Title: Disillusion - Part III
Warnings: gen, some sort of fluff
Continuity: Shattered Glass (Disillusion AU)
Characters: Vortex, Brawl, Onslaught, Swindle, Megatron, Starscream, G1!Blast Off
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Sadly, nothing is mine.
Summary: Blast Off meets Megatron, and they come to an agreement.
Beta: ultharkitty
Note: Last part of this fic. There'll be more of the Disillusion AU soon. :3 Thank you all for reading. :D
Disillusion – Part III
Blast Off's hands and feet were in cuffs. It was hard to walk like that, led through a hallway to wherever they were bringing him.
Like the white Vortex had said before, they had flown to what they called Main Base. Blast Off had sat inside the 'copter's cargo hold, tense. He'd expected the mech to fly as erratically as the Vortex he knew, but it had been a surprisingly calm flight.
Now, the red Onslaught walked in front of him. The wrong Vortex and Brawl were to each his side, and the mech who sounded like Swindle was behind him.
Blast Off didn't feel comfortable with this, considering the first words he'd heard from that mech, but he was in no position to complain. While they turned into another hallway, Blast Off tried to make sense of Vortex' words again. But like the many times before, he didn't reach any conclusion which wasn't absurd.
The corridors were boring, and didn't give anything away about where he could be, or what the purpose of this base was.
Venting air in building frustration, Blast Off came to a halt when the other stopped in front of a door.
"The conference room?" Swindle asked dubiously, causing Blast Off's optics to twitch. "What, are we going to treat him like precious, fragile lab equipment now?"
Red Onslaught turned, voice very similar to the mech Blast Off knew. "Megatron's orders. You do know the situation!" Then he went quiet, but obviously said more over a secure comm-line.
The shuttle was uncomfortable, and became confused at Onslaught's next words.
"We're not like Optimus. We don't torture mechs."
His purple optics behind Blast Off's visor flickered, but he neither had time nor the intention to comment on that.
The room opened, revealing a flyer that smiled at them.
"Hello, we've expected you." He stepped aside.
Blast Off frowned. It was a voice he was used to, but it wasn't as annoying as the one he knew. It was all very disconcerting, and he would have liked to have woken up and found himself in the medbay of the Nemesis.
He was escorted to a seat opposite a mech that looked familiar, and still not quite. Like everyone. Red Onslaught didn't sit down, and stood next to him; on the other side was Brawl. Blast Off couldn't see where Vortex and Swindle were, but from somewhere he heard a weapon systems buzzing.
No removed Blast Off's cuffs.
"What is this about?" he asked, when they just kept eyeing him up and he became impatient.
"Excuse the security measures and the caution around you," the mech opposite Blast Off began. "But we don't know with whom we are dealing."
"That makes two of us. Who are you?" Blast Off grumbled, optics narrowing. He had a suspicion, but he wanted to hear it. This whole incident made him doubt his sanity.
The mech nodded. "Of course. My apologies. I'm Megatron."
At that, Blast Off's loyalty program pinged, causing an unnerving twinge, and he tensed even more.
"I'm probably not like you expect me to be, and neither are any of the Decepticons. You're not at home any more; this is a different dimension. Or universe. We aren't quite sure about that."
"I see," Blast Off ground out when the loyalty code forced him to believe what Megatron was saying. It was frightening that it reacted even to a mech appearing so different. It was almost as bad as his gestalt program, which still told him his team was there, even though they weren't. There were only strangers.
"We've had a visitor from your place before," Megatron said. "And we learnt about some major differences back then. In this world, the Autobots are trying to conquer the universe. Their goal has already cost may Cybertronians their lives, and destroyed large regions of Cybertron. Optimus Prime is a tyrant. Just like the Megatron in your home world."
At this Blast Off's loyalty program reeled. He could neither protest against Megatron's words, nor agree to them about Megatron being a tyrant. The shuttle's optics flickered, and his vocaliser produced a low whine.
He didn't see how Megatron appeared worried for a moment.
"You see we have to be careful with someone who works under a mech that equals our Optimus Prime."
Megatron's words caused an odd sickness, but at least the struggling loyalty program had stopped blocking his thoughts. Blast Off just nodded. There was nothing he knew to say.
"How did you arrive here?" The fake Megatron wanted to know, staring at the shuttle expectantly.
The cuffs rustled when Blast Off tensed even more. His joints began to ache. "I was on my way to Europa. Jupiter's moon. I just needed to gather information about its atmosphere and possible energy sources." Blast Off's hands clenched to fists, but there was no way of not answering the question. "I came across a portal. I had no chance to avoid it. It opened right in front of me. When I was on the other side, I was within Cybertron's atmosphere. I lost control, and eventually crashed."
