Ep 1 - I'm Feeling Alive (Megatron/Roulette-Closed)

[Deleted]

((OOC: Set some time after Online, Off the Grid))

The air was thin on top of the Nemesis and cold. Night was chasing the ship through the hazy atmosphere but for now, dawn still held sway. If Roulette had a mind for it, she would have appreciated the beauty of the sunset. Every warm hue of the spectrum painted hard angles and attempted to soften the menace of the ship. But the femme was glaring down at her hands as if they'd betrayed her.

Weak light played off of the black paint job on her fingers. The appendages were steady and didn't tremor. Not now. But they had shaken when she'd awoken in the medbay oh so recently. She'd clutched at the frame to hide the slight shaking, mortified someone would see. How hard it was to hide such shame...

With a grimace she tightened her fingers into a tight fist until the joints creaked. She was fine! Physically sound thanks to Knockout's skillful care. She'd readily fled the medbay as soon as she could, giving anyone who happened to watch a show of indifference. But that was the rub, wasn't it? She didn't feel indifferent. She felt...off. She felt tarnished.

Imperfect. Tampered with. Used. Oh, she felt so used and soiled.

Gritting her dental plates, she rubbed at her optic and paced forward a few steps. The phantom invasive presence still lingered even if Knockout had removed all such foreign matter. She couldn't shake the crawling sensation that another thing was inside her, watching, always watching. It was a psychosomatic reaction. This she knew. She wasn't stupid. But she couldn't get rid of it. Not yet.

Even Shockwave's glacial presence through the patch hadn't burned it away like she'd hoped. The scientist could be as cleansing as a burning scalpel but he'd failed to fix her problems. And she hated him for it. Why couldn't he fix her? He fixed everything! What was wrong with her?!

I cannot be this broken at the hands of humans! I refuse to think it!

With a snarl, she turned just as suddenly as she'd stopped and drew a pistol as she turned. Without a second passing, she fired at the target anchored to the ship fifty paces away. The slugs slammed into the target hard enough to rock it back a few inches..all but one. The last shot slipped wide and splintered the wooden support of the target. She didn't have to trek the distance to the target to see her results. They were the same as they'd been the last ten times.

Since the academy she'd been able to hit the center of a target with relative ease. She'd honed the skill, lovingly practiced and taught herself patience and precision. High marks and praise by peers and accolades alike had boosted her ego. So she knew what she was worth. She was a hell of a sharpshooter and could strip a screw from a metal plate at twenty paces with one shot.

The target's center glyph was free of any marks. The margin was peppered with shots of varying relation to one another. She was a sharpshooter without any precision.

My targeting system is slagged... With a groan of dismay she sank down to a kneeling position and touched the plating of the ship as if for support. What good was a Decepticon sharpshooter without precision?

I can't tell anyone...there's nothing for it. I'll just have to recalibrate...

She hung her head and started to scratch out calibration sequences feather light onto the metal of her thigh.

[Deleted]

Despite his size, Megatron could move in relative silence when it suited him. He'd stepped out onto the flight deck as the sharpshooter had taken her aim, watching from a distance as she missed every single round.

It wasn't unexpected: though Knock Out had rectified the physical damage, and Shockwave cleared away any corrupted lines of codes that might interfere with the harmony between her scope and sight, the damage MECH had done could not be erased as if she were a machine.

Fairwinds had shut herself inside her cupboard after being discharged from the Medbay, surrounding herself with her treasures and vices but, as he could sense over the carrier link, finding no pleasure in them. Like Roulette, her hardware had been restored and her coding checked (by Soundwave, this time; the spymaster more familiar with the particular peculiarities of cassettes), but her data processing and extraction processes were clumsy and with a higher rate of failure. She said it felt like her mind wasn't her own again, yet, but that it was 'cool' and 'no biggie' before going into hiding.

