Everybody Hz

The Titans had perhaps a couple of hours of downtime while the Alliance intelligence pinpointed the next location for them to attack. Enough time only for support units to fly in from Alliance outposts and carry out some emergency repairs. Titan Camera would much rather have gone back to her hangar for some proper repairs, but it had been decided that this was the best compromise. Titan TV could in theory port each Titan to their home bases, but it would be a tall order to do that for both the other two Titans and bring them back again within a couple of hours. A TV the size of a Titan produced a lot of teleport-energy, but also needed a lot. Physically flying all the way there and back obviously wasn't doable under the time constraints.

A pair of Cam engineers, borne aloft by jetpack, carried out a quick weld on the buzzsaw cut at their Titan's neck. It wasn't the prettiest welding job, but it would hold and would stop detritus falling inside the Titan's frame. The full procedure for repairing a plating breach would entail putting in a temporary blocker for the Titan's pain receptors; the techfolk equivalent of local anaesthetic. There was no time or equipment for such luxury, so the Titan had to sit still and endure the searing hot fusion. It hurt, but not agonisingly so… and less than the buzzsaw had in the first place.

"You're being so brave, dear Titan," transmitted one of the engineers admiringly.

The Titan transmitted back a chirp of data - a way of saying 'I acknowledge your message but have nothing further to add at this time.' She had no choice but to be brave about it.

Something weighed heavily on her mind. She transmitted to her ground crew of engineers at Cam Base: "Engineers, I would speak to Comrade TV alone if possible." Titan Camera had the option of cutting her own comms, leaving the engineers no way to track her or be copied in on her transmissions, but it would be unwise to do that without telling the Base her intentions first. They'd no doubt send Comrade Speaker to investigate. "Assuming Comrade TV accepts, please maintain transmission silence until I re-initiate," continued Titan Camera. The Base operators transmitted their acceptance - they seemed edgy about their Titan's request, but they did her the courtesy of believing she had a good reason.

"Comrade TV," Titan Camera transmitted to the TV Titan, currently using its plasma blade to scrape skibidi puree off the sole of its boot. "I would speak to you about a private matter. Will you listen?"

The TV Titan shook the drops of flesh-mud off its blade, and retracted it. "Let's have it." It transmitted privately to Titan Camera rather than speaking aloud.

"Can we… physically go somewhere more private than this? And would you have your operators maintain transmission silence for now? I've already told mine."

The TV Titan displayed an ellipsis on its screen, showing that it was either deep in thought or distracted. Its screen faded back to normal whitish static. "My operators confirm. Suggest 1.4 kilometres north-north east."

"Anywhere is fine. Let's be off."

The two Titans took off, flying in a parabola from their launch site to their landing spot. Their destination turned out to be the remains of a powerplant with its hyperboloid cooling towers still standing.

This was deeply awkward… Titan Camera would have much preferred more time to think of how to phrase her request, but time was limited. And the TVs were well known for their bluntness to the point of dismissiveness; they appreciated you getting right to the point. Titan Camera therefore did just that. "Would you use your command-beam on me?"

The TV Titan adopted a quizzical expression, but didn't speak yet. It waited to see where Titan Camera was going with this.

"…The jötunn scientist used a stolen version of it on me; I don't know if you saw that," continued Titan Camera. "It was terrifying, and I can't get the experience out of my head. I think it would help if you… cleansed it. Gave me a benign version of it, calmed me down with it, so that that's the last memory I have of it." Titan Camera cringed internally - she felt she wasn't explaining this very well. She felt also a little shame over how rattled just that one blast from the command-beam had made her, while Comrade Soundkind had endured weeks under the manipulator-skibidi… "Dear Comrade Soundkind -- how much are you having to hide away?" thought Titan Camera. She owed her friend the chance to properly commiserate, but right now she needed some help herself.

"I can do that for you," said the TV Titan. "But I can't guarantee what you will experience. The term 'command-beam' is a shorthand -- it's better described as… imparting an idea and making the viewer think it their own idea; the best they've ever had. And then the viewer does all the rest. Did you want to continue?"

"…I do. I think I need this - if nothing else, I need to back on form for whatever fight comes next."

The TV Titan took its flightpack off and set it down, pausing briefly to let its back-plating click and settle, then shrugged its shoulders to re-seat its coat. "Take off your flightpack for now so you can lie more comfortably," it said. That typical manner of TVs - no 'you might consider'. Just the assumption that of course you will do what they tell you; it's the most logical course of action.

Titan Camera hesitated - she was wary of taking off her flightpack so close to a battle zone, and didn't have the TV Titan's option of making an emergency exit by teleport.

