As it turned out, performing repairs on a hyper-advanced alien lifeform wasn't exactly one of Kendrix's natural talents. He suspected that operating on even a normal jumpship would have been well beyond his capabilities, but Nova was a whole different animal. Almost literally.
Fortunately, Proxima confirmed that the majority of his self-repair systems were still functioning, and as long as they were supplied with enough Glimmer, the mechanical man should be able to make his own recovery. So Kendrix just had to stop the Glimmer from leaking out of him in the meantime.
Proxima provided him with a welding torch, directed him towards the dozen or so glowing blue cuts littering Nova's metallic hide, and coached him through the process as he went to work sealing them up. It was slow going. Kendrix's seemingly complete lack of experience meant he often had to redo his initial attempts two or even three times, even on the smallest of cuts. The larger ones were even more difficult. Their sheer size meant Kendrix couldn't just seal them up. They had to be filled with Glimmer, and then painstakingly sealed over so that the potentially volatile matter wouldn't detonate inside his patient. Kendrix was silently relieved that the massive wound from where the other robot had impaled Nova was internal in ship form, and thus beyond his power to try and fix.
Kendrix worked nonstop for over two hours, Proxima mentally murmuring words of encouragement whenever he completed a task, and occasionally offering a piece of useful information she found while scouring the City's network. Kendrix hardly ever replied, as it took all of his willpower to push back his exhaustion and focus on the task at hand. He only hoped Proxima could feel his appreciation, wordless though it was.
At last, every scrape and dent on Nova's surface was repaired as best as Kendrix could manage. It wasn't much, but he hoped it would help.
His internal systems still indicate heavy damage. It's going to be at least a few more hours before we have any chance of talking with him. You should rest.
Can't. Kendrix thought past the throbbing headache pounding around in his skull. Need to watch him. Can't let any Fallen sneak up on us. There was a bright flash, causing his headache to momentarily worsen.
"Sleep," Proxima insisted, her pale blue eye glowing reproachfully. "You've done enough for one day. I'll keep an eye on things, monitor local transmissions for Fallen activity. Anything comes up, I'll let you know. Until then? Sleep."
"Fine, fine," Kendrix grumbled, eyes already drooping. "You sound like some overprotective old mom," he added as he slipped off his helmet and sat back against one of the nearby pillars, facing Nova.
"Watch that tone, mister," Proxima said warningly. "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it."
Kendrix chuckled softly as his eyes closed for good. His last thought before sleep took him was about how it was a little sad that he couldn't remember what his mom was like.
Kendrix awoke to the sound of grinding metal and humming thrusters. His eyes groggily opened, and he felt his entire body aching. Maybe sleeping against a metal pillar after a day of intensely athletic combat hadn't been the best idea.
"He's waking up," Proxima noted.
"I noticed," Kendrix groaned in reply, his eyes focusing on the shifting frame of Nova's jumpship form. He got to his feet as quickly as he could, ignoring his nerves' protests, and stood to watch as his mechanical friend returned to consciousness. The jumpship broke apart, more slowly than usual, arms and legs weakly crawling their way out of its shifting mass until it resolved into the shape of a person.
Nova's eyes were dimmer than normal, and the way he instantly slumped against the hangar wall was hardly encouraging. But he was awake, and that was a start.
"Hey, bud," Kendrix said as warmly as he could. "How you feeling?"
Nova's thrusters let out a sound like an exploding muffler, and his damaged auditory system emitted a long, ear-piercing whine. Kendrix winced.
"Yeah, that… that sounds about right. It's good to see you up, though."
Nova released a noncommittal hum.
Kendrix went silent. The events of the previous day still felt surreal. Nova wasn't the only member of his kind in the system. He couldn't imagine what was going through the robot's head.
"Alright, cut it out. We can't afford to mope around right now," Proxima commanded sternly. "Since you two both seem to have forgotten, yesterday we encountered an unidentified alien lifeform that nearly wiped all three of us out. For good. We had the element of surprise and still barely managed to chase him off before he killed Nova."
"We're just taking a moment to collect ourselves," Kendrix complained. "Besides, he was really beaten up and also stuck on the Moon. I don't think we'll have to worry about him for a while."
"Wrong on both counts," Proxima sharply corrected. "I think we can all agree he's the same type of machine as Nova. Meaning he likely has similar internal repair systems, and likely recovered from his injuries as quickly as Nova. Quicker, even, given he wasn't impaled through the chest. Secondly, he had the form of a tombship. The Hive may not have as large a presence on Earth as on the Moon, but they can still get here. We have no reason to assume he can't do the same. And even if he isn't already aware of the City, it won't take him long to figure out where Guardians come from. These facts, taken together, suggest that it is very possible he is hunting us down as we speak."
