Ep.1 - Different Strokes - Closed
Jun 22, 2013 22:11:59 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2013 22:11:59 GMT -5
((Timeline note: this takes place soon after ‘Cause and Consequence’, before the Order of Solus arrives.))
Atracchus had been in these tunnels before: had, in fact, helped to create them when engineering had been his primary function for the Decepticon cause. But it was only since becoming Knock Out’s medical aide that he’d had the opportunity to return, facilitating material and mineral exchanges on several occasions between the two medbays.
Today, he lingered in the DMZ for far longer than he usually had to. The number of crates of illipsium was incorrect – Knock Out was expecting three more than what had been stacked by the groundbridge. However, for some reason Atracchus had been unable to hail the neutral medic, Cleaver, over the comm.’s, and the main atrium was quiet of all other life that he may otherwise have been able to ask. So he waited, mindful of what was now the time left on his ration break. And it was in that waiting that his mind, as it so often did these days, began to wander.
Subspacing the clay turbofox that he’d been sculpting without much focus, the Vehicon ran his servos along a large, deep groove in the rock wall to his side.
This place had changed. Once, Atracchus had been stationed here as a miner. After the ore had been exhausted, he’d returned to strip the tunnels bare for the most rudimentary level of habitation. Then had come his half-reassignment to the medbay, and this occasional role of couriering the supplies. That role still applied, but today it came with another label: light duty.
Atracchus’ visor burned brighter at the memory before he quashed it down, focusing instead on the strength of the rock under his hand. Yes, he knew this scar. Juniper’s drill had gotten so clogged with dust that its temperature skyrocketed without warning, and it’d spiralled into a frenzy out of its operator’s control. It was memorable for having narrowly missed an energon slab by…ah – a servo traced along another seam, a half-shade darker than the surrounding rock – that much. A few centimetres to the other side, and right now he’d be standing in the middle of tonnes of earth and rock.
His servos trailed back down to where the scar ended. That abrupt, raised stop had been Maverick’s doing, from what he’d heard. He’d jumped in, right in the nick of time, and…
His right hand – his new right hand – clenched, causing the stiff, unworn callipers in the arm to tighten even more until it was painful.
The burning lines in his arm dragged his thoughts unwillingly back to that night, and the pump-wrenching vision of Maverick being torn apart in front of his optics just as he’d raced to save him. And from the horrifying slaughter of that madmech’s rampage it was all too easy to dredge up memories of other nights and days of kindred sparks snuffed out of existence in the most graphic, obscene and coldly efficient of ways. On a more rational level – the part of his processor that kept him sane under the weight of those identity codes and names – he knew he couldn’t have done more. But there were days, like today, where he keenly felt that ache of failure towards his kindred.
The sheer weight of lives that had been lost that night – and not just those that were lived, but the ones that were unrealised – made his spark shatter in ways he didn’t think would still feel so…new, after all this time.
Atracchus’ visor dimmed. It was a grief that undid him on so many levels, but: the sanity-keeping part of his processor told him that this was…a good thing. It meant that he’d not yet been burned out beyond the point of empathy, of caring for what happened to his fellow spark-kin. It meant that these terrible, raw, unfettered aches of loss were evidence he was not yet exhausted beyond his capacity to give to those that still lived.
To balance that register of the dead Vehicons against those he now knew…That’s what it meant to grow old.
Atracchus stood there for some time, registering the end of that scar with the flat of his much rougher left palm. Then: a sound wove into his reverie, filtering through the white noise of disjointed sensations and thoughts.
His optical backlights slowly unshuttered. One note turned into two, before springing into a gentle, distant melody. Atracchus straightened, the new parts in his legs creaking with the weight, as he stared into the tunnel from where it faintly streamed out. It was a strangely beautiful composition that resonated against the subdued thrum of his field. And, more than that: the faint sounds piqued half-archived memory files to the fore. Not enough to unlock their contents, but enough to wonder where he could have heard this strain before…
Before he knew what he was doing, the Vehicon had left the crates behind him as his pedes carried him towards the source of the music. At the very least, he rationalised as he turned into another corrider, he might find somebody listening who might be able to point him in the right direction of Cleaver.
He didn’t realise that his steps had gotten faster until he had to stop. The music was coming from behind that door – it looked like, perhaps, it may even be someone’s quarters. Atracchus knocked, pinging his medical authorisation for base access to the occupant beyond it as he stood to an informal, but orderly attention.
