revivalproject | What's Behind Door Number One?

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What's Behind Door Number One?

WHO: Echo & ~~YOU-SA~~ OTA
WHERE: The Agrii Ship
WHAT: Lost
WHEN: ~~Yes~~ Now-ish
WARNINGS: TBD but I'm pretty sure it's N/A. Will update as needed.

----

His initial disorientation quickly subsided the moment he realized nothing was familiar.

It was huge, yes. But oh, it was different – very different from the Venator-class Republic Cruiser Echo was used to living on between missions. Through the dark visor of his helmet, he looked up, scrutinizing the lines running along the corridors, the shape of the bulkheads, the lights. However, it soon dawned on him that he would have to learn where everything was before any further venturing was done.

"Which means we're back to square one," he muttered under a breath, shouldering his blaster while he stood there to figure out his next move. And after staring down the way at the nearest door, he sighed. "Well. Looks like I got the time. A little exploring won't kill me..."

* * *

His first point of inspection:

"Large an' empty. I wonder what could've been held in here."

* * *

Second point of inspection:

"Inventory," he almost snorted through his vocabulator. The thrill in his tone (or lack thereof) was evident. "Always loads of fun."

* * *

A third point of inspection:

"...What is this, a refresher?"

* * *

Hits and misses were plenty the more he looked around, but for some reason, it wasn't boring him. Wherever he ended up next, he was sure to find something interesting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There was a slight thump coming from above, and as one's attention might be drawn to the ventilation grill, leather-wrapped fingers slid carefully between them before applying enough pressure to get it to swing outward. The hands drew back within the duct, and after a moment or two a head popped out to look around.

A hooded head with a metal face. With glowing blue optics. At first he was turned away from the clone trooper and the doorway, but that corrected itself soon enough as the head tilted up. Those blue eyes widened briefly, and then the hooded figure pulled himself back in with a muttered curse of some sort.

The blaster was instantly hefted from its resting stance, its barrel pointed upward mere moments after the thump passed. Echo then searched the ceiling, catching a glimpse of the vent moving out of its original position as his HUD lit up his visor, overlaying its marks and symbols on the hands before blinking in and out several times.

To be honest, he wasn't even sure what he was looking at when that metal face appeared. Was it a droid? If it was, then it wasn't functioning properly. "–Who's there?" The ARC trooper moved in, keeping the blaster trained on the vent opening, resting his finger on the side of the trigger.

An awkward silence followed the ARC Trooper's demand. Maybe if the Exo kept quiet, the other would go away.

It was quickly becoming apparent that such would not be the case as he heard no footsteps to signify that the armored figure was leaving. Cayde rolled his eyes, giving a quiet sigh before he spoke up from within the duct.

"Uuh...no one?"

Yeah, he certainly wasn't going to leave now that there was an infiltrator hiding in the shaft. "Try again," came a patient reply.

Another tense pause came and went. Withholding a filtered sigh, Echo frowned. "...You still there? Or am I talking to air now?"

Perfect! Yes. All he had to do was be utterly, completely quiet and this guy would leave. Never mind that he was pretty sure he'd never seen that sort of armor before, but then Cayde had only caught a quick glimpse.

He nodded to himself, however confident of his plan, at least until his horn thunked against the top of the shaft he was currently more or less lying within. There was a quick in-drawn hiss as the Exo froze, glancing up to see if any damage had been done to the ductwork and then his optics flicked downwards towards the opening.

"O-oh yeah. Totally just air. Real, real heavy air. Gravity does some strange things to you up here."

Well, that was promising. Kind of? At least the thunk answered his question.

Under the helmet, Echo arched a brow. "Gravity, huh?" He stayed where he was, feet not too far apart to distribute his weight evenly and hold him steady. "Must be some real intelligent gravity if I'm having a solid conversation with it."

"Hey, I just said air, stick with the script," said 'air' huffed. "Anyway, you never know, out here in the middle of nowhere. Also that says a lot about you if you're willing to have a conversation, be it air or gravity."

"Air, gravity, whatever it is– there's no denying that's one smart mouth," the ARC trooper snorted. The barrel of his blaster lowered a few inches. "Who are you and what exactly are you doing crawling around up there?"

A chuckle sounded from the open duct. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

Well, he supposed it would be difficult to keep up a conversation, and rather pointless. Neither of them were stupid. ...or maybe he was for trying in the first place.

