Private The Ghost In The Shell

[Deryn Kaaldos]

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"I'm not sure. I spent most of my childhood asleep. When I woke up, I was like this, though much smaller cause I didn't have the muscle mass I do now." His first true taste of the world was in his early days of his third hundred. Floating in that water, barely conscious. He couldn't tell if he existed, if there was even something like existence. It was just darkness for all that he could see. However, there'd be times where he woke from the sleep. The first time was in his sixties where an asteroid hit the planet the lab was hidden on. The loud, resounding crash rumble the Earth. His sensitive sensory functions sensed it as it sent out a roar above ground. He awoke with a jolt. He was more awake than he ever was but even with the sudden wake up call, he soon fell asleep as the stimuli faded into nothingness; faded into the darkness.

He thought of how, in the end, nothing much has changed since then in a physical sense. He still could never live without a container, living perpetually in darkness. Outside of it, he was still a messy blob with a head. The only real difference was that he had more muscle mass and some cybernetics but he didn't grow because of age. His face was still the same after all these years, as ugly as it was. He thought, initially, that the wrinkles and creases were because of him being submerged in liquid for over three centuries but no. That was just how he looked like and it was never going to change, no matter how old he got.

"I've been the same ever since. In a way, I'm still living out the childhood I never had." He was Bounty Hunting because he found it awesome. He didn't need to - he could've just been an assassin for Darkwire while doing something else - but he wanted to do it because it felt exciting; electrifying. The Warhawk was a ship out of a fantasy; his fantasy. "I'll probably grow out of what I'm doing. I heard my race lives for a few thousand years so I'll be around for quite a bit. Might mature out of it, eventually, provided I don't go insane. We apparently had the tendency to do that."

"Do you remember how you were born?" He asked, not knowing when a human started to develop their own consciousness and personality. To him, he was born when he brought out of the chemical soup he had been living in for those three hundred years. He was born when he started to walk. He was born when he donned the armor.

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[Mariah of House Marr]

She chuckled at the muscle mass statement. He was certainly not small right now, probably even without the armor on. Though, given the circumstances, the armor might as well be as much another part of him as his own muscle. The first part...not something to chuckle about. She furrowed her brow in thought, "Hard to think having so much time without many memories." she didn't really think of how most children also don't start to remember until between two and four.

He said he was living his childhood, an interesting thought. He didn't exactly sound like one, Bounty hunting also wasn't exactly the job of one. But she could see where he was coming from. He was living the way he wished he could have, getting the excitement that any child would have longed for. It also helped explain the reason behind the Warhawk. It wasn't merely aesthetic, it was part of the dream.

She had to lean back for a moment to look at him as he mentioned that his species live a few thousand years, and their tendency towards insanity. "Goodness. I'll probably die from an accident long before then." she admitted. She wasn't careless, but it was probably either that...or getting shot. As she had full intention of keeping the necklace on.

Then came a laugh as he asked if she remembered when she was born, but waved her hand, "Sorry, that was rude. No I don't remember that. I didn't think nearly anyone could. At least...not humans."

That made her rather curious, "...Do you?"

Deryn Kaaldos

 

[Deryn Kaaldos]

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It wasn't like being a child, growing into the world around you as you gained consciousness. You had memories. You knew your parents, hopefully. Even before you began thinking for yourself, you already had enough information to get by. You knew what pain felt like, the physical kind, that is. Very few memories of his before his exposure to the world had anything else but darkness. When he came out of it, everything was new. These shapes were new. The light was new. Breathing was new. Pain was new.

Everything came rushing in. He was scared, watching as they worked on him, checking his status. This felt like a dream. Imagine being thrown into a fantasy world beyond your imagination, having been broken away from your reality. Deryn's entire reality up until that point had been darkness and fluid inside a tank with a few scary sounds now and then. This was horrifying. Everything hurt and he didn't even know what hurting was. But he got used to it. He began to like it after a bit. It was a reminder that he was alive, that he existed. Some times he felt like he was just dreaming, that he was really still stuck inside that tank back in the lab. He feared that one day he would just wake up. The pain kept him grounded. The pain reminded him that this was reality. At least that is what people say pain is supposed to do.

"Nah, people like you die for a reason." He said rather cheerily, though not jokingly. He hasn't quite made up his concept and fear of death. They say you become one with the Force and all that, or go into Chaos. He didn't care much, too focused on living. He didn't want to think about the next place he'll be trapped in for eternity. "Very few of the very few people that have agelessness as hours often die of accidents."

"Depends on what you consider being born is. Do I remember being incubated? Yes. Born? Technicalities blur that line."

