A Lucky Mistake
Chapter One: So Close
Shockwave looked in on what he thought was one of his best experiments. A tiny femme, mostly gold, with shimmering lines like a non-sentient computer's motherboard down her arms and legs, and across her chassis. These lines were a deep blue, but glimmered with sparks, like tracing an electrical current. The femme's optics were hidden behind a visor of frosted glass, making it look white. But the mad scientist knew the shade of those eyes was a strange teal, like green and blue blended together. But her stunning looks just added to her appeal.
The small femme had but one flaw, and Shockwave refused to believe his experiments on her were the cause. But, of course, they were. Her flaw, her glitch, was that she had an odd habit of repeating certain words. And she was afraid of new bots. But her trust issue was not part of her glitch. That was only part of the way she'd been raised.
"Repeat," Shockwave said, sliding the door to her rooms open.
The little gold femme looked up with a soft, inquiring chirp, nearly delighted to see him. She was never afraid of the slightly intimidating purple giant with a single yellow optic in his hexagonal face.
"Did you recharge well?" he asked, almost affectionately. He scooped her up in his arms as she trotted over, lifting her arms up to him, asking to be picked up. She nuzzled against him in a Sparkling-esque fashion, trilling.
"Slept, slept well. No, no bad memory, memories played again, again, again." she affirmed softly, reaching up with one small hand to stroke the sensory horn on that side of Shockwave's head. "Pretty-pretty," she said, as she always did when she was close enough to touch those horns.
"Would you like horns, Repeat?" Shockwave asked her gently.
"No no no no no!" she yelped, shaking her head. "Pretty-pretty on Shock, Shockwave. Not on Repeat! Not on me!" she sounded stunned that such a thing would be offered.
"Alright. No horns, then." He said softly, gently rubbing her back. "But you will need an alt-form, Repeat."
"Why?" was the rapid reply. "Why needed, needed? Where, where, where am I going to go, go?" That opaque visor pulled back to fixate on him.
"I don't expect you'll use it often, but you're long past the age to select and use an alt-form," he explained to her, carrying her out into the hall and heading down to his extensive laboratories. "I'm also going to equip you with defensive armor and weapons."
At this, Repeat squealed in a pitch that was painful on the audios. A sound all bots could make, signaling great distress or pain.
"Repeat! Calm down, please!" Shockwave had to shout to be heard over the electronic scream. Once she quieted, he set her down, and crouched down to be on optic-level with her. "Repeat, I don't ever want to see you hurt. You understand?"
She was still a long moment, then nodded. "Yes, yes. But… why do I need, need armor and, and guns, guns, guns?" her voice was little more than a shy whimper.
"Because, Repeat, I may not always be here to protect you," Shockwave told her, not liking having to be so painfully honest with her. "There's a gladiator, Megatron, and he's stirring up the lower castes – like us – but he's aiming for war. I can feel it coming. And I want you to be able to survive… Especially if we get separated." He pulled her into a caring embrace, "You're an amazing femme, and far too young to return to the Well."
Repeat hugged Shockwave tightly. A soft whine still reverberated in her vocoder. "I'm not, not, not leaving." She declared. "Not, not ever."
"That's what I hope for," Shockwave told her fondly. He stood up again, with little Repeat clinging to him like a symbiote. "But let's get you that alt-form."
"Okay," she nodded, "Can I go fast, fast, fast?"
"I think I've got a form for you to scan," he said, "One that has high speeds. Imported specially from Velocitron. That's a colony dedicated solely on going fast, and how to go faster."
"I'd like, like, like to see there, there, there, there!" Repeat exclaimed gleefully.
"Oh, I don't think we can," Shockwave admitted as he typed the passcode to enter his labs. "They're a long way out -"
"Space Bridge!" Repeat shrilled happily.
"The Space Bridges barely work, dearspark. We can't use them to go anywhere. Trade between Cybertron and its colonies were cut off megacycles ago." He nearly regretted telling her the painful truth as he watched the lower portion of her faceplates slowly fold into a sparkbreakingly sad expression.
"All gone, gone?" she asked, and Shockwave nodded silently. She bowed her head, trilling sadly.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, holding her close for a moment more, before setting her in the seat he'd designed for her. It was molded to her small frame, and she often fell into light cycles of recharge as he worked… if she'd come along to watch him, or when taking breaks from experiments that taxed her systems too far. The ends of the arms were shredded from a few tests that went awry and had her hands flexing into tight fists around them.
"Not your fault the Bridge, Bridge, Bridges broke." Repeat stated.
"Oh? And whose fault is it?" Shockwave asked. This should be interesting.
"The lazy Senate, Senate!" she said, "You, you, you said so!"
So she's been listening when I speak to Soundwave and Megatron or Orion Pax. What else has she heard, I wonder? He thought, finding that Repeat might be a good Espionage bot. Or, like Soundwave's quintet of Cassettes, a Data-Gathering bot. One to record audio, even visual, and then report back for Memory Upload of the recordings. He'd have to think on it later. The main goal for the day was to get her a sleek alt-form, and equip her with proper weaponry and armor.
"Good observation," he praised her, pulling up a holo-touch-screen of vehicle images for her to look through. "For the moment, you should pick your alt-form while I get your armor ready."
She chirped an affirmation, already flicking through models, discarding by appearance first, then reading the pros and cons of the ones left, slowly discarding the less-desirable ones methodically.
Shockwave watched the little femme with an unknown affection warming him from his Spark. She was clever, quick-witted, and always eager to be close to him. The first time she'd seen Megatron, she'd screeched and bolted to her rooms, shoving her berth in front of the door, and hiding in a back-closet! But she trusted Shockwave without question, despite what surface-bots had heard about him… and the awful experiments he conducted. No one had ever heard about Repeat, and if Shockwave had any say, no one ever would.
It has several joors later, with Repeat recharging in her chair when Shockwave felt that her new modifications were done properly. She'd chosen a double-loaded crossbow as her main weapon. He'd also gotten her to choose a multitude of smaller plasma blasters, as well as an ever-useful flash-pistol. She'd been outfitted with thicker armor, still gold with the blue lines. As her alt-form, she'd selected a sleek, Velocitronian two-wheeled form, but minus the turbo-boosters the image showed.
Repeat shifted a little, then turned onto her side, pulling her legs up on the seat against her front. Shockwave looked over at her, waiting to be sure she was fine before cleaning up the rest of his tools. He'd have to take her back to her rooms soon, before starting his other experiments in the lower levels of the labs.
As Shockwave picked her up, she trilled, and snuggled into him. If Shockwave had the ability to smile, he would have as he carried the small femme up the hallways. She looked less like a femmeling and so much more like a soldier with her new mods.
"Don't grow up too fast, Repeat," he murmured, setting her down in her own berth.
He was almost to the door when a soft chirp stopped him. "What's wrong?" he asked, looking back.
"Is there, there going to be a war, Shock, Shockwave?" Repeat asked.
"Probably. I just hope we won't get dragged into it."
The only character I own is Repeat.
Please review. I know Shockwave is being way OOC for now. But that's just the effect Repeat has on him. Sorry!