Fixing Up A Few Things [Open]

[jesus_is_gundam]

While doing a more search through his Gundams, Setsuna had come across a couple of interesting things. The first was an old flight suit of his, which had been tucked away with a few other emergency supplies. It was too small for him these days, though he knew of someone who might be able to use it, and left it in the pilot seat of a certain Gundam. And he may have changed a few of the settings while he was in there...

One of the other things he found, though, that was much more interesting, was a stowaway in the 0-Raiser's cockpit in the form a red Haro. A completely deactivated red Haro. This was something of a boon, as it would allow him to run more complex diagnostics on his suits, not to mention it could manage the Raiser System in lieu of a pilot.

He just needed to get it working, first.

Which is why Setsuna wasn't in the hangar, for once, which is where he had practically been living since he ended up on this ship. For the moment, he was in Engineering, where he had claimed a small space to work. A few parts of Haro were spread over the table, but anyone who needed room to work still had plenty.

Once he got started, the repairs went relatively smoothly, but were also going terribly slowly. He had the schematics in front of him (thankfully, those had still been stored in the 00's system), and while he could follow them, he wasn't a mechanic.

He'd probably be there for a while.

Comments

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"Ahhhhh, if it isn't Mr. Funny Guy!"

Duo waltzed into engineering, hands on hips, sarcastic, mirthless smirk on his face. Obviously, Setsuna's little prank had been noticed.

"Real nice of ya, buddy! Thanks for the flightsuit; it'll work in a pinch. But I think ya mighta bumped somethin' in my cockpit. Huh?"

"Not him my ass, you even have the flashy asshole pranks down," Duo growled under his breath as he neared, before his attention was stolen away by the robotic guts all over the table. "Whassis?"

[a_mere_human]

Setsuna glanced up at Duo, giving him a momentary 'what the hell are you babbling about?' look. No, he was not going to admit to any of it. And you can't prove otherwise.

"Red Haro," he finally answered, going back to his work.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"Haro?" Duo seemed to have forgotten he was mad (seemed to; but oh he hadn't forgotten- you weren't off the hook yet, Setsuna), and instead turned his attention to the Haro bits on the table, picking up and fiddling with pieces. If there was one thing he really loved, it was looking at, taking apart, and collecting interesting new bits of tech.

"What is it, like, a pet?" He picked up an arm and waggled it.

[a_mere_human]

"No."

...What? Did you expect him to go into detail?

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

If Setsuna wasn't going to explain, Duo was going to find out for himself. Grabbing little bits and pieces, and reaching over for a screwdriver sitting on the table, he got to work without so much as a 'do you mind?' on fiddling with Haro.

"Ahh, this is a pretty advanced processor for a toy. Maybe somethin' more like a helper drone~?" He thought aloud, glancing around for a computer to plug him into, so that he could take a look at the OS.

[a_mere_human]

"Don't damage anything," he spoke. His tone was it's usual deadpan, but there are a number of sharp objects lying around, and Setsuna was fond of his knives. He was going to need all of those parts if he was to properly reassemble red Haro.

"Haro's neither a toy nor a drone." At least, that's not how Setsuna thought of the Haro units.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"I woooon't," Duo waved a dismissive hand as he scooped up the pieces of Haro he'd connected and plugged them into a console nearby. "Now. Lesse if these computers are anything like what I'm used to..."

...Different. Advanced, and different- but they weren't counter-intuitive. Duo clicked around for a little while, eyes glued onto the screen. Finally, he got to typing away, and when he'd finally settled into his zone, replied to Setsuna's other comment. "Then what is Haro, huh? Or are ya gonna keep bein' a silent sourpuss?"

His money would be on the latter, but it was worth a shot.

[a_mere_human]

There was a momentary silence, mostly since Setsuna had never really defined the Haro units.

"He's a member of Celestial Being," he finally answered. Setsuna didn't really think of Haro as an 'it' or a thing. While they had functions and directives, each Haro had a personality of their own, and seemed capable of showing some level of emotion. At times, they were more expressive than Setsuna (though that's not a high bar to surpass).

So, yeah, they were as much a part of his crew as Tieria, Miss Sumeragi, Feldt, Ian, or anyone else.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"So he's your buddy, then?" Duo grinned over his monitor at Setsuna, with a knowing look that said 'see? I knew you have the capacity to be more than a linefacing jerk sometimes'.

"That's good. You have a lot of friends here, huh," he continued, having ducked back behind the monitor again.

"Tieria told me all about them. Lockon and Alelujah are your other buddies, right?"

[jesus_is_gundam]

"They were also members of Celestial Being," was all the ground he was going to give on the matter. He wouldn't necessarily call them friends, per se, though he did care a great deal about them.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"Yeah? That Lockon guy sounds like fun~"

Leaning in to mock-whisper to Setsuna, he asks, "What's with Tieria an' the whole 'unfit to be a Gundam Meister' thing, anyway? Swear I've heard that like 3 times now..."

