Ep. 1 - Catching Up - Closed

[Deleted]

<<Takes place after Starscream's announcement but before Barricade is brigged.>>

Ravage hurt. Oh, the red medic had given him pain inhibitors and cut the feedback from his pinched neural lines, but though it made the pain bearable, it never made it go away. His frame always knew when it'd been injured, and no amount of medtech would convince it otherwise.

And right now it was informing him seriously that he had various dents, several painfully crimped neural lines under said dents, a non-vital stabwound, some tearing scratches that almost made it down to mesh, a dented-but-not-particularly-painful BITE because Jazz was a GLITCH, a few cracked struts and plates, a headful of static from the EMP grenade, and a (very slowly) leaking hydraulic line somewhere in his hip that was TICKLING as it dribbled.

All of which was classified as "non-vital damage, here's some pain inhibitors, come back tomorrow". Ravage would have been upset if Knock Out if he hadn't seen the spark-guttering state of those the medic WAS working on. Also if the medic hadn't been giving out the GOOD pain inhibitors.

Ravage had taken his drugs and gone to find a nice quiet vent to lie in.

He'd found it above the mess hall. Fairly quiet, as the room hadn't taken much damage, but yet mechs wandered in and out, talking as they went. Even injured, Ravage couldn't kick the habit of watching.

He shifted to a position that pained his hip the least and rested his head on his front paws, optics on the scene below as he waited for something to happen or the planetary cycle to roll over. One or the other.

[Deleted]

Despite her dappy, talkative, obnoxiously intrusive nature, Fairwinds could achieve remarkable levels of stealth when it suited her. Previously the multiple suppression and masking systems integrated into her frame had only been used during recon and sabotage missions issued to her by Megatron - never on her Master's ship.

But this wasn't Megatron's ship now. Starscream had made it painfully, screechingly clear that he was in command now, which made being the former (and former only because he was missing, not dead, fraggit) commander's cassette a dangerous occupation. After laying low in her cupboard-quarters inside Megatron's own chambers, refueling and parsing through all the chatter and reports, Fairwinds had finally ventured out to find a friendly face.

Fairwinds greeted one such familiar face with a singular large optic pressed up to the vent opening, talons gripping with mag-clamps to the ceiling of the mess where she had flattened her body after landing.

"S'up, Ravage?" she whispered, though not so suppressed that her voice failed to convey a grin. The red optic twitched past the feline cassette's chin in the direction of his body, indicating the mess that some Autobot had made of it. "Need a med-assist?"

[Deleted]

Ravage huffed and moved over (slowly) to give the other cassette room to enter the duct. "Yes, please. The hip. And if you can patch the hydraulic line I will owe you one. It's trickling right over a pressure sensor."

He'd not failed to notice Fairwinds' stealthy approach, so uncommon for aboard the Nemesis. Not to mention the rumors that he'd heard about her participation in the mission involving the Fallen's weapon. "You look quite healthy for someone deactivated," Ravage observed. "I heard something about the ship you were in blowing up."

[Deleted]

Clambering in with half-flared wings for balance, Fairwinds scuttled along the side of Ravage's body and lay one three-toed pede over the main articulation joint. She'd already gathered that he was on some generously potent neural inhibitors from his longwave before the scan results came back, and she pried apart the plates he flared open to her with her beak with quick efficiency.

"Shoulda seen me a few cycles ago. Was all patched up with duct-tape. Been laying low planet-side since my comm.s are still fragged," Fairwinds replied, inverting her head to bring the curve of her beak up under Ravage's plating.

Dented metal was angled in and trapping neural lines against cracked struts. She began pressing at the buckled points, lashing a strand of her splintered tongue out to lay nanites over the neural line. From the outside, it looked like a vulture pecking at the inside of a carcass.

"Real clusterfrag going on here, huh?" she added quietly, a heavy flicker of uncertainty shivering through her field. With narrowed optics, she continued pressing the dents back out until she could move on to finding and patching that leak.

[Deleted]

"Yes," Ravage agreed agreeably. "I have to hand it to the Autobots, it was a good strike. Though, like usual, they manage to not quite go for the kill." He huffed a chuckle. That was true personally as well as generally, he thought. "Their loss." Certainly Jazz's. Ravage was going to enjoy killing that traitor....

