Ep. 0.5 - The Cat That Walks Through Walls

[Deleted]

He woke to the sound of metal on metal, the thump and clank of docking followed by a drop as the shuttle settled on its struts. More banging, and the sound of the troopers moving in the crew compartment.

He stood, stretched, and leaped up out of the way, stretching long across the pipes near the ceiling. Below him, the troopers trooped in, completely oblivious to him hanging cloaked right above their heads. He let his tail flop down, weaving it in and out of them as they moved to unload the cargo.

He leapt down, a ventilation behind the last trooper as he left the shuttle. He broke into a run across the cargo bay just because he could, freed after the long trip. His sensors picked out mechs he knew, signatures he recognized, but he ignored them all. Now was not the time for spying.

Now was the time for sneaking.

Silently, he ran full speed at the wall, leaping high and sailing past a maintenance mech and into the open duct he was about to climb into. His claws dug into the metal, pushing him further down the duct and avoiding puncturing the pipes along the floor. He slithered and twisted around a corner, transforming to root mode and catching the handholds to climb up.

He moved through the ducts by memory to section D, caught a catwalk to D-3, then dropped down into the hallway for a klik to hug the wall as he followed two troopers into the residential section, damping down his EMF even more than his cloaking already did. Wouldn't do to come all this way and get caught so close.

Back into the ductwork in a maintenance closet, a bit more shuffling along to the officers' quarters, and...aha.

EMF and proximity sensors set into the duct. Shielded. Hard to see. Nice work.

Hello, Soundwave.

He ran the sensors' specs, analyzed the results, decided to live dangerously, and sucked in his EMF as much as he could. He stretched out a hand, oh so slowly, so slowly he didn't even disturb the air around the sensor. He laid his palm down right next to a sensor and it didn't even twitch.

Getting the rest of him over that section was easy but slow going. Of course, the slow gave him plenty of time to see and plan the deactivation of the pressure plates that were immediately beyond.

After that were the energon detectors, then the motion sensors, then something that looked like a modified spark scanner. The last gave him pause, but he eventually moved past, triumphant.

He was almost sad when he reached the grate for Soundwave's quarters. That had only three kinds of traps set on it.

He held himself against the wall by the dig of his hind claws while he replaced the grate, then leapt down. Not onto the floor, of course, which always had pressure sensors on it that were armed until the door lock was disengaged. No, he leapt down to his final destination, his reward for a vorn of work well done: the berth.

Ravage sighed, transforming back into quadruped form and streeeeeetching out before falling into a well-deserved recharge.

[Deleted]

Soundwave would have heaved a sigh, had he the capacity for such exhibitions. Luckily, what exasperation his emotional mutes didn't absorb were tempered by vorns of experience with "young" cassettes. Cassette rather. It was also this experience that assured him his new symbiont wasn't completely glitching dysfunctional.

He didn't know the details of the situation--and had refused them when the little mech had attempted to send them over their spark-link--but from what he understood, Fairwinds and Mindrazor had been in the middle of reenacting a scene from some human visual media that involved his little mech wrestling around with the little condor while she flew around the hallways of the Nemesis plunging and twirling at great heights and speeds. Soundwave had only become involved when the little mech's grip faltered and he plunged to the floor.

Their link new and both still learning to control it, the sudden pain that flared over the sparkbond cause Soundwave to nearly double over in surprise. In the middle of a duty shift on the bridge, he'd caused quite a stir when he he'd lurched forward without warning, fingers sliding wildly over the keys of console he'd just been typing upon. He managed to steady himself with both hands the machine's edge before actually falling over, but his uncharacteristic flailing didn't go without notice--not that Soundwave particularly cared. He'd simply excused himself from the bridge and made his way to the hallway where the flaring pain seemed to originate where upon he found his cassette curled on the floor keening with terrible pain. He'd scooped his cassette up immediately and the little mech had clung to his fingers tightly, his cries dying down to soft whimpers as he trembled in Soundwave's hand.

Luckily a quick scan revealed MindRazor's injuries to be fairly minor. A broken collar strut, a crushed shoulder servo the worst among them and all things Soundwave could easily fix. The specialist had wasted no time making his way to his quarters, mercifully easing off the pain receptors in little mech's arm and neck.

Soundwave didn't use his quarters regularly as other mech's did. He recharged in the comm. room braided into his system, didn't need "personal time" and kept most of his valued personal possessions on him at all times. Over the vorns his room had become a sort of catch all storage closet for parts and tools and a work room for the the occasional mini project. It was where he preformed his and his drone's maintenance, where Mindrazor's frame had been build and it was where he'd find the spare parts to repair the little cassette.

And it was where, after he'd keyed in the door code and entered the room, he found a long lost gestalt-cassette curled on his long unused berth.

[Deleted]

Ravage's proximity protocols pinged him. That particular signature, long-unused and missed, pulled him up out of recharge. Not that he showed it, of course. He waited until the door opened and Soundwave's steps brought him inside, the door closing behind him.

Then he waited another few kliks. Just because.

THEN Ravage opened his optics, stretching lazily on his berth and deigning to notice his gestaltmate.

His gestaltmate and the...drone? minicon?...that was whimpering painsounds in his hands. Ravage vented a sigh. Obviously he'd let Soundwave by himself too long, if Soundwave had felt the need to make a new drone.