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[Mariah of House Marr]

Mariah furrowed her brow at

"Nah, people like you die for a reason."

, though she continued working. There was no need to delay while talking. She had plenty of time to hear what he had to say as she worked on the systems on his arm. She wondered why there was as much need for something like this, was he a faulty member of his species? She could hardly imagine something living thousands of years with the use of a system like this.

She didn't know much about death. She knew what her mother told her, but her mother didn't seem to entirely believe it all herself. She said there were four ways you could go after death. You could go into the light, become one with it. You could be consumed by the dark, use it to last a potential eternity, surviving off emotions and its power. You could cease to exist. And then she said there was a place where most people went, where things just went on. Mariah didn't understand that part. It wasn't necessarily explained well.

She supposed that perhaps Deryn Kaaldos was right about accidents. But, there really wouldn't be any way too tell until the time came.

His own answer was complicated it seemed. She assumed there were things he didn't remember, but at the same time, perhaps he remembered more than she did. "Ah, technicalities. The way of the galaxy that lawyers are even better at." she said chuckling.

 

[Deryn Kaaldos]

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"Yeah. You know, I once had a court cas- Okay. Ow. Ow. That hurts." His story and train of thought was cut short by sudden surging pain, that he took rather casually granted it was faulty power-armor. The screeching sound was replaced with a groan that continued as the arm started to shake. It's main functions were up rather quickly, a testament to Mariah's skill and finesse, but there was still the matter of whatever made that screeching sound and now groaning sound. The power-armor was acting upon itself, it seems. Something in the wrist joint had gotten snagged. The shaking only grew more violent as time passed.

In response, Deryn grabbed the thumping hand with his other, holding it still so that Mariah could continue her work and find out the cause. "Great, great. I'm bleeding now." Blood inside armor didn't feel good, especially when you wear the armor all day. Through the gaps in the armor, his ichor started to roll out copiously. Tears of it flooded onto the floor with a splash. "Yeah, that's not good." He stated the obvious. That was quite a bit of blood. He could regenerate that, he'd lost more, but not if it keeps up. "Just, uh, work a bit quicker. Please."

"Bottom and top side of my wrist is where the bleeding and snag is happening. And karking HELL does that sting." In spite of his choice of words, his voice remained rather calm. He was used to pain, he liked it even, but he wasn't an advocate of feeling a lot of it. It reminded him he was alive because it reminded him he could very much die. It was something most Gen'Dai took for granted over the many, many years of their life. Few of them had a fear of death. It made them sloppy fighters, reckless. And while Deryn didn't fear it either, he valued life a lot more than his brethren.

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[Mariah of House Marr]

Mariah hesitated as she heard him feel pain. She hadn't done it directly she knew that, but that was the issue with power-suits and cybernetics. Do anything wrong and you risked breaking someones arm or moving a loose motor that could seriously injure somebody. She started changing her objective to try and cause the shaking to subside and figure out what was wrong.

She raised her eyebrows as she saw the blood start to move, "Ah lovely. Few options." bleeding, after shaking. Something was almost certainly loose or broken to give a jagged edge. He was clearly in pain but she couldn't pay attention to that, while he could perhaps heal quickly, she wasn't going to use that as an advantage.

"I'm going to shut off the power to all the joints here down, try and keep still." She said calmly working fast to detach the wires that transferred energy in order to avoid whatever was happening from doing any more damage. The moment she did that she moved down, she'd have to open up the life-suit a lot more in order to act fast, and so that was what she was doing, here eyes moving back and forth quickly trying to locate the problem as fast as probable. She had had the light dimmed so she hoped his skin wouldn't hurt to the light, but better that than he bleed out or get nerve damage...if he could even get that.

She went to work almost immediately trying to locate and remove the snag grabbing a piece of soft clean cloth to shove inside in order to stop the bleeding the moment she got it out. It would be temporary, just until the bleeding could stop. And then she could continue to preform repairs. "And there's the risk of power-suits." she mumbled doing her best to fix what had happened. She wasn't sure how it could have occurred while she was working, then again maybe it had started before and it had only really gotten bad recently when something moved in an abnormal way.

Deryn Kaaldos

 

[Deryn Kaaldos]

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The wrist joints powered down, stopping the groaning and pinching of his tissue, but he was still stuck and wounded, bleeding steadily as she worked to remove more of his armor. Piece by piece, through the transparent film which had been compromised at the wrist, she would be able to see the thick, grotesque muscle bundles of his arm. His forearm wasn't structured like any other arm. It began in a spiral as two folds overlapped each other atop one direct layer that was relatively in the same vein as the muscle of the forearm connected to the bicep. The muscle that was caught atop and below the wrist was especially large than that of a human's, meant to be able to deal quite a snap if he held something but right now, it wasn't looking to good, snagged between two broken off pieces of the gyro joint.