Megatron nodded, and so did the flyer sitting next to him. "What happened then? I've heard you encountered Blades. Is that true?"
"I can't say which mech it was." Blast Off offlined his optics for three astroseconds in which he tried to calm the loyalty program, but he couldn't fight it. He felt stupid being so submissive, and answering without seeming to question it.
"When I stood up, there was a heliformer. I didn't feel felt anything while crashing, but I probably ran him over."
"He saved Brawl," Onslaught interrupted, and Blast Off was glad for a moment. He saw the tank nodding, and Megatron seemed surprised. "We did lose contact with our Blast Off, though. We looked, but his presence through the gestalt link is dampened. There is however, his presence…"
The flyer raised an optical ridge, and stared interested at the shuttle, and so did Megatron. Though, in the Decepticon leader's face, there was also doubt.
"Your designation is Blast Off?"
"Yes, Sir," the shuttle answered, adding sir without his conscious intent. Maybe it was easier just to give in to the program. Maybe it was a tactic to torture him like this, using the code against him, forcing him to talk and to surrender.
Blast Off didn't notice Megatron frowning at his words.
"Tell me something about you," Megatron said. "Where are you from. What are you doing in the Decepticon army?" He was almost friendly, but it didn't help with the pressure in Blast Off's head.
"I was built in Altihex as a scientist and explorer for the Deep Space Research Facility. I'm now the right arm of the Combaticons' combined form, Bruticus. As an individual, my tasks include reconnaissance, transporting troops, or shooting large targets from space. I hardly do the latter, however, because it endangers the Decepticons as well." After the last words, Blast Off's vocaliser whined, and his engine revved. He ground his denta together, and grimaced. He hated that he couldn't keep quiet.
"You're very cooperative," Megatron responded, frowning once more. "I don't know if I can believe everything you say. You answer too quickly, something an Autobot would never do."
"Megatron?" Onslaught spoke up, but Blast Off interrupted before he could say more.
"Tsk. It's not as though I can lie to you," the shuttle spat, his tone bitter. His optics were fixed at the Decepticon leader.
They were quiet for a moment.
Megatron broke the silence. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. The loyalty program? Don't pretend you forgot!" It was hard to think that this mech didn't know about the code; not when it still reacted to him.
Megatron and the flyer exchanged looks, then they glanced at Onslaught whom Blast Off saw shrugging in his peripheral vision.
"Would you mind to explain what the loyalty program is?"
Blast Off tensed again. His shoulder joints creaked under the pressure, and he vented air deeply. "A code which ensures utter loyalty to Megatron without any chance of disobedience or questioning orders."
Onslaught gasped, and the flyer's optics widened. Megatron just kept sitting there, unmoving, but tense.
"It reacts to you. I can't lie. Ask me whatever you want, it'll force me to tell the truth. You want to try it?" The shuttle's voice was daring, harsh from frustration.
"That's horrible. You're forced to work for Megatron in your world?" the flyer asked, and with the terrified shriek in the tone, Blast Off realised it was truly Starscream's voice.
It was a stupid question, which Blast Off could refuse to answer. Unlike the next, which was voiced by the Decepticon leader. "What did you do to deserve something like this?"
The tone made it obvious that it was a question more to himself but Blast Off answered, still. Unable not to.
"We tried to kill you. Twice."
The room was silent again, except for a laugh that was Swindle's.
There'd been more talking.
It had been exhausting. Shocked comments, but also questions about more unpleasant things from Blast Off's past.
He'd been able to avoid mentioning the Detention Center, or how he'd been freed from it. What price he and his team had had to pay.
Neither of these strangers had asked how Blast Off had become a part of a combiner, and he hadn't been fond of telling.
These Combaticons had lost their shuttle. The Constructicons had tried to explain what happened, but Blast Off had been already too tired, too worn out, and too dizzy from the increasing pain from his side to understand.
Eventually, after too much time, and too many words. They all had agreed to something.
Blast Off would stay. He'd fight for the Decepticons, a war Blast Off didn't know, and that was even less his war than the one he was fighting in his home world. But they'd offered to take a look at the loyalty program. They would erase it if they could.
It would be a reward for the time fighting; later, when Blast Off was able to go back home. Neither of them phrased it like this. And considering the nature which was so different from the mechs he knew, maybe they didn't even think of it like that. But Blast Off did.
It was his reason to say yes to the slight re-builds he'd have to undergo, and the poking of gestalt programming to ensure trouble-free combining.
Once more, he lay on a berth.
Familiar but strange mechs talked around him, and his future team mates waited? behind the medbay door.
"Please relax," someone said. It sounded like Hook, just friendly.
Then unconsciousness embraced him.