Leaning back towards his work he pauses a moment, and goes on. "What is a Gundam Meister, anyway? Howssat different from bein' pilots?"

[a_mere_human]

There was another silence as Duo had inadvertently stepped in something when mentioning Lockon. Or, at least, mentioning the Lockon that Tieria knew. But he'd leave his thoughts to that one moment of silence.

"Expect to hear it several more times," Setsuna spoke of Tieria. He had to put up with being declared 'unfit' by Tieria at least three times during every mission, and about fourteen times between each mission, on average. At least until Tieria was cut off from Veda.

"Two hundred years ago, on my world, a scientist by the name of Aeolia Schenberg invented the GN drives that power our Gundams, but he kept this technology a secret from the world. He knew humanity was still too divided, and would only use the technology to hurt each other and possibly destroy themselves. He created Celestial Being to keep watch over that technology, and when the time was right, they would use it to help eliminate war all together, to unite all mankind, and prepare humanity for the dialogues that are to come.

"A Gundam Meister is entrusted with the power of the GN drives, to use that power to honor Aeolia's will and testament and eradicate all war. To accept the contradiction that is fighting for peace. And not for the glory of any nation or religion. Not for the sake of having power for themselves. But for the sake of ourselves and the future of the world.

"Anyone can pilot a mobile suit, that's not what makes us special. But no mobile suit has the power of a Gundam, the power to change the world. But it can only do that if its piloted by a person with the power and the will to change hearts and change minds. That is a Gundam Meister."

And that was probably greater than the sum total of every word he has ever said to Duo up until now.

"To Tieria, being selected to be a Gundam Meister is the highest honor and greatest trust one can have placed in them. No one will ever expect more out of you, and no one will be as quick to let you know that you've fallen short of expectations."

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Duo was curious about the atmosphere following his mention of Lockon- he was in no way unable to 'read the atmosphere' of things, much as others would disagree- so he left it for now.

He also remained quiet in the face of Setsuna's explanation of their world- their Gundams, the GN Drives, and themselves; as if he were not absorbing but mulling it all over in his head. He'd heard it a thousand times before back home- the Gundam pilots being called everything from monsters to traitors to heroes and even guardian angels- but to him, he'd never really taken any of that in mind.

To Duo, it was just doing what naturally felt like what he should do, what he had the power to do- nothing more, really. He was sure After Colony could have produced many others like him, wrought with tragedy in their pasts and a want for it to all stop, and that with the Gundams he had received only a lucky break in his ability to do anything about it.

He doesn't look up from what he's doing, but from behind the monitor he replies casually.

"We're not infallible either, yanno."

[a_mere_human]

"I never said we were." And it wasn't as if they hadn't made mistakes along the way, destroyed lives that should've been left untouched. But they always did everything in their power to make things right again.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"Tell that to Tieria sometime."

Duo grabbed a pair of pliers and went back to work on the Haro-pieces, though his thoughts hadn't left the previous matter of discussion.

After a moment, with a quiet 'pop', the half-built Haro began to flap one of its ears and move. "Theeeeere we go." He rolled the mostly-pieced together Haro over to Setsuna gently.

"Hey Haro! Say somethin', huh?" He had that grin on his face.

With a flash of its eyes and a flap of its ears, Haro piped up. "Setsuna is a jerkface! Setsuna is a jerkface!"

You didn't think he'd forget, did you, Setsuna?

[a_mere_human]

Congrats, Duo, you got Setsuna to display an emotion. Unfortunately, it happens to be pure, unbridled anger.

He told you, Haro is a member of Celestial Being, not a toy for you to have fun with.

"Fix him." Or Setsuna F. Seiei will kill you.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

And Duo- unbridled trollish glee.

"Aah? And here I was under the impression I had," Duo grinned. "Hey, relax, all I did was tell him all about that trick you played on me. Right, Haro?"

Flapping, Haro wiggled. "Jerk! Jerk!"

[a_mere_human]

You hear that 'click-click'? That's the sound of Setsuna F. Seiei not fucking around.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

And this is the face of a guy who sees that all the time from his best friend. Not all that concerned here.

"Loook, all I did was add a few words to his vocabulary. Other than removin' those, I didn't do much. Maybe you should be aimin' that at Haro, instead, if you're gonna be so uptight?"

[a_mere_human]

"You had absolutely no right to do even that." Thankfully, Setsuna managed to pull down and back up all of Haro's files in the early stages of his repairs, so restoring it wouldn't be that difficult.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"Ahh, chill. It's not like I wiped his memory or made him dance the cha-cha on keyworded command or anything--" Which he totally COULD HAVE and would have done otherwise. "If you hate the 3 or 4 words I stuck in so much I'll remove 'em. C'mere, Haro, buddy."

"Buddy! Buddy!" Haro rolled over to Duo, who scooped him up and reconnected him to the computer.

He so wasn't removing jerkface, though.

[a_mere_human]

And Setsuna stood over him, watching his every move.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"You're creepin' me out, man, quit that," Duo muttered as he removed (most) of the programming he'd done in those couple of minutes. His fingers worked fast, and he eventually unplugged Haro and rolled him back towards Setsuna.

