Ep 0.5 - Post Refreshment Syndrome (closed)

((OOC: I like it! xD ))



It wasn't the internal alarm that woke him up, it was the smell of medical grade sterilizer.

Skydive's optics flashed online, some part of his processor acknowledging the mental note he'd written himself... almost fourteen hours ago. Just in front of him, a large canister of Cybertronian build glared at him with a label in black and white, the contrast sending shards of pain into his helm. He winced, groaning a curse into the darkness. As soon as he moved to push himself to his feet, though, the lights snapped on.

His head pounded.

His optics went back offline as he tried to sort himself out. First step, remember what he did to get here. He couldn't. The last thing he remembered was sitting with Blaster and making a toast to something that had seemed to make sense. Wonderful.

Eyes shut, he hoisted himself to his pedes, stumbling only because some metal crates and spare parts he must have spilled got underfoot. Pausing, he checked his systems - still quite overenergized; the high grade he consumed was still coursing through him without much of anywhere to release the pent up fuel. However, it had stabilized in his tanks, and with energy readings at a hundred percent, he was more than ready for a good flight. The only thing wrong then was the damage the stuff had done to his systems. His Shadow system to be precise. He ached all over, but his processor was screaming. It took some serious self control to not whimper when he brought his visor back online, the bright orange that almost always flooded his vision suddenly only adding to his hurt. His battle software would also need to be scanned for anomalies, as he vaguely remembered how they'd powered up against his will.

He quickly picked up his mess and made his way to the door.

It didn't take long to get to the control room, and by then he thought he looked presentable. Tired, of course, and a little haywire because of the extra energy, but otherwise presentable. He greeted the other autobots on his way in and soon found himself next to Airazor.

"Hey. I am very sorry I'm late, I - Well." He touched a servo to his helm as the brightness of the command center proved too much for his visual processing system. His optics being directly hardwired into his battle computer didn't help, his software glitching and sending false aerial reports to his visor in response. "I seem to have made a mistake in joining a much more energy tolerant mech in drinking last night."

There was no point in holding back the truth. He wasn't that stubborn or proud, and it was obvious to those who had suffered the same ailment before what he was going through. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"Just let me grab my wings and I'll - Oh, wait." He heated slightly, embarrassed. Holy frag, he really had forgotten his wings! He refused to look behind him at his most important of appendages, lest he make himself look even more like a fool.

Skydive hesitated a moment before leaping, transforming, and flying through the ground bridge, the bright green turning his blue and white paintjob a deep teal. Airazor's voice reached him from the other side. Her voice, her glyphs, were reading a little too cheerful for his day so far and he doubted it was going to get bett -

Airazor's ping reached him just as he exited the bridge. Unfortunately, the sun also hit him, and the pain that pounded through his processor at that moment caused him to startle. And 'startle', in this case, meant plummeting nose cone over thruster straight down a hundred feet before catching himself.

"East!?" he exclaimed once he'd recovered enough to fly straight. While his optics were hidden in alt mode, they still functioned to process visual information, so that sun didn't quite feel like it was up in the sky. It felt like it was in his head. He groaned.

"But it - Why did it change?" There was a beat as he analyzed this with some revelation. "You changed it." It wasn't a question.

His voice did not often convey annoyance, but some glyphs made their way into his tone. The resulting message was something akin to glaring daggers.

"I should have walked right out of there," he grumped quietly, referring to Blaster's little hide-away. He picked up altitude and took position at Airazor's 3 o'clock.

With relief Skydive noticed their direction shift, but it was only slight. The all pervasive sunlight was still eating at his delicate optical sensors.

"I suppose not," he answered wryly with an invisible grimace through the throbbing that was a constant staccato against his very soul. At her question, he reflected on how he'd gotten into this state and felt both embarrassed and justified. "I found Blaster in some out-of-the-way room. He looked positively miserable so I stopped in to see if there was anything I could do. I ended up drinking with him and ... Well. I knew I probably couldn't hold High Grade down, but I overestimated my tolerance. Three cubes and I ended up passing out in a closet somewhere."

He didn't know what happened to Blaster, but seeing as he was on the duty roster and no one had come interrogating Skydive for his whereabouts yet, he figured he was alright. He might not have been much help getting cratered in fifteen kliks flat, but at least the guy hadn't been alone.

Still hurting quite a bit, Skydive noticed the shift in Airazor's treatment of the subject. His impression of Blaster was likely not accurate, considering the amount of High Grade the mech had downed before he even got there; he remembered quite a few cubes strewn about. However, the shorter bot's attitude...He seemed friendly enough but he obviously had some issues. If Airazor was right, and she probably was, his behavior then was out of character, and only proved how depressed he'd really been.

