revivalproject | ♤ Desperado

Entry tags:

♤ Desperado

WHO: Cayde-6 and you mental intruders you. Guardian gear optional.
WHERE: ~~The Tower~~ In the mind of Cayde-6. Run.
WHAT: Exploring the Exo's memories and then some
WHEN: Through the Calibrations Event
WARNINGS: Nothing I can think of? Potential violence? That's an FPS for you

"It's funny, the things you find yourself missing."

The room is large and tall with its vaulted walls and the giant window that makes up an entire wall, overlooking the vast expanse of Earth's Last City. There are roughly two levels to the room, stairs immediately leading down to the central, sunken area, with no shortage of computer terminals and screens along either side. Smack in the center of the sunken area is a large table with a sizable map laid out towards the middle of it, among other things.

"Like that. I kind of miss that table."

The Exo steps down alongside of you and then past, holding a chicken in the crook of one arm, stroking her under the beak. And no, that's not your imagination- she really is wearing a tiny cloak and a paper horn reminiscent of her caretaker. He steps over to the table, shoving stacks of paperwork off the edge with relish that plainly says he's doing something he normally shouldn't, before he sets Colonel down to wander about as she pleases.

The other things on the table are as follows: a small scattering of playing cards, although all save an Ace of Spades and Queen of Hearts are flipped face-up. A glass of some glowing blue-green liquor sits atop a few sheets of paper, which upon closer inspection look to be the yellowed, torn pages from books, hints of handwriting in the blank spaces. A worn pistol sits there at the edge of the table, and stacked nearby, a few poker chips. On the floor, sitting unobtrusively by one of the table legs is a dusty, hand-stitched ball.

Draped over a chair by one of the side terminals is a banner in black, orange and white, the symbol of the Vanguard.

Cayde himself takes up a spot by the map, setting his hands on the table to lean over it as he nods thoughtfully to himself.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah, I'm sure they did. And I'm sure I wouldn't have minded it as much if they did it more on Zavala's side and not on my map."

The Exo tilts his head as he sees Cloud's armor shift into something more Titan-like, chuckling then. "Yeah, just like that. Eh..." He steals another look around.

"Okay, so this is over-simplifying, but we'll say on a scale of brawn to brains, Titans are first and Warlocks are last, and Hunters are wedged in the middle." He quickly holds a hand up. "-not to say that Titans are idiots, I'm just saying like... they can take more punishment and give back in equal amounts. They got a lot of punch. Warlocks, they're the thinkery, unravel-the-mysteries-of-the-universey sort but they can still fry you where you stand, and I'll be the last to tell you that they can't be any bit as good as a Titan. Ikora? Oh, you do not cross that woman."

He chuckles for all that he says. He'll always respect Ikora. Even if she gets a little distracted with details while Zavala gets caught up in all the other things. "And Hunters? We're the scouts, the trailblazers, the lone wolves who aren't afraid to get up in someone's face if we gotta make a point. While everyone else is still working out a plan, we're already doing what we do best."

Cloud folds his arms around the armor plating while looking at Cayde with a slight pout. He's going to ask a question anyway. "Are you to tell me that there's been plenty of tiny Titan's trying to prove themselves among the rest?" Because that's what he dealt with on the daily. "That's been my life, Cayde. So I hope you're right in your thoughts of me."

He's always trying to prove himself among the others. Fight the best against the best? He might come out victorious since he'll keep going. Cloud can tell from how he talks about Zavala and Ikora that he cares about his comrades. They seem to know each other quite well. He leans forward on the table while glancing down at the map.

"What's with the map? Or is this when I start touching things?"

"Cloud, proving yourself comes with the territory. Us Guardians, some take it more seriously than others, the fresh-minted ones especially. Others figure there's nothin' more to prove, or it's not so much proving yourself to others'n proving something to yourself."

