~ Part Four here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/175906622/0/0 ~ - Part Five - The little Ghost followed the Hunter up some degraded steps after they had vaulted through a hole in a shattered wall. Ghosts were always a mystery, even to themselves. While Guardians began to see death as more of a nuisance than a deterrent, a Ghost's ephemerality always weighted heavier than any sense of dare might have. Why were they aware of it though? What use is it to a machine to know its potential demise? To protect reckless Guardians? To balk in agony in the face of Darkness whither all Light had gone? There's no Ghost as troubled as a Hunter's Ghost. Hunters live forever in a balancing act - they weigh death against glory with only their luck providing any sort of torque. Hunters do not die of old age. One day, their luck simply runs out, and the swing stops, and the swinging ends. Cayde-6 did not only train Guardians, he trained Ghosts as well: his techniques increased Hunter survivability by over 27% in just the first year. Warlocks often wrote that "the Ghost is the Yang to a Guardian's Yin". But veteran Hunters feel differently. And veteran Hunter's Ghosts too. For Bardo-105's Ghost, a Hunter and his Companion were not two, but three. For, as Cayde-6 had taught him, one cannot consider two distinct entities without equating also the conjunction of those same two entities as one separate entity. Therefore, where there is a Hunter and there is a Ghost, there is also a Hunter and a Ghost. Guardians relied so much on Ghosts that it was gruelling to try and conceive a world without them. This Ghost was kind of glad it was assigned to a machine. A machine whose workings were even more mysterious, a machine who understood the plight of identity. For his standards, though, Bardo-105 was especially fastidious today. The Ghost tried to figure out his mind, to get something out of him, but the Exo wouldn't budge. Something [i]must be[/i] up. The little companion's fears were realized when they found an antenna they could dismantle and rebuild. The thing was snarled in a tangle of old coated copper wires, covered in dust, a shiny old relic atop a forsaken, sandy ruin. A monument of old, yet now just another weed in the City's shadow. The power supply appeared to be busted - the circuit breaker box was missing the cover, and it was empty inside. The ground was littered with large capacitor banks and long cylindrical coils in a dark green plastic coating, which suggested that this relay was probably fed through a power line and implemented some kind of reactive power compensation. As he walked, the Hunter recklessly kicked the trash around to make some room for walking. When he pulled the antenna out, both of them were sure: something [i]was[/i] up. When you've been a Hunter's Ghost for so long, you learn to control your thought processes, just in case someone's monitoring your livefeed. Sometimes, records and telemetry were better left out at the Frontier. But it was hard not to say something when your Guardian pulls out [i]a City-age military grade comm-link antenna[/i] from rubbish on the wild Frontier. "[i]That's-[/i]" the Ghost began, but the seasoned Exo was ready: "[i]A fine piece of metal, yes. It's time we refactor it.[/i]" The Ghost got the hint. No more comments until the Hunter was back to his old self. Something [i]was definitely[/i] up. The little thing watched his companion remove his cloak and curse at the sight of it. "[i]AH scourge the Nine and call me Xûr! This is full of holes![/i]" "[i]You're lucky it's Monday,[/i]" said the Ghost, "[i]what'd you want it for anyway?[/i]" "[i]This is a Mantis class high-polymer cloak. I can dismantle it into a string and electro-spin it into a cast.[/i]" "[i]You're the engineer, not me,[/i]" said the Ghost, "[i]My advice is null under dereliction protocol anyway.[/i]" The Ghost looked intently at Bardo-105 as he sat down with a thump. Cross-legged, the Hunter started folding the cloak along the width, until it looked like a long roll of ragged fabric. Then he curled it over the length to form a small cylinder that could fit in his hand. With his knife, he gently unwound a strand from the very tip of the compressed cloak and tied the whole thing together with that strand. He had the solute, he needed a solvent. Almost any acid would do. Exos had many acids running through pipes and tubes inside them. As far as general knowledge of Exo anatomy goes, however, picking the wrong connection could mean death. Long, agonizing, death. But survival is a Hunter's trade. Bardo-105 knew the choicest part of him to be severed in an emergency like this. He could still Double Jump more or less adroitly with just one booster, so the other was salvageable. He was after the glacial acetic acid. It was used as a recrystallization catalyst to periodically purify the batteries that powered the hydrogen enrichment. This acid should be pure enough to dissolve the polymer on Bardo-105's cloak. And it came in a nice canister and everything. With his trusty knife, the Hunter pried open the booster pack and removed the acid can. The cannister was made of a laminate alloy that could be reshaped. He widened the opening with the tip of his knife and let a bit of he acid drip to the floor. Then he started unwinding the cloak's threads and feeding them inside the opening. A strong smell oozed out as the fibres dissolved. The Guardian stopped when only about half a square meter of fabric remained. Then he closed the opening again. After that, he found a sheet of aluminium in the rubbish. He twisted it into a quadrangular prism, about 20 centimetres long, and used the remaining cloak as a tourniquet to keep it in place. Then he attached the metal rod to his right forearm with the same fabric. Then he started twisting at the extremity of the acid/fibre solution can to increase the pressure and create a syringe effect. When the first drop emerged, everything was in place. His right forearm, which was attached to the metal, detached slightly at the shoulder to isolate a mass connection, and began rotating like a spindle. Faster. And faster. A wheeze could be heard as the cloak tourniquet whipped. He held the syringe with his left hand, pointing at the tip of the rotating aluminium rod. By now his chest coil was humming - the equivalent of a human's heart thumping, but his cooling was turned off; if his shoulder so much as shakes, he would potentially melt his new arm. He tried to calm himself the way only machines can. He channelled the Light into his left hand and thought about the manifestation, and Arcs of blue filled the syringe's tip. They ricocheted off his chest and would sometimes chain to the junk lying around. Some of the capacitors lying around blew up, but both the Guardian and the Ghost sat in silence. When the voltage was high enough, the droplet at the syringe's tip began to deform into a cone. The world had stopped. Whirr, the aluminium went once. The cone's vertex expanded. Whirr, it went twice. The cone began diluting into a string and the tip depressed. Whirr, it went for the third time. The string curved upwards to find the aluminium waiting for it. Whirr, the rod spun again. The string made contact. The droplet was in stasis, and another was in tow. Whirr, whirr, whirr, whirr whirr whirr whirrwhirrwhirrrrrrrr the world had resumed. Electro-spinning was engaged. The Ghost was wordless. Shades of green and blue and yellow started colouring the rod from the tip inwards. The strands cooled and bonded three or four times over in each pass, and the cast began taking shape. When the string was nearing his hand, Bardo-105 tilted the rod downwards, and the dry cast slid out gently, allowing him to reuse the aluminium. After 26 intense minutes, the cast was ready. A new antenna would be reforged that day. ~ Feedback appreciated. Hope you like it. ~ ~ Table of Contents : https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/175908765/0/0 ~ ~ Part Six here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/177868880 ~