Ep 0.5: "Reunion" [Open]

It wasn't that Rattrap didn't sorta like the big lug of a sub who'd fished them out of the ocean, it was just...dry land. He had a brand new appreciation for it.

And when that dry land happened to lead straight into a ground bridge, all the better. At this point, he didn't even care if it really led to the Autobots, or straight to Con headquarters; most of the water had run right out of his loose-plated frame, but Airazor was currently giving off equal amounts of water and misery, all those pretty, aerodynamic curves providing a hundred places for water to settle.

Not that he'd actually let on that that was why he hung back, sauntering into the bridge beside her rather than scurrying ahead.

"I'm tellin' ya, Wings," he said as they crossed the event horizon into the Autobot base, League following behind them, "just let th' big guy back there hang ya upside down fer a while, alla that'll just drain right out."

Airazor vented in exasperation, and Rattrap refrained from commenting on the fine spray of water produced, which made her next words all the more unfair. "Shut up, Rattrap."

A fraction of a nano-klik while Rattrap seriously considered that his recent soak in salt water had managed to short something vital...and then Airazor was throwing herself past him, and the absence of the low-key grief which had become a permanent part of her frequency over the vorns was enough to shock him back to himself.

Even if what he was seeing was im-slaggin-possible.

Rhinox staggered under the double impact, even though the two of them combined were a fraction of his mass. Rattrap was climbing without conscious thought, servos hooking into the edge of Rhinox's hip joint, pede to the side of his knee, quick boost and up, draped over the larger mech's shoulder as if it hadn't been been forever and Rhinox wasn't miraculously back from the dead.

"Big Green," and maybe there was just the slightest glitches in his vocalizer, "where th' slag have ya been?"

Rhinox.

Airazor pressed herself against the solid mass of him, arms wrapped as far as they could reach, her field thrown open to absorb every frequency and harmonic she could. Rhinox, as solid and steady and strut-deep decent as he had ever been, holding on precisely as tightly as he could without hurting her.

She, however, had no need to hold back, clinging to him with the full force of her hydraulic systems. And Rattrap...she could feel him just above her, EMF threatening to strobe into the visible spectrum, undoubtedly half wrapped around Rhinox's neck as she had seen him so many times in the past.

"Rattrap," he murmured shakily. "Airazor... Primus, I can't believe it... I missed you...."

Impossibly, she found a way to hold him a little tighter.

Awww, slag. Slag slag slag. Rattrap's spark constricted with agony, and he pulled himself just a little closer to his old friend, all but perching on Rhinox's broad shoulder now.

"What ya saw," he said, and his voice was shaking worse than Rhinox's, everything underscored with glyphs for guilt and horror and regret, "was every bit a th' Axalon I could dump off th' command hub." All of it, science modules turned weapons bays, auxiliary crew quarters, everything except the heart of the ship...and even that he'd barely scraped out to clear space. He and Airazor had used every trick he'd picked up while harassing Rhinox at work, plus a few he hadn't realized he'd learned, to patch the Axalon back to some level of space worthiness. "Wings managed ta catch up ta me. The rest a ya..."

His vocalizer shut down with a faint whine, and he leaned his helm against Rhinox's. "We looked, Big Green. I swear ta ya, we looked."

Airazor's EMF pulsed wordless affection toward the small mech, hoping to counter the mix of guilt and pain that was so unlike his usual cocky self. He had been brilliant, and stubborn, and later, later she'd tell Rhinox the things Rattrap wouldn't, about the cycles Rattrap had gone without recharge in favor of stubbornly nursing the Axalon along, about his stubborn refusal to try and steal another ship because thisis what they died for, slag it, this ship, us, we ain't throwin' it away like so much scrap .

Later. For now, she simply rested her helm against Rhinox and reveled in his existence.

Rhinox was right; their luck had lasted far longer than they could have expected, not a real warrior among them. Just Rhinox, with the spark of a poet and the will to keep them all safe via weapons and armor and an exploration vessel converted to a battleship literally on the fly; Rattrap, with a score of skills he never should have had, and the willingness to share them; the others with unexpected talents, like their historian turned tactician. They had bucked the odds more times than she could count, but that didn't make it any easier for the odds to have caught up with them.

Yet here they were, bucking the odds once more in having found each other. And bucking the odds even more, if...

She looked up at Rhinox, optics bright with a hope she hadn't felt in far too long. "Rattrap picked up some Autobot transmissions," she said. "Is it true? Is the Prime really here on Earth?"

“Rhinox?”

The voice originated from the adjoining corridor, mildly surprised and querying. From around the corner, the tall, Iacon-built frame of the aforementioned Autobot leader came to join the trio of Bots in the control room. Having taken a somewhat incomplete report from League about a pair of extremely damp Autobots in need of a debrief, he had expected to find Rhinox at the groundbridge keeping an optic on their guests. Upon entering the room however, he caught the tail end of a conversation about himself which was common enough a topic, but the tonal glyphs and the excitement in the trio’s vocalizations were… those of long time friends.

Curious and somewhat bemused, Optimus came to stand before the group, bright blue optics moving over each of them in turn. “I would welcome each of you as friends here and express my relief at your survival,” he said very calmly. He then looked to Rhinox. “But it seems that Rhinox has done so already and with more right than I. I am Optimus Prime, and from the sound of it, this reunion is more than the meeting of long separated allies."

With one arm freed by Rattrap's straddling his shoulder, Rhinox could, and did, facepalm. "Please don't mind him, Prime. He's - well, he's Rattrap." That was really all that could be said.

"And this is Airazor," he added, gently squeezing the flier's shoulder before loosening his arm to let her escape and greet the Prime on her own, if she wished. "Both survivors of Team Axalon, recently returned to me. To us." His engine rumbled with love and pride.