[ti]Ep 3[/ti](Un)Safety Protocols [Skystone]

[Miko Nakadai]

Episode 3 | Week 1 | Day 1


It’d been a veeeeeery long three months for Miko.

Full of detention aaaaannd… more detention. Then, just when she thought she was free? She got detention for something else. It wasn’t that she was trying to be unruly, she was just bored! Sitting in class when she could be hanging out with Bulk or Carbine at the Omega Base now that there was the possibility of some Decepticon ass-kicking action!? UUuh hellooo… Didn’t take a genius to work out which one of those options was more fun!

Today, though, there was surprisingly no detention (tomorrow was a different matter, but eh, problems for future Miko!). She’d gotten to go back to the Omega Base after school like normal, the only thing different was that it was Bumblebee who picked her up instead of Bulkhead. With the rules of the buddy system being lifted, it meant the Autobots could go out a lot more now! They could fly solo, and have all KINDS of fun adventures! Or… patrol, which was probably the case for Bulk.

Tossing her schoolbag rather unceremoniously up and onto the small ledge where the couch and TV were as Bumblebee started monitor duty, she made her way through the Omega Base looking for something to do. Carbine should be around here somewhere, right?

MMmmaaybe not. Ugh. She wasn’t tall enough to reach any of the keypads outside everyone’s rooms (not that she knew the codes), and she didn’t feel like finding a broom to be able to reach them to try in the first place (far too much effort) - which was a shame since she did have Carbine’s door code perma-locked in her memory. Not that that was hard, it was the same friggin digit 4 times in a row…

Sooo unoriginal.

Ah well! Time for Plan B! There were plenty of places to explore in the Omega Base until something caught her interest or until someone fun showed up. Which definitely meant going downstairs to nix the probability of someone like Optimus showing up, or even worse - Ratchet! Eesh, fun police much?

Choosing to take the stairs instead of the elevator for ultimate stealth, Miko quickly made her way down to the lower levels of the base. A lot of the rooms down here were used for storage, and many of them were locked - filled with things left over by NEST, she assumed - and some of them were basically empty, used for training rooms for when the bots wanted to spar or have a moment of peace and quiet.

But these rooms weren’t what Miko was looking for, or even remotely interested in.

She’d been down here a few times during her many, many visits to the Omega Base, but usually under supervision or when helping Bulkhead fix something up down here. Every single time, her gaze had drifted to a vent along the bottom of the corridor that… as far as she could tell? Wasn’t bolted down. Ever since her adventure crawling through the vents looking for stray Scraplets, Miko had an urge to get back in there and explore more freely without being under the watch of Laura and Optimus, but had been unable to slip away unnoticed to do so.

Until now.

Plus, being down here on the lower level? It meant that none of these vents had been crawled in by her- meaning there may be the chance of finding something REALLY cool stashed away. It wasn’t like anyone else except Raf could fit in them and check, and he wasn’t the type to do that!

Making a beeline to the vent in question, Miko wasted no time in crouching next to it. Her suspicions were correct, and it had simply been slotted into place but the four corner screws were missing.

Excellent.

Using both hands, she would grip the bars of the vent and wrenched back with one swift movement. She probably didn’t need to use ALL her strength because it moved easily, and was surprisingly heavy now it wasn’t nestled into the wall. A gasp, a squeak, a loud metallic slam as she let go of it, forcing it to fall forwards onto the concrete floor.

Ack! Abort abort! Part of her wanted to scramble into the vent to escape should anyone come, but there was this moment of panicked silence, the ringing of metal in her ears, where she decided that sitting still would mean getting into less trouble on the off-chance someone came down this way at hearing the noise.

Which she hoped they wouldn’t.

[Deleted]

It had been an interesting three months.

Interesting, as in marginally more dangerous than usual. 

Between Haven falling down on top of her and Bluestreak,  and then the following raid she'd. participated in, Sky had been fairly busy.

Not that that was a bad thing at all- Skystone felt her most comfortable when put to work, when feeling productive in what she was doing. She'd always been that way, even before the war.

It wasn't that she completely lacked ambition, but more often than not her version of ambition was to each day do everything she could to keep operations around her running as smoothly as possible. It wasn't much, but it brought her peace when she sometimes lived a life completely un-peaceful.