The Exo wiggles a finger over at the chicken to coax her over so he can play with her. "What, you got a problem with maps? Maps are very handy. If you're not pointing out where your scouts are calling in some trouble areas to someone, then you're just remembering how it was to be out there instead'a stuck in the Tower. That's probably just me. Anyway!" He waves a hand.

"Touch away, I guess. Or look. Seems only fair, either way."

"You do make a good mentor."

Cloud can't help but chuckle at the chicken and Cayde. He truly wasn't lying about the chicken. At the mention of the maps he looks at Cayde with a straight face. "There's nothing wrong maps! Don't get the wrong idea. They're useful in a lot of ways. Especially if you're learning the train station routes."

He gives a quick reach out to touch the map along it's side.

He grins ruefully at that. There's definitely mixed feelings about being called a good mentor, especially considering all the complications of the whole deal. "I kid. But yes. Maps. Very useful." Except when you were trying to stash things and didn't want to mark it in a way that everyone can find it. Then you had to be sneaky.

Cayde watches out of the corner of his eye as Cloud touches the map, continuing to pet Colonel as he wonders how these memory things might be from the other end.

They're in the same room, although only three figures stand around the table, the rest of the area darkened save for the glowing outlines of the projection above Cayde's map. The ship is large, rectangular and ominous.

The three, or rather mainly two of the three converse, the dark-skinned woman in magenta robes prioritizing gaining more intel, the blue-skinned Awoken male proclaiming the importance of putting the City and the protection of its people first.

"We need a Warlock inside the Dreadnaught," Ikora insists. On the opposite side of the table, Cayde rolls his eyes, a barely audible, "Here we go..." murmured and ultimately ignored by the two. Zavala predictably comes to bat. "Our first priority must be to protect the City. Our Guardian got a good look on Phobos. Whatever it was, it turned Cabal against Cabal, wiped out their base in minutes. How long would we last?"

"Until we understand what we're dealing with-" the Warlock Vanguard replies, not backing down. Further response from anyone is forestalled with the sudden flare of green as a glowing sphere flies into the projection of the Dreadnaught, disrupting it before falling onto the projector itself. Stepping out from the shadows enters another figure, three glowing green eyes barely obscured by the thin bandanna wound around her upper face, black streaks streaming down from beneath it like unending tears of pitch.

"They are Taken," she says.

From his place, Cayde eyes the woman before he finally addresses her. "Eris. Get your rock. Off my map."

Perhaps as to be expected, Eris ignores him as she continues to explain the Taken, speaking like she's reciting an incantation as she tells of Crota, of Oryx, explaining the concept of the Taken in answering Ikora's questions. All at once she stops as Cayde plucks up the sphere from where it had landed, toying with it like it might open like a secret capsule with a toy inside. Naturally he ignores the dirty look Eris gives him, and Eris is forced to resume answering questions when prompted by Zavala and Ikora.

"The Dreadnaught, then. How do we get past that weapon?" Ikora asks, with Zavala asking on the heels of it, "Without ending up like the Awoken."

Abruptly Cayde looks up from playing with the sphere. He hasn't said much, but he's certainly been listening. And he knows this can go on for so much longer. "I gotta go uh...see about a ship," he says as an excuse, tossing the sphere back to Eris, who halts its flight with a raised hand.

"Cayde, our discussion has not yet concluded," Zavala states sternly, his faintly glowing eyes following the Hunter Vanguard as the latter's already started to walk away. Cayde responds without looking back.

"Oh, I know. That's why I'm leaving."

Cloud's not sure what to think at first. It felt like a gathering that he wouldn't even be in. If anything his group would be the Guardians in this scenario. He tilts his head at hearing the word dreadnaught (dreadnought) coming up twice in different head spaces. Maybe it's a space thing. All of them had their different ideas. Cloud could feel himself get itchy, wanting that next assignment or to be hired for a mercenary job. He knows it's that urge to want to fight. It's always there.