He onlined one optic--not having noticed when it closed--and craned his head around to look at Fairwinds. The view of the flightframe's head half-buried in his hipjoint was slightly disturbing. "And I am assuming that Lord Megatron is not dead." It wasn't much of a question. Starscream's lies had been even more transparent than usual. And Fairwinds would not be flying about cheerfully poking at his wounds if Lord Megatron were dead.

No, Ravage thought, this was yet another round in Lord Megatron's and Starscream's eternal game. Perhaps, Ravage thought, this time Lord Megatron would actually kill the backstabbing seeker. That was a lovely idea.

Ravage rested his head back on his front paws. His processor felt very nice at the moment.

Something occurred to him.

"...What is duct tape?"

[Deleted]

Fairwinds ignored the cassette's last question after the mention of her carrier, pausing in her work with a quiet exhale through her primary vents. Having been tuned into the Eradicon grapevine, she knew that Ravage was not the only one on board who was beyond sceptical of Starscream's claims about Optimus and Megatron. That their commander had survived and recovered to full strength after a large space bridge had exploded at point-blank range made his death difficult to believe, and compounded with the lack of a body and Starscream's isolated and unevidenced claim that Prime had taken Megatron's frame after slaying him...

"No, 's'absolutely not dead." Withdrawing her energon-sticky helm from Ravage's frame, Fairwinds scanned over her work and decided that enough of the dents were out that the pain (when the cassette regained the ability to appreciate sensation again) would be minimal. She spiralled her optics wide to scan for the tear in the hydraulic line.

"No one knows where Master is, though. Not on the ship, the Autobots would have comm.ed us if they did have him, and there's no sign of his signal planetside." A huff and she brought a pede up to hook under one of Ravage's highly articulated back plates. She gave it a shove to indicate that he should flare it for her and let her at the leak. "Carrier link feels kinda wonky on his end, too. Don't think I can track him that way."

[Deleted]

Ravage's optics were off again. Honestly, this was not acceptable.

The structural errors were easing off, though. The pain was regressing as well, though he couldn't say for sure whether that was due to Fairwinds' ministrations or to the nanites' work. He charitably gave Fairwinds credit and flared the requested plating.

"Wonky, hmm?" He appreciated the eccentric word for its own sake for a moment before sliding back to the subject at hand. "Well...he must have left the ship, then. For some reason. And something must have happened to him, for him to leave during a battle. Or perhaps right before a battle. Perhaps he left just before the Autobots showed up. We don't," he pointed out, "know enough to tell."

Ravage continued to think out loud, mostly because he'd lost track of the fact that he was still speaking. "He could be anywhere, really, with his alt. Perhaps someone saw him fly off? We can check the Nemesis' security feeds. Soundwave will probably do that first thing, once he's done dealing with the immediate emergencies. After that...hmm...I don't know what he'll do...or be able to do. Starscream needs watching...who knows what he could do if left unsupervised. I hear that Barricade is back...he'll be in trouble as soon as Starscream finds him, if he isn't already. And everyone else sounds like they're going to toe Starscream's line and at least ACT like they believe Megatron's dead. So, no search parties."

Something occurred to Ravage. He turned his head to look at Fairwinds again. "You should look for him." The more he thought (slowly) about this, the better the idea was. "No one else will be. And you don't have any assigned duties here. Starscream won't be looking for you, and with him in charge you probably don't want to stick around here anyway. You can come and go.... This is a good idea." He sounded vaguely surprised at that, then nodded, seriously.

<<I'm thinking that in SW or Ravage's trawling of the security feeds they might find the original fight (if we want them to have something to hold over Starscream) or just Megatron leaving on the shuttle. At the least, they can find that the shuttle left and think it odd. (after all, why would Megatron take a shuttle when he could fly?) SW could send Ravage to help Fairwinds, and the rest is Cassette Roadtrip history? >>

[Deleted]

In a remarkable display of restraint, Fairwinds waited the eighteen kliks it took for her to patch over the hydraulic leak before yanking her head away and hopping to stand at Ravage's head. Dripping a fine sheen of fluids, she flicked her crestplates in thought. "It is? You think so?"

She wanted to - of that there was no question. However, though Earth was substantially smaller than Cybertron, it was still a Big Planet, and she was one Tiny Cassette. Without a support unit and most of her equipment still damaged or missing entirely from the emergency evacuation from the self-destructing Phantom, Fairwinds felt that her chances of finding Megatron with her optics were very small.

