revivalproject

Entry tags:

Shock

WHO: Tony, Cayde, Jan, Cap
WHERE: In the Tembubble
WHAT: Tony's trying to fix some cameras, but keeps running into curiosities
WHEN: During the mermay event
WARNINGS: Everyone being fish-people and potentially doing offputting creature things.

A natural affinity for electric currents didn't always translate to reliable craftsmanship. Only one camera in the city square remained alert, watching Tony curiously as he held one of its brethren, perched together on the roof of the hotel where they were close to the sun and could overlook the gently sifting sand below. DATA bubbled occasionally with a burst of jetstream to keep himself stable, but Tony's windingly long tail draped down the facade of the building to twine into the open windows and root him while he worked. It was so smooth and matte black that it could have disappeared into the covered murk inside, but for the occasional spark that arced across it while Tony concentrated, casting small glints into the darkened rooms below. That leathery hide spreading up his body only made the tail look dangerously longer yet, snakelike even on his arms up to his elbows like he had been dipped in ink. Only flecks of yellow on his palms and the softest slope of his belly broke up that subtle colour, and the scars that stood out on his scalpel delicate hands. They were mostly faded burns and nicks, and none so starkly white as the perfect rings around several of his sharp fingers. Probably because he used them to work his way into the broken camera, forgoing any more cumbersome tools, and barely flinched when the device sparked and left the water smelling burnt. He had clearly taken more care with his unblemished tail, maybe thanks to the sheer ripple of his single, silken fin that traced a sensitive line straight down his front to his pointed tip. Even a bubble breaking from between the brickwork near it had his tail flinching away to loop again restlessly. His only scales were as synthetic as the broken camera, flashing gold covering him from chest to jaw, the edges precise, minuscule hexagons where the nanoweb blended along his skin.

"This one's fried," he murmured to DATA, who dutifully recorded the state of the final camera in the area. "The glass needs to be recast, too, just like the others. Can probably salvage the case, but..." He had ejected a computer chip, warped to itself like the device had overclocked and burst from the inside out. This was going to take some time, and the glass was going to take the forge which--...Donnie wasn't there anymore. Tony pursed his lips, the room below lighting up in a pop like a camera flash, and leaned over DATA with a gentle brush over its top like Tony was stroking his head with a free hand. "Guess that's not a problem," he mumbled, to the blank stare of the robot.

a. the outpost [cayde??]
A lobster clung to the side of the tower from which Echo had once set himself to guard over this city. As it slowly lifted a pointed leg to lodge into the next stone, so did DATA, and they watched each other intently in their measured, sideways ascent. Inside, in the cooler water and only the sunlight lingering by the windows to see by, Tony turned slowly in place, floating bonelessly. He hadn't made it to the forge. He could see it easily as he swam overhead, feeling dread slowly tighten around his heart. Glancing down at the outpost made that dread feel like a stone, dragging him down and impossible to get his arms around. He might have stayed there in the sand, until he found he was staring at the curious line held taut between the outpost and the clock tower, and frowned. It was enough to send him swimming inside, slowly making his way up the way his robot did on the exterior, and was distracted once more as he found the remnants of a cozy corner long abandoned. He had to shake himself back into focus, and by the time he finally made it to where that line was mounted into the wall, he was holding a limp, hurriedly stitched stuffed animal, its tiny limbs bright blooms of colour drifting from between his black fingers. With the other hand, he strummed curiously on the wire, watching the vibration ripple and letting his gaze roll across to the clock tower like he could see that turbulence cross the open stretch of water.

b. a much deeper pool [jan???]
The forge would have to wait. A later project, further along in the schedule. It would be pointless, after all, to do all of that work without solving the cause of the disruption. Talking directly to Billy was out of the question, too; a distraction really, and he didn't deserve to feel interrogated, he needed some time. No, Tony would have to go to where he understood the source was. Even several feet above the wide, black mouth of the mine, the water was cold. He stared down into it, waiting for movement, and starting to shiver, expecting tentacles to unfurl from the rocky sides, pull him in, hold him down until the sun was a pinhole high above him. He went darting back to the ledge of the hole, where a sticky residue remained, staining the rock in drips and keeping him circling it to avoid touching the discoloration. It had been intended to keep the threat contained, he vaguely recalled. That didn't explain the pitons he found driven into the stone, both on the ground and barely hidden by the sand, and the wall inside the pit. He had to dig his fingers into the ground to try to work one free, throwing bolts of static into the water around him while he hauled up on the rusting metal. At the edge of the pit, a pair of funfronds floated up out of the darkness, watching curiously and flipping energetically at each other.