"Do not worry," said the TV Titan, correctly guessing the reason for her hesitation. "I'll keep watch for both of us." The TV Titan tapped one of its shoulder-screens. (Plus, Comrade Soundkind was in flight range if the worse came to the worst, reasoned Titan Camera to herself.) "You'll need to take that off too," the TV Titan said, pointing to the middle of its main screen - referring to the protective lens cover that Titan Camera was currently wearing. Titan Camera unclipped and pocketed the lens cover. "I'll bring you a new one when I can," said the TV Titan.

"This one still works," transmitted Titan Camera. "It's just bashed."

"Don't martyr yourself," said the TV Titan. "No reason you shouldn't have a new one. …You do that a lot, you know."

Titan Camera regarded the TV Titan quizzically.

"Martyring yourself, I mean. You keep pushing yourself past the point I would have fucked it off and got back to my hangar for repairs."

"You can teleport," thought Titan Camera. "You have the option of popping back to your hangar for a quick tune-up. Comrade Soundkind and I have no choice."

"That'll be your downfall one day if you don't pack it in," continued the TV Titan, as it sat down next to its flightpack, reclining against a cooling tower. The tower's skin crumpled a little bit, but the structure held. The TV Titan pushed and settled backwards into it a little more, pushing its dorsal arms back like a cat kneading a beanbag chair, cracking the brick skin of the cooling tower and bending the underlying scaffolding into a comfy Titan-shaped hollow. "Anyway, bring it in." The TV Titan detached its shoulder screens, letting the damaged one fly to the ground and sit there, and having the working one fly to another structure and perch there to keep watch. The Titan held out its arms, as if inviting a hug.

Titan Camera wasn't sure what Comrade TV was implying. She sat on the ground opposite the TV Titan, setting down her flightpack. The TV Titan flexed its fingers, in a 'come here' gesture. "You wanted to relax and calm down a little, didn't you? Come here - relax properly with me."

Titan Camera did so, a little reluctantly, mostly willingly. She let the TV Titan's hands guide her into place to recline on her big comrade's front, her lens gazing up at the TV Titan's screen. Titan Camera emitted a servo-squeak of discomfort at one of the TV Titan's claw-like core appendages bashing her own.

"Let me sort that out," said the TV Titan, revolving its core apparatus a little so its claws laid in between Titan Camera's own. The TV Titan gathered Titan Camera in its arms, hauling her into a position comfortable for them both. The cooling tower crunched sandily at the added weight leaning on it, but held. "Come on now," said the TV Titan soothingly, "You don't feel properly relaxed at all - you're more wound-up than the high-tension wire Polycephaly is currently setting up to decapitate skibs." The TV Titan stroked Titan Camera's back in circles. "Relax. You'll be in a better headspace when I give you the purple stuff."

Titan Camera made a conscious effort to un-tense, letting her servos wind down and her cables relax. The TV Titan slipped a hand into Titan Camera's coat collar and gripped the plating that sat under the flightpack fittings. The TV Titan spread its fingers and squeezed, making Titan Camera's plating pull uncomfortably for a second and then click satisfyingly into place on her frame-struts. Titan Camera revved her servos in surprise - taken aback but also grateful. She hadn't even realised that was something that needed doing.

"That new flightpack must be putting a lot of pressure there," observed the TV Titan. The flightpack was more powerful than Titan Camera's previous one, to be sure, but it had had to be fitted quickly in the field instead of thoroughly in a fully-equipped Titan hangar, and the fitting mechanisms had to reflect that. Titan Camera was surprised that the TV Titan had noticed or thought about that. Well, she supposed it did boast often of having the "best engineering team in the Alliance". Maybe the Titan and its crew talked about engineering topics more often than Titan Camera realised.

The TV Titan withdrew its hand from Titan Camera's coat. It noticed the harsh weld on Titan Camera's neck area from her recent field repair. Poor Comrade. The TV Titan automatically patted Titan Camera's back in sympathy.

"There you go, my good bitch," said the TV Titan. "Still want it? Comfortable enough to begin?"

"…Yes. I still want this."

"Of course. Just let the most powerful and perfect of all Titans do the thinking for both of us for a while." The TV Titan protracted the extra screens on its head, and all three screens blazed with electric purple. The blaze of purple rapidly filled Titan Camera's vision, until she saw nothing else at all, and drifted into that purple void.