Ravage sat up, meeting Soundwave's faceplate with a surge of satisfied I'm here over their link. He followed it up with a smug set of glyphs for Mission accomplished.

As if there'd ever been any doubt.

[mindrazor]

The tiny mite bleeped piteously. The sudden relief following the pulsating throb of his afflicted neuro sensors did little to ease his small stressed frame. Exhaustion spread across Mindrazor’s body from the shock of experiencing severe pain for the first time. He curled tightly into a ball and tucked his injured against his side.

Between his keening trills, Mindrazor viewed over Soundwave’s scans of the injuries resulting from his crash. The little meching attempted to settle his frantic mind in the knowledge of his parent spark sureness of the fact they were not serious. However, the spark drone found experiencing the pain himself dictated a different emotional response on his part.

Barely noticing the swish of opening doors in his muddle state, Mindrazor rested his helm against the curled fingers surrounding. Suddenly, images of another cassette played within his processor along with a designation. Ravage. Mindrazor didn’t question the new knowledge suddenly know to him, such occurrences happened since the moment he came online. This time he plunged himself in the internal pool of swirling data files and streams. He pooled through them deliberately for the distraction took his attention from the lingering pain and stress.

Though completely unnecessary, he poked his small black helm between Soundwave’s grasp to see the surprise visitor to satisfy a growing curiousity.

[Deleted]

Though Soundwave felt the proximity pull on his spark moments before he actually saw Ravage, his reaction remained neutral. As always. Soundwave hadn't heard from the little mech in ages but the soft pulsing spark-line still connected to his being had continuously let him know the he still lived. His eldest peripheral's presence in his room was quite a welcome surprise, even if Soundwave didn't show it.

Still holding MindRazor loosely in his hand, he took a moment to scan the minicon on his berth before moving fully into the room. Ravage appeared mostly unharmed, if in dire need of maintenance only his carrier could provide. He pulsed a series of glyphs welcoming the mech home.

-recognition--satisfaction--rapport--closeness--content-

However further acknowledgment would have to wait until after he saw to the simbiote in his hand. The specialist turned to his work bench and set the tiny mechling down to begin his work.

There was no need for introductions. Connected to him, they knew who one another was.

[Deleted]

contentment, Ravage agreed as he stretched again to unkink that linkage in his spinal struts that always froze up, then laid back down to wait. satisfaction.

Ravage sighed a wash of atmosphere from his vents and for a long klik he just bathed in the renewed gestalt link, of being close enough to ease the bond pulled tight and thin by distance and time. It eased the errors that he'd been ignoring for vorns, too, knowing that his gestaltmate (gestaltMATES) was/were right there.

Ravage watched Mindrazor's repair with mild interest and amused tolerance. He pinged the little dronelet with ease-calm-relax-Soundwave-fix. The cassette's curiosity filtered over their shared link, strong and restless and YOUNG, Primus....

And of a relatively delicate frame, too. Ravage's field turned thoughtful, sending a wordless request for information into the gestalt link. If someone had been picking on the little cassette, there would be revenge to plot, on principle if nothing else.

[mindrazor]

The resonating glyphs filtering between Soundwave and spark-line connected cassette, Ravage/non-Soundwave extension, flushed over the minidrone and further easing his pain-filled frame. Attempting not to fidget during Soundwave's ministrations, a new link opened directly from Ravage rather then through his parent spark. With a barely contained sparkling eagerness, he rapid- fired inquiry pulses of Ravage's journey away while simalteously flooding with multiple accounts of his mid-air spill, completely heedless of any courtesy of not overwheleming new (to him) gestalt mates with endless data flow.

________________________________________________

(OOC: I wasn't sure if Ravage had quite the processing ability as MR does. MR deals with the entirity of the Nemesis network on a regular basis without breaking a sweat. At the moment, he doesn't know its not polite to data dump entire directories on his fellow mechs. Let me know if this works okay with you.)

[Deleted]

Ravage, his comms already humming with the renewed carrier link as he started the upload of vorns of data to Soundwave, felt Mindrazor's datadump clog his input bandwidth. He narrowed his optics, throttling and skimming the data as well as he could even as he sent a ping of disapproval-incorrect-SLOW DOWN to the little flyer.

Ravage had wondered. His gestalt link to Soundwave had been acting strangely for vorns, giving him oddly twinned readings. Under communications blackout as he'd been, he'd not had a chance to determine if this was anything to be alarmed about. Both readings had continued on steadily, though one seemed a bit more emotional than the other. Now Ravage knew why. Not yet HOW, as few knew better than Ravage that Soundwave was not a true carrier and should not have been able to split his spark in such a carrier-like manner, but Ravage expected that information to be incoming in Soundwave's own datasync to him.

However Soundwave had managed to finally make his own symbiont, he'd obviously shoved an impressive processor into that little frame, that was for sure. Ravage sent Mindrazor his preferred datasync specs along with an abbreviated summary of his travels. He leapt up onto the worktable, perching on the edge, out of the way. ::Information available soon from Soundwave. Uploading now.::

He transformed out a hand to nudge a few needed tools closer. ::So,:: he sent to Soundwave, garnished with glyphs of interest and curiosity, ::symbiote, hmm?::