But better than from not looking at all. Ravage was quite correct: Starscream would not send out a search party, and if Megatron wasn't responding to the cassette link, then likely he was incapacitated and would not be immediately returning under his own power.

Thoroughly convinced now, Fairwinds straightened with assured purpose. "Yeah, I totally should. I'll slip off the ship and find Master, and bring him home before Screamer can smelt 'Cade and steer us into a volcano of stupidity and death." A beat before her wings sank, some of the optimism deflating from her field. "Just don't know where to start, is all. Knockout's too swamped to fix my recon. systems, there's a drippy hole where my comm.s were, and the cassette link is a bust."

Ravage's optics had drifted shut again, and she shoved a pede into the middle of his face to get his attention. "Has Soundwave seen anything on the security and communication feeds that might help? Or are you too cratered on happy fun time juice to check?"


<<Original fight didn't get recorded for the simple reason that when Megatron comes back, he needs to not ever possibly find out that it was Starscream who nearly killed him so he doesn't then murder Ebon's character. ^^; There's a sentient Vehicon body (unnamed in the post) by the console Megatron was using to locate the escape pods to be discovered, and likely some buried security feed snippet of the Commander heading towards said escape pods instead of flying... And then yes, new thread for the Cassette Roadtrip. <3 >>

[Deleted]

"Oof.... Brat." That last was fairly affectionate, though. Most of the errors had stopped, and also the itching. That deserved a little lenience for friendly pedes to the face.

Especially since she was covered in his fluids. Ravage wouldn't usually care, but she'd been a good sport, fixing him when she didn't have to.

He stretched, carefully, determining that with the dented plates back in place he could transform again. The process was not terribly fast, but if was relatively pain-free. He ended up slumped on his front, but that was all right. He still had the use of his hands, which he used to push himself into a sitting position braced (only a tiny big precariously) against the side of the duct. He pulled a mesh cloth from subspace and gestured vaguely at Fairwinds and then the space in front of him. "'Mere. 'N...And I am checking right now.... Might take awhile."

It did. Ravage was not exactly in the right shape for diving through raw security feeds. That was usually Soundwave's job. Ravage, however, was no slouch in the analysis arena, and he had Soundwave's access to the security feeds. It was just a matter of finding something when he wasn't sure what he was looking for. In the midst of combing through the feeds, he widened the search to also look for anything out of place...anything odd, right before or during the attack.

He had Fairwinds mostly clean (and he'd been being fairly slow and contemplative about it) when he found the first piece: a launched escape pod. That led to the second piece: feed of Megatron moving...where he shouldn't have been. Ravage's hand paused. "What was HE doing down by--? What the frag? Why would...why would he have used an ESCAPE POD?"

Ravage shook his head. "It...could have been someone else...no camera footage of him entering the pod, but...him down there for no good reason, then the one and only pod launching shortly after? See?" He bundled up the data and footage and burst it to Fairwinds. "Strange...."


<<I figured that Ravage would find the footage first. They might actually think that the dead raddie is Autobot doings, though upon closer look Ravage might trace down the request for the escape pod locations.

[Deleted]

Helm crests still flattened from the mopping down, Fairwinds gave a little shake as she accepted the data and scanned through it. She stilled with a frown, wings fluttering into a tight configuration against her chassis and frontal vents. "Master wouldn't ever just leave from a fight like that, 'specially if Prime was involved."

Resting her undercarriage down onto her pedes put her at equal optic-height with Ravage, and she scritched her claws on the vent plates as she examined the apparent last footage of her Master before he vanished. His behaviour was unusual - not only for not being involved in battle with Optimus Prime when he was right there on the ship, nor for possibly using an escape pod when he had a flight alt.

The way Megatron was moving was off - tiny increments of difference in posture and balance that just rang wrong. She took out a still and sharpened it as much as possible, beak clenching when the shadow across the back of the mech's helm and shoulders transpired to be scorch marks.

Then she looked specifically at the location and time stamp of the vid files. Blinking back out of her processor, Fairwinds looked to Ravage with a confused, agitated churr. "These are six kliks into the Autobot strike, and they hadn't penetrated this far into the ship by that point. He didn't meet them at all, anywhere." She sent the sharpened image across to Ravage. "And if that's not a blaster mark, I'll eat Arma."

