revivalproject | It's All the Same, Only the Names Will Change

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It's All the Same, Only the Names Will Change

WHO: Cayde-6 and you
WHERE: Temba and its outskirts
WHAT: Just an Exo doin' his thing
WHEN: Nnnow. -ish.
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTES: Will match tagging format preference.

I. The Deep End (OTA)
He wouldn't call it routine, but by now he knew to appreciate what freedom they had in a scenery change and a mission. It's something Cayde had come to appreciate long before even being brought to this strange little prison of a planet. And it's because of that that he knows there's something bittersweet about coming back to what's become familiar territory, every time.

There's things you grow fond of, and maybe it's just him, but he's been used to ruins and wilderness just champing at the bit to claim it whenever someone so much as blinks. He's glad his bar's in one piece, something he's made with his hands, thankful the glass has held and nothing's sprung a leak. Just a bit of dust but that's an easy fix, although the most he gets around to is the main counter and the stools and his domain behind it. Maybe he can rope someone into helping out with the rest. That Eddie kid probably, or maybe Richie.

Cayde's poking at the fish tank opposite the huge wall that looked out into its own tank of water, counting whatever critters still remained within. He doesn't look up even when he hears the sound of someone entering.

"Hey, you any good at catching fish?"

II. The Great Beyond (Para Antonio)
If it was a game of actual tactical advantage then between the Exos, Felwinter had him beat. The security tower had been built with the intention of a clear view of the city's entirety. Now, if Cayde were paranoid and wanted to be able to see as much of anything at any given time, he would've staked a claim to the place long before the Warlock had arrived. But it just wasn't his style.

The clock tower had definitely seen better days, and while it certainly didn't look like any clock tower he was familiar with, it still had the important bits to suggest what it had been, even if the inner workings had long corroded beyond any hope for restoration. That was fine with the Hunter. It'd be really annoying otherwise, if the place were ticking and cranking all the day long, and who knew what sort of chiming it ever did. Those parts must have broken off or never existed to begin with, so far as he'd been able to tell.

As for views, it afforded him a decent enough one. He could see enough, especially when he was up on the top where the broken remains were barely holding anything together. Currently he soaked in the imagery as though to refresh his memory from the last time he'd seen it, coated in snow. The lack of snow made it much easier to see things too, such as familiar people doing curious things somewhere below.

III. Exploratory
The woods just beyond Temba aren't unfamiliar territory. They are however by Cayde's standards, pretty unspectacular. It had been disappointing a venture in more than a few directions, and only because for several days straight, the Hunter had only come across more and more forest.

That doesn't mean they aren't full of surprises, and after having more than a few brushes with antagonistic wildlife in the past, the Exo feels better doing a bit of patrolling along the perimeter of the city and just beyond. It's something to do. And if it gives him an excuse to shoot something, who's he to complain?

IV. Wildcarde
((OOC: Got any other ideas you wanna run with? Throw it down here!))

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Execution of plans never really held out, the more detailed things were. Cayde preferred to play fast and loose, relying more on what he knew of individuals' capabilities and how they'd best handle situations than try to point them specifically in any direction. All in all, he felt that they'd done pretty good at the spaceport. Mission accomplished, all around and then some.

Cayde's gaze traveled upwards after Tony's hand. The memory flashed into mind, seeing red and gold plummeting from the sky.

"Not all of us have rocket boots," he said instead, throwing an easy grin in Tony's direction. It smoothed out as he regarded the sky again. "Shielding? Are the ships keyed to something there?"

He looked back at the missile, all set and ready to go. "How are we monitoring? That's probably well beyond Sundance's range."

The ships were a work in progress that had Tony's mouth twisting to the side before he answered, "If they are, it's part of the same system that's keeping them grounded. Step one is opening the door," and pointed back up, this time just a flick of his finger to the deceptively inviting sky. "Step two is walking through it. We've already got ships, can't be that hard." That was what he kept telling himself, anyway, while he bruised himself in frustration and still couldn't figure out how to get them in the air.

Step one was easier. Step one was blowing something up. He twisted around to search through the pockets of his hanging jacket, and present Cayde with the telescope that he extended with a quick flick. He didn't immediately point it up along the missile's nose, though, but lazily like he held a cigarette, to the corner of the tower, several stories above the Deep End, then swung around to the same high point on what used to be Echo and Omega's outpost. If Cayde wanted to take the telescope, he could spy the little cameras perched there, already pointed up like hunting dogs. "Or," Tony proposed, "you could strap on." He rapped a knuckle on the side of the warhead with an inviting grin.

