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accursedkaleeshi · 2 years

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Best of EV A4-D

The best of EV-A4-D (Grievous’ sassy doctor droid) from my RP with 37 where we have been putting Grievous & Kenobi in Situations™ since spring 2021. Standalone dialogue is A4-D unless otherwise specified. I put it all in one post so...long post. 5k

> “Another day, another chance to die by laser sword,”

> "I don't think I've seen you quite this useless in at least a couple weeks, master,"

> [A4’s initial exposition to the Jedi]:

"He is only insufferable because I am his only social influence. A curse unto myself," The general said, now testing the pressure sensors in the tips of all of his newly regained fingers.

"Big of you to admit your personal failings, master," The droid chirped.

"Unit, I will overhand throw you like a spear directly off of this mountain," Grievous rasped to his mechanic but jolted when the leg being installed reconnected to his synthetic nervous system.

> "Have fun with your new friends, master, very proud of you," AD-4 chimed as Grievous made to lead Kenobi out of the repair bay. Grievous threw a spanner at the droid.

> He opened the door to the control room & A4-D had sat himself in the master chair in the middle of a tedious console of monitors.

"Can you mind your own business for five minutes?" the general said as he picked the droid out of the chair & moved him out of the room. Grievous took a few moments to get what he needed from the terminal. A4-D looked the two Jedi up & down as if judgmentally.

> "Are you sure these are Jedi, master? This one looks homeless." A4-D asked as his master stepped back into the hall.

"Kenobi just looks like that," was the general's instant reply. "Do you think you are coming, unit? Give me one good reason not to wipe your memory & leave you where you belong," he said to the droid.

"...My jokes will repeat. Additionally, master, you don’t remember how to be organic but I am a medical droid by factory standards. What if your new homeless friend & his angry son need medical attention?" A4-D suggested […]

> "I will not be silenced." A4-D voiced right before he was silenced.

> "Oh I see, it is just anyone that can silence me. I operate in a society-"

> A4-D panicked in a lower volume, "Oh no right he has real nerve endings," before trying to place a bandage on it a gently as his medical grade claspers possibly could.

>"Master, these are the best pieces on you, you must be careful-," the droid fretted. [About the fin-like arrays that frame Grievous’ head]

>"I've never seen master get so mad that he didn't speak. And my job is to deal with him exclusively when he needs repair, so I like to think that the probability stats I ran suggesting we were all going to die just then were pretty credible."

>"You sprung a giant cyborg warlord out of jail, fixed him, assassinated the leader of the Separatists, arrested another war criminal, blew up several things, crash landed, & are now stranded on an arid planet with an unhappy native population without sustenance? Prognosis: Poor." A4-D helpfully recounted.

>[After Grievous came in & told Kenobi he looked like shit] "His prognosis is poor." The droid chimed. To which his master replied, without looking up from the console, "You're going to have to specify."

>"This is very exciting." A4-D said as he followed.[Being shot at by snipers]

>"Yes, Human Kenobi?" A4-D shuffled over to the console & peered over at the Jedi. Then, in what he thought was a hushed whisper, he said, "Are you giving me orders to me now, too? Are you ~M a s t e r~ Human Kenobi??"

>"I have never run out of power before," he added, suddenly aware of his own mortality.

>"Is your vision compromised?" The droid craned his head as if to see Kenobi's eyes. He turned his head lamp on in what could have been malicious as equally as it could've been oversight. "Looks functional." [A4-D flashbang count: 1]

>"Is that a bribe? How exciting." It was a win win for him, really.

>"I have my larger work lamp." A4 swung one of the large apparatus arms off of his back. At the end was indeed a large multifaceted lamp that he turned on directly in his master's face. There was a flash & a pop. One of the bulbs burned out. "Oh that's embarrassing." [A4-D flashbang count: 2]

>"Jedi Kenobi, you look acceptably pink," he said.

>"Oh yes, B1s may be getting dumber with every update but they are still very useful for many things," Grievous said. "Couldn't be me." A4-D added in a haughty tone.

>"I am the personal doctor of General Grievous, Supreme Commander of the Separatist Droid Army. That's you." A4 boasted with a little lift in his chassis.

"So you're just a repair droid," it said sardonically, tapping a finger on A4's head.

"I am THE repair droid, thank you very much," A4 said slapping away the other's arm with a clank. "You're just a B1!"