Atracchus had been in these tunnels before: had, in fact, helped to create them when engineering had been his primary function for the Decepticon cause. But it was only since becoming Knock Out’s medical aide that he’d had the opportunity to return, facilitating material and mineral exchanges on several occasions between the two medbays.
Today, he lingered in the DMZ for far longer than he usually had to. The number of crates of illipsium was incorrect – Knock Out was expecting three more than what had been stacked by the groundbridge. However, for some reason Atracchus had been unable to hail the neutral medic, Cleaver, over the comm.’s, and the main atrium was quiet of all other life that he may otherwise have been able to ask. So he waited, mindful of what was now the time left on his ration break. And it was in that waiting that his mind, as it so often did these days, began to wander.
Subspacing the clay turbofox that he’d been sculpting without much focus, the Vehicon ran his servos along a large, deep groove in the rock wall to his side.
This place had changed. Once, Atracchus had been stationed here as a miner. After the ore had been exhausted, he’d returned to strip the tunnels bare for the most rudimentary level of habitation. Then had come his half-reassignment to the medbay, and this occasional role of couriering the supplies. That role still applied, but today it came with another label: light duty.
Atracchus’ visor burned brighter at the memory before he quashed it down, focusing instead on the strength of the rock under his hand. Yes, he knew this scar. Juniper’s drill had gotten so clogged with dust that its temperature skyrocketed without warning, and it’d spiralled into a frenzy out of its operator’s control. It was memorable for having narrowly missed an energon slab by…ah – a servo traced along another seam, a half-shade darker than the surrounding rock – that much. A few centimetres to the other side, and right now he’d be standing in the middle of tonnes of earth and rock.
His servos trailed back down to where the scar ended. That abrupt, raised stop had been Maverick’s doing, from what he’d heard. He’d jumped in, right in the nick of time, and…
His right hand – his new right hand – clenched, causing the stiff, unworn callipers in the arm to tighten even more until it was painful.
The burning lines in his arm dragged his thoughts unwillingly back to that night, and the pump-wrenching vision of Maverick being torn apart in front of his optics just as he’d raced to save him. And from the horrifying slaughter of that madmech’s rampage it was all too easy to dredge up memories of other nights and days of kindred sparks snuffed out of existence in the most graphic, obscene and coldly efficient of ways. On a more rational level – the part of his processor that kept him sane under the weight of those identity codes and names – he knew he couldn’t have done more. But there were days, like today, where he keenly felt that ache of failure towards his kindred.
The sheer weight of lives that had been lost that night – and not just those that were lived, but the ones that were unrealised – made his spark shatter in ways he didn’t think would still feel so…new, after all this time.
Atracchus’ visor dimmed. It was a grief that undid him on so many levels, but: the sanity-keeping part of his processor told him that this was…a good thing. It meant that he’d not yet been burned out beyond the point of empathy, of caring for what happened to his fellow spark-kin. It meant that these terrible, raw, unfettered aches of loss were evidence he was not yet exhausted beyond his capacity to give to those that still lived.
To balance that register of the dead Vehicons against those he now knew…That’s what it meant to grow old.
Atracchus stood there for some time, registering the end of that scar with the flat of his much rougher left palm. Then: a sound wove into his reverie, filtering through the white noise of disjointed sensations and thoughts.
His optical backlights slowly unshuttered. One note turned into two, before springing into a gentle, distant melody. Atracchus straightened, the new parts in his legs creaking with the weight, as he stared into the tunnel from where it faintly streamed out. It was a strangely beautiful composition that resonated against the subdued thrum of his field. And, more than that: the faint sounds piqued half-archived memory files to the fore. Not enough to unlock their contents, but enough to wonder where he could have heard this strain before…
Before he knew what he was doing, the Vehicon had left the crates behind him as his pedes carried him towards the source of the music. At the very least, he rationalised as he turned into another corrider, he might find somebody listening who might be able to point him in the right direction of Cleaver.
He didn’t realise that his steps had gotten faster until he had to stop. The music was coming from behind that door – it looked like, perhaps, it may even be someone’s quarters. Atracchus knocked, pinging his medical authorisation for base access to the occupant beyond it as he stood to an informal, but orderly attention.