"I like her." He says out loud mostly at watching Eris coming in the way she had. There had been something about her that he couldn't help but want to know more about. Cloud stands up straight from the table and dips down to pick up the helmet that had suddenly changed to have to that of a Titan's. Plus it had a Mohawk top piece. He places it on the table in front of him while looking back at Cayde.

"Are you always protecting everyone from threats such as this?"

"So that's what it feels like to be on the receiving end..." Cayde muses. The memory's even clearer than he feels he actually remembers. He smiles crookedly. "Classic Ikora and Zavala." He remembers that situation. A lot had happened since then, and changed too, between the Vanguard. More respect between each other for their differing personalities, not that Cayde wouldn't ever stop poking fun when he did, but they were more than comrades in arms.

"Her? Seriously?" He looks at Cloud, quirking a brow. "Eris Morn. That one's been through a lot. Resident expert of all things dark and creepy, at least when she's around. Haven't seen her in a while, not since the whole end of that Taken business anyway."

The Exo nods then. "Oh yeah. That's what we do. That's why we're Guardians. There's a lotta things out there that wanna wipe us out or just plain hate our guts, after all."

"Are we going to have any unexpected tears coming from you?" Cloud could feel his own embarrassment creeping in. But he's teasing a bit as well to keep things lighthearted between them. "It'll only be fair."

He gives a one shoulder shrug. "If you knew my actual friends and what they have been through you'll start to understand why."

Cloud gives him a look as if he doesn't have to tell him twice. That he understand all too well. He glances down at the table looking at the other items.

"What's in this glass?" He picks it up to examine the liquid within it while also looking down towards the torn pages.

"Hah." Cayde wags a finger at Cloud. The suggestion does make him wonder though, but he isn't letting any concerns show on that metal face of his.

Instead he wonders at what all the friends Cloud mentions have gone through. His world was already established as a tough place to live, and Cloud himself had been forged through plenty of unnatural circumstances.

"Don't drink that- not that it'll probably do much here, but that's Exo-grade liquor, not exactly stuff someone with an actual stomach might wanna put down their throat," he warns, even as he grins.

The torn pages bear neat lines of penciled cursive, a conversational start-off for what seems like a brief recount of a day in the life of Cayde to someone named Ace...

Cloud wasn't going to drink it he wanted to only sniff. Maybe see what could be the liquid. A skilled thief, a healer that spoke to the planet, a man with a gun for an arm, a man obsessed with space, someone who slept for years and can turn into monsters, a trained fighter who could punch faster than someone could blink, a cat that can use any skill, a rat lab dog with a tail that glowed fire at the tip. Cayde may understand one day.

"Seriously?" There's uncertainty at what Cayde has said but he hands out to the Exo. If it's meant for him than he wasn't about to go for it. He though can't help but reach out with his other to touch the torn pages.

Drinking on the job. Something Zavala would disapprove of. Maybe that's why Cayde takes the glass and tosses it down the hatch with relish. "Hoo, wonder if the replicator'd be able to spit that one out. Granted I'd be the only one able to drink it but eh."

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Cloud reach for the pages, and he can't help but wonder if maybe having a drink wasn't such a bad thing at the moment after all.

There's nothing out there. The landscape is unfamiliar. The whole world is changed. The years that have gone by are too many to properly process, and all the same, none of it matters, why should it matter? Anything and anyone he's ever known has been long gone. Everything's gone.

So why is he here?

He's been over this path of thought, it's probably a well-worn rut by now, a chasm with no means of climbing out, and no certain way forward. At his shoulder he knows she's there, the Ghost that woke him, who'd brought him back to this. She's been quiet for some time. Words only offer so much. Companionship is better, and even she hasn't the answers to the questions he has.

It's the lack of concrete memories that makes it worse. He knows he's missing a lot of things, and trying to hang onto any of it is like trying to remember a dream. It's all gone now, and knowing that is the worst of it. The loneliness, the absence of whatever he might have once had, way back when, crushing.