c. the civic centre [steve???]
Tony's tail was a black banner, ribboning through the water over the roofs of Temba for DATA to track and try his best to scuttle after through the purple streets. Tony swam with the piton clutched in one hand, looking like he moved with confident aim, and feeling entirely the opposite. Who was he supposed to ask? If Jon knew what it was doing out there by the mine, would he think Tony had just been out looking for an excuse to talk to him? Was Tony out looking for an excuse to talk to him? In that case, he should have been collecting flowers, about ten hours ago to accumulate a bouquet that neared big enough to justify himself. He slowed over the greenhouse, peering down through the glass and feeling reluctant to go inside even if it would help make up for the lost time. Cutting any flowers from there had felt like a violation ever since Lauri-Ell had been so gently intent on correcting the one time he had made that mistake. In his minds eye, she practically glowed, blue skin that should have melted into the water instead shining like the colours vibrated in conflict. Tony's focus darted toward the civic centre then, only for his brow to furrow with a new question, that strange image of Lauri-Ell fading. The answers weren't any more forthcoming the closer he got, and still nothing as he sank into the strange bowl of the pool on the roof of the centre. It was half filled with purple sand, and teeming with lobsters, more secure up here than on the ground, but it didn't exactly look like a lobster sanctuary. Tony's free hand and a loop of his tail wound around a ladder bolted to its side. To help the lobsters? One of them pushed up from the sand and helicoptered its way out of the depth of the pool, onto the roof, as if to prove otherwise.

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"Listen, that's just doing your job, that's not an apology situation, unless you promised the arm to someone else..." Tony started to argue, but Cayde was going somewhere else again, and Tony tried to follow his gaze this time, flipping onto his back as well and mostly finding himself just admiring Cayde's craftsmanship. Playing dangerous games at a funeral, that might have been something to send someone a bouquet about, although this nagging thing about breaking something remained opaque. "Hearts?" Tony suggested.

The Exo flashed a quick smirk at that before he shook his head. "No, no, something more physical. There's like..." His features scrunched up in a vague look of distaste. "Something foggy about the details. I can remember most everything else about what happened just fine, but then there's just this thing that's nagging at me and it's kind of annoying."

He frowned, coming up again before pointing back at the clock tower. "Was like that when I was trying to figure out what that line was for. Because I'm pretty sure I put it up, but...why? There was a reason, right?"

Either Cayde as building toward an appreciatively elaborate prank, or Tony had to start to believe he really wasn't lying when he said he didn't know what the line was for. That sensation of feeling like Tony really should have known could be rationally explained by a frustration with himself, feeling like he was supposed to know everything, but Cayde's struggle to describe this strange gap was relatable enough that Tony hesitated, watching the clock tower like he expected the answer to bloom out of it. Then he was flipping over and swimming a tight circle around Cayde, arguing, "You said you forget stuff when you--...reboot." That was a neat enough explanation, except for the part where Tony had completely missed that he was talking to Cayde-7 now, and his anxious circles frayed with static even as he insisted, "Must have been for something deadly. Clotheslined Jon with it and he obliterated you."

That got an immediate scowl. "If I got rebooted I probably wouldn't even be talking to you like this. Reboots are a clean slate."

He did have to laugh at the suggestion of clotheslining Jon. The image was kind of funny. "I wish, but I think..." Here his expression twisted again. "Omega had fun with it...? Then again she probably would have enjoyed clotheslining some unsuspecting person."

Tony had to bring the toy he still carried to his heart to clutch it with both hands, wounded even as he tried to formulate his argument. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd still be your friend, every time," he said. Was that pathetic? Maybe, quick: "We could check your software. Maybe you picked up a bug. Probably have to take your head apart, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

Cayde looked over at Tony again, expression somehow softening, if just for a second. Couldn't be mushy here; he tempered the look with his trademark lopsided grin. "I know." Was that helping? He didn't linger, quick to move on with Tony's shifting gears.

