were-cars sixteen
Jul. 25th, 2008 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonofdispairsummary: 2007 movieverse. mostly pre-earth: some archetypes are universal. some legends transcend species. and sometimes there's nothing left to do but out race the moons.
disclaimer: names, places and concepts that are recognizable aren't mine. since i shamelessly raided a list of mini-cons from armada for names, i don't even own the oc's. i do own the plot, though.
warnings: battle violence. cussing. lots of weirdness. eventual male pronoun robot / male pronoun robot romance.
Were-Cars of Cybertron: part sixteen
The only private space was in the back of the transport that had brought the cleaning drones. It was small, cramped, and smelled like old lubricant.
Prowl didn't care. He felt sick.
For the sixty-eighth time he wiped his hand against the floor of the transport. His paint was beginning to come off, but he couldn't stop. Wiping off the imaginary mech fluids was the only thing that soothed the memory of how they'd gotten there -- of callously sorting the pieces. He told himself the logical reasons and still he couldn't help but feel horrible, like he'd wronged the victim by locking up his emotions while handling his shell. But that would pass. When he allowed it to.
And yet, focusing on his own self-loathing was better than thoughts of the dead shell. It was quite possibly the messiest death he'd seen.
It didn't matter how often this happened, what pictures he saw, or how he prepared for it -- this first rush of emotions after unlocking them always overwhelmed him, turning him into a shivering wreck. It wasn't the emotions themselves -- it was the intensity that always caught him. Anger and horror always hit like a physical blow, but self-loathing lingered.
And yet... anger and self-loathing were easily dealt with by logic. Anger resolved itself at the end of a case, when the perpetrator was stopped and so was the easiest to compartmentalize behind logic. Self-loathing lingered, but he had his reasons for the wrong he always felt he committed and they would win out when he allowed them to.
Horror, though, always came inextricably tied with the question that defied logic -- why? Not just why would one mech commit such violence on another? Or why was this victim chosen? But most of all -- why was the world such that acts like this were committed?
So when the pattern of various fluids splattered across the buildings and walkway, the pieces that hadn't been of interest enough to acknowledge further than recording their positions, the empty spark casing all started to spiral his thoughts into that terrible question -- "Why?" -- he tore his thoughts away from that and deliberately brought up the memory of emotionlessly picking up a small bit of armor.
Optics off, he shuddered and wiped his hand for the sixty-ninth time.
Primus, he was tired. Everything -- the insistent fear for the lives of future victims, the continued sick uncertainty circling around Redline he'd never acknowledge, the accumulated emotions of hundreds of cases and crime scenes -- seemed tangibly attached to his frame, like his paint had been made from the core matter of a neutron star.
He was tired and he couldn't rest yet. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to.
"Prowl?" The word sounded like its speaker didn't know whether to be worried or impatient.
Optics switched on to see Rhythm crouched worriedly in front of the miserable ball of police officer. Prowl just stared at him, too distraught to remember this wasn't a position he wanted to be in relation to the were-car. A part of him cursed himself -- Rhythm's worry was another thing he could blame his logic simulator for. He never remembered others' emotions in that state -- only took them into account as cause and effect. And logically, since Rhythm hadn't been part of the crime scene, Prowl hadn't even thought of him.
He needed to remedy that, now, despite his desire for privacy. The memory of faded blue plating had him wiping his hand on the floor again.
"Prowl, was it -- ?"
"It is not Redline," he whispered, interrupting, and watched the silver mech sag in relief. Part of him was glad for Rhythm. Another part was disgusted that he could find any gladness in that mech's death. He shuddered again.
Rhythm whined sympathetically like Sideswipe had earlier and made a quickly aborted attempt to reach for him.
Too eagerly, Prowl's mind latched onto the distraction.
"How -- what would you think if I were to reach for you now?"
Rhythm looked slightly taken aback, like he couldn't quite believe the question needed to be asked. "I would think you're pretty miserable and wanting a bit of comfort." Then he slowly grasped Prowl's hand and placed it palm-down on silver plating in the gesture Prowl had always thought meant only ownership. "I would hope we're friends Prowl, and the rules are different for friends."
