Flashback – “Malfunction” – Closed

[Deleted]

“We didn’t build you,” Alpha-43 was snarling, plates heating, EMF spiking, engines revving, “so you could fragging get arrested by the smelt-sucking law-bots for felony crimes! A FELONY! You are lucky, you piece of misshapen, sharewear, that your brother knew enough law jibberish to get you off with a warning because if I were them I’d have spark-shucked you in the street for that slag!”

Alpha-43 (the lead of a small engineering cohort out of South Kaon) had Phi-2’s face in his hand, metal denting with the pressure. This was not the first time Phi-2 would take dents off his fingers, nor the last. This was, in fact, the 126th infraction the new-frame had committed in the last four orns. When all this earned him was a nephite blue glare, ugly with hatred, Alpha drove a massive pile-driver fist straight into his face and knocked him to the floor.

“You think this is funny, slag-face? It’s bad enough you every move is a malfunction and now you’re dragging Phi-1 into it too?”

“Well, actually,” said Phi-1, who up until the face-punching had been reasonably docile. His blue optic sparkled with psychotic impudence and before his cohort mates could stop him (and they never could) he launched his speech. “He didn’t really drag me, Alpha-43, sir, boss-mech. See. There was mutual dragging. We dragged each other and since it was a shared effort I feel I should be credited with my fair share of dragging as I put quite a lot of time and effort and energon into the design, planning and execution of the slag that got us arrested. I’m actually quite proud. We technically committed three felony offenses if you count that thing I said about Primus and that enforcer’s ‘facing panels…”

The next punch took Phi-1 straight to the floor with his brother.

“S’up, bro?” he said, before they were both dragged back to their pedes. It was gearing up to be a landmark bad day.

[sunstreaker]

Gamma-32 was the cohort's quartermaster and a very large mech with servos the size of I-beam clamps. He was also the one who mechhandled the Phi's back to their pedes by the scruffs of their necks, lifting them as easily as a pair of unruly sparklings. The warning sign yellow mech also never raised his voice, which seemed to make his ire that much more fearsome to the whole of the group. Except for these two. Somehow they defied every edict, program, and control that should be having them ducking their heads and scurrying about like good little workers. "Shut your fool mouth or you'll be permanently muted, got it?" To further make his point, he gave both Phi's a good solid shaking, and then unceremoniously dropped them to remain standing or topple over as they saw fit. He was not in the mood to help either of the little bastards out with anything beyond shoving them back into Alpha's reach.

Innocent victim of his brother's manipulation or not, Phi-1 was wearing that slag sucking grin that irritated the ever loving scrap out of his betters and was about to get it caved in when Phi-2 erupted.

Snarling like an enraged beast, the normally clumsy mech intercepted the punch meant for his brother, taking it on one heavy shoulder and adding another dent to the dirty copper-brown plating as both bots toppled to the ground with a resounding crash. Servos curled tight in the way he'd always noticed Alpha's had been when they came flying in his direction, Phi-2 took advantage of the lead bot's shock and began to pummel him incessantly. Curses and fists flew for whole nano-kliks before Gamma could even think to react. This should not be happening and yet, their malfunction was beating their foreman, energon already beginning to seep thickly from his mouth and the cracks in the mesh of his face.

Reality finally penetrating his shocked stupor, Gamma charged forward to snatch up the rogue bot, folding his arms around the other's shoulders and hauling him off the fallen mech. Still ranting incomprehensibly, rage blitzing his vocalizer with heavy static, the younger bot lashed out with vicious kicks until he was hauled completely out of range. The backwash of rage through the Phi's bond was incandescent, all consuming, wanting only to make the other mech hurt like he was. It was a primal thing, lending the young bot a monstrous strength as he attempted repeatedly to get out from under Gamma's huge weight. "Get your aft over here moron and calm him down," the quartermaster called, his voice somehow loud and commanding without sounding like he was yelling as he struggled mightily with Phi-2 and pinging a STAT distress call to their cohort's medic and a few others just for the extra hands. There was no way in the Pit he was going to let go of this glitch.

[Deleted]

“Why?” Phi-1 asked a single syllable question but it was thirty-five harmonics shading contempt, disgust, pride, and half a dozen other linguistic complexities that a mech of his function class should have had no use for. He stood to his pedes again, the aura of his EM waves spiking dark and flashing hot. “I’m not his fraggin’ keeper. You want him calm, you calm him down. Maybe don’t piss him off so much if you don’t like your doors dinged in.”