>"Droid business, master Kenobi," A4-D said like there was nothing to see here, "This B1 must have dust on one of his audio input contacts." Grievous had been willfully ignoring them, dying a little more inside for every stupid thing he had to put up with.

>"A4 how is your power cell," the general barked. "Horrendously depleted, master." A4-D chirped, earning him another deadpan stare.

> “…They used that time to /reacted/-" A4 suddenly stopped babbling & his ocular lenses blinked red. "Oh I've never tried to recall classified information, before. How exciting."

>"Hard to scout as a giant clanking murder machine with asthma." A4 chimed.

> Hearing A4 say something about helping, he pointed a finger at the droid saying, "Do not-" There was a pause where neither moved. A4 deployed his large overhead surgery lamp directly at his master's face. Grievous snatched one of the bulbs from the fixture & smashed it over the droid's head. "Clean that up," he barked offhand. [A4 flashbang count: 3]

>"I am sure you are an acceptable level of weird," A4-D said in a tone that he thought was reassuring but was decidedly not.

>"I could not fathom his attitude before the adjustments," A4-D said to Kenobi with just as much attitude. "It was better, I imagine, not being surrounded by idiots & mindless droids," Grievous rasped as he stalked around the table. A4 stood his ground even as his master wrenched his overhead lamp arm off & kept walking. "I'm taking this," he said while he put it somewhere the droid couldn't reach. "Oh," was all A4 had to say about it, if not a bit dejectedly. [RIP A4-D flashbangs]

>"Perhaps," A4-D said as he marched back in with an empty crate in his arms. Unfortunately, he had to walk behind his master to get to the shelf. Grievous just slapped the crate out of his hands as soon as he got close.

> "Master, you should have fast tracked my field upgrades," A4 said woefully. "No, I shouldn't have," Grievous replied. "I am going to rust." "No, you aren't." "You will miss me." "I will not." That exchange was very much reminiscent of a parent dealing with a dramatic child.

>"His head does not have range of motion enough for him to reliably spot weld that arm back on," Grievous followed, nodding back toward A4. There were several loud crashing sounds, followed by a pause, followed by A4-D dejectedly voicing, "My head does not have the range of motion enough for me to reliably spot weld this arm back on..."

>"Master says he's not wasting more power cells on me when I have a solar charging array & I am only mildly offended…”

>"It’s so dreadfully analog. But you are analog & seem sustained. Master is not. He might die here literally as opposed to the figurative deaths he complains about," the droid babbled very casually.

>"What are you idiots doing?" Grievous had passed the entryway after a while of suspicious silence & paused. "Charging," A4 replied.

>"I remember every rumor I have ever heard," A4 said with a sudden seriousness.

> A4 clasped his primary hands together with a clang. "Oh! He is going to be so very mad," he said excitedly. Sure, he will get in trouble, but Kenobi will be in trouble & something about that prospect was very appealing to him.

>"To be a slave to a sun like an organic so that I don’t run out of power. Like a common household droid." A4 lamented as his train of thought went from the rain to the sun.

> Grievous added another tool to the very high shelf of droid forbidden items.

>"There is no singular individual who represents the entire Order." Kenobi stated upon A4's addressing of him. "And why are you fixated on me being 'weird'? That's a subjective term anyways."

"Oh, apologies. Irregular," A4 corrected with what he thought was sensitivity. It was not.

>"Well, given that you are terminally depressed & master Kenobi is completely organic, prone to feelings, I feel like I am the most logical processor present," A4-D decreed after thinking for a moment.

>"Kenobi, I am granting you clearance to power A4-D down if you want him to shut up for five consecutive minutes," Grievous said to the Jedi. This garnered an offended tutting from the droid. "Master, you wouldn't." "The power switch is on the underside of his head just behind the neck ball joint," the general drawled without pausing. A4 gasped as if he had been betrayed.

>"Oh yes. So much intrigue. Where are we? Who did this? Does anyone know we're here?" A4 lit up about it. The only beings he had to gossip to on Vessek were the magnaguards & he didn't think they cared.

> Grievous turned his head to A4 & asked, "Were you going to help or were you just going to-" "Supervise." They both said at the same time.

>"My personality is not exactly-" Grievous waved a hand, searching for an accurate word. "Nice. Welcoming. Friendly," A4-D helpfully suggested several. "Palatable," Grievous rasped with finality.

>"General Grievous is not an actual general & my whole life is a lie?" A4 posited very matter-of-factly.

