Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. All publicly recognizable characters are copyrighted to Hasbro, and the respective artists/writers/et cetera. No infringement intended.
Continuity: Generation One (G1) IDW comic-verse
Characters: Ratbat, Soundwave
Warnings: There are spoilers for IDW's Megatron: Origins below. Read at your own risk.
Author's Note: Criticism encouraged, technical points preferable.
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Ratbat, nestled snugly between Laserbeak and the darkness of partial subspace, seethed. His… colleagues… ignored his bursts of muted emotion, the internal screech of his offended pride. They had grown used to its monotonous presence, as he had grown used to their indifferent acceptance.
Somewhere along the way, he had learned to serve. And it grated, to know what he had become, and what he had been, and to feel the traitor's satisfaction in that knowledge.
His memory could have been erased. It was a relatively simple procedure, as far as data transfers went. He could have begun anew, a creature without a past, no longer steeped in his old pride. But instead he suffered in silence and solitude, shunned by those who, by twisted rights, should have been his newfound kin. Oh, and over it all, he loomed, with his perverse little 'family'. Spies and scouts, beings bound to him from their very sparking or creatures like himself, coerced to join with the conspirator. And even among these pitiful wretches, he was not one, he was not welcomed.
A prickle of awareness pushed against his thoughts, slick as mercury. Once, his firewalls would have been enough to keep out such an intrusion. Now, however….
"Ratbat, eject."
He was buffeted forward, unwilling hurled back into the stark Cybertronian night. He unfolded from the cramped, flimsy form he wore, spreading the disgraceful protrusions that passed for wings to slow his momentum. He flapped them madly, ungainly and inelegant with the awkward flight array. Straining, he at last managed to steady himself, by virtue of primitive wing beats and purposefully weakened anti-gravitational technology. Sullen, he looked back to Soundwave, waiting for his objective, fuming at the sheer presumption.
Once it had been he who had commanded. Once it was he who had manipulated.
"Operation: surveillance."
No more.
For perhaps a moment too long, he lingered, wishing for a vocalizer with which to vent his hate, for one moment to be endowed with the capacity for speech. He had taken it for granted, in his past existence, those little satisfactions. How different things would have been, had he but known of the betrayal beforehand. Just once, he thought. Give me the words but once and it will be enough for a lifetime of servitude.
Another push of awareness across his own, a flash of smug amusement. "That is an order," Soundwave said, in the same impassive, deferential tone he had once employed so effortlessly, long ago. If he had lips with which to smile, Ratbat had very little doubt that a smirk would have appeared across that otherwise dispassionate visage. "… Senator."
Vile, treasonous wretch! Ratbat's jaw worked, all too aware of the empty space that should have held a vocalizer, a sad little buzz in the bottom of his chest that should have spat forth bitterness and loathing. It wasn't right, it wasn't right! How could he be subjugated so? He was Ratbat! He was one of the most influential mechanisms on the whole of Cybertron!
Soundwave, ostensibly patient, tilted his head inquiringly. His mind prodded at Ratbat, the necessary information already having been transferred, urging him to depart to his little task, like a good drone.
Beyond furious, Ratbat hung in place, defiance radiating from every particle of his being.
Push came to shove came to lash, and he could not resist that fathomless, dark mind. Unable to scream his fury, the fallen senator flashed his optics, flapping hard as he labored his way through the skies. He would endure this indignity, for now, and function as he was compelled to. But there would be a time, in a hundred thousand vorns or in a day, where Soundwave would slip. And he would be there, waiting, ready to take back what was his by rights.
He could bide his time. He could be patient. What else did he have, save the waiting?