That being said, she understood the concept of team morale, and why socializing could be important. Like all things she tried to do this as efficiently as possible, but she had noticed an effect, she felt a little less isolated from the other 'bots around her.

But sometimes, at the end of a long day, she'd take time for herself. Time to just sit, to think, to enjoy the quiet.

Now was supposed to be one of those times.

Supposed to be.

Skystone's day had been fairly usual. She'd done chores, pittled around doing small tasks here and there. Organizing storage, cleaning her quarters, the usual things she did during the day. Life at the base had more excitement now, but the small mundane jobs were still important, and Sky felt a certain nobility in being able to perform those jobs.

She had already spent the bulk of her day in the storage areas, and had gone back to her room to tidy up, and straighten her meager decorations. Decorating was a little trickier for her, since she couldn't drive around and pick things up off the ground like some of her vehicle compatriots, but she had found an interest in nature. She'd been out flying one day, after the buddy system had been lifted, and had come across a river with some of the prettiest stones and rocks she'd ever seen. 

She'd had a quiet laugh to herself about the irony, picked up a few, and had taken them back to base with her. She kept them meticulously sorted on her desk space, grouped by color, ordered by size. Soon, it had become a little hobby she kept to herself, finding a remote location and picking up the most interesting trinkets and rocks she found on the ground. They were sorted with care, and handled with care.

Once she'd spent a while doing that, she'd decided to head back down to the storage rooms which she knew were supposed to empty at this point, just to sit in peace and quiet and a bit.

However, just about five minutes in to her quiet time, she heard it- a loud slam that seemed to reverberate throughout the halls of the empty corridor. 

She couldn't help but be curious, as she hadn't heard another Cybertronian come down, and she definitely would have.

So it had to be a human. She hadn't spent much time with the human population on base, but she had a suspicion who'd be down there making so much noise. She poked her head out first, then strode out of the base.

"Miko?" 

[Miko Nakadai]

So far so good! There was nobody (read: Ratchet or Optimus) charging down the corridor to yell at her for destruction of Omega Base property. Not that she’d ever heard Optimus yell or even raise his voice, but hey- first time for everything and knowing her luck? This would be what set him off.

Honestly she was probably being a little over-paranoid about the whole thing, there was nobody down in this part of the base - nobody came down here unless they needed supplies, and if someone was down here she would’ve heard them walking around! Big metal feet on concrete? Not exactly quiet!

Which meant…

The coast was clear.

After another second, she would pull herself up to her feet, using both hands to quickly brush away dust from her shorts, turning to inspect the now-opened vent, partially leaning into it - thus missing spotting Skystone poking her head around the corner of one of the doors.

Only when the voice was heard was there another THUNK of Miko jumping and smacking the top of her head on the vent ceiling.

“Ah!”

Turning quickly to see who it was, she’d give a nervous wave to the femme, using her other hand to rub the top of her head. No harm done, she wasn’t hurt at all from the impact - but wow did she get a good scare! She didn’t recognize the Autobot standing before her, but more to the point - hadn’t even heard her until she spoke. Had she been down here all along? Agh!

“Hey! Uh, I don’t think we’ve met!” she smiled at that, new Autobots was always a good thing! She didn’t question how her name was already known, there was probably a warning about her in the ‘Welcome to Earth’ handbook they handed out or something.

“I wasn’t doing anything!” she quickly added, trying to maintain her innocence even though she'd practically been caught in the act of doing something. Not knowing this Autobot meant she didn’t know if she was the really cool fun type, or the super serious I’m going to tell Optimus you were up to no good type.

[Deleted]

While it was true her and Miko had never met, this certainly wasn't the first time Skystone had heard of this particular humans...escapades. She cocked her head ever so slightly at the small creature below her, bemused as always by humans. So small, yet so adventurous. 

Miko's position had also been bemusing, as Skystone couldn't for the life of her figure out why Miko felt the need to be inside a vent...


The loud thunk startled Sky slightly, and she immediately felt concerned- she'd heard humans were fragile,  and that wasn't a gentle hit Miko had just taken. Her yelp at least confirmed she hadn't knocked herself out, but still.