Made enough sense to Cayde. Tony usually knew what he was talking about, especially when it came to technical issues, so the Exo nodded along. Got it. So they had a figurative key.

He looked back at the missile, optics blinking as he found himself presented with a telescope. His metal jaw parted in that way that suggested a grin as he peered through the thing to spy out the camera installments and their current positioning. Giving the telescope a twirl before collapsing it- and then extending it again to repeat the motion (that was all he really wanted to do, it was the simple things sometimes).

"Psh, just get me a lasso and I'll ride that thing straight up! Coming down might be messy but I'm pretty sure I've fallen from worse," he said, grinning back.

Cayde seemed happy enough to play with the telescope, and some designs did not need fixing. In case he also wanted the video feed, too, though, Tony beckoned for his communicator, and immediately lost patience while Cayde fiddled with his new toy to start searching Cayde's pockets for it himself.

"I'm not all that interested in picking up the parts, if you don't have an exit strategy," Tony admitted as he made the few taps he needed to allow the device to connect to his cameras. "Not all of us have rocket boots." He didn't exactly have the equipment to catch an Exo if he fell this time, and he wasn't about to call Jon. Jon could know when the plan worked.

Fancy updated stuff was great but you still had to appreciate their roots, and Cayde was always fond of things he considered pre-Golden Age. Things could always be made better, but in a fix, old-fashioned couldn't be beat. Also, more things to play with. Tony would find his tablet easily enough, tucked in a belt pouch.

"Potentially I could do a couple jumps to put some breaks in the momentum," he proposed. "Ooor worse comes to worse, I make a new crater and Sundance gets me back on my feet."

That made him consider, even as he slid the telescope open again to have a look up at the sky, as though he could see anything beyond. Ghosts could technically travel beyond the atmosphere, couldn't they? They traveled across the Sol System in search of their Guardians, so technically, if there wasn't a shield, Sundance and even Felspring could possibly get through. Of course, with the knowledge that there was something there, would either Guardian want to risk their Ghosts? Then again, Ghosts rarely willingly went far from their Guardians once they found them. That was the whole point after all, two halves of a whole.

"So what's the payload on this?" he asked with a glance back at the missile as he once again snapped the telescope closed. This thing was fun. It might be difficult to get back from him at this rate.

"Craters are terribly out of fashion, sweetheart," Tony advised as he passed back the communicator to free his hands again. "My stock would drop just for being involved." He had a jacket to collect, then bent over the launch platform to search around before he came away with a box that he used to gesture them to get clear.

"She's got a coy 608 kilogram high explosive playload, with the anticipated destruction radius of about 1-point-2 miles," he explained as he walked. "Most of the room had to be reserved for some specialty adaptations, since we have to anticipate this is something of a fact-finding mission. A short-range hypothesis ballistic. On detonation, it will also trigger a short-pulse electromagnetic field, and get really sticky." Even Tony didn't manage to blow a hole in this thing, they were at least going to find out if it was something electrical that could be disrupted, or physical that they could see.

Cayde took the tablet, looking between his full hands before he relinquished the telescope. If he was going to be helping monitor things then he supposed using both hands would help.

"Fun stuff!" he chirped, eyeing the missile appreciatively. Of course Tony would cover all the bases he could think of. He still had half a mind to try hitching a ride but it wouldn't really serve much purpose if he ended with him blowing up or the discharge blacking him out before he could observe anything.

"Okay, so what're we waiting for? Fanfare? Speech? Let's light this thing up!"

The telescope definitely did not help Tony judge whether they were far enough from the platform to avoid getting singed, but when he took it he held it up like it did while he walked back a few more paces. Mostly, he was feeling for more solid earth under his heels and less mud to stand securely when he tucked the telescope into his waistband, and draped his jacket over his shoulder to offer the box he now opened to Cayde. It was still mostly full of cigars, for the occasion, which should have been a fine enough one for Cayde to pretend even if he couldn't actually simulate breathing enough. "They were supposed to be for the wedding, but, well," he encouraged, so Cayde didn't get any ideas about waste as he took one for himself and rifled through his jacket for the lighter. "Is that your speech? We can do better than that," he said. It was still going to have to be a short one, though, because a flare of light had already started around the base of the launch platform.

There was only the slightest hesitation before Cayde took the offered cigar, giving it a twirl. There was no way he was going to be able to actually smoke the thing but that wasn't what mattered here as he held it out for Tony to light.

"What, I thought that was pretty good! Short, sweet, and to the point!" he snorted, settling the end of the cigar between his jaws. "Show me how it's done then," he said, smirking as he lifted a hand, fingers poised like a gun as he aimed at the sky.