"Eh, you never know when you might need an alternative route around things. 'specially when systems might go sideways and you got force fields that can fry you popping on and off without warning." Another thunk. "Ugh, okay, hang on- lemmee just..."

More movement sounded, part of a tattered end of cloth falling through the hole before being pulled in again as thumps resumed overhead. Finally a foot popped out of the vent, and then another, and slowly a body slid down before the Exo finally dropped to the ground. He hopped up as soon as his boots hit the floor, dusting himself off. His glowing blue optics ticked up towards the clone trooper as though just remembering he was there, and he stared a moment now that he had a better chance to study him.

"Nice gun. You're new. I'm Cayde." He stuck out a hand as he stepped forward.

At the Exo's admittance, Echo smirked. And it stuck around for a while longer when he explained why he was up there. "Never hurts to be prepared for anything. Although I could've sworn you were crawling the vents for fun."

He took a few steps back to give Cayde room to get down, silent as he got a better look at him. From what he knew, a droid couldn't move that fluidly. Also, this one wasn't trying to kill him right off the bat. So that was a positive. More or less.

Resting his blaster in the crook of his arm, Echo tentatively lifted his free hand, meeting Cayde halfway for the handshake. "Thanks. And yeah, I am – for here, anyway," he said. "ARC-1409. I also go by 'Echo.'"

"Nothin' wrong with multitasking," Cayde countered, his metal features somehow conveying a crooked grin.

"That's a lotta numbers," he continued as he pumped Echo's hand in a brisk handshake. After all, there was no reason to feel awkward about doing completely normal things like ventilation crawls. "Echo, huh? So when you're in a room and someone's lookin' for you, do you get a lot of 'Is there an Echo in here?'"

Echo stood corrected: no droid he had seen had any flexible facial parts. None of them ever expressed anything to Cayde's degree because they were never built that way.

Because he was still trying to process this, he had never been more thankful to have his helmet hiding his own facial features. And it only got more complicated with the Exo's laid-back attitude. He almost felt his eyes glaze over with that line, though, stifling a groan between two of those enthusiastic pumps.

"Don't remind me. I think I lost count," he sighed. "Are you always like this?"

The Exo chuckled, the sound, like his voice, containing just the slightest tinniness not too unlike a droid, but his demeanor and way of speech in general was far more humanlike, organic as his movements.

"Always like what?" he asked, the glint in his eye surely just the result of catching those glowing optics at just the right angle, but either way it added a telling layer when paired with his words. Letting his hand drop away, he rested it at his hip, just above the holstered weapon there.

Comparatively, Echo wore more armor than he did. Cayde took that in as he made his silent assessment, stroking his chin with his free hand. "You a soldier, then? The numbers, the armor...the stiffness. Just has 'soldier' written all over it."

Gloved fingers reflexively flex a few times, almost as if Echo needed to regain feeling in them after that handshake. And despite eyeing Cayde for dodging the question, he couldn't help but chuff a faint laugh.

"Soldier, yes," the clone nodded, his helmet canting slightly to one side. His shoulders just naturally seem to sit rigid and square. "I'd take offense to that stiff comment if I could." He did take note of Cayde's holster, however, giving it another glance before indicating as much. "And you're no civilian."

Cayde raised his hands halfway in a sort of 'guilty as charged' gesture. "Yeah, not really," he confirmed, shrugging as he let his hands drop again. "When'd you get here? I thought the thingy was gone."

'Thingy', he realized, was probably not a very helpful term. He swirled his fingers about in the air as though a visual aid would help. It did not.

"-on second thought, if you just appeared like the rest of us then you probably wouldn't know where all was the origin point, would you?"

"Just recently." Echo shook his head. "I can't explain how, but I was given a once-over and left alone for the most part..."

The term 'thingy' and its related hand gestures were pretty vague, but as Cayde reworded his thoughts, the ARC Trooper frowned. "No. And if that's the case, does that mean we an' any of the others who ended up here have been left to figure it all out?"

"Pretty much," the Exo confirmed. "So all the pink guys with the four arms, the three eyes and the fangs? This is their ship. Everyone else, what few there are- brought in same as you. Different times, different places. From what I understand, most end up on the planet the Agrii- that's the pink ones- call home. Me an' Tony got pulled in when everyone was sent on a vacation. Didn't mind that one bit, it's been a long time since I've had anything I could call a vacation. 'course then I find out there's a catch to it. Always a catch."

He shrugged, then glanced up at the grill of the ventilation shaft as it still dangled open. Regarding it a moment, he then looked to Echo, back and forth.