Miko then began firing off statements, and Skystone simply looked at her, blank faced.

Once the flurry of words ended, Skystone began working out which to address first.

"Ah, no, we haven't. I'm Skystone; and clearly you were doing something." On that last part, she skeptically peered at the vent in question.

It wasn't that Skystone was or wasn't a snitch. She wasn't someone to go off and tell a superior every little thing that a coworker did, her main concern in a job was it being done effectively. If she was doing her part, and nothing was happening that seriously hindered that, she generally left others to their own business. 

But none of that was the issue. She genuinely had no idea what Miko was doing- so she had no real clue whether Miko was justified in feeling defensive or not in what she was (or wasn't?) doing with the vent.

Skystone slowly got down to one knee, in an attempt to get a closer look at the situation. Hydraulics whirred as she lowered herself, her joints creaking slightly at the shift in weight. She felt more comfortable having this conversation closer to the other participant- she'd never liked the feeling of talking over somebody, figuratively or literally.

"So, ah...what exactly are you tryin' to do with the vent?" This question was posed completely genuinely, not as a set-up or a trap to get Miko in trouble- she was actually curious.

[Miko Nakadai]

“Skystone? That’s a pretty name!”

A tiny deflection from the fact she’d totally been busted.

She was honestly surprised she hadn’t seen Skystone before - she was huuuuuge compared to most other Bots here at base that she’d met already! Well, aside from Optimus anyway. More height meant more ass-kicking power, though, and that was always a good thing.

She kind of hoped that the femme had better things to do than stand around talking, but once Skystone moved into a crouch, Miko knew it was game over.

And she hadn’t even gotten to do anything yet!

“Vent? Oh! That thing!”

Scrap, think fast!

Turning to look at the vent in question, she’d drag out the quiet a second or two trying to think of something, before turning back to Skystone.

There was no real good way to explain it, so… maybe a half-truth.

“I thought I heard something coming from inside it! Like maybe a Scraplet! I’ve been in the vents upstairs before to check things out, so I was just gonna make sure everything was a-okay! Optimus let me! It’s totally cool!”

Okay, tiny lie at the end there, too. Tiny tiny tiny lie. Optimus had let her once and only under the supervision of Laura. Buuuuut Skystone didn’t need to know THAT part. Besides, she’d done it once and that meant she was totally an expert, with no need to worry about anything going wrong at all.

Then, Miko would smile brightly and sweetly in some attempt to show how innocent she was.

No trouble here at all. Nope.

[Deleted]

"Thank you."

This was said a little skeptically- while Sky appreciated the compliment, she was beginning to get the feeling Miko was hiding something. What Skystone couldn't figure out was what could even be remotely interesting to Miko in the storage areas. 

At the mention of the vent, Skystone's confusion got worse. She tried to keep her field in check, subconsciously, even though she knew Miko couldn't read it. How was a vent of all things exciting? It didn't do anything. Air went through it, and that was about it. 

At the mention of a scraplet, Skystone's wings went tight, her whole posture becoming rigid. 

She'd seen war, she'd seen death, she'd travelled to countless worlds and seen countless life forms.

But there wasn't much that managed to repulse her quite like a scraplet. 

More importantly, the knowledge that if there was one, there were many. 

"Why would you think there were scraplets here?" She kept her voice in check, but couldn't keep all of the tightness out of it.

And now that she was really thinking about the issue...if Optimus knew there was a chance of an infestation of the base, would Miko really be the one he'd have taking care of the problem? Obviously they wouldn't attack Miko and that was an advantage, but Skystone couldn't help but think that there'd be a little more fanfare and some adult human at least monitoring this.

Now keenly suspicious, she raised an eye ridge slightly at Miko. 

"And Optimus let you run this operation, huh?" She continued after gathering those thoughts. She watched Miko carefully, waiting for a response, now thoroughly curious. She wasn't exactly judgmental, because she had also once been young and eager to tackle every problem around her. She was more concerned that if Miko got stuck or trapped in a vent on her own watch, that could lead to a lot of trouble. 

Of course, she also had no idea that she'd completely misjudged Miko's intentions. 