Trauma in war was a daily occurrence, and there were procedures for the worst of it and a 'bear up' attitude for the rest. Megatron would not pander to it, firmly of the belief that Decepticons dictated their own strengths.

He'd also lost his cannon arm more than once by Optimus Prime's sword, and knew perfectly well the frustrating process of recalibrating something that had once been easy.

If Roulette had made her mark, he'd have left her. As it was, he crossed the Nemesis's armoured back.

"Again," he intoned, watching her delicate frame rise from the deck. At her pause, he arched an optical ridge. "Once you've made that calibration, try again."

[Deleted]

Humans were curious in their design. Stimuli moved their body through brain synapses and chemical signals. Startled, a human would feel a hormonal cascade that prime their bodies into action. It was a double edged blade. While the body was ready to fight or flight, the flood of catecholamines could hinder as easily as a sever wound. Tunnel vision, shaking, and a whole host of automatic (unavoidable) symptoms would assault the body at once leaving the human with no real means to think.

Roulette was not a human. She could be startled just as easily, as evidenced by the start she displayed when Megatron spoke. But there was no flood of chemicals to disarm her mind. Her body responded with tightening of limbs and a slew of commands in her processor just ready to be heeded. Her field felt as jagged as a bed of broken granite.

With some effort she relaxed and snatched the gun from its resting place before taking aim. Just as he bid. She knew she was going to miss before she even pulled the trigger. The calibration was one of many. Knowing, however, didn't make the action any less sour. With a ugly frown she took aim and fired.

And missed.

Slowly she lowered her arm to her side and looked at the Warlord over her shoulder. There was absolutely no way she could meet his gaze. The center of his chest was as far as she'd raise her optics. She wanted to ask how Windy was but felt that would be crossing an unspoken line. Should she beg forgiveness? Curiously (and perhaps a little alarming) she found herself without words for once.

[Deleted]

The miss was not surprising - the obstacle before Roulette would not be overcome easily.

She didn't look at her commander, and Megatron didn't look at her. His gaze remained on the target, analysing the ballistics. The red sun vanished behind a hull spike, and when the Nemesis had cruised on to reveal the local star on the horizon once more, he spoke.

"Fairwinds speaks highly of you."

The solid thuds of his footfalls began again, taking his bulk past her and towards where the target had been set. Without ceremony or preamble, Megatron placed himself between the majority of the strayed shots and her weapon.

He stood, facing her, a faint smile curling the outermost edges of his mouth. "I... trust, that her high regard is not misplaced."

His features schooled into neutrality, and the former gladiator stood with all the calm strength of the hull beneath his pedes.

"Again." Megatron inclined his helm, optics narrowing. "But slower."

[Deleted]

The Nemesis could have fallen out from under her and she wouldn't have been surprised at this point. (Seriously. She hated ships and believed they all had the goal of crashing into a fiery collision at some point. But that known fact aside...) Windy had talked about her to Megatron? Why?!

Oh, you idiot. Of course she did. Why wouldn't she? You just have to buddy up to the femme who would make Chucky mild in comparison. Stop trying to make friends!

She was about to clear up this whole mistake, because clearly Windy had misplaced her regards. Roulette was no one and completely-oh slag why was he moving towards the target? Any lingering qualms she'd had about MECH's mucking about her mind was rammed violently to the side by the absolute inner panic this one mech was inspiring.

Is he trying to kill me through stress alone?!

At that point, she really did want to shoot him. On principle. Because she couldn't aim for slag. Because he was a perfect target (certainly bigger than the round glyph mocking her from a scant distance) and because a stupid, smug human could get to her and leave her so...pathetic. With a sharp snap, she spun the chamber of pistol and took aim, rapidly assessing the last calibrations before firing.

The clang of the bullet against metal rang too loud in the new night. She cringed and covered her mouth with her other hand.

"...I missed, sir."

[Deleted]

"I would trust so."

Megatron didn't move. Though powerful as projectiles went, Roulette's pistol was hardly a threat to him. The absolute worst she could do was shoot him in the optic, and he had another of those.

