And the way led them down.
Soundwave's winged symbionts took the open spaces for their own, making short gliding excursions between the curving walls of towers, dodging with agile skill between hanging wires, rarely still. They spread a broad net, sensors and optics alert, picking out items or mechs or sudden movements of possible interest. If their carrier wished, he could see at will almost any aspect of his surroundings from the air.
Ravage took point, tracing their way - along wide highways, sloping tunnels, oddly curved ramps. The bladeframe, when alone, often travelled by ventilation shaft or power conduit, places too small and too cramped for most mechs to move. With Soundwave following, he was restricted to mainly the common ways, crowded and noisy or debris-choked and desolate, but all descending.
A joor or two, and the walls of the towers became rougher, corroded with black-cast iron meters thick. The shining towers and pavilions overhead grew still more distant, their brightness just a gleam, subtle as a memory.
Warframes were more common here - heavy creatures, grounders as tall as Soundwave but several times heavier, or smaller but built to carry mechanotons of weaponry. Black market credits changed hands openly. And the empties were everywhere, pawing through rubble, splayed out in the streets. Many had lost limbs, suffered from rust - many also wore the faded marks of military service. The heat grew uncomfortable, the decking sometimes damp with mercury. Service drones were rare. If discovered, they did not last long - were quickly cracked open for the tiny charge of energon they carried.
A few levels above the bottom, the empties began to look upon even Soundwave with... appraisal. It might not be the Pit, but still, the slums of Iacon were not kind places.
The flighted symbionts did their best to keep well out of reach.
The narrow way coiled at last down a vast curve, marking the very base of one of Iacon's great towers. A black market complex crowded the canyon floor - itself a plain that stretched as far as the optic could see, in the lingering miasma. Open sky was a narrow strip here, a thin rind of stars made soft by the oppressive thickness of the atmosphere. The crowd was likewise dense, char-streaked mechs going about their business amongst stacked cages of chained turbofoxes, slabs of offworld stone stolen from official freighters, sheet metal and supplies of all kinds, stripped parts and weapons, highgrade siphoned from the rations of the useful, and much, much more. The trading grounds, not coincidentally, crowded the perimeter of a great, open mine, and the mecha who supplied black market goods and services did not even bother to conceal their activities.
On the rim of the metalworks, Ravage paused. The void was crossed by walkways, and sank straight down, save for a crumbling road that clung to the edge. The bladeframe paused to eye the heavy traffic entering and exiting the mine. The narrowed gaze of a distant overseer passed over him, unseeing. The overseer bore a disruptor whip, and wore a scuffed autobot brand. / I gained access here, before./ Ravage offered over the bond, indicating a jagged pile of unworked iron and the narrow black gap beyond. He twisted to glance up, towards where the flightframes glided in silence. / We will require another entrance./
Soundwave inclined his head in acknowledgment. /Symbionts will spread out, search for possible entrances,/ he ordered. /Soundwave: will attempt negotiations for access./ He had little expectation of success, given that he had nothing to bargain with and few connections of any usefulness in this place. But at least he could be an obvious distraction, drawing attention and affording his cohort the space they needed for their search.
Quick pings of acknowledgment came back from all four symbionts, who quickly vanished into the murk of the thick sulfuric smog. Soundwave turned, and began to make his way to the main entrance of the mine. The overseer did not have the look of a reasonable mech, but Soundwave had gained quite a bit of unwanted experience in being a petitioner over recent vorns. Making his way through the ebb and flow of the crowded walkways, he watched the patterns of the mechs about him, listening to their conversations, upping the gain on his sensory arrays in order to monitor to the overlapping transmissions around him. One never knew what one might hear; and even the smallest bit of information might prove to be of use.
And there was a great deal to overhear. The mecha in this shadowland did not vocalize much, but the shortwave band was dense with transmissions, mostly poorly encoded. The panels folded at Soundwave's back, with their intricate networks of sensors, had little trouble sieving meaning from the tangle.
The warframes had been home for many, many vorns, but still they spoke of battle, of weapons and campaigns. Many of them had, at least, something to trade: meager rations, or metals smuggled from the mines. A great number had been sparked in war, and knew only that - they seemed to have no experience of Iacon at all outside the mines, outside this place. The merchants and civilians complained bitterly about their patrons, about growing scarcity, about the ever more common empties. And everyone grumbled about energy.