The TV Titan gazed into Titan Camera's main lens and her remaining secondary lens, both beaded with purple reflections. In its mind it saw the purple void from the other side, looking from the outside to Titan Camera's mental presence within. It was used to seeing the skibidis' mind-motes as squiggly errant specks, fit for mentally plucking and dashing against the walls of the void. Titan Camera's mote was far more robust and less 'throwable'… but at the same time it didn't look as vivacious and zesty as a skibidi mote. Its surface was ragged and its outline pulsated, as though infected. Titan TV reached out mentally, as though cupping the Titan Camera mote in an imaginary hand. The mote immediately flinched and shied away - clearly rattled from its previous experience of the purple void (or a skibidi bootleg version of it). Suggestion was the key; it was all about suggestion. Ironically, being forceful would often rally the other entity's mind and make them all the more determined to resist - it was one of the first things new TVs had to unlearn. It was tempting to just 'grab' the mote representing Titan Camera's mind and say "Get petted, idiot," but the TV Titan had to be gentler than that.

The TV Titan began visualising a glowing globe of light around Titan Camera's mind-mote, projecting the feeling of 'safe' and 'protected' and 'unharmed'. It shifted its own mental presence, 'shuffling' it nearer Titan Camera's. Titan Camera's mental presence 'oozed', as though it had been cringing itself into shape and was now letting itself go, releasing from under pressure. Its outline shuddered briefly and then allowed itself to stop. The mote relaxed and coagulated its raggedness back into itself at the same time it flattened and spread… until it lay still and allowed itself to be 'stroked' into shape by the TV Titan's mind-presence.

Titan Camera felt… just a cosy nothingness.

Titan Camera's real body finally allowed itself to relax properly for the first time in a long time, hydraulics hissing and servos buzzing as they wound down, and plating gently creaking as the underlying framework untensed. The Titan's head slumped off-balance slightly, to the side with its remaining sub-camera - the TV Titan noticed this and cupped Titan Camera's head to hold it straight. ("I got you," thought the TV Titan.)

"That's the way," thought the TV Titan to itself. "You're doing so well, comrade." The TV Titan didn't often get the opportunity to use its command-beam outside battle. It felt… nice to use it for another's pleasure instead of for destruction.

"Can't let you relax too long," thought the TV Titan, idly stroking the other Titan's sub-camera with its thumb. "Need you to stay out of sleep mode and get back to the battlefield."

"The most powerful and perfect of all Titans I may be," said the TV Titan softly, "But you are the original, and always will be. My existence was possible only because of the groundwork you and your engineers laid down for me. …You took the greatest risk of us all, letting your mind be loaded into a war engine with no-one before you, to tell you everything would be alright… We are the alpha and the omega, you and I." The TV Titan stroked Titan Camera's back encouragingly. It took a moment to pay attention to the scene one last time, noticing every little detail of how thoroughly at ease Titan Camera was. "It's time to come back."

The TV Titan powered down and faded out the command-beam, folding in its cranial sub-screens, and held still to let Titan Camera 'wake up' in her own time. "Welcome back," the TV Titan said.

Titan Camera took stock of her sensations -- she was slumped on Comrade TV. She felt a twinge of embarrassment at how… over-familiar this was. But… the TV Titan didn't seem bothered in the slightest. Indeed, hadn't it encouraged this? It had invited cuddles and then encouraged her to relax, to let down her barriers for a little while.

"Let's re-equip, shall we? So we're ready to go at any time," said the TV Titan. Was that… a suggestion rather than a 'do what you're told'?

Titan Camera picked herself up off the TV Titan and stood. The TV Titan followed suit, Titan Camera offering it a hand up from its slightly embedded position in the wall of the cooling tower - which had gracefully cracked and buckled like an old sofa that had conformed to thousands of repetitions of bum, in a multi-centi-tonne bum speedrun. The TV Titan used its dorsal spike-arms to push itself forwards at the same time, leaving an odd imprint in the tower.

Titan Camera re-attached her dented lens protector, turning her 'expression' from friendly and curious back to battle-hardened. As the TV Titan brushed cooling tower brick-dust off the front of its coat, Titan Camera helpfully went behind the other Titan and grasped a handful of its coat, shaking it to dislodge all the brick-dust off the TV Titan's back.

The two Titans helped each other re-attach their flightpacks, re-fastening the fittings carefully and comfortably. Thank you," Titan Camera transmitted to the other Titan as it adjusted the fittings of her newly-improved flightpack. "For the relaxation, I mean. Not just this," she pointed to the fitting that the TV Titan was currently adjusting. "…I hadn't realised how much I needed that."

The TV Titan displayed a smiling emoticon as it finished adjusting Titan Camera's flightpack. "We will survive this war, my friend." It held up its fist for a victory smash.

"Let's save that for Comrade Soundkind," transmitted Titan Camera. "We should catch up to her and talk tactics."

The TV Titan inclined its head in agreement, and both Titans flew on.