Metempsychotic

A Good Match

The Guardian HQ was both as big as he thought, but smaller than what it seemed. He didn't recognize everyone that was around the ship, but there at least two or three faces he knew. The first had been Muguet, who had been his doctor since time immortal. She seemed pleased to know that he was a part of the Guardians now, and even more pleased that he was a match for a Biometal.

It was quite some time before Vent realized that he had forgotten Prairie's stuffed cat back in the transerver room, having dropped it when he realized they were in the air. Now feeling guilty a bit, Vent made his way back to the transerver and found the poor abandoned thing near the window. Gingerly, he picked the stuffed cat up and headed back to the command center.

"Hey Prairie," Vent said as he entered the room, "I forgot about your stuffed cat earlier. It was the certification that I passed the trail, right?"

Prairie turned around, nearly surprised. "Oh," she remarked, "Thank you so much. I forgot about it too."

Smiling, Prairie took her stuffed cat from Vent and put it into a small receptacle by the commander's chair. It was made to fit exactly that stuffed cat, Vent realized with a little twinge of humor. Looking over a bit, Vent then noticed Giro sitting in the chair, his eyes closed and several wires connected to the back of his neck. It was no secret to Vent that Girouette was indeed a Reploid, but that didn't stop the shock of seeing his caretaker wired up like that.

"What's wrong with Giro?!" Vent immediately questioned. Prairie looked at him for a minute as if she had no idea what he was talking about, but then she looked back at the commander's chair. Realizing what Vent was asking, Prairie let out a little laugh- it seemed a bit forced.

"Girouette encountered a new enemy while you two were separated; as with certain procedures, and since he's a Reploid, we are currently extracting the battle data directly from his memories."

"Really?" Vent marveled. "That's actually pretty cool!"

"Yes... well, the event was very traumatizing for him," Prairie denoted with a rather uncomfortable shift, "So he agreed to go into a sort of state similar to a medically induced coma. He should be coming out of it soon- we finished downloading the battle data just seconds before you came in."

"Does it hurt him?" Vent then wondered, slowly starting to get used to the image of Girouette attached to the wires.

Prairie shook her head. "No." she affirmed. "Once he was in a deep enough state, he couldn't hear us either. He might not remember this conversation later, even if he was listening now. When he wakes, he will still have to rest for about six hours so everything can properly reboot."

Vent nodded, trying to understand what little knowledge he had on Reploid anatomy. The whole thing was complex, perhaps growing to be more complex than a human's. Vent never cared to learn much of it, mostly due to it hurting his brain enough that calculus seemed easy in comparison.

Taking Vent away from his thoughts Giro started to shift in the commander chair. Prairie and Vent stood at attention, waiting to see what would happen. Then, to the surprise of both of them, Girouette let out a long sigh -the same type of sigh one would give when they've just fallen in love- and slowly, Giro started to open his eyes. Vent found himself partially shocked that he could see the optics in Girouette's eyes work to focus on him and Prairie.

"Hey... Vent..." Girouette greeted with a lopsided smile. Vent looked at Giro as if it was the first time he met him; Prairie did say that had a direct link to his brain... "Come here." Giro then said to the boy. Unsure of what else to do, Vent did so. His caretaker indicated the need for the boy to bend down a bit, and he did, growing more uneasy on how this was going to go.