The time that Cayde spent not christening this missile properly left Tony with only a few seconds to smirk with the lighter held up for Cayde, and he got as far as reverently declaring, "Up there is the future--" The flame went out first, snuffed abruptly in early warning for the full force of the gust of exhausted that crashed into them. Pebbles and crickets were blasted hard enough at them to knock Tony's jacket from his shoulder and make him stumble a step, and the sound was like being suddenly dropped in water, his ears popping immediately under the pressure. It was possible they should have stepped a little further away.

When the dust settled, Tony was coated in a fine mist of it and looking slightly bewildered, but he didn't have time for that. The missile was in the air, and gaining speed, the force enough to make Tony clenched a fist impulsively to keep it under control as every system and report crawled across his brain like a burst of electricity. Just getting it in the air seemed like a success enough to offer that fist to Cayde for a celebratory bump.

The thought might not have occurred to him. He was used to blowing things up or watching things get blown up and normally it was in the middle of a fight, so there wasn't really much time for anything longer than a quip or a curse. Tony's words sufficed, whether they were only part of something longer or the whole of it. As the blowback buffeted them both, Cayde brought a steadying hand up, dropping it onto Tony's shoulder, looking on with an eager grin and no real concern about their proximity to the launch site as the missile became airborne.

Up and up it went, and the Exo happily brought up a fist to lightly bounce off the one offered.

"Lookin' good, chief!"

It did look good, enough that Tony finally took the time to try to relight the lighter after giving it a shake to clear it of any dust. It was part way through sucking on his cigar that he tipped his head back again, then raised a hand to shield the sun, looking quizzical. He had the telescope out again to try to make his calculations the reliable way, by eye, when he muttered, "It's drifting." When he lowered the telescope, it was with his mouth twisted to the side, not even sure it was a problem, per se. The sky was a generously big target, he had a few thousand feet of ease. The problem was that the missile seemed to not be responding to any of his course corrections. The field suddenly felt very quiet again, like the crickets were holding their breath as well, the stillness a taunting reminder of the lack of wind pressure.

Cayde looked on, hopeful, but Tony's motions then had him start to wonder. He pulled his tablet out to have a look at whatever had been keyed in to help with monitoring, glancing between that and the yet-traveling missile once Tony spoke up again.

It was hard to tell for sure, but he knew better than to question the observation as his own optics narrowed against the glare to try seeing it for himself.

"Bad enough to throw it off course?" he asked, if only to push the stillness away.

The answer Tony had couldn't have been entirely confident, because he took his time, staring up then raising the telescope again like he might come away with something better after the thousandth check. The change was subtle, not even enough that he could attribute it to a reasonable interference, and eventually he had to say, "It's still going...up." They could save the pessimism for when it turned around. Luckily, it was reserving its surprising behaviour for less dire outcomes, making Tony take a breath like he meant to add more, and reconsider with a sidelong look Cayde's way, not sure how many of his mistakes he should be admitting. The longer he hesitated, though, the harder it was to ignore, "It should have hit. 1,200 feet ago." Still going up suddenly didn't seem to be the optimistic position.

The missile had stopped being visible long ago, so Tony's focus fell to Cayde's tablet for something to keep his eye on instead of squinting up into the sun, and even then he flinched a second before the feed in Cayde's hands started reporting the explosion, and the smear of blue could be seen distantly in the camera's eye.

"Up is good though, right?" Better than down. Or somehow making a midair U-turn. It was only when Tony said the target point had already been surpassed that Cayde remembered just what they were expecting it to hit.

"...oh."

Somehow he wasn't too surprised. If someone was always watching, always expecting... which seemed entirely too exhausting that Cayde was convinced their invisible overlords had no life- then of course they weren't going to let this experiment work. Always left them questioning.

He squinted against the fierce blue of the skies again before turning his attention to the tablet's screen.

"What the..." Blue? The Exo looked at Tony in expectation of some kind of explanation.

Again, Tony was slow to respond, still this time like the grass as he stared up at the sky, where the bloom of the explosion finally marred the even blue. His shoulders had dropped, and there wasn't much else for him to do but watch the very expensive puff of smoke. Even the dye that Tony hoped would have been overlooked, blending in enough to not reflect too differently than whatever was pretending to be sky up there, seemed to be falling uselessly into the jet stream. Tony scrubbed at the knot of tension in his neck, then swung around to gather his jacket and the scattered cigars. "Plan B," he announced. He'd work out what that was eventually.

