Disclaimer: Beast Wars belong to Hasbro and it's too late in the night for me to be more original than this.
A/N: I like it when the story writes itself and surprises me but this thing is not listening at all! I had TOTALLY different things planned for this chapter! Well… You'll see them in the next one. Instead, you get a double helping of Cheetor, DC and Rhinox today. *shrug*
Chapter eleven
Depth Charge burst into the room with his weapons ready and looked wildly around for a menacing Predacon killer.
He didn't find one.
There was just Cheetor in beast mode, lying on a recharge platform and twitching slightly.
The manta blinked twice before finally lowering his gun.
His hands shook slightly with relief as the energon that had flooded his systems at the red alert now withdrew quickly.
Suddenly, he felt the urge to smack the kid over the head for scaring him like that. And on a day that had already gotten all of his circuits fried!
It wasn't Cheetor's fault though; no one had control over what they dreamed, unfortunately. He felt a pang of sympathy for the cat. Recharge was a place where you were supposed to escape the unpleasant reality. It was a dreadful feeling when you couldn't be left alone even there. He knew from experience.
Why Cheetor had not woken up when he had burst into the room was beyond him though. He hadn't been exactly quiet. And weren't cats supposed to have very good hearing?
The younger robot shouted something incomprehensible in his sleep and Depth Charge decided to do the kind thing and wake him up.
He walked to the recharge platform and cautiously put his hand on one shoulder, reluctant to startle the cat. He shook him slightly.
"Cheetor?"
No response. The young Maximal continued to mumble and twitch occasionally. Depth Charge shook him a bit harder and still got nothing.
"Cheetor!" the Guardian said loudly, already starting to worry and when that didn't work he slapped him.
Cheetor's optics flashed suddenly in alertness and he shot upright. Then froze, panting. He looked absolutely terrified. He swept a look around the room a few times before finally releasing a sigh and collapsing back on his stomach.
"Kid, you all right?" the ray asked, trying to get his teammate out of the shocked state he seemed to be in.
Cheetor glanced up at him his optics still looking scared and shook his head vigorously.
"I-I didn't- I- He was – "
"Well… It was just a dream, don't dwell on it." The larger robot said with a hint of bitterness and almost turned to leave, not knowing what else he could do in this situation.
But Cheetor still looked like his core processor was shorting out and it made the Guardian frown deeply.
True, the cat was young but he wasn't that easily fazed. He debated calling Optimus or Rhinox for a moment and letting them deal with it. But he would look like a prick even in his own eyes if he did that. They had enough on their hands; he couldn't call them just to babysit. On the other hand, he would feel guilty just leaving Cheetor in this state.
Well… He could spare a few cycles to try and calm down a teammate, couldn't he? It wasn't like he had more important things to do right now.
He half-reluctantly sat on the edge of the bunk where Cheetor had curled up miserably and was shuddering slightly.
Depth Charge struggled to come up with something to say.
He wasn't the type to sit down and comfort someone.
Or at least he wasn't anymore.
Back in the Academy he had had a talent for laughing things off. He didn't comfort people like Optimus did, with promises of compassion and understanding and motivational speeches. But whenever someone was feeling crappy, he would wave his hand, and either directly belittle the problem (This? Are you kidding me? This is nothing!) or comically exaggerate it (Yes, it's tragic all right, Stormfront, that's the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the Universe. I'm sure you're ready to end your own life and I can't blame you for it. I'll even carry the coffin!) to such an extent that the 'bot in question would eventually also laugh about it when they were done being offended by the sarcasm.
He'd been a bit of a joker actually, until something had happened that could not possibly be belittled or laughed about.
He had been sure he would never laugh after Omicron. To his surprise, some of his sense of humor had recovered and it had even wormed its way into a few conversations with his teammates during the Beast Wars. There were even times when he felt normal again…
But not enough to tell Cheetor a bedtime story and tuck him into bed for Primus' sake!
What was he supposed to do?
He reset his voice box.
"Hey listen, if you're worried about Rampage, you shouldn't. I used to have those dreams, too, and you can learn to ignore them…"
Cheetor shook his head again.
"Y-you don't understand." He muttered. "Wasn't scared of Rampage."
"I heard you shout his name."
"H-he was in the d-dream but he's not what I'm afraid of."
Depth Charge frowned.
"Then what was it?"
Cheetor stole a glance at him.
"Depth Charge, how well do you know Rampage?" he asked gradually getting a hold of himself.
"Huh?" the ray blinked in surprise. "Well… I know his habits and his weaknesses in battle fairly well and I know about his history… Why do you ask?"
"But do you… understand him?" Cheetor pressed on. "Have you ever thought you could be like him? Do you think you have it in you to… torture other 'bots or…"
The teal transformer stared at his teammate.
"I…"
There had been a time, yes. Right after Omicron. The pain had been so bad that nothing else had mattered, least of all morals, and he had become more than aware of his darker side. He had hung on by a thread. One unlucky coincidence could have broken that thread and he might have tipped to the dark side completely. He didn't want to admit it. But what good could hiding it do? He would always know. And the others didn't think very highly of him anyway, they probably wouldn't be very surprised.
So he looked at Cheetor and nodded.
"But, Cheetor, why do you ask?"
The cat looked away.
"In my dream… It started with me crushing Rampage's spark and it was awful and I didn't know why I was doing it but I didn't stop and then I had all of your sparks. The Maximals' and the Predacons' and I-I… I was torturing you." He gave Depth Charge a look full of helplessness. "And I don't know why! And today when Rattrap got attacked I hated everyone so much! First I hated Rhinox for doing this to Rampage and then I hated Rattrap for what he said and then I hated Rampage for hurting my friend and I just wanted to hurt everyone! Why?"