Kendrix couldn't find a fault in Proxima's logic, and he felt dread's serpentine caress slowly constrict his stomach.
"So what do we do?"
"Same thing we always do when bad guys are involved. Make a plan. And that starts with determining exactly what we know. So?"
Realizing he was being asked to speak, Kendrix rushed to do so.
"Well… like you said, he appears to be the same… species? ...as Nova. That would explain his reformatting abilities and robotic construction."
"Good. What else does that mean?"
"...his physiology is likely Glimmer-based like Nova's. Maybe we can track his location by searching for a similar energy signature?"
"Normally, I'd agree, but I don't think it's that simple. While you were focused on your little Sparrow kamikaze run, I got a decent scan on the big guy. There was Glimmer present, yes, but it was a minority. The rest of his energy signature was something else entirely."
"What?" Kendrix asked, confused.
"Soulfire."
"You mean, those green flames on his hands?"
"Yes. It's a type of energy generated by and for Hive magic. Very nasty, as you saw firsthand, and very Dark. It can also be stored in physical form as Soulfire crystals, a pseudo-matter with energy density very similar to that of Glimmer. I think he may have been substituting part, or most, of his Glimmer 'diet' with Soulfire."
"That's why I could sense him," Kendrix said as the sudden realization struck him. "Why there was so much Dark around him."
"I believe so too," Proxima agreed. "Soulfire has a pretty unique signature, so I should be able to whip up a calibration set for our scanners to track it, and even if I can't I'm sure some Hive-crazy Guardian has already done it for me."
"Won't exactly corner him, what with the whole teleportation thing, but it's a start," Kendrix mused. "Although the way he pulled his sword out of the rift… if he can pull stuff out of there like we do out of transmat, there's no telling what other tricks he might have on hand."
Proxima nodded in reply.
"Exactly why we need to figure out as much as we can about him before we run into him again. Anything else?"
Kendrix wracked his brain for a few moments, but couldn't think of any other details about their new enemy that seemed important. They really didn't know much.
S-H-I-P.
"What?" Kendrix said, surprised by Nova's sudden decision to speak up.
H-E- -M-E-N-T-I-O-N-E-D- S-H-I-P.
M-Y- -S-H-I-P.
"... your ship? You have a ship? Wait, he knows you?!"
Nova shrugged.
M-A-Y-B-E.
"Nova," Proxima said curiously. "Would you mind if I extracted your memory of the fight from before we got there? It might be easier for us to understand if we hear what he had to say directly." Nova shrugged again. Not taking it as a no, Proxima floated up to the metal warrior's head and pierced it with a beam of pale white light. Kendrix saw Nova's body shudder slightly; it seemed a Ghost playing around in your head wasn't a pleasant experience.
A few moments later, and the light disappeared.
"Got it," Proxima said triumphantly as she floated back down to Kendrix. Her fins twitched for a moment, and then a hologram projected out of her eye and into the empty hangar. It seemed to be a view of the fight taken directly from Nova's point of view, which made sense if it was a memory, Kendrix supposed. The three of them watched as the combat played out, listening intently to the dark samurai's one-sided conversation with Nova.
"Autobot," Kendrix murmured when the word was spoken. "He called you that after I got there too. Do you know what it means?" Nova shrugged.
N-O-T- -S-U-R-E.
"Fair enough," Kendrix replied, then went back to listening. His blood ran cold when the samurai started to speak about knowing Nova, and about what he wanted to do to him. Then, there was a bright flash, and the feed ended.
"That was Kendrix's Sparrow going off," Proxima explained. "So we're all on the same page now," she continued, apparently choosing to ignore the implications about Nova's past. "He did mention a ship of yours, and a ship of his own. Interesting that a species that can turn into vehicles still needs vehicles to travel in. Maybe your kind aren't capable of adapting FTL technology into your own bodies?"
Nova shrugged for what felt like the umpteenth time. Under different circumstances, Kendrix might have found the robot's repeated use of the human gesture funny.
"'Miserable blue rock,' sounds like Earth to me," Kendrix commented.
"It would make sense, with Nova having been in hibernation here." Proxima agreed. "Doesn't explain why he wasn't with the ship, though," she then added.
"Right," Kendrix muttered. "So where does that leave us?"
"I think we should try and find the ship," Proxima said quickly. "Something like that's bound to have info on their culture and technology. Might give us a better idea of what sort of firepower we'll be up against with Skeletron. Not to mention what it might contain in regards to Nova's past."
Nova whirred rapidly, seemingly intrigued by the process.