...but they aren't completely gone. There's still something there. Fragments, flashes. Something of who he was, maybe. But still, something.

His hand tightens around the beaten journal, worn by weather and time and the elements. A shaking hand that carefully opens its delicate pages, pausing on one, tracing the fading lines with a finger. He doesn't remember writing this. He doesn't remember this name. But he feels it's important, and he needs it to be.

The pencil that had been tucked between the pages is old and brittle, but still serviceable as he clutches it, adjusts his grip. The tip of the lead breaks under the pressure as he presses it to the page, but the rest holds up as his hand moves, goes through the motions, a shaky but legible start: Dear Ace.

And it's just a tiny, tiny bit, but the weight of everything just suddenly seems to be just that much more bearable.

Cloud's eyes quickly dart up at Cayde as he spoke about the replicator there's a flash of guilt as he sucks in the corner of his lip. The Exo only made a comment on the replicator being able to spit it out. He knew something. "About that..."

He stops himself short this wasn't the place. Cloud got sucked into the memory as it started to play out before him. The journal of how old it was, the Cayde here had been very different. Almost as if he was trying to search for something or someone. He's not quite sure at first. Whose journal was it? Who was Ace? It felt personal and he could tell that by viewing Cayde's demeanor.

"How old is that memory? Who is Ace?"

For a good moment the Exo stood uncharacteristically quiet as he turned, still leaning, half-sitting against the table, arms folding.

"...heh. Wow. Really digging deep for that one," he finally says, chuckling as he tries to mask how startled he was by it. He doesn't like the reminder, but he'll still hold that memory close. It's important. It's the start of the long road he's been on ever since.

"Couldn't say how old. Centuries, at least. Back when I first got found by my Ghost." He shakes his head. "I was dead, you know? That's what we Guardians are. Dead, brought back by the Light. And we'll be brought back as many times as long as the Light and our Ghosts are with us. You saw mine there. She didn't have a name then, but that's Sundance. Wish she'd been brought along, but I guess between my gun and my Ghost, the Agrii decided on the first."

And being without her just feels so off. It's not like when the Light had been cut off from them, but it's still so strange. Cayde tilts back his hooded head, sighing.

"Ace..." This one's harder. Tony had come across his recent writings, and he'd toed the line of the truth then. "Wish I knew," he admits as he lowers his head.

Cloud straightens quickly looking at Cayde with surprise. He didn't really know how old the other could be. The Exo has so much personality currently but within that memory he didn't. It felt as if he could be searching for an answer.

The 'wish I knew' hit Cloud hard and in a wave of rippling heat. Cloud places his hands on the table to keep himself steady. He needed to anchor himself before asking his own question. "When you come back again as a Guardian, do you not have your memories?"

"It's complicated," Cayde says, glancing over his shoulder at Cloud. "Our memories already get thrown through a blender when we go from being humans to Exos. They don't encourage us to hold onto our pasts. Maybe it's easier to let go, but that didn't sit well with me."

He holds a hand out to his chicken again, giving her feathers a ruffle. "That's all before the Light gets introduced. Being brought back does a lot of weird things with whatever memories we Exos might have had. Don't remember a whole lot from before. It's all pieces, fragments that get reshuffled, and on occasion have other bits introduced between another death and being rezz'd."

He knows the junkies out there. The ones that look for death just so they can relive the snatches of memories that come up between a bullet and that resurge of Light.

Cloud said his story was long and complicated. "You're within your mind space... it may even be our subconscious. It could only be a room." He's not sure about that one. If it was, he's experienced in it with being the one having help to search for himself. Not with trying to help someone else but it could be possible.

"If it could work to where you could search for your own memories, I would help you." He means that too. Cloud does wonder if it could work in that matter if Cayde truly wanted to search. The Lifestream helped Cloud since that's what he and Tifa had fallen into. The Planet here has life energy whose not to say it might not share similar characteristics. It's still not his area of expertise.

