[ti]Ep 3[/ti]"No Stranger to Silence" [Closed]

[Soundwave]

Across the way from the three, a snarled boom would ring out with an eruptive assault of sound and light. Due to the oppressive shadow and relative silence from the encapsulated ship, it was as though a flash grenade had gone off from its pure power, absolutely destroying the once thematic ambiance. Its illumination bounced and danced with its ever moving shape, the newly formed shadows, including the three Cybertronian, flicking erratically as their presence was almost overpowered from bounced lighting against the floor and walls. Air hissed with a curl of displaced pressure, a sort of wind formed from the clash of zones.

While such a portal could be seen as a blessing, an escape from the ice caged shuttle, such a gift of freedom was quickly blotted out as a new shadow would begin to take shape in its epicenter.

Angular and sharp, a rounded torso flanked on each side by low slung slender arms that hooked up into the air above the connecting shoulder assembly. Its proportions seemed comparatively odd against the typical norm that many Cybertronian followed, a crooked forward helm held in almost a mild hunched posture, flanked on either side by fin like panels that originated from their center torso.

As its shape began to come into greater view, the white center of the gateway peeling away with flung particles, further details bled out into visual range. Navy armor blotched with underlying black... thin lines of magenta that etched in a ragged pattern... though most importantly, the sharp pointed helm of an individual who stood at the Warlord’s side since the days that the uprising began. Many would know his face, or rather... many would know the lack thereof, an inky black visor displaying nothing but the flicking lighting of the Space Bridge that sharply danced across the slick glass.

Soundwave stopped at the entrance of the gateway to freedom, his unseen gaze ghosting across the unknown individual that was being choked out. No glance was offered to Windshield, and while it may be difficult to discern given his features and their proximity to one another, he offered no consideration to the pink clad femme as well, his full undivided attention latched down upon this new stranger that declared themselves as a Decepticon with rank.

He said nothing.

Did nothing.

Waiting as the portal's maw lay directly behind him.

[Nokta]

A shake of the head told the scout enough. Given the aptitude he’d shown with his own quick tongue earlier, it was no surprise Windshield was not easily moved by things he’d likely heard a thousand times.

Nonetheless, Nokta’s unmoving gaze would smother the hacker for another moment, searching the mech’s body language for any signs that he’d struck some chord with his fellow agent. Any hint of pull, any tells that could be recognized and tucked away in the back of the lieutenant’s processor to be recalled later on and leveraged– or abused. The purple mech clearly took care to hide such things though, as what impact his words did make on Windshield flew under the scout’s radar. For the time being.

Nokta’s optics would briefly flit back to Cintra as she spoke, voicing her concern over his own words, but ultimately he gave her no heed. Windshield gave her instructions, and she’d follow them given the particularly clear warning the former had left her with, should she choose not to do so.

While the femme’s immediate reaction to Windshield’s order had been expected, the nature in which she carried this out was not. At this point being entirely ready to simply outstretch his own servos to be encased in stasis cuffs– Cintra’s particularly violent manner of “subduing” him was what took him the most off guard, and ultimately was what did him in.

Tendrils whipped and howled through the air as the femme slid past him, not even giving his weakened form enough time to turn and face her before a leg was bound. Arms flipped behind him as he reached for the femme’s shoulders, neck, anything he could get purchase on to pry the adamant glitch off of him, but the tendrils that were now firmly in his blindspot made quick work of those attempts.

By the time his arms had been bound, blades were mere inches from being unsheathed. A battle Cintra won, but by a dangerously thin margin. As the fourth tendril wrapped around his throat, and arms came wrapping around his chest plates, he knew the fight was over. Now, he could only hope Windshield hadn’t been playing some elaborate game of smoke and mirrors when he’d warned her not to kill him, and that he would actually act on the words should it come to that.

All of this, just in time for the disgustingly dark interior of the ship to be blasted with the light of a ground bridge opening up at the other end of the room. Optics contracted with the sheer brightness of the portal. Pain screamed in his processor as multiple warnings began to pop up in his HUD. What little energon flow was left in him was firmly cut off by the strength of the tendril squeezing the fuel pipes within his neck. And the now scorching lights did nothing to ease the pain of a helm severely suffering from acute energon deprivation.

The shape of a shadow entering the room through the portal could barely be conceived as the scout’s vision began dimming, in spite of his ferocious struggles to stay awake. He wouldn’t be subjected to the true hell that was emergency stasis, not again.

"Nghh!" The scout spat through gritted dentas as red optics began to flicker in intensity, emergency stasis beginning its pull on his frame.

A silhouette came further into view, far enough now that the blinding portal could no longer obscure the true identity of this stranger. Dimming optics widened in realization, as this silhouette took a shape all too familiar to the loyal lieutenant. Dermas parted, fanged dentas slipping from one another as the scout’s jaw lowered in awe.

Static that had been growing in his audials for the past few moments gave way to a full-on high-pitched ringing as his audio receptors offlined themselves from the stress.

But optics stayed on.

Some might have collapsed in fear at the sight of the mech before him now, said their prayers and known their time had come. But the reality of who was standing before Nokta now told him all he’d needed to know since first waking on this hell-ship. He was home.

Maybe it was the fuel deprivation, maybe it was the emergency stasis affecting the normally razor-sharp reasoning parameters within him, but the filter of apathy slipped there at that moment that would have been considered so terrifying for so many. Soundwave’s sheer visor showed only the reflection of Nokta’s helm bathed in the sickly blue-green hues of the ground bridge– and as Nokta gazed into that abyss, a contented smile warmed itself onto his countenance.

And though the mech could not hear his own words that came next, they were spoken with unfettered pride regardless.

"Peace through tyranny."

And then the abyss took him.

((Fin))