The bullet had hit at the right level for the target, but wide once again. It struck the upper part of the warlord's shin with a spark, ricocheted up into the recessed joint of his knee before it had veered off out of sight.

Roulette wasn't cowering, but she was alarmed. Her focus had shifted entirely from MECH, what had been done to her, and any associated tangents of self-pity and shame onto him and the gun.

Better.

"Review, recalibrate, and do it again." He inclined his head, something dark and cruel sweeping across his visage. "If you would prefer a smaller target to avoid, I can summon Fairwinds."

[Deleted]

The offhand remark actually made a laugh catch in her throat before she could stop herself. Coyly she turned to the side, hand sweeping from her mouth to the pistol, as if inspecting for damage. Laughing in front of Megatron, of all the Mech's on the ship, was startling and threw her off balance even more. Was mirth allowed right now? She'd just shot him.

She debated switching to another set of ammunition she kept on spare. Practice with the drones required finesse and a daring of fun. So she'd had Shockwave help her create a form of "paint balls" in lieu of actual bullets to pepper the troops with. But the problem with the dummy rounds were their weight and accuracy. On a good day she had to compensate for their differences and they would do absolutely nothing for her at the moment. Well, except for painting her Warlord a festive rainbow of colors.

"Review, recalibrate, and do it again." He inclined his head, something dark and cruel sweeping across his visage. "If you would prefer a smaller target to avoid, I can summon Fairwinds."

Alarmed, she turned fully to look at him with wide optics. What is your game? Are you testing me? Trying to punish me? Irritation crackled through her like static as she spun the pistol once on her finger in a practiced move.

"I think I've done enough damage to Windy for the time being." Instead of trying to take the shot from the same position she'd been using, she brought her other arm up and laid her forearm straight in front of her to balance the pistol on. The last had veered wide by a small margin but she didn't want to make the same mistake. Unfortunately she was still trying to zero in on the right calibration which left her with little choices. She could take another shot, likely hit him again but be that much closer to the bulls-eye. Or she could aim to the other side, throw what little progress she'd made out the window and hit the ship. Somehow she didn't think he'd be as forgiving about that damage.

Oh, please don't let me hit him again. With a moue of displeasure, she gently squeezed the trigger and waited for the sound of impact.

((OOC: Up to Megamun as to where the shot hits XD ))

[Deleted]

It did hit him again, but it was far more of a glancing blow than before, skimming off the edge of his shinplate like a pebble over water.

Megatron made a sound that could be described as a vaguely approving grunt. "Better."

He was satisfied to see her making tangible efforts to improve her aim, undeterred by the added pressure of his presence. Roulette would not disappoint him by choice. He hoped that the extra incentive atop her usual determination would see those calibrations made with swifter results.

Soundwave forwarded a status report to him -all systems operating within normal perameters, and no sightings of MECH from the Vehicon patrols- with an inquiry glyph tagged on the end. Megatron sent back an acknowledgement and notification that the scene the spymech was observing was under control. That he was being shot at with his consent/encouragement.

His optics drifted upwards, to the stars emerging behind her in a broad canvas across the Nemesis's back. So strange when they had arrived on this planet, but the constellations were a navigational staple now. "Fairwinds is a robust Decepticon, and like us all, no stranger to threat or injury. In her mind, as in my own, she is confident of where blame lies. And it is not with you."

Megatron regarded her again, another flicker of mirth crossing his field. "You would be... quite aware if that were not the case."

A pause, then, as if inspecting his words, and he spoke again to the stars. "She has inquired after you from her self-imposed confinement."

He left it at that, and nodded to the pistol. "Again."

[Deleted]

Being a Decepticon, Roulette couldn't melt into a gooey pile of relief. Oh, but she wanted to. She wasn't to be held at fault for the damage MECH had dealt them. Being caught, she could deal with. That was her fault and they'd paid for it. But there was nothing she could have done to prevent the experiments dealt to them by the hands of the humans. She was, for all intents and purposes, in the clear.