>"If you get it over with you can go back to not thinking about it," A4 chirped. He made a surprisingly convincing argument even as he pulled on his master's arm. He went absolutely nowhere, Grievous having not budged.

>"I have conflicting directives about placating comforts but maybe think...about...nicer times?" He really struggled with that line of thought, not really able to reconcile his master with positive emotions.

>"He has have never had anything nice to say about anyone," A4 chimed, patting the general's shoulder like one would the roof of a reliable vehicle.

>"Jedi master trapped out here to be bullied by Separatist droids, hm?" "Living the dream," A4 remarked. He was ignored.

>"I don't know your Republic motivations," A4 said in his defense…

> He looked down & scanned a wayward fish that strayed too close. Prognosis: fish.

> Kenobi was good to study as it had been clear himself & his master were exceptions to most things except maybe behavioral disorders.

>… A4 muttered, "I am so good at everything I do," regarding his foraging.

> The general's voice modulator crackled as if he had scoffed. "Look at his stupid smile," Grievous said disparaging but lightheartedly. "Stupid, sir," A4 confirmed, doing his task.

>"It is humorous in comparison to a few standard months ago. But I suppose literally sharing blood is as medically intimate as you can get," A4 said thoughtfully. Grievous made as much of a face as he could in response to 'medically intimate' as the worst phrase he may have ever heard. A bewildered "Unit-" was all he managed.

>"Really??" A4 asked as if being stripped for parts to fix Grievous was one of his life goals.

>"Correct, master Kenobi. But are you telling me your organic brains aren't ascribing meaning to it? The philosophical warlock of an ancient order & the war machine whose every other sentence is a poetic metaphor for his misery? Isn't that all organic beings do?" A4 questioned very pointedly.

>"Yes, my EV base model is laboratory assistant. With all of my modifications for my current position I have skills from a few different classes," A4 then said with casual certainty, "I'm sure I am the equivalent of a first-class droid." Grievous rolled his eyes. "That's not how that works, unit," the general said. "New planet, new rules," A4 replied.

>"Master, I can't believe you said I was copper. What if I called you off-white? When you are clearly a brilliant ivory. I couldn't!" "You insult me all the time," Grievous replied to A4 calmly but kept his listless gaze on Kenobi. "I critique your abilities not your first-rate design," the droid chimed like that was a compliment.

>"This planet sure takes a lot of water," he said suspiciously, wondering where it all went.

>"Can you feel empathy, A4?" Grievous drawled. "I can recognize the patterns when people are supposed to feel empathy & I think that's worth. Something," the droid said positively.

> “…but do you want any random plants for your laser fish?" A4 asked holding up a thin slice of the magenta root vegetable. [A4-D trying to make helpful cooking suggestions]

> A4-D loudly heralded the return of the rogue Separatists. As soon as Kenobi was in view he enthusiastically announced, "Master said if his wife knew you were fishing with a blaster, she would kill you."

>[After Grievous had crafted several things in a survival situation] "Make me a hat," A4-D heckled from his spot by the bulwark only to be ignored.

>"No one likes a snitch, A4," Grievous replied. … "I do. I like snitches," A4-D insisted from the doorway.

>"Will I ever get those upgrades now?" A4 said as forlornly as he had ever said anything.

>“Oh? You are worried about me & my superior engineering?” Grievous mused antagonistically. “That’s my job,” A4 shot back with as much of a little temper as he had displayed so far. “We aren’t Separatists anymore, are we?” he followed, tapping his claspers together. “We were never Separatists, A4. We were Separatist property. There is a difference.”

>"Best I can do is lobotomy," he said as if he were thrilled to have something to bring to the table. The stunted cackle Grievous tried to stop may have gone unnoticed if he didn't start coughing afterwards.

>"Organic juice does strange things," A4 said. "Don't call it that." "...Soup?" "Ugh. That's worse, stop," Grievous dismissively shoved A4, who clattered over then righted himself.

>"I wonder how long Kenobi can sit here being miserable before he crashes or has a mental breakdown," Grievous wondered aloud at length. "Ooh. Emotional breakdown?" A4 expressed in a very conspiratorial tone. He was very excited at the prospect of a grown man crying.

>"I must say you two & your affinity for the sun has really grown on me," A4-D was saying before the small hatch covering his solar charging interface popped out of its housing, springing away like a grasshopper that he'd failed to catch. "That's embarrassing..."