The overseer pressed himself back into the wall as a hover-drone convoy, guided by a smaller mech and laden with unprocessed metals, trundled up the rampway. Soundwave's relative cleanliness set him apart, even more than the odd build of his frame. "You there," the autobot growled, shoving a char-crusted minibot on his way. "What you want here?"
Turning, Soundwave inclined his head with assumed deference, doing his best to seem unthreatening. It was a difficult task; he was almost a third again larger than the overseer, who, while a bulkier frame, was considerably lower to the ground. Soundwave was also in far better repair, devoid of the corroded armor edges and char-streaks that marked all the mecha that lived and worked in this sector.
"Soundwave: requests entrance into the mine," he said evenly.
The overseer bristled. Yellow-armored under the grime, his alt-mode was a heavy-load hauler, if Soundwave was any judge. "Yeah? What for? Gonna go see the sights? Maybe pick up some scrap to sell while you're down there? Get outta here-I don't care what kinda fancyplate bot ya are, no one's gettin' inta my mine that isn't paid ta!"
Predictable. Soundwave surpressed the urge to vent a sigh. At least the overseer's indignation was attracting a fair amount of attention. Including most of the nearby mine-mechs, who were using their boss's preoccupation with the interloper to take an unauthorized break and enjoy the show at the same time.
"Pilferage, not intended," he said, more to extend the argument than out of any hope that an explanation would help. "Rescue intended; possibility exists of mecha trapped in tunnels."
The overseer was not impressed. "All of my miners are right where they're supposed'a be," he snapped. "An' if anyone else was sneaking down inta MY mine, than they deserve ta get melted inta slag!" He revved his engine as if to punctuate his point.
"Enforcers, share your opinion?" Soundwave asked.
"Those whiteplates? They wouldn't go down inta my mine even if the Prime himself had his aft stuck down there." A bit excessively hyperbolic, Soundwave thought. Still, true enough, at least for mecha of little importance. And it was obvious that without outright bribery-which he could not afford-there was no chance of shifting the overseer's position.
Resigned to his role, Soundwave set himself to continuing the argument. He had been reasonably skilled in debate once, even if his peers had criticized him for being excessively dogmatic. Taunting a single low-level supervisory mech into a properly loud harangue shouldn't be difficult. Assuming, of course, he could do so without said mech deciding to pound his argument through Soundwave's helm the old-fashioned way.
The overseer grew both increasingly bellicose and vulgar as he argued, drawing still more attention. Soundwave's carrier protocols tracked the progress of his symbionts as they scoured the rim of the mine and the surrounding sloping plain, their task made simpler by the absence of prying optics. And then a proximity warning, not Soundwave's own, flashed through the big mech's systems, a bolt of sudden, imperative awareness.
"...yer nodes numb, or did somebot swap yer processor and gearbox? Prettybot, you gotta have chrome bearing lugnuts if you think yer smoggy reactor-linkage is goin' -" the overseer flicked his optics towards a cluster of miners who were doing anything *but* mining "-inta MY... my - whut the frag?" the overseer paused. Ran a proximity sweep.
Where the Pit had the big mech gone?
.
.
Along the rim of the mine and the iron tailing slopes surrounding it, the three flyers ranged in wide loops, drawing from their carrier's experience of search patterns, from Ratbat's efficiency logarithms. Though there was no interference from the distracted miners, the ground was craggy, buckled and heaped with scree, crossed with crude walk ramps and crowded with merchants, all of which slowed the inspection. Every hollow had to be investigated from several different angles, while avoiding dangling wires and, twice, stray weapons fire. It was a daunting task - but the symbionts were good at finding things.
Small and nearly invisible in the dimness, Ratbat fluttered to the top of a vast mound of scrap, monitoring the acoustical environment for any sense of secret hollows or tunnels. There were a number of smaller cracks - Ratbat watched in amusement as several tiny autophages issued forth from one of these, marching towards the leading edge of the scrapheap, evidently determined in their simple way to clean up the entire pile one fragment at a time. A mech, perhaps the owner of the very same dubious treasure, cursed, kicked the little drones away. They wouldn't last long, with so many empties nearby. Ratbat relayed the locations of a few promising cavities to Ravage, then spread his flight surfaces, preparing to move on.
A trail of steam caught his optic, and Ratbat paused, refocusing. The still was a crude affair, cobbled together out of whatever came to hand. The jagged helm of some offlined mech - audials and all, though it was missing the faceplates and more valuable pieces, served as one of the reaction chambers. Nevertheless the distillation setup had been cleverly assembled. One agglutination of parts was particularly unusual. Ratbat hesitated, glanced around - and then launched himself into a glide for a closer look. The would-be still was quite innovative, actually-partially hidden under an acid-eaten overhang, it was a uniquely efficient twist on the usual process. The end result might not please the silvered palates of the Towers, but Ratbat thought the highgrade produced could be quite uniquely … potent. Possibly even explosive. Was that a-?
