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Wake Up Initiated
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Human:Functions.File_Complete
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Human:Sensory.File_Complete
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Flight.File_Complete
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Memory.File_Incomplete
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Memory Download Stopped At 96%
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Move To Complete?
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Completing Download…
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Memory Download Complete
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Start Up Sequence Initiated
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Loading…
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Sequence Complete
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“Good Morning Guardian!”
_
Glowing purple optics flash on, flitting quickly around the room in front of them, until a floating little diamond moves down into their view.
“I genuinely never thought I would actually find my guardian but here you are! I am your Ghost, it is a pleasure to meet you,” the creature…Ghost, stated.
An almost soundless shuffling of boots makes the new guardian’s head snap to the side to see an armored individual, whose armor shone rather brightly with a mixture of red, blue, and purple hues. The hood of the cloak he wore cast a shadow over his helmet, leaving a single, glowing red halo to be seen. He stood off to their right, in front of a pair of robotic wings that were mounted on the wall. The man stands over them with a large…chainsaw looking sword gripped in his hand, making no move to attack or anything.
“Oh yea, Guardian…uh, Grimm-1! This is THE Guardian, Damion,” the Ghost said in excitement.
The newly resurrected guardian, an Exo, slowly shifts to lean away from The cloaked Guardian and the sword that was a little too close to their face to be comfortable. The Exo tilts their head back and forth between the weapon and the person holding it a few times.
Damion starts and then glances at the weapon in his hand and laughs nervously, “I uh…don’t know why I still have this out. Yeah, sorry.”
The armored guardian brings his sword around to sheathe it as his own Ghost pops into existence and causes it to disappear before following suit. Now with both hands free, Damion places them up onto his hips as the glowing red halo at the center of his helmet track up and down the power lines and wires that connect the ceiling to the black, purple, and gold Exo on the floor. An Exo with horns as well…which was extremely unusual as far as he was aware.
With the deadly weapon no longer an immediate threat, Grimm-1 turns their attention away and instead focuses on removing the unnecessary cables connecting to their frame. A few of the lines disconnect with a little swoosh of air and others swinging to the floor, landing with a little plink. The little ghost in its white shell circle around the horned Exo, little clicks being heard as the shell shifted, and light being projected around their guardian every so often.
Damion, shifting from heel to heel where he stood ignored, carefully takes a step towards Grimm-1 with an arm raised towards the nearest, connected cable, “Would you…Would you like some help? I cannot imagine it is too comfortable to be strung up like a doll…or something like that..?”
Grimm-1 tilts their head to the side for a moment before they nod and raise their freed hand out to him, which he quickly moves to grab. Damion nearly falls forward into the Exo when they suddenly pull on him to bring themselves to their feet. He catches himself though and rubs his neck for a moment. The Exo then turns so their back is more towards the cloaked guardian and they resume releasing their other arm.
Damion steps forward and reaches out for a cable. Grimm-1’s new Ghost darts over to his hand, shell spinning, “You turn the big cables counterclockwise by the way. Oh, and the little ones you just tug off….and don’t touch their horns,” then returns to scanning their guardian.
Soon enough, Grimm-1 was almost entirely free of all the wires. Still unplugging cables from the horned Exo’s back, Damion’s eyes locked on to the two almost kite shaped indents in their back. Two circles were indented even further in and produced a bit of light. Head cocked; he brings a hand to gently grace over the edge of the indent.
Grimm-1, in the blink of an eye, spins on their heel and harshly grabs the armored guardian’s wrist before he even has a chance to react.
“Uh, uh, sorry?” Damion sputters out.
The Black and purple Exo lets out a quick exhale and releases him as quickly as he was snatched, “It’s fine,” they say, their first spoken words being drawn out with care.
“Well, uh, I guess since you are free we should probably get out of here. Kind of weird to just hang out in some giant head’s basement,” The cloaked Guardian laughs.
“Because forcibly entering a securely locked vault makes it less weird,” Grimm-1 replies.
The black and purple Exo folds their hands in front of them as Damion crosses his arms over his chest and mutters, “Wasn’t that hard to get in…”
The horned Exo tilts their head to the side and smirks at the slightly shorter man in front of them. Grimm-1’s Ghost floats up in between the both of them, their glowing purple eye darting back and forth between them as the new and older guardian stare each other down.
“I didn’t realize that there would be THIS much ‘gazing into each other’s eyes’ between rivals,” Grimm-1’s Ghost comments loudly.
Damion’s head immediately shoots down to look at his feet while Grimm-1 just grins wider and looks up to their ghost, offering a hand. Said Ghost, disappears and reappears in their guardian’s hand to then be brought close to their chest and stroked softly with their thumb.
The cloaked Guardian peeks his head up and then clears his throat, pointing behind him, “We should uh, probably go? Yea, let’s... let’s just go.”
Walking backwards for a few steps, he spins around and walks out the door which closes behind him. Grimm-1 takes one step to follow before the door reopens and Damion walks back in with his own Ghost over his shoulder.
“Wouldn’t be the best plan to have you running around outside in the snow with just shorts, so uh, Ghost? If you would,” he prompts, before an armor set is dropped into his arms and is offered to the Exo, “So yea just, put that on, I’ll be outside.”
After taking the gear into their arms, Damion then turns on his heel again and exits the room. Once the door seals, Grimm-1’s Ghost breaks out laughing, their shell spinning once in a clockwise rotation.
“Let me help you with that,” the little Ghost giggles before the armor disappears out of the Exo’s arms.
Floating above Grimm-1’s head, the horned Exo is bathed in light and the armor starts to reappear over their figure. This leaves their gleaming black, purple, and golden colored frame to disappear under cloth and metal, similar in color palette to the Guardian right outside.