>"It would be easier for my self-maintenance if I had all of my boom arms," A4 had the gall to say while General Grievous had multiple hands on him. "Your surgical grade, one hundred thousand lux, seven thousand credit boom light was not going to help you, & in fact we probably would have gotten killed you by now," Grievous casually replied. "It was ten thousand credits. They don't make them anymore." "They don't make you anymore." "Oh, right." A4-D seemed unbothered by this & was just glad for the attention until Grievous declared him suitable for work.

>"Poor thing. Too bad A4 apparently never had anesthetic," Grievous said aloud. "You don't need anesthesia if you've got enough restraint measures," A4 chimed. "Horrific, thank you-…”

>"Master has specifically instructed me not to bother you," A4 said as he approached.

> “…She had a shelf I could not touch without her permission because I didn't "appreciate the weight of off-world spices"," Grievous idly chatted. This was met with a, "Nice" from A4-D. "Not that kind of spice," he replied but chuckled nonetheless.

>"Its fine, master, the force isn't even real," A4-D rationalized quite confidently.

>"Can you stop insulting either of our cultures long enough that we won't throw you in the deep water?" Grievous turned his head to the droid. "Probably," A4 replied very positively.

>"Any progress on the psychosis front?" A4-D asked. … "Boy, you're going to have to specify," Grievous pointedly replied. "Oh, I mean master Kenobi's headspace. You're far too gone to do anything about." After a brief pause Grievous just shrugged & accepted this.

>"I choose to be optimistic about this mostly because master is a black hole of positivity, but also because it would be at least 63% less entertaining here without master Kenobi," A4 reasoned to neither of them in particular.

>"-but where does it go?" A4-D was saying emphatically as Kenobi resurfaced. "The. Ground." Grievous replied in a manner indicating it was not the first time they had circled back to this conclusion. … "Explain evaporation to him," Kenobi suggested to Grievous as he sat down in his spot in the doorway … "Thank you, General Kenobi, it had not occurred to me to explain the water cycle. Repeatedly. For over an hour," Grievous said in the driest of sarcasm. "If this planet's rotation is eleven standard hours & that's minimum 4 hours of nonstop rain-" A4 rambled for a while about hours & volume & rates of atmosphere uv absorption before he abruptly stopped. He came back to sit at his master's back. "I don't know how to work the topography scanner," he said casually.

>"I don't need -babysitting-." A4 said indignantly. "I am a supervisor droid!"

>"Me?" A4-D paused in earnest. Nobody had ever asked him how he was operating. Many times that was because he told everyone how well he was doing at any perceived opportunity. But still!

>"Giving up galactic government secrets because a man is nice to you, A4?" the general asked as he had done so. "Aren't you?" A4 replied incredulously. The two exchanged a terse glance before Grievous shrugged his great shoulders.

>"Aw. Your needs," A4 had said as he retreated into the ship in an absentminded way, as if it was quaint that Obi-Wan had needs. They were met, even. It was just a reminder that A4 was not all onboard the Hippocratic Oath & his charges were usually more like pets to him than anything. Grievous kept his deadpan composure despite finding that hilarious.

> A4 stood just shy of the doorframe, just close enough to scan both of the generals, which he proceeded to do without permission. "You're both still alive. I'm such a good doctor," A4-D announced.

>"It is nice of you to help with your little arms, master Kenobi," A4 chimed to him with a nod, jostling his folded reed hat that he had not taken off since it was given to him.

> He was already in trouble so A4-D threw the saber as far in the opposite direction as his pistons could. "The force isn't real," he declared. Grievous was caught so off guard that, after a second of shocked silence, he started laughing.

The chaos of the moment was enough for Kenobi to miss as he attempted to grab his lightsaber back. Once he registered what A4 had done and then proclaimed, he shoved the droid with the Force, right into the base of the nearest tree and then looked out in the direction he'd thrown his weapon. In that moment, he could not possibly think of anyone worse to be stranded on a random little planet with.

Grievous took a minute to laugh next to hysterically until he had to stop to catch his breath. He picked A4 off the ground by his huge boxy head. "This is why no one fast tracked your field upgrades, you insufferable gremlin. Now, you will finish this by yourself. That is a direct order," the general rasped quite threateningly before dropping the droid. "Fine, master Kenobi wasn't helping much anyway- that's my hat. You gave it to me-" A4 dropped his attitude when he realized Grievous had taken his hat & put it on Kenobi. "The general giveth, the general taketh away," Grievous replied with a shrug of his great shoulders. He then swatted at Kenobi's shoulder with the back of his hand. "You drop that thing all the time, you shouldn't have trouble finding it, eh?"