"Better?"

He didn't guarantee everything was gone.

[jesus_is_gundam]

Setsuna glared at Duo, but beyond that, didn't say anything. They are in a fight. He'd have Tieria go over Haro's programming later.

His eyes eventually looked down at Haro, and his expression softened somewhat.

"Hey, Haro. Are you okay?"

"Systems normal! Systems normal!" The robot chirped. It looked around, taking in more of its surroundings, and noticed some of its casing lying on the table. It turned around again, as if trying to look at itself.

"HARO IS NAKED! HARO IS NAKED!" Somehow, its high pitched digitized voice managed to sound distressed by this realization.

Remarkably, Setsuna didn't facepalm. "I'll put your outer casing back on a little bit. Right now, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to pull all the last bit of data you recorded from the 00's black box."

"Roger! Roger!" It chirped, having forgotten its lack of casing for the moment. "Accessing data. Accessing d-- ERROR! ERROR! DATA CORRUPT! DATA CORRUPT!"

Setsuna looked at Duo, with a glare of if you had anything to do with this...

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Ignoring the glare in his direction, Duo turned away huffily and went back to clicking around on the console. At Haro's poor, distressed cry, he doubled over the console, shoulders shaking and attempting just about everything in his power not to fall over laughing.

"Seems like I'm not the only one who misses clothes," Duo commented aloud, grinning at Haro.

So they were connected to the suits' blackboxes? They must have been some sort of drones or mobile data access, then.

...Oh. Crap. Corrupted data. Duo put on an almost-insulted, innocent face. "Hey man, I don't corrupt data. What do you take me for, some half-bit wannabe hackergeek?"

Duo was a full-bit hackergeek, thank you very much.

[jesus_is_gundam]

He actually growled a bit at Duo, but didn't try to kill him. Yet.

Instead, he hooked up his datapad to Haro.

"Haro, I need you to show me whatever the last bit of good data you have from either Exia, 00 Raiser, or the Ptolemy."

"Accessing. Accessing."

A sensor log from the Ptolemaios popped up on the screen, with the timestamp showing the day as being the day the returned to space, several days following the defeat of Ribbons. Everything looked green, until there was a recording of an energy surge, followed by several damage reports coming in at once.

From there, things cut out completely.

Setsuna growled again, though this time it was more out of a mix of concern and frustration. What the hell had happened?

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Okay, so Duo was going to just keep to himself (they were in a fight after all), but Setsuna really did look kinda upset after Haro accessed his data.

"Um... Hey, you okay, man...?"

[jesus_is_gundam]

He growled in response, apparently not in the mood for using words at the moment.

"Sorry Setsuna. Sorry Setsuna."

Haro's disappointment was enough to cause Setsuna to put aside his anger for the moment. "It's not your fault, Haro," he told the robot, after letting out a breath.

And truth be told, it wasn't Duo's either. He let out another breath then looked at the younger pilot. They were still in a fight, but that was important at the moment.

"The last records Haro has is of the Ptolemaios, Celestial Being's flagship, coming under some kind of assault."

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"'Some kind of assault'? As in, you don't know what?"

Could it have been.. the Ohm? Was that what he was getting at?

Duo considered for a moment- would Deathscythe still have records on it if that was the case?

"I'll be right back!" Duo called, suddenly sprinting away from the console and out of engineering. "Don't go away, I'll be back!"

[a_mere_human]

Setsuna simply looked at Duo as he left. He did remain there, though, running more diagnostics with Haro, and trying to reconstruct more of the data, though it was currently a no go.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

It took a few minutes, but eventually Duo burst back in, a large digital pad under arm. He'd downloaded all the last battle data onto it, and now he skidded to a stop in front of the computer console he'd been at, plugging it in.

Clickity-clicking away busily, he was focused intently on the screen, not really visible to Setsuna on the other side. There were yet more minutes of silence penetrated only by the 'tika taka' of concentrated typing.

Finally, it stopped, and after another moment of quiet, he peeked above the console and nearly ordered with a serious tone.

"Lemme see your data."

[a_mere_human]

Setsuna wordlessly lobbed the datapad over the console, aiming for the spot he figured Duo's head lap would be.

They were still in a fight, okay?

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Catching it easily and ignoring the intent, Duo browsed between it and his own data near-silently, brow slowly furrowing.

The patterns were near-identical, upon breakdown

"..Dammit."

It must have been the Ohm attack.

[a_mere_human]

Setsuna didn't say anything. He simply stared at Duo, waiting for him to explain himself.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Duo didn't look up from the console and datapads for a long time.

Instead, he muttered aloud, "Think Kira an' Yzak still have data from that long back?"

[a_mere_human]

"Ask them. Or not." Take it how you want it, Duo.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Real helpful, Setsuna. Duo scowled at the data for a little longer before sliding the pad back over to Setsuna wordlessly.

Taka-takatikka.

We're still in a fight, okay.