Friends? He allowed himself to be drawn into the smaller mech's hold, clutching at silver plating while his sensor panels were petted soothingly. He wasn't sure he knew how to be a friend.
Then the soft rumbling of Rhythm's engine relaxed him and memories, not just of this crime scene, but of countless ones, flooded him. And for the first time, Prowl was sure he was safe from drowning in that tide.
888
The next time Redline woke up, he was restrained by a pair of Kaonex shapeshifter manacles. They were uncomfortable, and uncomfortably familiar. They'd been used by the keepers when the gladiators couldn't be otherwise confined, like the rare time when the pens were cleaned. But really, his captor should have known better. Using the ropes a second time would have been more effective. Habits older than even those he'd gained as a gladiator kept him quiet, listening, as his fingers once again searched out the restraints' weak spot -- the networking plug. There were reasons the gladiators were always guarded, even when restrained.
No one had cleaned up the smashed crates, but the intact ones had been re-stacked to hide his view of the rest of the space. There were people talking. Both voices were familiar. The first he couldn't quite recognize. The second was the were-tank.
"... Starscream calls it a pulse cannon. The design takes advantage of a shapeshifter's nature. Right now he only has designs for jets and tanks, but your medic friend can add it to the others over the course of normal repairs."
"Excellent. I will deliver these to his pet as soon as possible. And the cars and motorcycles hardly matter. They're weaklings nearly on the level of those who cannot shapeshift at all."
"Then who was it that pulled out the primary hydraulic line in your leg?" Redline snickered to himself as the tank growled. "Obviously they will have they're uses. As spies perhaps."
"You are, perhaps, thinking too far ahead."
"Not at all. Kaon is an army. They lack only weapons and a leader. Weapons, they will have soon."
"And who will be the leader? You?"
"I would rather hope so."
He was really not liking the sound of this conversation now. He didn't care if someone wanted to burn Kaon to the ground, but that sounded like more expansive plans were being made. Redline found the restraints' plug. Deftly he uncoiled the networking cable in his wrist and began hacking the locking codes. First he had to hack the code that would tell the manacles' little computer he was the bigger computer in charge of registering and changing the locking codes, which wouldn't be easy. Such computers were made to be as incomparable to a mech's processors as possible just to make it more difficult to hack the manacles. It wasn't impossible, though. From there he could determine wether it would be easier to find out the current code or change it to a new one.
Redline wanted to huff his vents in derision -- both toward his captor and toward the keepers -- but didn't. His captor obviously wasn't as smart as he thought himself. Using a pair of Iaconian police cuffs to restrain Redline may have been less "poetic", but they would have been easier to acquire and couldn't be hacked at all.
"They wouldn't listen to you as you are now. I could fix that for you. I don't see why you keep refusing."
"I refuse to be a groundpounder."
"Good luck with your scientist then."
"I must go. My brother will make a fuss if I do not go home two nights in a row."
Redline switched off his optics and feigned continued unconsciousness as one of the mechs left -- he wasn't going to talk to the tank if he couldn't do some damage to him.
Symbols and numbers scrolled through his processor as he slowly unraveled the codes. He was going to have a nasty processor ache -- he hadn't been designed for data processing -- but there had been a time where that had been a near-constant, and he could ignore it. Too often, those gladiators who had been sentenced to that life from creation -- like Redline's captor -- forgot that some of their fellows had other skills.
The keepers didn't, and watched the true criminals more closely. Rhythm also hadn't, and to finally escape Kaon the two of them taken advantage of the fact that the keepers watched Redline for things like hacking locks, but not Rhythm. His partner had been an attentive and eager student.
He heard the were-tank's footsteps come around the crates to check on his captive. He scoffed at the weakness of cars and left Redline alone.
If Wreckage wanted to settle their feud, they'd settle it.
tbc
notes: writing for the last couple of weeks has been almost impossible due to real life. i have started the next chapter, but it will not be written in time to be updated next friday. the tuesday after that i'm going home for the six weeks before school starts again and most likely will not be able to write enough to keep any sort of regular updates during that time. sorry to say, if there's another update before the end of september it will quite the surprise, even to me.
disclaimer: names, places and concepts that are recognizable aren't mine. since i shamelessly raided a list of mini-cons from armada for names, i don't even own the oc's. i do own the plot, though.
warnings: battle violence. cussing. lots of weirdness. eventual male pronoun robot / male pronoun robot romance.