The response or lack thereof had Cayde looking back towards the sky, considering this new challenge, as clearly that was what it was. He had to wonder how things would've gone if he'd clung to that missile. Would it have been enough to present that barrier that Tony had been seeking? They didn't have much of anything to confirm that things would react the same at any given time, and that was what was annoying.

He continued to watch while Tony went to gather his things, nodding once. Plan B. Well, whatever it was, it didn't seem like they had much choice, given Plan A hadn't performed the way they were intending.

"-where's it going?" he asked aloud, the blue still tricky to discern but it seemed to be moving, gradually easier to catch glimpses of as it drifted lower in the atmosphere.

At this point in a munitions demonstration, Tony was supposed to be raising a toast and already half way into the car to hurry on to his next meeting with a bottle. All of those times, though, the bomb had done exactly what he promised it would do, and the contracts were a formality. This time, he was as eager to get away, and only turned slowly to look at Cayde quizzically at his question, then up to follow his gaze. Like every other part of the missile, what was left of the dye should have been dispersing in the upper atmosphere; by the time it fell, it should have been atomic. The opposite of easier to see. Tony's cameras were already trundling across their respective roofs to try to track the cloud, calculating its trajectory.

Tony did not understand, but he could answer, "This way." Then, more urgently because he was already running, throwing his jacket aside and back into the mud, "This way!"

Clearly that wasn't supposed to be happening, another curve ball to their attempted results. Cayde frowned, cigar dropping from his hand as he stowed away his tablet. As Tony started to run, the Exo took a few steps to follow, distracted as he watched a little longer before finally turning and going after the man.

Charging through the field at a sprint sent the rest of the crickets springing away and tugging at his focus, and felt like vines grabbing at his ankles. It got easier to run once they hit the uneven road, though there was never going to be a chance of outrunning terminal velocity, as strangely organized as it was presenting. The smudge of blue was dipping below the tops of the roofs already, and Tony's lungs were burning like they might start to bleed by the time he slowed and had to double over, holding his heart and staring down the narrow flare of light between the looming buildings. As the dye sunk lower, it got easier to pinpoint where it was going to land, and with a hand on his knee and gulping for air, focus still on that crack of light, Tony said, "That's the forge."

He could have easily outpaced Tony, could have scooped him up and sprang along but then he wasn't sure if catching up to the swirling blue was necessarily a good thing. Its path of travel was becoming suspiciously specific the lower it drifted, and the lack of any real errant breeze in the area made it even more suspect.

The feeling was only underlined once he came up beside Tony, ready to grab him should he look about to fall over, his glowing gaze already focusing beyond, and even before Tony put a name to the anticipated area, the Hunter already had it guessed. He pulled the communicator out again, bringing up the visuals from the cameras and their higher vantage point, not that they likely needed the confirmation.

"Yeah...that definitely can't be coincidental," he said, affecting, somehow, a sour look on his metal features.

Tony's chest still ached too much to take in a proper breath, but he was pushing himself up and gasping, "You should get out of here," to start running again. Just a little momentum, and he could push through it, get back to a sprint and make it to the forge before anything he couldn't fix happened. He could just text Donnie, make sure he wasn't there. He already had it typed, hovering over the image of the dye spreading gently across the ground. He had to breathe to be able to run, but at some point he had forgotten, vision blurred with the cascading possibilities that every answer was the wrong one.

Leaving had never been an option that had come to mind. Cayde knew he was already probably on a List and had never made any attempts to keep from drawing attention to himself any chance he got.

He was up beside Tony quickly enough, not that it took much effort on his part. This time the arm did snake out, hooking around him and under his other armpit to keep him on his feet the moment the Exo caught him starting to flag again.

"Nothing's exploded," he said as they continued on. "And Sundance isn't picking up anything from the area."

Tony wanted to shove him away and point out how stupid it was to have stuck around this long. Everyone else was smart enough to keep their distance, and Cayde was always there. Instead, when Tony flailed his arm up, it was to tangle tightly in Cayde's cloak, hanging onto his shoulder and urging him on, and when he fought through the blackened burn of his throat it was to ask, "Anyone?"

Cayde was never going to abandon any one of his friends. He'd lost enough and the regrets still haunted him, the things he should have done and the things he didn't. He knew when risks were high-stake and he was more than willing to take them because that was how he rolled. Tony should have known by now that Cayde would never leave him to suffer any consequences alone, would gladly and boldly claim affiliation.

"No one's there," he confirmed, even as they continued on closer towards the forge. "Place is empty, area's empty. We're the only ones within range."

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