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Things were...tense, to say the least. With the lead-up to the new season being thrown off kilter by what was supposed to be the new guy getting gutted on live television. And the higher ups had the 'brilliant' idea of having that same murderer take the guy's place.
It was messed up. No wonder everyone would be on edge. Outloud, Elliott might say he wasn't afraid, but inside he was very, very afraid. That-robot?-thing had freaking knife hands! He didn't want to be stabbed through the back in the hall as likely as in the arena.
While everyone might have their misgivings and questioning the Syndicate's collective sanity, Elliott only had his thoughts on one robot. Once the shock and horror of...that event happened yesterday, Pathfinder's viewscreen cycled through an exclamation and to a crying face before he fled the room.
At first Elliott only assumed it was because, well, despite being a murderbot too, Pathfinder wouldn't just go up to someone and kill them. There was a difference between what happened in the Outlands, and what happened in the arena. Things might need to be cleared up though about the technicalities so people didn't get any false notion about Forge still being alive somehow.
The interview was being filmed here, right in Sorting Factory. That thing was already there-which was a hell of a lot more terrifying. Had that robot been watching all of them too? Elliott's skin crawled.
He walked past the sitting room, but stopped and backtracked. Pathfinder was on the couch, staring at the screen of the television. Elliott stepped inside. "Path?" He wondered how long the robot had been sitting in here.
The robot looked up at him. "Hello, Elliott." he said, his tone subdued. It was weird hearing him be anything but cheerful.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm watching the news." Pathfinder replied. "They mentioned me."
"Really?" Elliott hoped it wasn't in relation to the other robot running around. When he read the text, he winced because it was much worse. Elliott would have said he didn't believe Pathfinder about some funhouse mirror version of King's Canyon on Halloween if anyone asked-but he did.
This was a world where people could link up to giant robots, where people's minds could be put into robots. Elliott didn't think alternate universes to be any less believable.
Elliott took the seat next to Pathfinder, and turned off the screen. It wasn't any better without it, leaving the only light being the robot's optic and viewscreen in the dim room. The dropship needed better lighting. "So anyway," he shook his head, while Pathfinder just seemed confused, "how are you, you know, ha-han-handling all this?"
Pathfinder scooted closer to him. "I'm..." he trailed off, and there was something forced in his cheerful tone. "I hope we can be friends with the newcomer!"
"You don't have to lie. What happened was messed up." Elliott said. "You even said there was another version of this robot who terrorized you on Halloween." The screen changed to a sad face. Elliott didn't know the first thing about how to comfort someone; he didn't when Pathfinder first brought the Halloween thing up, and he didn't know now.
Still, they were friends (hard as that was to believe sometimes-that it hadn't been just some weird hiccup) and they comforted each other, right?
"At least that robot isn't here yet-I mean, probably in the arena but not in the ship. So that's something, isn't it?"
From the way Pathfinder went completely stiff and his view screen cycled through every emoji he had in rapid, haphazard succession-Elliott worried he might have broken him. How did Pathfinder manage to comfort him anyway? Then again, Elliott was drunk at the time so it might not have been hard.
Way to step your foot in your mouth, Witt. he berated himself, even if he wasn't sure that's how the saying went.
Before Pathfinder could go 'blue screen of death' on him, Elliott carefully grabbed his hands. The robot's screen just went blank, but thankfully not his optic, before a question mark appeared.
"You're not exactly a weakling." Elliott started. "You got some skills, you can handle yourself. You got back here after all." If this was his best effort, Elliott was starting to think it was why he didn't have any other friends. "And you got me, of course."
Pathfinder's creaking joints were the only visible signal he'd relaxed. "I'll protect you too, friend."
Elliott sputtered. "What makes you think I need pro-prot-protection!"
Pathfinder tilted his head. "You said I can handle myself. So I can handle protecting the both of us!" his screen flashed a smiley face. "And I love you, so I don't want anything to hurt you."
No matter how many times Elliott heard it, he didn't think he'd quite get used to hearing the words 'I love you'. He let out a sniff, and squeezed Pathfinder's hands. "Here I thought I was doing the comforting."