Several cohort members present simply stared at this. Alpha-43 seemed at a total loss for exactly a full nano-click because up until this moment where Phi-1 openly approved of his brother’s defiance of his pre-programmed function set, the glitches in his personality matrix, Phi-2’s violence, his inability to network and suddenly… Alpha realized that the truly defiant of the pair was not dented, dim-witted, Phi-2.

Phi-1was clearly just better at covering his tracks when he broke the rules. Alpha move directly into Phi-1’s personal space EMF throwing up against his a second before he caught the younger build bot by the shoulder. “That’s it. You are being reassigned to breaker duty for the next three orns and glitch-wit is getting his processor examined. I’ve had it up to here with you two encouraging one another in your incompetence and DON’T EVEN THINK OF INTERRUPTING ME YOU LITTLE GLITCH!” He gripped tighter, but Phi-1 was just glaring at him. “Gamma. Get Circuits and set up an appointment for Thing Two. Now.”

[sunstreaker]

A glitchmouse nibbling on wiring could have been heard in the silence that followed that single little question, and Gamma stared in open mouthed shock that the mech could even ask it, let alone of someone who outranked him in the cohort hierarchy. It was Phi-2’s snicker that echoed into the silence though, earning him a cuff across the back of the helm for his trouble which started the struggle between him and the quartermaster all over again. “Hn, sure thing boss,” the words came out strained sounding as he sent off another message to Circuits to just forget even showing up and set up their repair bay for another cranial exam for the malfunction.

It took the big mech a handful of ‘clicks to realize that Thing 2 had gone still as a retrorat caught in a spotlight beneath him. He was about to roll off when the unnaturally quiet Phi proved further defiance, optics wide and pleading as he looked up in the direction of Phi-1 as much as was possible at this angle. “No. I’m not going.”

The words were tight with tension and fear, repeated like a growling mantra as Gamma wrestled the copper bot to his pedes, each run through growing louder and louder until Phi-2’s voice was contending with Alpha’s for sheer volume. His struggles grew parallel to every shout until the quartermaster had to pull the others in for assistance. Thing 2 hated going to see Circuits, everyone knew that, but this fit was by far and away the worst he’d ever thrown.

“Torque it down, mech. It’ll be just the same as all the others,” the words were meant to be soothing, but had the complete opposite effect. All Gamma could do was pity the poor mech as the malfunction lit off into a whole new round of flailing and carrying on. He was too stupid and too glitched to even realize he needed help.

::Brother,:: the young bot chirp-clicked to his sparksplit in that weird, half-clocked gobbledygook they spat at each other, distress plain as day, as the small group half-carried, half-dragged the struggling bot toward the exit. ::Don’t let ‘em take me! I don’t wanna go! Brother!:: The words floated back into the office, coupled with the gruff sound of Gamma’s voice laughing about getting rid of Thing 2’s dramatic streak, the Theta’s that had hold of his legs joining in easily before the sounds were all cut off by the sound of the door slamming shut behind them.

[Deleted]

“What are you doing?” Phi-1 demanded.He jerked in Alpha’s grip, paint and metal flaking and grinding at his shoulder cuff. “He doesn’t need an examination! I just told you he did it because I told him to! It was me you glitch-frags! LET GO ME!”

Phi-1 spun, his fist whining with hydraulic pressure and before Alpha could react his new architect put a pile-driver fist into his side vents and dented his rib-struts in. An uproar followed immediately. The others rushed forward, seizing Phi-1 by the arms and prying him off while Phi-2 was hauled, kicking and shouting in the other direction.

“LET ME GO! STOP IT!” He started panicking. He heard them joking about re-programming, about changing his brother. He started to freak out. “HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! I DID IT! OKAY?! IT WAS ME!” ::I’ll stop them! I promise! I’ll stop them, bro! Don’t let them!::

“They aren’t going to hurt him, Phi-1.” Someone speaking into his right audio, EMF rippled with comfort, the cohort-familiar fission of energy that should have been enough to take the kick out of him… but all he felt was how it was not his function-brother, not his twin, not his family. He kept fighting, EMF taking on a desperate and despairing pitch as his brother’s terror spiked through his own spark. Someone’s arm closed around his middle, hauling him backward. “They’re gonna fix him, sweetspark. He’ll be right back.”

“HE DOESN’T NEED TO BE FIXED! LET ME GO!” He was howling now, but they wouldn’t let go of him because he wasn’t the broken one. He worked. They liked him and needed him but his brother… no one spared a look while they dragged his terrified twin out of their barracks. His spark immediately flared and ached but they didn’t feel it or get it was in actual pain when Phi-1 started crying out, not just temper. “HE DOESN’T NEED TO BE FIXED!” he kept shouting, but they ignored him.