-a hand snatched him out of the air, far faster than the little mech could react. "Gotcha, you pathetic little piece of scrap!" Taloned digits dug painfully into one wing as Ratbat squawked in dismay, all dignity forgotten as he flailed, trying to escape from the far larger mech.
Stepping out of the shadows of the overhang, the red-and-black armored mech lifted his catch to show to his companion. "It's not enough we have to deal with empties and those stupid scuttling drones-now we have to deal with flying glitchmice too? I bet this worthless, thieving glitch is responsible for most of the pilfered energon around here, right, Reverb?"
"I am not!" Ratbat yelped indignantly. "I'll have you know I-awrk!"
"Shut it, rodent," the mech ordered, grinning unpleasantly as he shook his captive. "What do you think? He's worthless for parts-should we stake him out, drain his tank and let the drones pincer off pieces instead?"
"Uh-Stoplock? You do know that's a cassette-mech, right?" Armored in blue and purple, the red autobot insignia displayed prominently on one shoulder, Reverb didn't seem to be nearly as enthusiastic about their catch.
"Yeah? So?" Stoplock tightened his grip, listening to the yelping reach an even higher pitch as fragile wing-plating crumpled under his talons. "It's not like they're worth anything anyway. Nobody cares about an obsolete scraplet like this." He gave Ratbat another shake for good measure, the mech crying out in sharp ultrasonic yips of pain.
"Stoplock-cassettes have *carriers*," Reverb hissed. "I don't wanna-"
A sonic pulse rocked the elevated roadway, slamming into both mechs with pinpoint precision. The shockwave tore at delicate systems, inertial dampers and gyros reeling under the screech of distorted sound, and nearby bystanders scrambled out of the way, crying out in surprise and dismay as sensitive audials were assaulted. The two mechs caught at the center of the attack, however, never got the chance. Not before two and a half mechanotons of angry mech hit them like a gravtrain.
A primary cable lashed out like a silver whip, wrapping around the arm that held Ratbat captive. Clawed connectors reconfigured themselves into brutal spikes, sinking past the mech's armor, hacking motor controls. The talons spasmed open; three other secondary cables caught the injured symbiont, cradling him with delicate care.
Pulling Ratbat to safety, Soundwave kicked a teetering Reverb out of the way, a heavy pede crushing the thinner armor where the thorax met pelvic girdle and sending the mech windmilling into the wall. Ignoring the fallen mech, Soundwave turned on Stoplock. More primary cables snaked out, whipping about limbs and spearing vulnerable joints, and a taloned hand punched through the smaller mech's outer plating, tearing it open. Stoplock flailed, trying to bring weapons to bear; new tentacles intercepted them, pulling them aside, spearing into the supporting systems with a strength that belied their size.
Academic Soundwave might be, but that did not mean he was oblivious to the more practical applications of the data his symbionts held. Data that included the weak points inherent in certain frametypes, for instance.
Soundwave stepped in, his prey held effortlessly aloft. "Choice of victims, most unwise," he informed a whimpering Stoplock, sensory panels spread in a threatening display of silver and electric blue. A primary cable, still wrapped around the arm that had held Ratbat prisoner, tightened and began to pull. A metallic scream escaped Stoplock as wiring parted in a shower of sparks, energon leaking from ruptured lines. "Advised never to touch a cassette mech again," Soundwave continued, his words all the more threatening for their lack of inflection. "Query: removal of limbs necessary for memory retention?"
"Ssst-aaargh!" Stoplock's own scream was audible to him only as a muted sound; his higher-frequency audial was shattered, entirely offline, no longer even transmitting errors. He felt each articulated socket of his right shoulder strained to the point of parting, links just beginning to pop out of place, rotors loosening - and screamed again. "E-enough! Please, oh stop, stop please!"
Jerking a piece of his own armor out of the wall, Reverb pushed himself back to his feet. And looked up.
And up.
Sweet Primus on a microchip.
He'd seen a carrier just once before, when his colony's mainframe was being updated. The image still haunted him. One mech alone, between the columns of eight central databanks and impossibly linked to all of them, faceplates tilted back, standing quietly in the midst of a datastorm that made Reverb's diodes stand on end from twenty paces away. A manipulator cable had disengaged itself from one supercomputer's port, had swept with profoundly eerie grace for another massive column. He'd seen the glowing cilia and the cluster of attachment spikes and drills on the tip, still crackling with charge, as daedalean and sophisticated as a medic's multitool hands.
