to bring Sundance out for a fix right off the back." He did not like the thought of whoever this Prime thing was getting a hold of this Ghost.

At this point Jon can't help but roll his eyes and let out a grumble. "Let's face it. This being that has taken control of Catra acts and talks like the villain of some Saturday morning cartoon." He looks down to the arm still in his hands, tapping one of the fingers with one of his before pointing out the obvious: "We will have to help her break free from him. Somehow."

He steps over to one of the empty chairs to set Cayde's limb down on it and then return to Cayde so he can help him remove the glove he has been struggling with and whichever other pieces of armor need to be removed. The frown that the thought of Catra's situation has put on his face slips into a more curious expression again. "Are all Exo made of blue metal?" Or are there maybe different colors...

Tony wasn't much help getting Cayde out of his clothes, largely in the way as he perched on the edge of the seat as well with his pile of instruments shoved up in between them and threatening to spill over the edge, and leaning in to watch if anything that didn't look like it was supposed to come off came away from his severed arm, gloved hand already up to search along the metal edge. "He should have sent you flowers..." he muttered to the description of Catra's parasite, not missing some familiar beats and tone of Cayde's voice. Maybe they were being a little quick to judge this thing. They did keep insisting that Catra was happy.

More practically, he had to note, "But..." as Jon made his declaration, eyes rolling because he wasn't necessarily disagreeing, just workshopping, "It told me that it wasn't here, that Catra was just one connection. Like a hivemind." He looked up from his prodding at Cayde's shoulder then to glance between them and check if they were following. "We have a connection, off of this planet. That's huge."

It was more an accent of blue paired with black, plating resembling a more stylized musculature of a human body. "Nah. I think the default was white or silver or somethin'." He couldn't be sure where the customizing came in, but he imagined it got pretty hard telling Exos apart without some color-coding.

"Oh, I agree. That thing's gotta go. There's no way I believe Kit-Kat's as happy as she's professing to be with whatever it is in her head. It's not her. The way she talks, moves- this Prime-thing's just puppeting her." Cayde frowned then. "It's not that huge a thing. I mean, me and Sundance are still connected to the Light, and the Light's from the Traveler. It's kinda stretched thin but it's there."

The stub of his arm sparked slightly, the scowl that followed, hinting that Cayde had probably attempted to do something with the limb that was no longer connected. He raised his other hand instead, grabbing at one of the tools Tony had amassed for inspection. "But that's good- if Prime isn't actually here then that means we just gotta disconnect it!"

"Catra is scared. She didn't ask to be used like this. I tried to pull her free, but-" Jon shrugs, shaking his head. "And... Cayde's right. We already have other connections, and this one certainly doesn't want to be helpful at all. On the contrary. He's being a bloody prick and Catra has to suffer for it." And that alone is reason enough for Jon to toss this Prime being into the nastiest of the flesh domains.

But right now they have Cayde to focus on - And no real idea on how to exorcise Catra's unwelcome guest anyway.

Jon sets the additional pieces of removed armor to the ones Cayde had already taken off himself. It's obvious that the Guardian takes good care of his items. Sure, there are signs of use and some scuff marks, but neither part of Cayde's belongings are utterly worn down or damaged. While waiting for how they are to proceed with reattaching the Exo's arm, Jon takes a moment to simply contemplate the pieces in front of him.

That was definitely not the response that Tony was hoping for, and only started, "But you don't talk to the Light--..." when Jon taking the same position as Cayde made him slouch defensively, looking resolutely back toward the problem of Cayde's arm. It wasn't like he wanted Catra to be miserable, but they were all going to be miserable as long as they were imprisoned here. Clearly unconvinced, he muttered, "Maybe we can put it in something else."

The spark surprised him enough to flinch, then push back on Cayde's shoulder to get him to settle back in the seat as Tony said, "Try not to move." From his pile of instruments, he extracted what looked a lot like a jeweller's loupe that he hooked over his ear and magnified his eye as he leaned in close to the problem. "How long has it been like this...? It's not decaying, exactly, but you're frying it every time you do that. Necrotic tissue," he reported, tweezing out a gnarled end of a wire, still smoking slightly and shrivelled in pain, a dying nerve bundle. "We'll have to cut it back. Have you ever had any upgrades? Hardware installed?" he wondered, planning around the possibility of synthetic organ rejection.

Hand-me-downs, but indeed well-cared for. Cayde's hood and leathers had one previous owner, and despite new and shiny, fancy gear coming out so frequently, Cayde stuck with his own out of sentiment, if not simply as his trademark.

"Hehe, like putting it in a jar or something? Wait, do we know how this thing's connected between...wherever and Catra?"

Leaning back in the seat with something of a pout, the Exo shook his head. "Not long. I came over right after it happened- well, okay, not right after cuz I stopped to grab a beer, but then I came right over." He winced a little as Tony pulled at one of the wires, shaking his head again. "No? Probably not, at least within the past six hundred years," he said. "Remember, Exo-tech's a lost science. There aren't any new ones coming off an assembly line."

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