Dead Exo, don't revive

LAST WARNING: robot necrophilia, robot guts, robot blood!

"Duck!"

A beam zips just past Grimnir-16's head before the massive titan they're sharing a pitiful cover of silica rubble with throws his whole weight on them. Grim feels the burst of heat that could've only come from a Hydra exploding right next to them, but thankfully they're mostly shielded by the titan's body. As the heat subsides, they attempt to nudge him aside - with no reaction. "Forge...? Ah." They feel molten alloy and sparking circuits searing through their chest armour. Forge-4's ghost - now that it's quiet, with no vex in sight - flits out from nowhere and begins his repairs.

Maybe... Grim holds out a hand to block the beam of light, barely managing to reach out and around the sheer mass of the corpse above them. "Wait."

The little drone startles and drops to hover on Grim's very low eye level. "Wait, what? What wai-- i mean, *why* wait?" Cookie - Grim remembers that nickname - sounds more mildly confused than irritated. Good.

Grim slightly opens their jaws in an attempt at grinning. "Cos I've something good in mind he owes me. Has for a time." They reach out to run a finger along the little ghost's jagged shell. "Join in if you want. Just don't make this weird." Cookie seems interested, now. Better. Figment leaves his hiding place in Grim's cloak and nestles in-between Grim's chest and Forge's silent weight until he seems comfortable,close enough to that gaping mess of slag and wires that is most of Forge's upper body. Grim pets Figment, also, takes a little time to dip fingers in-between the fins of his shell and run them around his core. The satisfied bristling and responsive shudder of Light through both of their bodies is more than enough confirmation.

This is happening. Excitement and a certain smug satisfaction gradually heat up Grim's systems, and they let their hands be guided by that, one finding its way to the tender molten edge of the mess of sensor-laden wireflesh that it the hole in Forge's corpse. They trace a finger through the dripping fluid that lazily gathers in thick puddles of oil and cooling fluid and shimmering antifreeze all swirling together like marble, topped off by a precious few specks of alkahest from where Forge's spine is snapped. The mixture spills itself over Grim's abdominal region, soaking through their clothes like a heavy cold hand and pooling beneath them on the floor. The tips of their fingers run gently along the molten edge of Forge's insides, gliding over jagged metal and brushing against sparks and wire: up, down, up, and down again, tracing a half-moon of thick spillage into itself. Cookie has floated down to rest next to Grim's head - out of the corner of their eye, they see his fins shudder, here and there. They smile, staring up into Forge's lifeless eyes above them. "How much do you feel it?"

Cookie twitches, looks at them, then at Forge, then back again, not sure if they are talking to him or...?

"Cookie, right?" Grim still lies there, straining to tilt their head back far enough to hold eye contact with the corpse, reaching out with their free hand to gently cup his cheek. Something in Cookie flares up that he can't quite place, but it makes it hard to keep his thoughts in place... "Sort of an echo, maybe." A probability of Forge's reactions, though he's too entranced to elaborate. He doesn't think he remembers Grim even looking at Forge's face for all the time they've known each other. The strange blaze intensifies when they reach out with their other, life-smeared hand to cradle Forge's jaw, their eyes a-flicker as they take in his dead face with a light, adoring light-flicker illuminating their own.

Cookie can feel Figment expel heat under Forge's corpse, tendrils of light scanning each micrometer of his body. Each mapped tear and fracture feeds back sending an uneasy pulse through him, until they hit the gaping hole and sensory havoc lights up Cookie's self. Forge's vast body doesn't map onto him accurately in the best of times, but now? Now it's overwhelming, too much input comingling with metal flesh grasping for its missing parts... The garbled static "Aah!" is all Grim needs to hear.

A concentrated pulse of arclight shoots from their hand through Forge's body as they dig into metal guts and tubes and wires, fully coating their hand in glistening death, and the corpse convulses around their hand, stray ends scrape against their fingers as they expel as much air as they can, lets themselves be crushed by the weight as sparks course between their skin and the corpse, the corpse that stares down at them mouth agape, dead eyes flickering with false signal. Grim stops breathing. Intuitively, Figment's shell twitches and a needle jams itself into Grim's body, past plating and silicone. They burn inside, current hotter that it should be, and they feel it burning away and melting their insides the way only light can destroy, and they stop moving. Cookie lies on the ground, emitting weak whirrs. Figment disperses the last bits of static from his shell, basks in the flood of nothing. They don't need to check if both exo's eyes are lifeless.