"Wait…" Kendrix interrupted, voice filled with confusion. "...Skeletron? Really? That's what you came up with?"
"He's a skeleton robot, I think it's a fine name. Besides, we established earlier that I name the shapeshifting robots, and you name the amazingly skilled and intelligent Ghosts."
"But… no other Ghost is going to care what I think would be a good name for them."
"You should have thought of that before you let me be in charge of the robots."
Kendrix just groaned.
"Speaking of learning more about our robotic friends, though," Proxima continued, her voice once again becoming serious. "I ran some more in-depth scans on Nova while the two of you were conked out. Figure the more we know about his physiology, the better we'll be able to protect him and bring the hurt to Skeletron." An object appeared in a flash of transmat, and Kendrix lurched to grab it before it hit the ground. "I've copied my findings to this datapad," Proxima continued, not missing a beat. "I want you to go through them with Nova, see what you can figure out. I'm going to go comb through the Tower's archives, see if I can find anything that might be related to Nova's ship."
"Alright," Kendrix said uncertainly, glancing down at the device in his hands. It was a large, hefty metal tablet, with one side covered in a glowing screen displaying a rough blueprint of Nova's body, marked all over with points of interest. "Wow, bud. You're one complex piece of work."
Nova hummed proudly at the compliment. Then, realizing it wasn't, in fact, a compliment, let out a second, more affronted hum.
Kendrix swiped through the long list of components and subsystems, until he found one that caught his eye.
"Hmm… 'pseudo-transmat array'. Says here Proxima found a system that seems to have some sort of transmat tech integrated with it. Doesn't sound like anything we've seen you do before, so might be worth checking out."
Nova let off a cheerful whistle to show his interest.
"Alright. Looks like it's wired from your eyes, through your processor, and then down into some sort of… organ, in your hip. Can you feel anything like that?"
Nova shifted around a bit for a moment, his eyes flickering as he prodded at their functions. Suddenly, a pair of brilliant spotlights shone from his eyes. The rays of translucent blue swept around the room as Nova's eyes swung to and fro with surprise. Then they abruptly stopped moving. Kendrix glanced over and saw that the spotlights were hovering over the motionless, rotting corpse of a Vandal. They began to narrow, focusing not on the Vandal, but on the discarded weapon lying next to it. Suddenly, there was a brief moment where the unmistakable flash of transmat surrounded the gun. But when it faded, the rifle still lay on the ground.
"Huh. I guess it's… broken?" Kendrix said, turning to look at Nova. But the robot wasn't looking at him. Nova was staring at his own hand. After a moment, he clenched it into a fist, and it shattered. But the shape the hand reformatted into was not one Kendrix had seen before. It appeared to be some kind of firearm, but with a longer, narrower barrel than Nova's normally stout Arc cannons. The robot held it up in wonder, looking over the evidently new form with obvious curiosity. That curiosity progressed rather predictably into Nova leveling the weapon, taking aim, and firing.
Three projectiles burst from the gun's barrel. They still glowed with the distinct blue of Arc, but they were substantially smaller than Nova's normal shots. Stranger still, the projectiles moved in an uncannily familiar way. They curved.
Realization struck Kendrix, and he raced over to the Vandal's corpse and picked up the gun laying there. He turned it over in his hands, remembering all the times in his short life he'd had to dive behind cover to avoid the bright blue bolts fired at him that curved through the air, following his every move.
"Nova," he said in awe, lifting up the gun and turning to his robotic friend. "Did you just… replicate this technology? Is that why you turn into a human jumpship? Can you just scan and copy tech?!"
Nova whistled with awe and excitement, his other hand reformatting into an identical copy of the weapon. He released another salvo of shots, this time guiding them through the air by moving his transformed hands around. Kendrix couldn't help but laugh. This was incredible! Not to mention the staggering implications in regards to what Nova was capable of.
...and what the samurai was capable of.
The realization erased Kendrix's good mood in an instant. How could they possibly hope to combat technology that advanced? Nova went from jubilation to worry almost as quickly as Kendrix did, but seemingly for different reasons. The robot began to reformat his hands over and over, shifting between shock rifle, pile driver, and normal hand rapidly in sequence. After a moment, Kendrix noticed the problem.
There were no more Arc cannons.
"Wait…" he said slowly, realization dawning. "Did you... lose your cannons?" Nova's only reply was a loud, distressed whir as his hands returned to normal and he clenched them nervously. "I guess to adapt something new, you have to give up the old." Kendrix said thoughtfully. Nova whirred dejectedly. "Hey, it's ok, buddy. They're still great guns, it'll just take some getting used to. And I guess you'll have to be real careful about using this ability in the future, yeah?" Nova gave a saddened nod. "Plus," Kendrix continued, a sly grin creeping onto his face. "Now you don't have to lie about using that targeting system in your head."