So why did she still feel a sour stab of guilt at the very bottom of that relief?

She was also aware that inasmuch as he could, Megatron was giving her leeway to inquire about Windy. Which was surprising and mildly exasperating. Couldn't Decepticons, just once, speak plainly? Did they have to do everything so cloak and dagger?

"I would like to speak to her again when she's ready...and Shockwave isn't hounding me for reports." She thoughtfully hefted the pistol up beside her helm and toyed with the hammer while she reconfigured from the last rounds data. Her progress was pleasing, if not just a little stressful under Megatron's guidance. She didn't have the spark in her to think about how much trouble she was going to have to go trying to recalibrate the other side...

Resuming the same stance as before, she took careful aim and caressed the trigger. This time the bullet slammed into the target and not armor plating. Not a bulls-eye but she'd managed to actually hone in closer to the glyph.

[Deleted]

Megatron heard the improvement more than saw it - the clean whine of hydraulics, the snap-bang of the shot fired, and then the crumpling crack as the target was breached. Roulette's stance was easier, finding confidence in her improvement, but it was tempered with a cool professionalism.

"That would be beneficial," he murmured, low and somewhat brooding. "She has been more notably... disturbed by MECH's assault than any other she has suffered. It transpires that her optimism knows boundaries, and now she has met them."

The Commander's trailing off into silence seemed more like a conclusion to his thoughts than a loss for words. His chassis was as solid and impenetrable as an anvil with the exception of the recessed groove at the base. Quite without his intent, the interlocking plates adapted to receive and dock a cassette twitched and tightened.

Sharp optics returned to the femme, his attention refocused swift and sharp upon the barrel of the pistol. Megatron did not utter 'again', though the order was implicit.

He waited until she rose her arm before speaking again.

"Have you ever been held captive before?"

[Deleted]

Shock flickered through her processor like a small tremor. Not because her aim was improving, but because she was feeling relatively at ease in Megatron's presence. She shouldn't. Hell, she'd shot him not a moment before and he could very well change his mind about her usefulness and pitch her from the ship.

Which begged the question of why he was even bothering talking to her. She was a nobody, in relevance to the ship. Shockwave could find another proxy, an eager drone, to replace her. They wouldn't resent the position as much as she did. To Megatron, she should have been nothing. He should have kept walking when he'd seen her practicing. Or he should have flung her useless hide from the ship from the moment she'd returned, injured and compromised.

So why hadn't he? She stared at him a moment as he mused on Fairwind's condition. Perhaps she wasn't looking at him the right way before. Her mind, terrified of what he was, painted broad strokes of what he should be. Just a tyrant. Just a war lord. Dangerous and unpredictable. But as she looked at him now, she rapidly had to rethink everything she thought she'd been so sure of about him. He wasn't just anything. And that threw her for a mental loop. When he looked at her again, he caught her staring gaze and she jerked away as if burned.

Snapping into position with the precision of a toy soldier, she aimed for the target. But before she could fire, he spoke again and she had to look at him even if she really didn't want to.

"Have you ever been held captive before?"

"...no, sir. Been close a few times but I always managed to get away."

[Deleted]

Megatron nodded fractionally, sounding his acknowledgement with a grunt. He had no interest in inquiring further.

Nor in acting as an anti-target for her recallibrations now that she was closer to her mark. He didn't step outwards in his advance, but walked straight towards Roulette and then past her.

The Commander stopped at her shoulder, pausing apparently on a whim. After a moment, Megatron turned to loom directly behind her, placing her well within his mountainous field. The heat from his systems was intense amidst the cold air whipping along the Nemesis, the ship moving on endlessly. It had been a long time since they'd stopped for anything other than 'bridging up fuel.

"Once more," Megatron intoned, and the blunted lilt in his voice was gone, sharpened back to its usual timbre.