"Let me just remove myself from it -" He said the muscles inside started to morph and pull on its own, pulling itself out of the snag. A piece of Deryn was left hanging on it, skewered like a barbecue. As Mariah went to stop the bleeding, it had already halted. Without the constant grinding and stabbing of the suit, he was free to recover. She would see how the muscle simply overlapped atop it, perfectly sealing the wound as if it was never there. "There, no more bleeding. Must've been what made that screeching sound from earlier." His arm started to reel back not unlike a slug sliding along the ground, compressing deeper into the armor's torso area to minimize the amount of space it took up in the arm for Mariah to work at peak efficiency.

"I know what I signed up for, missy." He said on her remark upon the dangers of Power-Armor. He could recover from most injuries caused by it and it wasn't like he had much of a choice to go without it.

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[Mariah of House Marr]

Mariah watched with fascination as he moved the, already extremely irregular arm muscles off the snag, and closing itself up to prevent the bleeding. She shook her head letting out a breath, "Alright, that was new. Accelerated healing is one thing, that was...not that." she said, though she quickly got to work on repair and took care to make sure she did it right. He made it easier with pulling it back...however that worked. At this point she wasn't even sure if his natural form was actually humanoid or just...a form fitting mass of muscles and nerves?

He commented on not being ignorant of the situation. "Wasn't criticizing you for it. There's risks in not having them as well. Hence the use of droids, some people make themselves strong to do things, but usually they already have the potential for it. I prefer making other people, or things like White, strong."

That was simply the way things were. Now, it was true she perhaps was at more risk than most given her occupation, while avoiding any enhancements for herself. But there was occasionally that fear that somehow they'd be used against her, and even if it was easier to account for those than her own disadvantages. It somehow made it feel more like it would be her fault.

"Did you know, there is a cult that puts peoples brains into droid bodies? Not as punishment, but actually as 'enlightenment.' It is such a wild thought that someone would be put completely alone with their thoughts, and that that would be...like a gift, or an honor. That sort of thing it's just...kind of disturbing." she said clicking her tongue, "Way off topic. But just felt like talking while I work."

Deryn Kaaldos

 

[Deryn Kaaldos]

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"Yeah, I can do that." He said succinctly, refraining from elaborating on his condition any further. He wasn't comfortable exposing so much of himself. When he saw her fascination and confusion, it made him instinctively withdraw further inside. Without the armor, he was naked, though he wasn't even quite sure where his reproductive organs were nor did he have the capacity to defecate out of any orifice. It was like going to the doctor's and the doctor had to see some bits you weren't quite comfortable revealing. "I wasn't really lying when I said that the armor was life-supporting." Though in a different way.

He could understand where she was coming from. It wasn't just a matter of efficiency but also preference and aptitude in certain areas. He himself took upon making his power-armor ludicrously defensive and heavy, limiting his ability to use the more acrobatic and dexterous aspect of physiology since his healing process was technically inferior as he needed the armor to a proper form. People could assume that Gen'Dai were lumbering monsters because of their size and strength but their speed and reflexes were what made them so dangerous. No specie could beat a Gen'Dai in a fast draw, their instantaneous reflexes could see your trigger-fingers reaching for that gun before you could even think about drawing. While Deryn was certainly fast, his agility was awkward in comparison. He couldn't zip about or make quick intercepts. Moving around in the armor was easy but stopping it and redirecting its force was a bit more taxing on his strength. Still, he would only give a agreeing nod in response.

"Yeah, I've heard of them too. Did you remember that anyone with cybernetics that weren't prosthetics used to be pretty shunned back during early ABY?" He said as the remaining blood inside the armor dripped out, leaving only some of the stains left. He'll clean those later and hopefully they won't leave a smell. "After the Clone Wars, cybernetics dropped outta fashion. For some damn reason, people thought that putting metal in yourself made you droid-like. Like getting a skeletal implant could suddenly make you start saying 'Roger Roger'."

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[Mariah of House Marr]

Didn't give much more information, but that was fair. Whatever he was, he wasn't something common. So she understood that keeping his species and his abilities in particular to himself might be the best choice. Regardless of whether or not Mariah thought she was trustworthy, he might not have the same reasons to believe her. After-all whatever he was was very much not human. And humans had several times in the past a history of seeing themselves as the superior beings.