((Sorry fort the short reply, holidays have been crazy XD))

[Miko Nakadai]

Miko may not have been able to read fields, but whoa, that shift in body language at the mention of the tiny terrors! Scraplets to Cybertronian were probably kind of the same level of fear as spiders were for her - and even then, was it really the same? Spiders didn’t pounce you en masse and eat you alive! They were still scary though, so she completely understood the fear!

“Oh, you weren’t told?”

A rather nonchalant response, given the probable terror going through Skystone’s mind right now.

“A while back the Autobots found a stasis pod thingy and brought it back to the base, and weeeellll… it was filled with scraplets. It was pretty scary, although also funny - you shoulda heard Bulk scream!”

That was a noise that still made her giggle to this day whenever she thought about it, and she lowkey wished she was recording the moment, even if Bulk wasn’t exactly proud of it.

“Aaaaaanyway, due to some quick thinking, they were all blasted into the Arctic through the Ground Bridge since they don’t do cold. Buuuut… before they went on their little rampage toward Bulk, Ratchet and Bee, they were everywhere in the base. Including the vents. Which because of the air conditioning are pretty cold, so it puts them to sleep!”

She turned to the vent in question, lowering into a squat and peering inside it, squinting.

“Which is probably a good thing, but if there are any left and they happen to wake up?”

She’d turn to look at Skystone then, using one finger to slowly ‘slice’ across her throat. A little dramatic, but with how many Autobots there were now? It couldn’t end well!

“Not cool! So yep, that’s why I’m here! Ready to kick their butts!” she said matter-of-factly before getting back to her feet, using one hand to brush herself down.

At the question, she’d give an eager nod.

“Yup! Well, sorta - I was allowed into the vents upstairs, so figured I’d check these ones out too! It’s technically less dangerous because there’s no chance of falling through a ceiling! It can always wait though, did you need help with anything down here? I’m a Wrecker, y’know! So I can help with a lot of stuff!”

Another teeny tiny deflection with the offer to be helpful, just in case Skystone was about to call Optimus and ask him if she was telling the truth about the vent thing. It partly was, but she was leaving out a few key details that Skystone sooooo didn’t need to know about.

Crawling into the vents was Miko’s current mission in life, but she hadn’t met Skystone until now - maybe she was doing something that could be considered ‘fun’ before the tiny interruption.

[Deleted]

Skystone’s posture shifted slightly as she listened to Miko tell her story, wings going back down in a neutral position, leaning slightly to her left. More casual, now that she knew the scraplets weren’t actually an active threat.

It really was a fantastical story, but scraplet infestations were no joke, and Sky understood the threat to personal and operation safety.

When Miko got to the part about them leading the scraplet swarm into the Arctic, she tilted her helm and hummed a bit to herself. That actually sounded like a very effective and resourceful way to handle the situation-using Earth’s strange climate to their advantage.

But as Miko continued, the real issue was once again brought up.

Skystone shifted uncertainty as Miko stated her purpose, “kicking butt”.
While Skystone seriously doubted Optimus had done exactly as Miko said at this point, she understood the need for the job to be done. If scraplets were caught again in the vents, they had to be found and eradicated immediately.

At Miko’s offer to help with whatever Sky was doing at the current moment, she couldn’t help but soften.

“I’m not doing anything at the moment, but I wouldn’t mind helpin’ you out in the vents, if you’re really determined to check for scraplets. I’ll make sure you don’t fall out of them-that could get both of us in trouble.” This last bit was said with dry amusement, already anticipating Miko’s excitement for being allowed into the vents.

She glanced down at the vent, then slowly stood back up, creaking as she did. Millenia hadn’t been kind to her joints, and she huffed a bit as she straightened back out. She inquired, staring critically at the vent systems around her. She had her helm tilted towards Miko, awaiting her response.

"Where were you thinkin’ of starting?” She inquired, staring critically at the vent systems around her. She had her helm tilted towards Miko, awaiting her response.

[Miko Nakadai]

Miko thought for sure that this would be where Skystone would nudge her in the direction of the storage rooms to help with something mundane and… well, safe. Miko had eased the conversation that way and even lowkey offered to help and usually, that’d be where people would take her up on it just to keep her out of trouble.

But not Skystone.