They said a carrier could hack anything he touched with those. Anyone. It wasn't right. Wasn't anything this side of normal.
Reverb had repressed the shiver up his backstruts and turned to leave - planning to get his file some other orn - and froze. A symbiont was watching him. The thing had crept onto the wall above. He'd seen them before, of course; cassettes went anywhere, got into anything. They'd always seemed innocuous. But with its carrier doing that just behind him... Reverb had left quickly, fighting not to flinch under those small, glittering optics.
Reverb really wished he could leave now as well.
Because this ... this was nothing like that other carrier. Disoriented, audials ringing, Reverb watched the chronicler rear back. The big mech's panels arched in flashing display, and there were more than just eight of those fragging cables - too many to count, waving like razor wires in the air - and some of them spearing up through fragging bodyarmor, like they'd fragging melted it and Primus knew what they were doing to Stoplock. The red and black mech jerked, screaming, the ready-cogs of his weapons pierced through.
Reverb released the locks on his energon shortblade.
A broad, dagger-sharp sensory panel shifted infinitesimally. In the speed and fury of combat, most mechs would have overlooked the tiny energy-spark released by that unlock. It was only the barest flicker of energon, there and gone-but it was all the warning Soundwave needed. A thick manipulator cable yanked free of Stoplock's struggling frame, snapping backwards to crack across Reverb's faceplates with the metallic squeal of metal on metal. The force of the blow snapped the smaller mech's helm sideways, sent him staggering; and then he went down again, this time as the frame of his friend came crashing down on top of him.
Reverb struggled to free himself from Stoplock's sparking, leaking frame, his fingers closing desperately about the hilt of his shortblade as the carrier mech advanced on them. Then he froze as rumbling snarl vibrated in his audials, a set of bladed teeth snapping microns from his face. "Try your little weapon," snarled the symbiont, (and how the Pit had the thing gotten so close without him knowing?) slinking into full view, ebony and silver armor gleaming dully in the dim light. The thing moved like it had no backstruts, like it was one great, articulated blade. "Try it, and you will soon find yourself short a limb with which to wield it."
Soundwave advanced, fully masked and battle-ready, his primary cables weaving a razor-edged pattern in the air. "Yield." The word was flat, uninflected, and devoid of mercy.
Reverb felt his pumps lock up, frozen in terror. There was nowhere to go; he couldn't even flinch back, trapped under Stoplock's twitching frame. "I yield! I yield!" he cried, vocalizer crackling, unable to even twist a hand free to protect his optics. Stoplock's own limbs spasmed hard in the epileptic aftereffects of a motor control hack - the jerking and inchoate trembling shed more sparks. Stoplock moaned, a pained and static-laced sound. "He yields too!" the downed Autobot gasped. A crowd was beginning to grow - albeit at a distance. Big warframes watched avidly, thoroughly entertained, while civilians hastened to put still more space between themselves and the enraged carrier.
Cradled carefully against Soundwave's side, Ratbat was shielded in back by the flare of a panel and in front by the spread of barbed cables. The symbiont clung tight, shivering and silent, both little sets of claws gripping. One flight surface wrapped itself around the supporting manipulators, the other jerked as he tried to fold it.
The tip of Ravage's tail twitched, a slow swing, as if unlimbering the heavy, mace-like complexity of cutting edges at the end. His jaws gaped a little wider, multifaceted optics gleaming murder, every gear of him awaiting his Master's judgement.
A well-bladed cable swooped downward, stopping with razored edges hovering a bare servo's width from those terrified optics. "Query: describe future actions, should you encounter another cassette mech." Soundwave's question was dry, almost uninterested, as if he were nothing more than a AI tutor testing memory retention. Ravage gave another snarl, the subharmonics rattling across Reverb's plating.
"I-I-won't touch them. Won't lay so much as a talon-tip on a cassette ever again, I swear! Stoplock either!" Reverb said frantically, meaning every word. Terror threatened to overload several circuit relays as his lasercore coupling revved uselessly, gears slipping. As far as he was concerned, he would be a happy mech indeed if he never saw another cassette. Also, if he never saw another data manipulator cable. Primus, even though the thing had retracted its blue-white cilia, it could extend them just as fast, and they'd snake through every seam of him, right into his processor cores, maybe into his spark for all he knew, and then, and then - oh, Primus. Primus. A scream caught in Reverb's vocalizer at he helplessly watched the whorl of drilling blades at the tip of the tentacle rotate, reconfiguring right in front of his cracked optic.