"Uh...I can't remember much after my second cube, but from what he was saying..." He paused, unsure if he should continue. One mech's problems might not be anyone else's business. But then he remembered that he was brand new. Brand new. Airazor was more likely to treat this with the sensitivity it deserved then some 'Bots he'd run into on base, if her friendly demeanor was anything to go by, and really he didn't know what to do with such information anyway. Besides, if he told someone who knew him better adn was more familiar with the dynamics on base, maybe something could be done to help the poor mech. He continued, "He was...unhappy with Ironhide and Cleaver's sparkling news. I asked him if it was because a sparkling could be vulnerable during war, or that it could be used against the Autobots - hostage take over kind of thing, I mean. But he said no, it was cohort stuff."

His companion's roll made him flip, too, but the action caused his tanks to heave, so he righted himself quickly and silently nursed his systems back to normalcy. He wondered if there was any way they could race or something to burn off the extra fuel so his self repair could finally kick in and get the damage to his fine circuits fixed.

"He explained something about...Freedom? A femme he'd loved with an illness - Primus apostheosis...apotheosis...something like that, I'm sorry. He said she died saving his life," he finished, ashamed at his inability to remember.

"Oh, yes, he did say he wasn't part of Ironhide's cohort," Skydive recalled softly. Airazor went quiet again as she commed someone. Turned out to be Rattrap, who the flier hadn't met yet. He wasn't sure he wanted to, if what Airazor said was true. "Thank you. That's really what my goal had been in the first place. The cubes...Not so much."

Taking a turn on their projected route, he decided to fly lower, the descending motion more relaxing on his body than straight flight. If it was possible, he was feeling better. But only slightly.

As he fell, he reflected on what he'd learned about Blaster and tried to sort out what his role in this was. He wasn't sure where he stood, but that only confirmed that he'd need to talk to Blaster again. That is, if Blaster wanted to talk to him after spilling his darkest thoughts to a stranger.

"Airazor, I admit...I don't know much about sparklings. Blaster said the same thing - that a sparkling wouldn't be a security hazard. I just figured - well. I dunno." Thinking too hard to explain his naivete hurt. He tried a different route. "I was brought online well after the war began. I've never seen one, nor have I heard much about them. This thing with Blaster. Did he lose one? And his mate? Is that what he meant by cohort stuff?"

He felt badly that he was so uninformed, that he sounded so ignorant. But he really hadn't had time to learn anything but to fight, blow Seekers out of the sky, and review flight records. His free time was usually spent poring over history records and interesting fiction. He was a highly specialized mech, and his interests were similarly specialized. There was a lot he didn't know.

So, sparklings were a commodity? Why? Why not a fully fledged mech? What was the appeal of a toddler-like transformer? Why would someone put a bot perfectly capable of being fully functional into a limited body space? He didn't understand, and frankly the idea didn't appeal to him. He didn't rush to judge, though. He knew little on the subject and it wasn't his business to form an opinion about something he didn't comprehend fully.

He kept his questions to himself, something in her tone staying his voice. But he'd like to ask later. Maybe he could speak to the medic, perhaps he was a safer option. He didn't want to take their conversation anywhere dark, Airazor's words sounding just nostalgic enough that he felt uncomfortable continuing with a line of questions.

He kept fee falling, his nose slowly starting to point towards the ground, which was coming up fast. He was aware of this, and wasn't worried.

"So Ironhide's cohort is made up of some rather tough mechs, then." It wasn't a question, and the statement threw him back to the height of the war, to his cohort. "And Blaster was pondering over regrets, and loss. Will he be okay? Even with all that high grade he seemed to hold himself together pretty well.."

He paused, thinking a moment, just remembering something else he'd wanted to ask since he'd been told of this sparkling deal. How exactly was this sparkling was being made, the Autobots being stranded with limited technology as it was? Maybe that was another question for the medic.

Airazor's smaller form was just above him. He turned so he faced the sky while she faced the ground, and mirrored her movements precisely.

"Airazor, I'm wondering... Even though we're on patrol..." He wasn't quite sure how to ask, his headache not helping him think. "Are we allowed to - How fast can we take this patrol route?" he finished. He needed to burn some fuel, but he hated the idea of slacking off on his duties just to do so. So far, the flight had been quiet, but that didn't mean they couldn't still be caught by surprise.

Skydive would have nodded, but instead he simply extended an agreeable field. As Airazor pulled away, he spun, waiting until the last possible moment to force a stop, flip backwards, and shoot back into the air. He was still worried, despite Airazor's words, but that was Skydive being Skydive. Faced with someone else's burdens, he continued to fret until he saw for himself things had calmed down. That had been his role within his own cohort and he supposed it had carried over even after all this time. He supposed he should let this go and hope to meet Blaster on better terms later.

As he caught up to Airazor, he did a barrel roll over her and settled to her left.

"I think I'll take you up on that," he replied, tone somehow getting across a cringe at pulling a stunt with half-baked circuits. "I'm hoping a good lap would help my head ache. We can meet up at the next check point."

With that, he descended, to put distance between them, and then rocketed forward, that extra fuel finally being put to use and diffusing from his body. As soon as he was out of sight of Airazor, he'd try some man-made aerobatics to burn even more steam and get this mini-nuclear reactor out of his helm.

He resorted to his comm system to say, "Airazor, thank you for answering my questions. You've put my mind to rest on some matters."