A Glorious Comeback (1x! with *Adashi*)

[mandalorian]

Rhys smiles, and even laughs quietly at the kisses pressed against his face before returning the real one given, one hand raising to cup Jack's face until they pull away. "Okay." He murmurs, and takes both his hands again, squeezing gently. He first gives a quick run down on what happened in the Atlas facility, and how he had agreed to trust the AI over Fiona because it seemed like a good idea at the time. "When I agreed, and I... I gave him control of my cybernetics, and access to them. So it turns out, that when we came here, that when I got knocked out, he could uh — he could take control of my entire body. Which he did, and I couldn't even... I don't know. I couldn't even stop him, like on Helios, when he took control of me while I was — while I was awake. No one even realized and the only reason I got control was because Sasha punched him and he released control."

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

Jack made a noise, tail hitting the ground several times as he listened to rhys, nodding gently. "Well... I greatly question how nakayama programmed the damn thing. If it was supposed to be an AI entirely based off me and yet still tried to hurt such a pretty face. Let the guy delve into my head and he can't even do something right." He grumbled, huffing softly as he lifted his hands to brush his fingers through rhys hair a few times before cupping his cheeks again, stroking under his eyes with his thumbs. "But now that makes me worry. Having it burrow that deep into your cybernetics it can get control while your conscious. Kinda want to check you over myself just to be sure no broken bits of its code are still in there." He mumbled, mostly to himself but still out loud. A habit of his.

[mandalorian]

"W-Wait, really? You think he could come back?" Rhys' eyes widen, already beginning to panic at even the idea. His nightmare from before comes back the surface, and the pushed away thoughts of the idea of the AI returning only made it worse. "I... I thought so too, but I just thought after so long, after so long it'd just... I don't know, die out? Get replaced?"

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

"Without its complete coding, no, no way would it be able to come back. But thats also unneeded data stored in that fluffy little head of yours. And you'd probably feel a lot better knowing that it was fully destroyed. To be fair, i definitely would. It was a bad project to begin with. I told him to focus on the Endo first, get that finished but noooo. Anyone ever listen to jack? Apparently not. He was more focused on this cloning project and collecting like, everything i've ever touched and was just super creepy about it." Jack retorted, rambling breifly and huffing softly as his tail beats against the floor a bit more.

[mandalorian]

Rhys lets out a sigh of relief, relaxing almost completely, until Jack mentions the endoskeleton and he's suddenly rigid again. His eyes almost widen in a panic before he's taking a breath and nodding, avoiding eye contact. "Right. To... To be fair, the cloning project almost worked. The end result just wasn't expected." He felt almost sick saying that. He would've been the 'new' Handsome Jack. Just a lifeless body for that AI to control.

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

"Yeah, the end result was some big bullimong lookin thing with a hole in its chest." Jack mumbled, not noticing how rhys had gone rigid just yet. But when he does, he's quick to shut his mouth and try to figure out what in the last ew sentences had caused such a reaction.

[mandalorian]

Rhys nods again, eyes focused on the floor as if there's something interesting to look at down there. His shoulders go to his neck and he very carefully rolls them to try and release some of the tension. He eventually looks back at Jack, and almost regrets it from how Jack is looking at him. "What... Why are you looking at me like that?" He questions, very slowly moving away.

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

"You tensed up cause i said something. Trying to figure out what i said." He answered, noting how rhys was moving away which automatically made him quite anxious, causing the spikes on his back to start raising up in defense.

[mandalorian]

"The endoskeleton. He tried to kill me because he wanted to replace my body with the endos and use my body as, as his." Rhys finally chokes out, almost tearing up from the reminder and how the spikes on his back raise. "Please don't get mad at me."

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

Jack scrunches up his nose at this information, letting himself relax and thus the spikes to lower before carefully moving closer so to put his arms around rhys. "Yeah, definitely a faulty program then. And thats also gross. I've seen and done a lot of things both on this planet and on that station, but thats still a gross thought. Don't know why it'd want to hurt you if it was supposed to be based off me." He stated with a small huff, lightly nuzzling/rubbing his cheek against rhys temple, then the top of his head to try and help calm him down, mumbling a soft 'not mad at you rhys' to help sooth him.