>"At least he didn't maim anyone." He fell quiet for a moment & only jolted slightly when his internal comms crackled along the small speakers framing his faceplate. "Are you guys taking about me?" came A4's obnoxious voice.

> "Ugh. Fine." He stuffed the hat onto A4's big dumb head. "I can't treat you like a child." "Because I am mature." "Because children learn. You are programmed to be insufferable." "Satisfactory," A4 said as he sat himself in the pilot's seat beside them.

>"But Kenobi, really? He's just a human, looking like the most human human that was ever a human," A4 said, gesturing to the man sitting next to his master. Grievous had to shut his eyes for a second so that he did not laugh & encourage the droid's urges to be a little bastard. "EV A4-D, you should know the bar is very, very low. You're still functioning, aren't you? You think if I was any less desperate that you would be operational? No. Especially after," Grievous paused to cough & not laugh again, "you threw Kenobi's actual lightsaber off a cliff." It was still really funny to him. "Did it go off a cliff??" A4 asked excitedly, as if he were impressed with himself.

> "Master Kenobi wouldnt do that," A4 replied, trying & failing to sound assured. "I have rights." "You -literally- do not," Grievous shot back in a deadpan expression.

> "You don't have any friends, master. Master Kenobi is only being nice to you because you are feeding him & you're a giant murder cyborg," he said in the undue cold sassy way his voice modulator sounded.

> "Oh! That's going to bruise extensively! It will be colors, " he chirped rather excitedly.

> "Yes! IG-100-2.6 can rust a servo-" "IG-100-2.6 has literally never said a word in their life." "But they were thinking it," A4 insisted with suspicion...

> "You didn't have to. I would have just left him on the floor where he belongs." "That is because you have no sense of physical comfort, unit," Grievous rumbled disinterested. "No, I do, I just think it's funny to withhold it." "That is not better-"

> "I can't go into sleep mode when you guys keep saying things I want to know," A4 defended.

> "You're awfully expensive for a calculator, no?" "How dare-"

> "Very impressive that master has not stepped on or otherwise injured you sooner, master Kenobi," A4-D said. "What with him being 300 pounds of durasteel & you being a scant meatbag in comparison."

> "By all means get your environmental enrichment. It seems to be doing wonders for master's irritability," A4 said sounding only a little sassy about it. "Yes, Dooku never let me in the grass, therein stems all my behavioral problems," Grievous replied in absolute deadpan as he stood & offered Kenobi a hand.

> "Sheer numbers can only take you so far. Certainly no replacement for the adaptability of a warrior." "Wow, I am sitting right here," A4-D said, affronted.

> "Thank you for supporting my better vandalism through chemistry, gentlemen," A4 chimed.

> "I am still alive, am I not?" Grievous humored him. "You are! Even though you don't even want to be & even though the galaxy shares that sentiment. An excellent job," the droid said emphatically, very impressed with himself.

> "Is he going to keep talking the entire way back to Coruscant?" Anakin questioned as A4 got going about boring lairs and magnaguards.

> "Are the Jedi going to scrap us? All we've got vouching for us is master Kenobi & that might be out of trauma related psychosis," A4 said quite matter-of-factly, gesturing to Kenobi.

> "You have gossip, unit. While amusing, I don't think it's admissible in Republic high court," Grievous replied. A4 nodded as if he understood. "Such a shame. It's good stuff."

> "There you are A4, Coruscant: the center of the core worlds." Grievous rose from his seat, saying to the Jedi, "I will shut him off for the safety of your citizens & comms, no?" A4 objected but Grievous leaned down to power him off. He tapped the forehead of his faceplate against his with a small clink, muttering under his breath, "Good work, unit." They heard the power wind down then Grievous suddenly, in one swift motion, wrenched the droid's remaining boom arm off & speared it into the ship's console between the jedi. He briefly shrugged at them with a familiar look of desperation in his eyes, if not less furious.

"Go home, dovt'iin," he hissed. With one powerful kick he knocked the poor ship's side hatch into the air traffic & fully intended to follow. [Grievous escaped & left A4-D to his fate of being decommissioned by the Republic. RIP]

#sw rp #we love the worst droid ever #long post #37 battle droids #ev a4 d

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