The manipulator cable dipped, hovered-then slowly, with deadly intent, reached outward to drag one chisel-tipped blade in a slow, deliberate line across the front of Reverb's chassis. The drawn-out screech of metal on metal made both the cringing mech and the onlookers wince, armor plating clamping tight in reaction.
Then, with a final considering tap, the blade withdrew. "Your answer, acceptable." Soundwave looked them over, his visored gaze lingering on Stoplock's battered, still-convulsing frame. Then he turned away. "Ravage: leave them." Much as he wanted to tear them apart for the damage done to Ratbat, even here the offlining of another mech would draw unwanted attention from the Enforcers. Their primary objective had to take precedence.
The bladeframe symbiont held his position a fraction longer... then, obedient as a drone, turned and stalked after its master. Reverb went limp beneath his companion's shuddering frame with a gasp, faceplates and chest cover burning.
Around Soundwave, the crowd melted away, mechs turning back to their pursuits with suspicious casualness. At first, it seemed that they were moving away from the carrier - a reaction with which Soundwave was entirely familiar. But there was something off about the pattern of movement, the swirl of the crowd... /We've got trouble, boss,/ Buzzsaw's warning came with a live image, a view from above. To Soundwave's right, three warframes - squat, solid shocktroops, in scuffed black and white - shoved mechs out of their way as they darted single-file down a shaky metal rampway, headed for the site of the commotion. They'd arrive in a quarter-breem or less.
Soundwave turned left... and another mech stepped deliberately in front of him, just out of cable-reach. The medium-heavy grounder stood casually, weight to the side, just slightly forward. His surface nanites were battered, but they'd once been black and white as well. The enforcer's warbrand was nearly scuffed out, but the faint indication of bars on either side remained - old marks of rank. The solid mech's ease was deceptive. /His weapons are ready-hot,/ Laserbeak sent along with thermal scans, as he circled wide for a better shot should Soundwave so order, the slender flightframe invisible in the murk overhead.
"Not bad, chronicler," said the enforcer, tilting his head a little, all four optics flashing as he took the big mech's measure. An obsolete frametype, unless he missed his guess - usually all too willing to follow orders. Let's find out. "Bring the bird down. We need to have a little chat, you and I."
Soundwave's head tilted slightly, and he stopped-but made no other effort to obey the enforcer's command. Or to put away his manipulator cables, though the more fragile secondaries were pulled subtly backwards, behind the bulk of his frame and the more heavily armored primaries. "Query: nature of this conversation?" he asked evenly. Ravage, picking up on the new threat, was suddenly very still, a narrowed crimson stare watching the interloper's every motion, ready to move between one instant and the next.
The enforcer arched an elongated optic ridge. Lazily, he ticked each point off on the talons of one hand, wrists subtly turned so that the motion would not foul his aim. His unsettling gaze never left Soundwave, or the bladeframe by his side. "Well now. First, let's discuss why you saw fit to hack a mech, mark a civilian - an aft, admittedly, but a civilian nevertheless - and disrupt this, ah, fine and upstanding business establishment. Second, think we need to talk about this sudden rust-rash of carrier interest in... a likewise fine and upstanding Senate-authorized mine." The enforcer's tone was level, his glyphs reasonable, casual, calming. Delaying.
"Only motor relays hacked," Soundwave pointed out evenly, giving nothing away. "Cortex programming, untouched." He watched the enforcer, gauging their situation. Two civilian mechs had been easy to overpower, especially with the element of surprise and Ravage's assistance. But heavily armored as he was, Soundwave was not a warframe; the enforcer had him outgunned, and once the others arrived, outnumbered. To attempt another attack would only end in either damage, incarceration, or a brutal offlining, none of which would benefit himself or his cohort.
No, Soundwave would need to rely upon older, better skills for this. Especially if he wished to learn what the enforcer knew about this mysterious carrier mech.