"Pistol or these other things?" He points towards the poker chips.

"It's one of the places I remember the best. But you get stuck working in here for how long, 'course it'd be hard to forget, even when it doesn't exist anymore."

Cayde snorts at the suggestion, shaking his head. Would it work? He's not even sure how this whole thing works. They're dreams, right? But these have been different, and he's still uncertain about how he feels with it being so vividly linked to memories.

A part of him is also afraid. He knows he's lost something. How much more would it hurt to know exactly what?

As Cloud calls his attention to the other items on the table, the Exo looks over, a lopsided grin pulling at his metal jaw. He recognizes the shock pistol. The chips too.

"Either of 'em should be good," he says.

Cloud doesn't press him on the subject any further. He gives him a long look where he doesn't seem to blink. It may come off as a stare of judgement. Maybe Cloud is silently judging Cayde.

What if something did happen like that? What would Cayde do? Cloud knows what he would do. If any part of his memories were to break or wrap again he would need help to remember who he is.

He almost seems to go for the pistol but he picks up the poker chips as if they were a piece of gil in between is thumb and index finger.

What's a with the look? Cayde looks back at Cloud, slightly confused before he scowls a bit and falls back on what he does best under such circumstances. He's gotten reeeally good at ignoring looks of judgment.

It's not that he brushes off Cloud'd suggestion. It's a thought he tucks away, a card he keeps in case he might find opportunity to play it later.

As the other moves, he glances over again, unable to keep from grinning a little at the memory that takes shape.

The Spider's Palace on the Tangled Shore- where one will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. At least in this neck of the galaxy, maybe.

He's accompanied by five others, and with himself makes his six. He likes the theme and is going to run with it all the way. Two humans, two Awoken, and his old Exo buddy he managed to pry away from his gunsmith stall at the Tower. They're a mixed bag of tricks, and Cayde's proud of himself for having pulled this together.

This plan is totally going to work.

They hit the gambling den, the place all decked out complete with the lavish drapery and pointless chandeliers. The typical look that tries to entice you to spend a little more, because in here, everyone's a king. And if you believe that and if you're lucky then you'll only leave with empty pockets.

It's not hard at all to spot their target: a Fallen who unlike most of her kind that tend to pop up planetside has favored a more natural look over the armored plating and mechanical limbs. Araskes, the Trickster.

"She's on a roll and feelin' frisky. Gotta get close, but palace rules say no fighting," Cayde says conversationally as he watches from another table, Banshee-44 beside him. The group's dispersed themselves around the room to draw less attention, but with the mix of people here, it's an easy thing to blend in. He plunks down a few chips, glancing at the other Exo. "Too bad we gotta pick a fight."

"I knew you were going to say that," Banshee replies, rifling through his hand of cards.

Chaos erupts almost instantly after a bottle goes flying and smashes cleanly against the side of Trickster's head. Next thing you know, you've got an angry Eliksni screaming over your shoulder. Banshee reacts about as typically as Cayde expects, calm, considerate even as Araskes crashes the game and chips fly everywhere.

"This was your plan?"

"Worked, didn't it?"

"Hrmm."

Insert barfight here. Okay, brawl. It gets way out of hand the way these things tend to, and the Six are all in. No weapons, just good ol' fisticuffs. Hawthorne and Jin and Nadiya, they all hold their own. P.V., well of course she can handle herself. Banshee may spend his days calibrating the same gun but he still proves he's good in a fight even without firearms.

And then the target makes a break for it, and Cayde makes his move. "Guh! Outta my way, lady!" he shouts as he slams bodily into her and tackles her to the ground. The look she shoots him alone makes it quite clear that if she weren't in such a hurry to make tracks she'd rip his face off. So of course he chats her up. It's part of the plan. This is all part of the plan. Mostly.

"I can tell by the smell of your voice yer not happy to see me."

She switches from Eliksni long enough to make threats. "Off me, Guardian! Before I tear the circuits from your chassis and use your metal skin for scrap."