Depth Charge was at a loss for words but someone answered for him.
"We all have a darker side, Cheetor."
Rhinox had appeared at the door. The ray sighed in relief. He had been panicking about what he was supposed to say.
"You are a good kid, better than most." Rhinox continued, moving into the room. "And it upsets you when we end up hurting each other. I think you want us to stop and that's what this is all about. You want to have control over us enough to give us a good slap so we would all stop being bad. You dream just mixed things up as dreams often do."
"But I liked it!" Cheetor whispered miserably. "I saw Rattrap getting ripped to pieces and at first, for a moment, I liked it because I thought he deserved it! And then when I squeezed Rampage's spark for a second I enjoyed that too… I'm a Maximal, Rhinox, and you are a Maximal and those 'bots who created Rampage were Maximals so how come we think about hurting others?"
He sounded close to tears now and Depth Charge willingly stood from his place on the bunk to allow Rhinox to sit down and pet his young teammate's shoulder. The technician's face was grim.
"Everyone thinks about bad things sometimes, son, but you are still too young to worry about…"
"How old is he?"
Depth Charge and Rhinox looked at each other.
"Rampage." Cheetor clarified. "How old is he? He can't be much older than I am! So if he became like this why wouldn't I?"
"No, kid, you don't understand." Depth Charge shook his head. "You don't just wake up one day and become like Rampage without a good reason…"
He shut his mouth realizing what he had just said.
"So, you're saying he's like that for a good reason? What reason?"
The two older mechs exchanged glances and Rhinox shrugged.
"Well, I've only heard the story from Optimus, I wasn't there but from what I know he went crazy at some point. There's not much information about what exactly went wrong. They probably screwed up his programming and that's why…"
"Rampage was tortured." Depth Charge blurted out, causing the other two to stare at him open-mouthed.
"What?" Rhinox asked. "How do you know? Because if that's what he told you…" the rhino trailed off, knowing just how unlikely it was that Depth Charge would simply buy something the crab said without having solid proof.
Depth Charge mentally shot himself in the head.
He had obviously acquired a new talent for getting himself into the most awkward and insane situations lately.
Was it too late to just stomp out of the room? No, he had already dropped the bomb. Now the rest of the Maximals would pester him until he told them everything. And, quite frankly, if he had to choose, he would rather tell Rhinox and Cheetor than explain himself to Primal.
He sighed and leaned on the wall.
"I know because I've seen his memories."
"Rampage downloaded his…?" Rhinox began.
"No." the manta cut him off. "We… When I got his spark from Megatron my chest plate was ripped. Rampage tackled me and his was open and our sparks… merged for a short while."
There was absolute silence in the room following that statement. Depth Charge risked a glance. Cheetor's optics were as big as saucers.
"Holy. Matrix." The cat muttered and broke into a grin. "Why was his chest plate open? He must really like you!"
Depth Charge rolled his optics.
"I don't think he knows it could be taken THAT way!"
Although with all the talk about kissing in the woods… Nonononononono!
He shook his head to get rid of that thought, although a part of his processor chuckled in amusement at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.
"He said he wanted me to see!" he said loudly over Cheetor's snickers.
The younger bot became serious again, as suddenly as he had started laughing.
"And what did you see?" he asked with no trace of humor left.
Depth Charge's optics faded a bit as he reluctantly remembered.
"He… was in a lot of pain. Constantly. The scientists performed all kinds of experiments on him and…"
It felt incredibly weird to have this talk and say these words out loud to someone else. Reasoning in his own head was one thing but hearing the thoughts voiced…
"The scientists never treated him like a real robot. They didn't think he was a sentient being. They thought of him just as a war machine." He finished.
Understanding dawned in Rhinox's optics.
"And when Rattrap called him 'thing'… After I had… practically tortured him… Slag. I figured right away that anyone would be livid at what we did but I still thought Rampage's reaction to rattrap was way too violent. With this new information though…"
"It's still way too violent!" Depth Charge interrupted him, his voice suddenly louder and harsher that before. "It doesn't matter what his reasons are! He has disassembled other transformers and eaten their sparks! Don't you see? When we start pitying or trusting him, we start making mistakes. Rattrap almost paid with his life."
He stomped out of the room and a little later they could hear repeated dull thuds from the general direction of his quarters.
Rhinox shook his head thoughtfully.
"The world is always more complicated than we think… You should get some normal sleep." He said more conversationally. "And no more bad dreams. You are nothing like Rampage, understood?"
He gave his young comrade one last pat on the back before leaving.
Cheetor sighed and slumped completely on his recharge platform.
This new revelation about Rampage's past had left him shocked again but he simply didn't have the energy to be worried and upset once more. Instead, his self-preservation instincts tried to bring his more carefree side to the front.
"Well, at least this story is perfect blackmail material." He muttered to himself. "If Rattrap learns about it, even Rampage won't live to hear the end of it."
He chuckled to himself.
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Rattrap slipped out of the CR as quietly as he could and anxiously looked around. The shadow of a giant killing crab seemed to jump at him from every corner of the dark control room.
He had never been afraid of the dark but in this particular case a part of him wished he had woken up during the day or that there had been one of his comrades there to welcome him back.
However, the bigger part of him was grateful that it was the middle of the night and there was no one here besides his own paranoid fears populating the shadows. This way he could work on his own plans without anyone interrupting.
He silently left the base.
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A/N: This is the second chapter I write that mainly consists of one huge conversation and this is turning into a bit of a psychology textbook but… well, that's storytellers for you, I can't help it. Review please, unless you really hate psychology textbooks ;P