"Stoplock: attacked symbiont without provocation," he said, even as he unpacked archives with lightning speed, cross-referencing, picking over IDs, histories, public records. He had the entirety of Cybertron's many wars at his disposal, archived and studied over vorns. Military history was more than just advances and retreats, great battles won or lost-it was about the mecha that fought them. Lesser historians might focus upon the shining names of Air Commanders and Lord Protectors, of Senators and Primes, study endlessly their decisions and their politics. But a truly talented scholar remembered that any battle could turn, for good or for ill, on the actions of the lowliest newsparked soldier. "Carriers: speak for, protect symbionts. Actions, self-defense under law." There. There was the data he needed, tucked among the mustering-out rosters of the Parhelion War. Soundwave inclined his head in a subtle courtesy. "Unit Subcommander Barricade." It was a gamble-but most military mecha remained proud of their rank, even when those duties had long since been taken from them.
Barricade's optics narrowed slightly, the only indication of rapid recalculation. Then his faceplates broadened in a faint expression of pleasure, his backstruts straightened a little. His casual stance seemed to fall away, revealing the shadow of a prideful military bearing, though the enforcer hardly moved. "You've heard of me, then." Barricade was wagering that the carrier hadn't heard too much, didn't have access to those files. "Still, this isn't a conversation we should have here. Think there's a cube at my desk somewhere - back at the station. Stand down, and we'll finish this there." The cadence of his vocalizations was just slightly different, flatter, more millitary. The enforcer's reaction was exactly - precisely - the one Soundwave expected.
Soundwave gave him a nod. "Invitation, accepted." He opened a private line to his cohort, heavily encrypted in layers only a bonded symbiont could hope to decipher. /Laserbeak, Buzzsaw: follow from air, maintain safe distance. Ratbat, Ravage: will remain with me./ He would have preferred that Ravage also disappear into the safety of the shadows, but to do so now in front of the enforcers would be far too suspicious. /Ratbat … status? Capable of transformation and docking?/ He could feel the small mech's pain as a throbbing echo along his own frame; but he couldn't afford to take the time for repairs. Not here.
Still shivering, Ratbat exchanged his grip around his carrier's manipulators to press little claws into the seams of Soundwave's armor instead, pulling himself determinately up towards the archivist's shoulder. His crumpled wing hung oddly, not quite folding. He could probably, he thought, angle it enough for transformation. /Something's glitched about this one, Soundwave. Let me keep an optic on him./
The other three enforcers shoved their way through the crowd, spreading out around the bigger carrier, weapons online and brandished. Two of them kept a wary distance from the data cables, but the other approached, unhooking a pair of stasis cuffs from his tool latch. Barricade's optics slid to him briefly, and the overeager enforcer stepped back. "This way." Barricade paused, then nodded towards Soundwave's fan of silver manipulators. "We'll attract less attention if you put those away, too. Make my reporting go a whole lot easier." The directive this time was more delicately respectful, probing, trying one hook at a time.
Soundwave waited just long enough that the new enforcer arrivals began to shift uneasily, secondary optics glancing nervously at their squad commander. Then, slowly, he began retracting his cables, blades and claw-tipped ends folding back into the segmented armor. They coiled back into his frame, and Soundwave lowered his forearm, giving Ratbat a talon-hold to grip as he lifted the injured symbiont to his shoulder, despite his misgivings. Ratbat would be much safer docked inside his carrier. /Ratbat: allowed to remain, but required to stay alert. Will retreat with Ravage if further violence occurs./ The command was laced with imperative modifiers, allowing no room for dissension.
The small mech nodded, and Soundwave turned to Barricade, ignoring the other surrounding enforcers as if they didn't exist. "Soundwave: understands, Subcommander." He retracted his battlemask, extending his hand towards the walkway in silent invitation. "Willing to follow, at your leisure."
Barricade's secondary optics tracked the carrier's short delay, his facilitation of the smaller mech's movements, the little symbiont's firm and unquestioning nod. Soundwave behaved, moved, spoke, as if his designation were still of central importance - to himself, if not Cybertron.
The other enforcers relaxed, as if the chronicler were somehow less dangerous with his cables sheathed. Barricade knew better. He fell back to walk slightly beside the carrier, on the other side of the sinuous pace of the bladeframe symbiont. "Much appreciated - Soundwave," he said, adding as if out of the force of long habit a non-specific glyph of respect to the phrase, such as might be applied to a fellow officer. Pride-up was going to be the name of this game. For the time being.
And here, Barricade thought, he'd imagined this shift was going to be boring.
.
.
.
Barricade, of course, is pulled straight from Antepathy's characterization - one of the most intense and flat out gorgeous I've ever read for any character *anywhere.* Antepathy's Barricade is just too shiny - we couldn't keep our hands off him! This doesn't even begin to measure up to her mastery, however, so if you're looking for something to read next...
