Ep0.5 – Stabilize – Closed
Apr 9, 2012 22:07:07 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2012 22:07:07 GMT -5
Sideswipe had been down and out before, many times in fact. Four million years at war necessitated the ability to accept that terrible things tended to happen to you and those around you and often those you cared about. Frontline work necessitated a coldness of spark, the ability to chill the molten nova of your soul (your love) for another and push on and not care. Not because you didn’t care but because worrying about them give them two beats, a spark pulse of your attention, of your mind turned toward the narrow foci of their survival and not yours. Sideswipe had never been able to afford to worry about Sunstreaker in battle, too busy looking after himself and, by extension, his brother.
Out of battle. That was another thing.
Sideswipe was coming in and out of defrag in starts and stops, falling into unsteady recharge before jerking violently back online, the way he always did when Sunstreaker was hurt, the silence feeding back along their link like battery acid running down a wire, dripping alkali into the core of spark and jolting him awake again with vicious panic set into his struts, locking his hydraulics so tight error messages pinged his sub-processors. He was sitting in the hall just down the corridor from the medical bay where Sunstreaker was still stabilizing, Ratchet, Cleaver, the both of them having unanimously kicked him out because his standing there shell-shocked wasn’t helpful.
For now he’d settled with his back to the wall, EMF a black miasmic tangle pulsing off the roadster’s scratched and battered finish, his paint scored to the dark undergloss, into the raw metals, color nanites shorn and scorched away and after a very, very brief de-brief with Prime the other Bots had kind of withdrawn to let the former frontliner shut down and struggle through the feedback and the self-repair locks on his own. Which was good, because the deep, complex engine vibrations coming off his body spelled out physical violence for anyone who got close enough to try to shake him from his half-dazed stupor.
He was unaware of himself, the world sickly reeling, his sensors bleeding sensation and orientation until the base swam. He shut his optics to shut out his surroundings, venting slowly, speaking code until his voice wound down.
“M'sorry. M'sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry...”
Out of battle. That was another thing.
Sideswipe was coming in and out of defrag in starts and stops, falling into unsteady recharge before jerking violently back online, the way he always did when Sunstreaker was hurt, the silence feeding back along their link like battery acid running down a wire, dripping alkali into the core of spark and jolting him awake again with vicious panic set into his struts, locking his hydraulics so tight error messages pinged his sub-processors. He was sitting in the hall just down the corridor from the medical bay where Sunstreaker was still stabilizing, Ratchet, Cleaver, the both of them having unanimously kicked him out because his standing there shell-shocked wasn’t helpful.
For now he’d settled with his back to the wall, EMF a black miasmic tangle pulsing off the roadster’s scratched and battered finish, his paint scored to the dark undergloss, into the raw metals, color nanites shorn and scorched away and after a very, very brief de-brief with Prime the other Bots had kind of withdrawn to let the former frontliner shut down and struggle through the feedback and the self-repair locks on his own. Which was good, because the deep, complex engine vibrations coming off his body spelled out physical violence for anyone who got close enough to try to shake him from his half-dazed stupor.
He was unaware of himself, the world sickly reeling, his sensors bleeding sensation and orientation until the base swam. He shut his optics to shut out his surroundings, venting slowly, speaking code until his voice wound down.
“M'sorry. M'sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry...”