"Is it me though? I mean, you remember right? I'm sure we were all in on it, with this line thing. And then Jon got mad for some reason..."

It felt threatening then, to look back at the clock tower and consider the line, like Tony was challenging a predator that was going to strike if he held eye contact for too long. Of course he remembered that, down to Echo's reliably steely expression, and the anxiety about what felt then like Cayde's very imminent mortality. Not because of the line, but that was why Tony was... "He was worried about me," he said. "He was going to cut it down." That did not help. Was he starting to panic? This was not a good place to panic. He looked to Cayde desperately, hands up without something to grasp to fix this hole in his brain.

Concerning as all these holes were, Cayde looked oddly relieved because Tony clearly remembered something of what he'd been referring to. When the other stalled, Cayde grabbed for that weirdly fingered hand, giving it an eager pump as though it'd keep Tony's brain running on that thought that he was trying to avoid acknowledging.

"Yeah! Because he thought it was dangerous! But why? You were holding it fine, and hardly anyone swims that high but even then, there had to be a point to it, right?"

With his pump primed, Tony could readily explain with incredible relief, "It was just because we landed too hard. Before you put the mattresses in." Nothing was weird, they were playing too roughly for Jon's delicate preferences, everything was explained and there was nothing wrong with their minds. Except for the usual things. "Stop being crazy," Tony accused, even as his expression asked if they were going crazy together.

"But from what? What's it got to do with the line? Why are we swimming at breakneck speeds from one tower to the other?" Cayde prompted, latched onto this train of thought as much as he's latched onto Tony's hand. He laughed then. "Na-uh, if I'm riding this train we're both in it for the long-run!"

"You're contagious," Tony hissed, with an accusatory gesture with the innocent stuffed animal, his captured hand still bouncing like it had to maintain the momentum for Tony to properly solve this problem, the sparks under his skin leaping readily across Cayde's conducive metal. "I was having a great day, nothing was wrong," he insisted, waving back at the towers then, like his sulking hadn't been obvious back there, and he had to keep talking as much as he had to keep moving, "and then you come at me with this, like we ever need a reason, if you don't blow something up in the next fifteen minutes we're going to get the sweats, I'll race you right now, I thought if I didn't distract you, you'd say something about Ikora." That still didn't explain why some string in the water was so distracting, but Tony knew it was true, and dared Cayde to contest it with wide eyes.

"I'm a bad influence, what can I say?" Cayde grinned, the bright glow from behind it and the slight brightening of his optics making it seem downright impish. The tingling across his fingers and the numerous sensors that made up for an organic nervous system still wasn't enough to be outright uncomfortable, almost like summoning Arc power, even if that memory was distant. He much preferred Solar's heat, even if it did seem counterintuitive underwater.

"-also, ouch," he added, not quite pouting at the mention of Ikora. "Look, you wanna blow something up or race, make up your mind- here let's do both, race you to the bar, ready, set, go-"

Abruptly he released Tony's hand then, whipping his tail about to take advantage of any hesitation the other might have had to taunt him with some space between them.

The tactic was effective, leaving Tony recoiling in the wake, arms tucked up defensively against the swirl and making him slow to react. "Cheater!" he shouted after Cayde, as much of a charge as it was a warning. The clock tower and the strange void of recollection behind him felt like it dragged Tony back as he darted after Cayde, splitting his focus as he tried to search his memory for any more blank spaces and feeling increasingly aware that he wouldn't know how to find one. This made it difficult to develop an effective distraction to slow Cayde down and overtake him in the clear shot between them and the bar, so Tony reached for the first tool on hand and rapidly flooded Cayde's communicator with every alert it could make. He wasn't about to start throwing around Omega's toys.

"Haha!" Cayde swam in a sharp corkscrew before evening out in his mad dash, making good progress on that distance for all of Tony's hesitation. There really didn't seem to be any point in hanging about the towers, there were clues aplenty but the binding that brought everything together just wasn't happening. Somehow Cayde doubted they'd manage to scrape it up, and if there was anything, he was always more for doing something than sitting around.