Were-Cars of Cybertron: part sixteen
The only private space was in the back of the transport that had brought the cleaning drones. It was small, cramped, and smelled like old lubricant.
Prowl didn't care. He felt sick.
For the sixty-eighth time he wiped his hand against the floor of the transport. His paint was beginning to come off, but he couldn't stop. Wiping off the imaginary mech fluids was the only thing that soothed the memory of how they'd gotten there -- of callously sorting the pieces. He told himself the logical reasons and still he couldn't help but feel horrible, like he'd wronged the victim by locking up his emotions while handling his shell. But that would pass. When he allowed it to.
And yet, focusing on his own self-loathing was better than thoughts of the dead shell. It was quite possibly the messiest death he'd seen.
It didn't matter how often this happened, what pictures he saw, or how he prepared for it -- this first rush of emotions after unlocking them always overwhelmed him, turning him into a shivering wreck. It wasn't the emotions themselves -- it was the intensity that always caught him. Anger and horror always hit like a physical blow, but self-loathing lingered.
And yet... anger and self-loathing were easily dealt with by logic. Anger resolved itself at the end of a case, when the perpetrator was stopped and so was the easiest to compartmentalize behind logic. Self-loathing lingered, but he had his reasons for the wrong he always felt he committed and they would win out when he allowed them to.
Horror, though, always came inextricably tied with the question that defied logic -- why? Not just why would one mech commit such violence on another? Or why was this victim chosen? But most of all -- why was the world such that acts like this were committed?
So when the pattern of various fluids splattered across the buildings and walkway, the pieces that hadn't been of interest enough to acknowledge further than recording their positions, the empty spark casing all started to spiral his thoughts into that terrible question -- "Why?" -- he tore his thoughts away from that and deliberately brought up the memory of emotionlessly picking up a small bit of armor.
Optics off, he shuddered and wiped his hand for the sixty-ninth time.
Primus, he was tired. Everything -- the insistent fear for the lives of future victims, the continued sick uncertainty circling around Redline he'd never acknowledge, the accumulated emotions of hundreds of cases and crime scenes -- seemed tangibly attached to his frame, like his paint had been made from the core matter of a neutron star.
He was tired and he couldn't rest yet. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to.
"Prowl?" The word sounded like its speaker didn't know whether to be worried or impatient.
Optics switched on to see Rhythm crouched worriedly in front of the miserable ball of police officer. Prowl just stared at him, too distraught to remember this wasn't a position he wanted to be in relation to the were-car. A part of him cursed himself -- Rhythm's worry was another thing he could blame his logic simulator for. He never remembered others' emotions in that state -- only took them into account as cause and effect. And logically, since Rhythm hadn't been part of the crime scene, Prowl hadn't even thought of him.
He needed to remedy that, now, despite his desire for privacy. The memory of faded blue plating had him wiping his hand on the floor again.
"Prowl, was it -- ?"
"It is not Redline," he whispered, interrupting, and watched the silver mech sag in relief. Part of him was glad for Rhythm. Another part was disgusted that he could find any gladness in that mech's death. He shuddered again.
Rhythm whined sympathetically like Sideswipe had earlier and made a quickly aborted attempt to reach for him.
Too eagerly, Prowl's mind latched onto the distraction.
"How -- what would you think if I were to reach for you now?"
Rhythm looked slightly taken aback, like he couldn't quite believe the question needed to be asked. "I would think you're pretty miserable and wanting a bit of comfort." Then he slowly grasped Prowl's hand and placed it palm-down on silver plating in the gesture Prowl had always thought meant only ownership. "I would hope we're friends Prowl, and the rules are different for friends."
Friends? He allowed himself to be drawn into the smaller mech's hold, clutching at silver plating while his sensor panels were petted soothingly. He wasn't sure he knew how to be a friend.
Then the soft rumbling of Rhythm's engine relaxed him and memories, not just of this crime scene, but of countless ones, flooded him. And for the first time, Prowl was sure he was safe from drowning in that tide.