“Oh! Are you sure? That’d be awesome!” she perked up with excitement in her tone, maybe a little too much - just so Skystone couldn’t back out of offering to help without crushing Miko’s dreams.

She would take a cautious step backward as Skystone stood upright, her back against the wall - not because she was scared of getting underfoot with this brief movement, it was just a good habit to have when dealing with things that were a hundred times your size.

“Where? Well I guess right here is probably good!” she’d confidently pat the wall above the vent for good measure. This was the only entry to the vent system that was low enough for her to get into with ease, without having to move a bunch of shelving and other ridiculously heavy things.

“Figured I’d go in and left. If its anything like the vent upstairs it will loop all the way around. Only issue is when it goes up a bit, since it starts out here but in the storage rooms the vents are high up!” she tilted one hand as if to show the angle of the probable incline inside the vent - it wasn’t too steep, nor would it be impossible to scamper up. She’d done her homework it seemed, either that or she was a pro at making it sound like she knew what she was doing.

She figured it’d be easy just like the last time she’d done this. Go forward a bit, turn left up a bit of an incline and then it was a matter of navigating these lower rooms via the vent system before ending up back where she started. Easy peasy, right?

Right!

“But with my combat boots? I can climb anything!” she’d grin at that, thumbing to her chest proudly.

“I guess you can walk alongside the wall and I’ll keep talking through the vents so you know where I’m at or if I find anything neat! Then when we get into the storage rooms you can walk underneath the parts where it isn’t in the wall, just in case, y’know, just in case I fall through.

Which totally won’t happen! Honest!”

She’d add that last part quickly and laughed, just in case the mere thought of it was enough to make Skystone change her mind.

[Deleted]

The longer Skystone thought about it, the infinitely more sure she was that this was not a good idea. But her word was her word, and she wasn’t about to go back on it now.

As Skystone settled standing, her joints whirring and sinking, she kept a close optic on Miko. For such a small thing, she certainly seemed to have big plans for this vent.

Sky stared down at the vent, then peered back down at Miko.

“I can lift you up and spot you throughout the vent, but I don’t want you goin’ too far. When the vent inclines upward is when I call it off-I don’t want to imagine Optimus’ reaction if you slide down the vent.” Here at the end she added a playful inflection, making a point to soften her body posture. While she always appreciated a helpful spirit, she was beginning to feel concerned about the enthusiasm Miko was showing. She really wasn't sure what Optimus’ reaction would be if something happened to Miko, but she couldn’t imagine it’d be good.

She strode up to the entrance of the vent, plotting out the best place for her to stand to monitor the human.

“Alright. Step up on my servo, and I’ll stick you in. Every thirty seconds, either say something or tap the side of the vent three times, so I know you’re alright. You can investigate for a few minutes, but then we’ll probably need to clear out and leave this to the pros.” She glanced down at Miko, seeing what her response to the command would be. She probably wouldn’t be a huge fan, but safety was always important no matter what job you were doing. While still watching her, she began to lever herself down again, her joints groaning with the effort, body not appreciating the up-down motions she'd been performing during the conversation. I'll be feeling this tomorrow. 

[Miko Nakadai]

Oh this was absolutely not a good idea at all, but they’d gone too far to back out now - and hooooonstly? If Skystone did get in any sort of trouble for this whole thing, Miko would absolutely take all the blame and say she didn’t know. This WAS her idea after all, and she’d merely roped the femme into it - and the last thing she wanted was for anyone to get into trouble.

She’d pat herself down as Skystone began speaking, just checking she had everything with her - which wasn’t much at all. She had her… phone, and not a whole lot else. Which may have betrayed the initial plan for ‘hunting for scraplets’ but eh, her phone was all she needed! The scraplets would be asleep because of the cold air, meaning that if she did find any, she’d simply have to come back and murder them later!

“I won't go too far! And okay, that works!”

Skystone was letting her do this, so the least Miko could do was stick to some sort of guidelines. Even if she knew she’d probably be totally and completely safe should there be an incline, this was hopefully the start of more shenanigans in the future - so if she behaved now, Skystone would be more willing to help later on.

Then again, that plan could change in an instant should Miko find something interesting in the vents, but heyo - she’d cross that bridge when she came to it!