He did still say the armor was life supporting which, if some of the things he said were still accurate, might be the case. "Kind of makes me wonder if your body is more fit for water." She muttered. Not so much to Deryn Kaaldos as to herself, as she didn't actually expect him to confirm or deny what she'd said. He wanted to keep some things to himself and that was ok.

She raised her eyebrows as he mentioned at one point having cybernetics was almost a cultural expectation, "Actually I did not. I knew certain species do that almost universally, but among themselves. Makes sense though, some of the cyborgs really consider themselves superior. Snobbish to the point they would probably try and take on a Jedi just to prove it." she said chuckling slightly at the thought of the ways that could go.

He mentioned the Clone Wars changed that a great deal, and cybernetics went from a good thing, to making you feel or look like the enemy, the separatist droid army. "People are weird, what can I say. Wouldn't be surprised if someone cut out their tongue cause it made them too much like a Hutt."

She wouldn't be too much longer. Not ten minutes should be sufficient to get through the majority of the damage in his arm, then it could be shut back again. "Might want to keep that you're a zabrak in mind a little more often by the way, that wasn't a fantastic recovery earlier. I'm not a spy, that field was always a bit too personal for me. But the best way to lie is to believe it. Instead of keeping Zabrak at the back of your mind, keep whatever you are at the back of your mind. At least that's how it seems to work best, maybe it's different for you."

Mariah took in a breath cracking her neck from the strain of the work, realizing she'd done it again, leaning her neck way to far forwards to get a good look at what she was doing.

 

[Deryn Kaaldos]

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"Probably is. I don't think my race lives in water but its more of a me specific thing." He still didn't know if this was how he was supposed to look in a genetic sense or was the product of having spent the vast majority of his current life floating about in a cocktail of chemicals design to keep him healthy and alive in case anything drastic happens. He'd like to think that this was just how Gen'Dai looked but even then, he was wrong. He was smaller marginally to his fellow Gen'Dai, though not any weaker in strength. His more flexible form allowed him to slip into a smaller size, blending in better than his brethren who averaged so tall that they towered over Wookies. He looked more human, too, though whether it added to his looks was another matter. His sinews were more disorganized and strung together though his greater dexterity. In the end, he was something quite different from the rest of his race, for better or for worse.

He chuckled to himself as she mentioned cybernetically enhanced individuals fighting Jedi and the sorts. Deryn refrained himself from commenting, however. Instead, he listened to her jest upon the superstitious lot that forgone basic logic because of their intolerance. "Well, I can relate to it to a certain point. Tried my damn best to not appear different when I was young. Didn't convince a lot of people then but nowadays, disguises are E.Z."

His remark was immediately downturned by her following statement. It offended him a bit. He constructed and kept the face of it for well over forty years, only to be broken now. Ain't that a damn shame? "You gonna critique my acting, little missy? They teach theater in military school, then?" He jested. "D'you get a golden star from Ms. Gunship when you played a tree in the school play, eh? D'you get a scholarship for it or something?"

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[Mariah of House Marr]

He sounded like he agreed on her statement about him, but maybe not his species. Oddball then. So whatever she learned here was almost certainly not going to help her with dealing with...whatever he was in the future. That is even if she could recognize them. She wasn't exactly getting a clear look of what he was or what he would look like normally.

He mentioned trying to fit in, but only later managing to really disguise himself, "Yeah fair enough. And in a job like Bounty Hunting, and with your identity, not too many will question you not having your armor off either. At least not enough for it to truly matter" she said thinking it over. Whether or not she'd caught him in a lie or not, it didn't mean he did that often. It just meant that he'd made a mistake, and she'd happened to be in the right position that she could tell.

She began to smile as he bit back at her for her comment on his skill at lying. To the point that she was nearly holding in laughter as he finished, "You...you know we did have to...control ourselves." she said smiling widely, and breathy as she stopped herself from laughing, "Have to keep a straight face, hold still, follow orders. Actually, I was an entertainer for awhile though. Dancing, singing, couple instruments. It may not seem like that involves acting, but it does when you do it as a job."

Mariah started closing in things. Just a few more minute to secure everything. He'd be done real soon. She was aware that the time for conversation was closing, if he planned to leave right away, "It was pretty fun though. You know...I wasn't trying to offend you. Just wanted to help. There are people who are better at noticing things like this than I am. Some of them are less inclined to keeping secrets, or at least, less inclined to not exploit them."

She finally put on the last piece, standing up and groaning as she cracked her back and neck taking in deep breaths and having the lights turn back to normal again. "Alright you should be good, may test it out to make sure, but I think I got everything unless you know where else you have damage."

Deryn Kaaldos