888
The next time Redline woke up, he was restrained by a pair of Kaonex shapeshifter manacles. They were uncomfortable, and uncomfortably familiar. They'd been used by the keepers when the gladiators couldn't be otherwise confined, like the rare time when the pens were cleaned. But really, his captor should have known better. Using the ropes a second time would have been more effective. Habits older than even those he'd gained as a gladiator kept him quiet, listening, as his fingers once again searched out the restraints' weak spot -- the networking plug. There were reasons the gladiators were always guarded, even when restrained.
No one had cleaned up the smashed crates, but the intact ones had been re-stacked to hide his view of the rest of the space. There were people talking. Both voices were familiar. The first he couldn't quite recognize. The second was the were-tank.
"... Starscream calls it a pulse cannon. The design takes advantage of a shapeshifter's nature. Right now he only has designs for jets and tanks, but your medic friend can add it to the others over the course of normal repairs."
"Excellent. I will deliver these to his pet as soon as possible. And the cars and motorcycles hardly matter. They're weaklings nearly on the level of those who cannot shapeshift at all."
"Then who was it that pulled out the primary hydraulic line in your leg?" Redline snickered to himself as the tank growled. "Obviously they will have they're uses. As spies perhaps."
"You are, perhaps, thinking too far ahead."
"Not at all. Kaon is an army. They lack only weapons and a leader. Weapons, they will have soon."
"And who will be the leader? You?"
"I would rather hope so."
He was really not liking the sound of this conversation now. He didn't care if someone wanted to burn Kaon to the ground, but that sounded like more expansive plans were being made. Redline found the restraints' plug. Deftly he uncoiled the networking cable in his wrist and began hacking the locking codes. First he had to hack the code that would tell the manacles' little computer he was the bigger computer in charge of registering and changing the locking codes, which wouldn't be easy. Such computers were made to be as incomparable to a mech's processors as possible just to make it more difficult to hack the manacles. It wasn't impossible, though. From there he could determine wether it would be easier to find out the current code or change it to a new one.
Redline wanted to huff his vents in derision -- both toward his captor and toward the keepers -- but didn't. His captor obviously wasn't as smart as he thought himself. Using a pair of Iaconian police cuffs to restrain Redline may have been less "poetic", but they would have been easier to acquire and couldn't be hacked at all.
"They wouldn't listen to you as you are now. I could fix that for you. I don't see why you keep refusing."
"I refuse to be a groundpounder."
"Good luck with your scientist then."
"I must go. My brother will make a fuss if I do not go home two nights in a row."
Redline switched off his optics and feigned continued unconsciousness as one of the mechs left -- he wasn't going to talk to the tank if he couldn't do some damage to him.
Symbols and numbers scrolled through his processor as he slowly unraveled the codes. He was going to have a nasty processor ache -- he hadn't been designed for data processing -- but there had been a time where that had been a near-constant, and he could ignore it. Too often, those gladiators who had been sentenced to that life from creation -- like Redline's captor -- forgot that some of their fellows had other skills.
The keepers didn't, and watched the true criminals more closely. Rhythm also hadn't, and to finally escape Kaon the two of them taken advantage of the fact that the keepers watched Redline for things like hacking locks, but not Rhythm. His partner had been an attentive and eager student.
He heard the were-tank's footsteps come around the crates to check on his captive. He scoffed at the weakness of cars and left Redline alone.
If Wreckage wanted to settle their feud, they'd settle it.
tbc
notes: writing for the last couple of weeks has been almost impossible due to real life. i have started the next chapter, but it will not be written in time to be updated next friday. the tuesday after that i'm going home for the six weeks before school starts again and most likely will not be able to write enough to keep any sort of regular updates during that time. sorry to say, if there's another update before the end of september it will quite the surprise, even to me.
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Date: 2008-07-26 05:30 pm (UTC)Until September then!
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Date: 2008-07-26 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-09 08:57 pm (UTC)Take care!!!
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Date: 2008-10-10 08:21 am (UTC)i haven't forgotten about this fic either. life's actually going well for me, just busy for the last month or two. but i do have the next chapter of this written and now i'm just waiting to talk to my beta again before i post it. should be tomorrow. or today. friday -- whenever.