"...hey, c'mere and gimmee a hand for a sec?" he asked, waving the trooper over. It'd just be plain sloppy to leave things like that.

"Agrii. Got it." This was more of a crash course in learning the basics, but it still had some similarities to all of the accelerated learning the clone went through. Of course, with Cayde at the helm it was more like being taught by a much nicer, easygoing bounty hunter who did what he wanted. "But different times and places? How is that even possible?" It was more of a rhetorical question at that point, seeing how they already had no real leads to how it all worked, but the mind, it boggled.

Also, he had to visibly pause as the Exo went on a small tangent about his own experience with appearing. "...What's a vacation?"

Minor things, though. The grill was now a present matter they (yes, they) needed to take care of. Echo grunted, but he complied, stepping forward and putting his blaster down on the floor. "Need a boost?"

Cayde held up a finger at that. "Ah, but that, my friend, is the glimmer-bullion question." Which was to say, there weren't any readily available answers.

And then he almost sputtered when the clone asked what a vacation was. Echo would be given a long, hard stare before the Exo finally broke his silence with, "...you're kidding, right? Not kidding." He whistled. "You must be super devoted to the cause. I guess lookin' at it that way, talk about vacations aren't really to be expected. There's fighting and then there's not. Vacation? It's a break. A well-deserved break where you get some time off to do whatever the hell you want. Me? I don't really get vacations either. Being Hunter Vanguard's a twenty-four, seven, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year kinda deal and then some."

He however brightened as Echo caught on really fast with what he had in mind. "I love it when I don't have to explain myself. Yes please- no comments on the weight- I'm metal in here, okay?" he said preemptively as he waited for the man to get into position.

If only he'd been kind of kidding. "It's a nice thought," said Echo as he got himself situated, "but there's no chance of that happening any time soon. Not when we're in the middle of a war that's spread across most of the galaxy." Although now he was curious. "Hunter Vanguard, though – I never would've pegged you as someone who'd be in that kind of position."

Knees bent and fingers interwoven to form a foothold, he prepped for the imminent Cayde-step. "I'll try my best not to," he replied, half-grinning behind the visor. The joking, however brief, turned back to business. "Ready when you are."

"I would've never pegged me someone in that kinda position," Cayde laughed, shrugging. "But I've been stuck with it for how long now so I guess I should be over that. I'd rather be out on the field though. But now I'm here and have never thought I'd have so much free time than what I knew what to do with."

He bounced a bit where he stood, tipping his head with a look at Echo with that comment before he shook his head. "Alrighty, here we go!" he said, hiking a foot up to plant between the ARC Trooper's hands, pushing off and up as he outstretched his arms to reach the grate above.

"Hup!" Despite the weight expectancy, the action fell into place like clockwork, force and leverage working in tandem with each other, muscles tensing so that Cayde met the grate at the perfect height. Although warned, he made sure to focus more on being steady than on how much the Exo actually weighed.

"So you didn't choose it?" Echo asked, looking up at Cayde. "Field work sounds more fitting."

"Ooh, look'it you!" Cayde grinned, glancing down just briefly to comment before he looked back up and nudged the grate back into place with his fingers. "Boop."

He wouldn't stay there too long at least. Once the grate was secure, he hopped back to relieve Echo of his Exo burden. "Not really, no. Lost a bet." It was more or less true. He didn't feel like going into the gritty details. "Oh I loves me some field work. I'm a hands-on kinda guy," he said, making with the double finger-guns. Pew-pew!

As Cayde returned to the ground, Echo shook out his hands, swinging his arms loosely before going to pick up his blaster again. "Must've been some bet." While he was still wondering about it, he was fine with a simple answer. For now.

His shoulders shake, his chuckling muffled within the filter of his vocabulator. "Same here. Otherwise ARC wouldn't stand for 'Advanced Recon Commando.'" And he gestured. "Exploring a ship pretty much counts as field work for the moment, right?"

"Counts as much as anything else," Cayde agreed. "Advanced Recon, eh?" He eyed the blaster before making gimmee-hands at it, hoping to take a look at it. It didn't look fancy or anything like the models he knew back home, but this was obviously a military-issue weapon and it no less sparked his curiosity. At least it looked like a gun.

"I'm kinda surprised the Agrii let you keep that. But maybe given the scare they had not too long ago, they've gotten a little looser about their thoughts on allowing us to be armed."

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