[Deleted]

Flowers wilted under harsh conditions. Too much sunlight would fry a plant and burn their leaves. Too much water would drown their roots and choke the fragile stem. Roulette was feeling very much like a daisy. She thought she was in the clear. The brief, flicker of hope nearly buoyed her off the ship. He was leaving!

Only he wasn't leaving? Oh dear primus, why did he stop? Didn't he have warlord duties and things? Ohprimusno he was invading her bubble.

The humans had a silly proxemic wherein they imagined an invincible space around them that was theirs and theirs alone. Anyone breaching their space uninvited, was breaching their personal boundaries. It was a rudimentary thought process but Roulette liked it for its simpleness and peppy name. Her own personal bubble!

Megatron apparently didn't believe in personal boundaries or bubbles because he was crushing hers. Not only was he physically intimidating, his field was just suffocating to the point of panic inducing. How could she ever have thought anyone at MECH would be scarier than this? It was all she could do to keep track of her own whits and not bleed out sheer miserypanicthreat in her own field. She wanted to step away but didn't dare because she knew better.

She didn't like her back to him at all. The armor plating along her shoulders and down her back shifted minutely as if trying to prepare for an attack. At his words she shifted into her earlier stance, one arm by her side and the gun hand raised. Mortification blended with the heightened panic. Her arm was shaking enough to be noticeable.

[Deleted]

The warlord demonstrated no mercy, did not yield even a micron. Megatron left Roulette waiting.

There was more nuance to the elecromagnetic conveyance of fear than many realized, a texture and flavour both individual and subjective. Mecha like Overlord relished the resonances of terror, horror and despair like fine High Grade, sensorally attuned to a degree few ever experienced. Megatron found no pleasure in fear, but he was keenly attuned to it. It gave insight, clues, and he was always cultivating that which may be of future use.

Roulette's fear was tart within the scope of his field, sharp and consuming. She was embarrassed to be shaking, and that seemed to alarm her more. Given the debriefing and Shockwave's report regarding her internment, Megatron was inclined to believe that she had not felt anything like this whilst in MECH's possession.

The sharp-shooter was loyal to the Decepticons, to him, and that loyalty was underscored with horror at the mere thought of appearing to have betrayed him. Megatron's reputation had long surpassed the need to... illuminate upon the consequences of treachery. What he did to Starscream was quite merciful, in the scale of things...

Roulette's fear would not send her running back to MECH; it would make her a better Decepticon. One who would not allow herself to be taken captive by inferior organics ever again. She would also want to prove herself to him, Megatron mused as he sifted through the emanating charge, and a fervent Decepticon was particularly dangerous.

Her trembling came somewhat under her control, and her finger tightened about the trigger. Megatron spoke before she pulled, watching the extended weapon.

"Spend your next shift correcting your targeting. A sniper who cannot aim reliably is of no use to me."

[Deleted]

I knew it. I slagging knew it! I knew he was going to play that card!

She wanted to hit the dead center of the target. To blow the tiny cross right off of the glyph and prove to him a point. She wasn't useless and she wasn't damaged. Pure anger, as stinging as red hot candies, crackled through her underscoring the fear. She wanted many tiny, unfocused things not within her grasp.

The target rocked back on it's base from the shot. The bulls-eye remained as illusive to her as a mythical and utterly stupid unicorn. Close but not yet. Not yet.

Irritated and impudent, she clenched her fingers around the grip of the pistol and fought not to fling the damned thing across the ship. Not only could she not have one bedamned fit to vent some of the frustration out, she couldn't even move away from him! Moving meant a myriad of transgressions. Step away = she didn't trust him. Step away = she found him repelling. Step away without permission = not permitted. Step away, turn around and kick him in the knee as hard as she could = finding a new face after he smacked it off of her. All she could do was stand before him and try to wrangle in the hellish cocktail of fear and frustration.

"Yes, sir."