Nova's eyes narrowed, and shot over to Kendrix's diminutive form. One of his hands reformatted into its shiny new shock rifle form, aimed directly at the young Warlock.
"Ok, ok, I take it back!" Kendrix said quickly, putting his hands up in surrender.
Nova gave a firm nod, and his hand returned to normal. But Kendrix could see the twinkle of humor in his eyes.
"Alright, what next… oh, this one sounds interesting. 'Engram Light core'. Some sort of engram-like structure in your chest… with a Light signature inside?"
Kendrix had learned about engrams the day before last, when he'd found one in the pocket of a Dreg he'd killed. Proxima had explained to him that they were a different state of matter, made when an item was encoded into a geometric, crystalline structure of pure information. They were used to store fragile or complex items in a more 'pure' state, where decay and wear and tear couldn't touch them as easily, ready to be decoded back into a more useful form when needed.
They could also be used as complex computational devices, being able to store and process massive amounts of data normal computers couldn't match. Kendrix suspected this was what the purpose of Nova's engram was, since it seemed very heavily integrated with the rest of his body, and Kendrix suspected that the ability to degrade your heart into a gun wouldn't be a very useful one. Why Nova needed such a structure when his main processor was already so advanced, though, was beyond him.
"It's the Light part that's really intriguing," Kendrix muttered thoughtfully. "No idea why or how that's in there. You have any clue?"
Nova cocked his head to the side for a moment, thinking. Then, realization seemed to dawn in his eyes.
S-P-A-R-K.
"What?"
Nova jabbed a finger into his chest, and repeated the word.
S-P-A-R-K.
"It's called a… spark?"
Nova nodded.
"Ok, cool. So, uh… what is it?"
Nova shrugged.
"Figures you'd only remember the name." Kendrix said with a sigh. "Ok, seems like this one's a dead end. Let's keep going."
The two of them worked through Proxima's list for a while longer. They managed to identify a few components and systems that were clearly essential but otherwise unremarkable. Kendrix made sure to note them down, both for the sake of protecting Nova's vulnerabilities and hopefully exploiting Skeletron's.
Eventually Proxima emerged from her forays into the digital library, and the three of them reconvened.
"Alright, what've you got?" Proxima asked tiredly. Kendrix gave a brief overview of what they had discovered. The tech copying and 'spark' very clearly caught Proxima's attention.
"Modifying transmat tech to copy digitized versions of technology straight into Nova's Glimmer for replication and adaptation… fascinating. I've never heard of tech like that, human or otherwise. And a spark of Light inside him. I mean, I already knew it was there, but it still makes no sense! How the hell did a fragment of the Traveler's power, however small, get into Nova?!"
"No idea," Kendrix said with a shrug. "Definitely worth looking into, though probably another time."
"Yeah, you're probably right." Proxima said with a synthesized sigh. The subject was clearly still bothering her, but Kendrix was certain she knew they had to focus on the samurai for now.
"So, what'd you find out?" Kendrix asked, trying to change the subject.
"Nothing good," his Ghost replied with another sigh. "There's nothing about the wreck of an unidentified ship anywhere in the database. Everything on Earth that's in there has been marked human, Fallen, Hive, or Cabal. Not one mention of robots or even unrecognized tech."
"Do you think the Vanguard might be hiding the information for some reason?"
"Honestly? I don't really think so. I could see them covering up the existence of someone like Nova. An alien machine that can disguise itself as any piece of technology? There'd be City-wide panic. But a ship? They'd want a dozen Warlocks down there stripping it for whatever they could find or learn. Any technology that could give the City an edge. They wouldn't keep something like that secreted away."
"...so we're back to square one." Kendrix said with a groan. He was starting to wonder if they'd ever find answers.
"...not exactly." Proxima said hesitantly.
"What do you mean?"
"Ok, just for the record," Proxima began. "This is a very bad idea, and you're not gonna like it once I explain what it entails. But there is someone else who might know something about the ship's location."
"What? Who?"
"Rasputin."
AN: Alright, so this one was light on action and heavy on lore dumping, which I know isn't to everyone's tastes. It was also on the shorter side, but I didn't want to try and stretch out what was here any more than I already did, and even if I had the time or energy to add more, the next chapter is likely going to be a big chunk of plot and I didn't want to try and compress that into the end of this one. For those who did enjoy, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the lore concepts I present. I love the worldbuilding of both of these franchises, and its been so much fun tying them together in whatever interesting or unique way I can think up.