"Fair enough," Cayde says, slipping a beacon into Araskes' satchel before shoving himself off of her and onto his feet. "The bouncers are gonna have both our asses if we don't play nice, anyway. So! No harm, no foul."

Petra Venj predictably appears at his side as the Trickster retreats. "You let her get away!" Yeah, she sounds upset.

"Did I?"

"She was our target!" She's why we're here! Why we-"

"Petra? I've got two words, and a lotta charm- Trust me."

He doesn't know what your true plan is with not saying anything about it. Cloud tilts his head as the scene plays on. Cayde knew how to make a heist happen even if things could get out of hand they would still pull it off. There's been plenty of plans that have failed on him during his own journey. Cloud places the poker chips back down on the table.

"I can see why people are not quick to want to trust you." His words might sting a bit because they will sound honest. Cloud looks over at Cayde but his gaze isn't hardened with that judgement but softer with a small smirk. "Plans could always get out of hand or change but you do need to trust people that are within the plans already."

He knows that sometimes people can't work with a sudden change when they already have an idea of a plan. "There might be a reason you don't want to complete something yet."

The Exo looks at Cloud in mock offense at those words, but his lopsided grin is quick to return, and really, he can't argue the point.

"That's a big part of the plan that people neglect," he nods. "You can do all the scheming you want, but if you don't know who you're getting involved with, that's just as many ways for good plans to go sideways."

He rests his hands on the table again, looking over at the poker chips, remembering the whole encounter. That's a fresh memory, not too long before he'd been brought out to Agra-Ten.

"We had more than one target, and they all run the same circle. I figured, well, why nab one when we can just swoop in and get the whole gang?"

Cloud listens to Cayde while nodding his head acting as if he might actually be agreeing with him. But he doesn't do that gesture when the Exo brings up nabbing the entire group instead of going after the one.

That was equally as dangerous and a lot risker. "If the group comes together they could overrun you or out play whatever hand you may have up your sleeve or coins that you may use against them."

This almost sounds as if it's coming from experience. It sounds as if it's any normal day for Cloud. "What risk are you taking by doing it and is it worth it? Is it worth losing everyone over it?"

"Circle back to exhibit A," Cayde replies. "Know who you run with, know what they can do. Know what you can do." He holds up a finger. "Also, be well aware that you're probably walking into a trap."

But there was a trap within the trap, so it had still been perfectly within his plans.

"The point is not to lose everyone- or anyone." He refuses to lose anyone. He wouldn't go all in if he didn't think they'd be able to succeed, and ultimately he went in first, because if there was any failing, it'd be on him, no one else.

"I know my team. If you tried that with them they will do anything in their power to stop it from happening. Even if you went for one the entire team would come after you harder. But we've dealt with a team that could beat us by simply having resources." Cloud knew they always would. They always had secrets lurking in the darkness. From what Reeve told him there's another fight coming. But it's mostly done by Vincent.

He frowns at Cayde a little because he feels the same way.

"The Planet always needs saving. It's not always about the fighting." He ends up repeating something that Vincent told him. "It comes down to the people you want to protect. That you're fighting for them to be with them longer."

Cloud knows about not wanting to lose anyone and still ending up losing someone along the way. He's not the only one to feel something like that. He's realizing there's plenty people here that share the same feelings. "I'm used to things going badly regardless of your plans. You work through it."

Resources were exactly how the Exo had spun that crazy gamble in their favor. After all, he had Petra and her Corsairs up his sleeve. The funny part was it relied on a certain amount of distrust as much as trust.

Cayde considers Cloud's words, nodding. It may not always be about fighting, but it's hard to avoid, and fighting usually comes with so many things attached to it.

"You can't plan too much, but you can never have too many back-up plans. You just need a lot of wiggle room.

"But you're right. The important thing is that you don't forget the reasons. Why you fight. Who you're protecting. Why you keep going."

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