“Every thirty seconds? I can do that!”

With a swift motion she’d pull her phone from her pocket, typing into it quickly before tucking it back into her shorts.

“Timer set! Every thirty seconds it will beep and I’ll let you know I’m okay!”

Every thirty seconds was a little excessive, but she was trying to be on her best behavior here. Butter absolutely would not melt in her mouth at this point, and she intended to stick to all the rules.

Giving Skystone’s hand a quick look over, it didn’t take her long to find the best place to climb up and so would scrabble up easily, moving to stand in the palm of her hand - lowering into a crouch to keep her balance.

“Ready when you are!”

This was going to be fun!

[Deleted]

Skystone watched the small human set some device on her arm, a little intrigued at what she was doing.

She admittedly didn’t know much about human culture, or their technology. It wasn’t anything personal against Earth, but she’d gone from planet to planet for so long that eventually she stopped getting attached to each one. It seemed that she’d be staying on Earth much longer, however, so it would probably benefit her to get to know the little organics better. And what better place to start than with the most extraverted one?

Once Miko was situated in her palm, she went ahead and let her know they were going.

“Alright, I’m about to take you up. Hold tight.”

She slowly began to lever herself back up, keeping a watchful eye on Miko.

“Here’s your stop-lemme know if you find any scraplets. If you do, head out and we’ll flag Optimus down. I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear of your progress.” She said this with a slight lift to her voice, despite her own personal doubts about the plan. She knew that Miko was young, and youth could mean brashfulness. But she wasn’t exactly sure what everyone meant when they referred to Miko and her peers as “children”. She assumed it had to do with their current life-stage. What she did know was that it made the others more protective of them and Sky figured she’d follow suit, hence the thirty seconds rule.

“Be careful, try not to slip on any inclines.”

[Miko Nakadai]

It was always so fascinating to Miko how different each Cybertronian were in how they moved. While all of them were relatively cautious when it came to handling humans, the level of that cautiousness seemed to vary. Those that’d handled humans a lot were careful, sure - but there was a certain trust with one another, so they didn’t have to move quite so slow.

It seemed to Miko that Skystone hadn’t interacted much with humans, which was something that was totally going to change if she had anything to say about it! The movement was slow, and she could kinda compare it to the time she'd found a really cool beetle and had to move it outside - being so, so careful not to jostle or do anything that could squish or hurt the bug. 

Miko had patience, and held still as Skystone eased upwards into a stand - not wanting to move and spook her, or make her stress unnecessarily. She trusted Skystone, and hoped that with further interactions the Cybertronian femme would get used to being around Miko, too!

As Skystone’s servo became level with the small entrance to the vent, Miko would stand up, turning and giving a brisk salute.

“Got it!”

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

“Aw, well that’s good timing! Thirty seconds, guess we know it’s working!” she beamed, pulling the phone from her pocket and swiping to turn off the alarm, tucking it away again a moment later.

“I will be careful! You’re gonna be right outside, right?”

Even though Miko wasn’t exactly scared about going into the vent, knowing that Skystone would be right here just on the off chance that she did find something was weirdly comforting.

Lowering into a crouch, she would crawl forwards some into the vent, her combat boots squeaking against the cold metal - she didn’t go too far at first, swiveling around to look at Skystone once situated, making sure that she had enough room to move around. It was a good thing she was small! Raf would be so much better for this job, but she was sure he was far too sensible to go crawling around like this, plus- well, Miko wanted to have all the fun!

“If I uh, if I somehow wake the scraplets up, get ready to run! They’re fast! I’ll yell though so you can get a head start!”

Tiny ominous warning there, but one that maybe needed to be said! Even though the scraplets - if there were any - would be in a sort of stasis because of the cold, if they did wake up? They’d beeline through the vents looking for their next meal.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The noise was particularly jarring this time as it echo'd around the metal walls of the vent. This was going to be soooo annoying. Again she’d pull the phone from her pocket, swiping to turn the alarm off, only this time she did not put it away- and after a couple of button presses, the camera light turned on, and she made a point of aiming it down so it wasn’t directed at Skystone as they spoke. She did need something to see with, after all, and this worked perfectly!