Title: Unwanted Meeting
Characters: Spectre, Earth Ignis, Revolver||Pairing: Revolver x Spectre (vague)
Word Count: 1,024||Chapters: 1/1
Genre: Humor||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing: DM/5Ds/VRAINS: D7, 1-shot; Character Diversity Boot Camp, #44, wonder (Spectre)
Notes: We can assume Spectre's Ignis is the Earth one. And given his connection to trees… well, this is what I thought of.
Summary: Spectre has just met an Ignis. This wasn't what he expected. Nothing of this is what he expected.
Spectre believed a lot of things. He knew even more things. He knew that Revolver was the most wonderful person in all of creation. He believed that Revolver might possibly want to have coffee with him one day, once the threat of the Ignises had been permanently dealt with.
What he didn't believe and wasn't all that certain he knew about was why there was one of those Ignises sitting in his duel disk, arms folded, staring at him.
"What do you want?" That was the first question that came to his lips. Others hovered behind it, such as why are you here and you do know that my goal is to destroy you and all of your kind, don't you?
This Ignis didn't look like the one Playmaker worked with. It was a deep brown, like the earth, and he thought he remembered hearing somewhere that each Ignis represented one of the elements as used in dueling. So this was probably the one for earth.
Which still didn't answer the questions that he hadn't asked yet, but did tell him what the AI was anyway.
"To stay with you, for now," the AI said, still staring at him. "You're my human."
Spectre's lips worked but nothing quite coherent could be shaped for the first few moments.
"No." He'd known something like this could happen. Revolver explained it to him, that the purpose of the Lost Incident had been to create AIs. He'd known it. He hadn't fully grasped that such a thing meant one of the AIs they'd looked for would be his.
The Earth AI didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow. If it had eyebrows. Spectre didn't think that he did. "I don't like you either. But I'm here."
"Don't be. Go back to where you belong." The idea of having a personal AI, one of those AIs, sent shudders all through Spectre. It felt like a betrayal of everything he and Revolver and the others worked for, fought for, almost died for.
Revolver. What would he think about this? That made him shudder even more.
"I belong with you," the AI told him, not moving for a single moment. "I'm not going anywhere else."
That wasn't what Spectre wanted to hear. He pressed his lips together, trying to think of some way to deal with all of this. Absolutely nothing was coming to mind.
He wanted to get rid of it before Revolver saw it. He wanted to … keep it safe?
No. That was absolutely wrong. What he really needed to do was take this to Revolver and make sure that they could use it properly to deflect any future uprisings. Right. That was what he needed to do.
That wasn't what he was doing. What he was doing was staring at the creature and trying to think of ways to hide it if it wouldn't leave. There had to be a way.
He would tell Revolver about this eventually. There wasn't any way he would hide something like this. But he found that he wanted to take his time. To be able to present Revolver with a perfect plan to either use it or destroy it.
Yes. That was what he would do. As long as it could keep itself quiet and out of sight, that would be good. He could work this out.
"What's your name?" He wasn't that interested, but he would need something to call it by.
"You can call me Groot."
Spectre blinked. He wasn't all that versed on modern culture, but that didn't sound like an ordinary name to him. "What?"
"Groot." The AI waved a hand. "I saw it in an old movie once."
Spectre decided he didn't need to say anything else about that. Fine. Groot.
"Spectre?"
He froze where he stood. The last person that he wanted to meet Groot before he could figure all of this out stood in the door, head canted lightly to the side, eyes widening for a moment as they fell on the AI.
Groot waved at Revolver. "I am Groot!"
Spectre winced, wishing that he had a nice convenient mulch pile to stash this unwanted AI in, preferably for the rest of time. He wanted to say that he could explain. But not a word that made sense arose.
Revolver stepped over, eyes focused on Groot before his attention shifted over to Spectre. Spectre held his duel disk up, offering Groot to him as he would offer anything and everything in his life.
Then he pulled his arm back. He hadn't even thought about it, but he did it regardless. Groot belonged to him. Groot was a part of him, or based off of him.
As much as he believed in everything Revolver said and believed, the idea of doing this struck against a mental block he'd never known existed. He swallowed.
"I think we can use him," he said after a few seconds that stretched out into infinity. "We can learn things." He didn't know if he believed that. He did know that whether he liked it or not, Groot wasn't going anywhere without him.
And he could not quite believe the easing of tension as Revolver nodded, his attention flicking momentarily between Groot and Spectre. Then he smiled.
"Welcome to the Knights of Hanoi, AI."
Groot raised himself as tall as he could. "I am Groot!"
Spectre sighed. And he'd thought it would be such a lovely day.
The End
Notes: I really didn't expect to write my first VRAINS fic like this.