Grimm-1 twists their body back and forth feeling out the armor that they were able to fit. Though the little Ghost had to drop the gifted helmet into their guardian’s hands, because it was unable to go on over their horns.
“Is Ghost your actual name? I heard that other guardian call it his Ghost as well,” Grimm-1 questions.
“It is more like, just what I am. I am a Ghost, you are an Exo, and the guardian is human,” the Ghost replied as they floated up to scan the Exo’s horns.
“Has anyone given you a name before? I may or may not have something in mind already,” The Exo replied.
The Ghost floats back towards the helmet and begins using a laser to cut away holes into the helmet, “The only thing the other Ghost’s could ever come up with was Junior because they all say I was the last Ghost ever created.”
“Interesting,” Grimm-1 says slowly, taking the helmet and sliding it onto their head and pulling up the hood, “Would you be alright if I referred to you as Phoenix?”
“That actually sounds cool! Sure,” the Ghost, Phoenix replied, “I think that should be everything for right now…I would answer any and all questions you have right now but the Guardian is waiting and I can probably cover everything on the ship. Europa is quite a ways from Earth.”
“Agreed but first,” Grimm-1 says and grabs their cloak, pulling it over their shoulder, “There is one last thing for us to do.”
_
On the other side of the door, Damion had pulled out his knife and was spinning it around in silence, “That was weird right? Like, not just me?”
His Ghost transmats to his shoulder, “Not just you. I have never seen an Exo with base features like that, even Exo’s who seek out modification have never gotten something even remotely similar.”
“What do you mean by base features?” Damion asks.
“Well, should this, Grimm-1, be killed and revived, all the features we have seen so far, such as their horns, would still be a part of them instead of being lost like with Exo’s who receive modifications,” Ghost informs his guardian.
The cloaked Guardian throws his knife in the air, and then catches it in his other hand, “But what about those wing…things on the wall?”
“As I had mentioned before, those wings might-“ Ghost started before the vault door opens.
Damion quickly sheathes his knife and then just stops when he looks over at the Exo. Grimm-1 has their hands folded behind their back as they came towards him. The armor was brightly colored but not enough to distract from the dark, dragon looking wings that were now sprouting from the horned Exo’s back.
The part of the wing that connected to the Exo’s back was solid black plating, layered up to act a bit like armor. The two main parts of the wing connected at a V. At the end of the wing there is a moderate sized turbine and three, slim purple plates that were in similar shape to feathers. In between their back, the V and the turbine is a clear, plastic looking material with gold wiring running through it almost like veins.
Grimm-1 comes to a halt just a few feet in front of the cloaked guardian and puts their hands up on their hips.
“Um…” Damion starts, brings an arm up and gestures vaguely at the two appendages on Exo’s back, “Wings…uh, cool. That’s cool…”
Grimm-1 just sighs at him and folds their wings down close to their body and calls over their shoulder, “Come along Phoenix.”
Phoenix’s shell spun wildly and darted forward, doing a loop around their guardian before finding a spot to rest on Grimm-1’s shoulder. The Exo turns away from Damion and starts to walk away from him and down a darkened hallway.
“Wait, hold on, this is the way out,” Damion calls out, pointing down the partially lit hallway.
“If you could so easily find your way down here, then clearly anything can,” Grimm-1 states, “I won’t stop you from going but I know a much faster way to get us to the surface.”
A little croak leaves Damion’s throat before he sighs and waves his hand at them, “Fine, fine, we’ll go through your super secret way.”
Grimm-1 nods and leads the way down the dark hallway. Both Ghosts move to hover over their guardian’s shoulder, providing light for the path ahead. The pair walk down the winding path until they reach a set of doors. There is visible damage at the bottom and middle of the doors but the doors still looked stubbornly sealed.
“Ah, a dead-end,” Damion comments.
Before he could say anything else, Grimm-1 holds up their left hand. Immediately, the lights above them turn on and a cylinder appears above the doors. A quick beam of light flashes up the Exo’s frame and then the door lowers into the ground. They turn their head to look at Damion.
“Well, alright then,” the cloaked guardian whispers.
Damion steps into the stairwell then exchanges a look with his Ghost who then disappears from view, “Race you to the top” he shouts as he takes off running.
Grimm-1 hesitates for a moment before letting out a low growl and taking off after the man. Phoenix squeaks and disappears.
The Exo leans into their run as they tackle the stairs in twos and threes, using the railing to propel themselves onward. Grimm-1 peaks their head into the middle of the stairwell and sees Damion up about 2 and a half flights of stairs.
Flapping their wings, Grimm-1 begins to take the stairs in 5 and 6 steps, slowly starting to gain ground on the guardian ahead of them. Soon enough the Exo can start to see Damion’s cloak snap around corners, so the Exo launches themselves over the railing and leaps up to the next flight of stairs, taking the lead.
Grimm-1 cackles wildly as they begin to jump up whole flights stairs until the other guardian gets a hold of their cloak and yanks them back, causing them to fall to their knees as he runs past. The Exo gets to their feet as fast as possible but not before Damion launches himself throw the doors just a few feet away.
“YES, LET’S GO” he shouts.
“That was cheap,” Grimm-1 comments bitingly.
“Well you jumped up the stairs, through the middle,” the guardian retorts.
“I was taking advantage of my surroundings,” The Exo shoots back.
“So was I,” Damion counters.
Grimm-1 shakes their head before taking in a deep, slow breath.
“Anyways, I think we are close enough to the surface, Ghost,” the Guardian says, raising a hand and his ghost appearing, “Are we close enough to the surface for a transmat.”
“Yes we are,” his Ghost replies.
“Then let’s go.”