"-what the..?" His speed decreased slightly as he pulled his communicator out with a frown. "Why's this thing going crazy-"

That was even more effective than Tony had anticipated, giving him the opportunity to recklessly buzz Cayde as he overtook him, leaving him in a shower of sparks and threatening to yank the device from his hands if he wasn't careful with a flick of Tony's tail. Perhaps even more reckless was the smirk that Tony had to throw over his shoulder to make sure Cayde was sufficiently impressed with his harassment.

"OHMYC-" his exclamation was cut short as he had to wonder why he'd ever have cotton socks, and he just barely managed to grab his tablet before it could be carried away by the offending tail.

"Who's cheating now!" Cayde shouted as he was quick to dart right after Tony, stowing his tablet in annoyance.

Edited 2024-05-18 22:28 (UTC)

There was no way that Tony would be able to outpace Cayde on raw power alone, he'd just relied on Cayde to run after all--run...? Tony could practically feel the dust in his mouth as he gasped for oxygen, the heat of the still air, and his vision clouded in the fraction of time that he had to enact his next disruption. He almost missed Cayde overtaking him then, and in his rush back into focus, he had lagged then moved too quickly, throwing himself into Cayde's side much harder than he had meant to.

That was bound to hurt Tony more than Cayde, and completely unsuspecting as he was of this maneuver, the Exo only barely managed to twist so he ended up catching the eel rather than have Tony ramming right into his arm. It was still hard enough a momentum to knock them both off course, but at least when you were swimming, actually 'falling' took a lot more effort.

"You okay there chief??"

Tony was still clutching Cayde's arms when they stopped rolling, the water fizzing from between his fingers as his electricity bounced wildly off of the metal. The missile launch had only been a few days ago, he couldn't have forgotten what had just happened. Abruptly, he demanded, "What did we do after the missile detonated? Quickly." Maybe if he caught Cayde off guard the same way the thought had struck him, the Exo couldn't think too hard about it, either.

He was glad he was built sturdy enough to handle all the electricity Tony was throwing around, shaking out his tail like trying to disengage annoying static. Hardly was he expecting a pop quiz.

"We watched it and then the blue stuff was getting caught up in the wind so we started run...ning..?" Cayde had already started to lose gas once he'd mentioned wind, confusion once again pushing his metal features out of place from the usual cocky look he wore. "But... there was a sky," he backtracked, and Tony could practically see him trying to replay that whole instance in his head.

They were trying to pin down the same thought. With wide eyes, Tony released one arm to raise a pointed finger and pressed his lips tightly together; he hadn't said anything, but Cayde had also remembered the run, and the wind, and if this was some kind of shared psychosis then Tony was pretty certain they weren't giving each other these thoughts out loud. Cayde had a second to figure out all of that from Tony's expression, then Tony was bolting away again, the race back on in a churn of bubbles from his whipping tail.

The glowing blues blinked, Cayde falling silent at Tony's motion before his metal brow furrowed. Something fishy was definitely going on around here and it was starting to get annoying.

...not so annoying as Tony taking the opportunity to dash ahead again, making the Exo scowl and surge after. It's easy enough to overtake Tony again, not quite attempting to smack his face with the end of his glowy tail so much as brush by in passing.

After Tony's open assaults, that little flick had Tony giggling like it was a flirtation, however brief and tight in his scattered anxiety. He did try to make a grab for Cayde's tail and get a hold around the narrow end of it to hitch a ride. He could easily match Cayde's speed, if Cayde was swimming for both of them.

"-hey!" Cayde supposed he shouldn't have at all been surprised by that, tail swishing even more erratically just to give Tony a harder time of making a grab for it once he felt those fingers. He still found himself smirking a little, for all the concerning holes and confusing things his memory was providing, it was easier to still be open to fun when presented, rather than be dragged down by growing worries.

While Tony kept wincing away with a snicker, he managed to hold his arms out long enough to keep Cayde convinced he had to focus on defending himself and not on the race, hopefully sending him at least enough off course for Tony to gain some ground and make a straight shot for the windows that would let him into the bar.

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