A huff that was not air moving through her vents - an audio recording she'd made and played deliberately right then to express her disatisfaction. "Pod's the only lead. Possible lead. Maybe."

[Deleted]

Ravage nodded sagely. "No maybe. Definitely." He sent along the information to Soundwave. His carrier was distracted, stetched thin, but Ravage knew that he would want this information.

Damn optics, shut again. Ravage gave up the fight, letting them stay closed. "So. Autobots attack. Minutes later, Lord Megatron takes damage from...well, want to lay bets? Then, he immediately heads to the escape pods, takes one down to the surface. Must be a processor issue. Must be. Shot to the helm, I've seen it happen."

Ravage thought for a long moment. "We have to find him. If he's glitching, who knows what parameters he's working with, or how he'll deal with anything he finds."

[Deleted]

Fairwinds emitted a pathetic warble that she'd have kept muted if it hadn't been Ravage with her. And if the current circumstances weren't quite so dire. "Master isn't built for locking like Barricade. He could be really broken, and really missing, and his head might fall off, or his processor'll explode and-"

Ravage's turn to bop with a pede, cutting off her progressively more ludicrous and paranoid tangent. The avian cassette twitched the long plates of her beak and the sensory ports at the base of her crest, optics crossing for a moment. Shaking it off, Fairwinds shuffled in to Ravage's shoulder so that she was almost sitting on him and nuzzled her helm into his ears.

"You'll come with me, right? To check out the pod? No one's gonna notice if two cassettes take off, and I can fly us down there once we scan up the homing signal."

[Deleted]

Ravage watched stoically as Fairwinds' processor ran away with her. He'd learned long ago that a resetting thwap was sometimes required for the avian. It worked quite well this time, as well.

Not that Fairwinds was wrong, at the gist. Megatron COULD be in serious trouble or gravely damaged. Which gave them all the more reason to find him as quickly as possible. And Fairwinds, as competent as she was, was too upset to go about searching on her own, even if it was her function (which it wasn't).

"I will come with you," Ravage said, audials flicking at her nuzzling. He would never admit it, under pain of deactivation, but it kind of felt good. "I am notifying Soundwave of what we have found. He can track the pod's beacon."

He tilted his head toward Fairwinds'. Just a bit. "We will find him."

Optics. Closed again. This was becoming quite annoying.

[Deleted]

A pleased chirr preceded Fairwinds nuzzling her helm even harder into Ravage's, tail plates fanning and contracting with relieved and grateful pleasure. Quite aside from needing another on account of the persisting damage to her communication systems, she sincerely did not want to go alone to look for Megatron. She'd spent too much time alone with June Derby - three months locked in a box or interrogated for information in exchange for barely-digestable fuel. Right now, with the state of things, she dearly wanted to stay around other Decepticons.

Shuffling back from Ravage far enough to meet his (shuttered) optics, Fairwinds tapped an energon-stained paw with a pede-claw. "You wanna get some stims and meet me at the evacuation pod deck in ten? Or you alright?"

[Deleted]

Soundwave's reply was still a bit wobbly around the edges but unsurprising.

Ravage sent back a pulse of acknowledgment-determination and determinedly onlined his optics. "I'm fine." He got his feet under him and stretched experimentally. It hurt a lot less than it had a bit ago. "Much better, in fact."

Ravage glanced down at the mess hall. At this time of cycle, it should have been filled with mechs coming off-shift. Instead, it was nearly empty, occupied by those like himself who were injured and trying to forget it or by those who ran in at speed to grab some energon before heading back out on assignment.

Anger ate through the last of the static in Ravage's processor.

Oh, not at the Autobots, or not more than usual. They had merely taken advantage of an opening (and how, exactly, they had gotten precise enough coordinates to BRIDGE onto the Nemesis was another mission for another day) and hit hard while doing it. With Jazz having joined the Prime's team, it could have, truth be told, been much worse. But even then...something had gone wrong. The Decepticons' greatest warrior had never even joined the fight, their leader was not here to quell the chaos, and Ravage wanted to know why.

Whoever's fault it was, Ravage would shred them, be they Autobot or Decepticon.

Ravage swiveled his head back to look at Fairwinds. "I'm ready. Let's go."

~fin?