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0 0 Part Thirteen 0 0
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Darkness.
He'd never cherished it before now. Right until that moment, he'd been indifferent to it at best and reminded of excruciatingly silent vorns at worst. He'd had no optic sensors in the Box to register as black, but the lack of input hadn't stopped him from being conscious enough to know he couldn't see. While he wasn't afraid of the dark, not like Brawl, Vortex hadn't felt much of anything toward it, either. It had been an asset and a tool not unlike a scalpel for use on those of his victims weak enough for that tactic, but he'd never thought of it as something that felt good. Not until now.
Vortex didn't know how long the last reboot had taken, nor how long he had been in emergency recharge. He'd gone from one to the other without enough pause to notice the change. He hadn't even onlined completely in between. As soon as all the essential bits had become functional, his frame had powered down on its own out of complete exhaustion and scrambled processors. Letting his mind stay down had been a small mercy. He had a feeling he wouldn't have enjoyed what restarting had felt like.
The 'copter regained consciousness groggily, processors spooling up to online status as the defrag procedures finally closed. His visor lit slowly, registering black emptiness, and his circuits sang with relief. The room was dark and empty. There were no red optics watching him, and no one waiting. His few uncovered proximity sensors confirmed that there was no one behind him, and his vents eased out the tense in-vent he'd involuntarily sucked in. He was alone, and that was everything right now.
No Overlord in sight meant no more rebooting. No more exploitation of a weakness Vortex hadn't known he could fear quite so much. What he wouldn't give for the clumsy attempts to glitch him from the other Decepticons. There were annoyances, and then there was Overlord, and Vortex vastly preferred the other Decepticons' irritating, somewhat painful pranks to the triple-changer's precision cruelty. A good portion of his processor was still so terrified at the prospect of further torture that it kept boosting proximity scans to the top of his priority queue.
Ping. Nope, no one nearby. Vortex was perfectly alone, and this was good.
It was also odd. Not the solitary confinement - that was, sadly, nothing new - but the circumstances of his imprisonment had changed. The lights had never switched off in this room. Throughout his enforced stay at Chez Overlord, the lights had remained on. Vortex had first assumed it was some kind of simple mind-fragging technique, one more thing to prevent him from measuring time, but eventually he'd realized that was unnecessary. The triple-changer didn't have to pull any tricks with lights; Overlord could actually do the real thing and just leave him in this room for ages. Time-wasting didn't seem to be much of an issue for Overlord.
The lights had probably been left on because of an automated system, then, meaning that they had to have been deliberately turned off. It didn't make sense, which worried the Combaticon. Why darkness after so long?
It went from being a comfort, an assurance of solitude, to a concern in the space of an instant. Overlord had done it. There had to be a sinister reason why -
The faintest clang of metal on metal sounded, and Vortex's processor urgently accessed his scanning hardware for updates. Proximity sensorsping-pinged worriedly, and his visor bleached for a second as he pored over the results repeatedly just in case he'd missed something the first four times. Nothing registered.
The noise happened again, however, and then again, and one side of Vortex's visor twitched nervously as metal dragged scrrrrrrrrd-klik-klik from somewhere to... somewhere. Somewhere distant, or were the sounds just very quiet? He didn't know. The series of clinks and draggings repeated in a cycle, either far away or just lightly done, until he was jittery with ping-ping-pings and frantic data analysis.
The noises stopped. He had no idea if that was a good thing or not.
The sounds brought to his attention another change in the room: the door was open. He could only see the wall opposite considering how he was bound, but he could barely see anything at all with how his optical sensors had only the light of his visor to work with. Every other sensor was muffled by plastic or had been taken offline through the connections with his weapons' system, but he strained his few uncovered proximity sensors at that open door. For all he knew, Overlord was just outside the door. The mysterious noises were alarming because he didn't know their source.
The echoes had never been so noticeable; he had no idea if they were normal noises that the door had previously filtered out, or if Overlord was rearranging the corpses of his enemies today. Or perhaps the noises were utterly normal, but not being able to see was making his processor prioritize the audio feed more than usual? Corpse-arranging could be one of Overlord's regular hobbies, and Vortex's audios had just logged the noises as background until today. Vortex couldn't tell, but it didn't matter that much. What mattered was who was making that sound.
Every sound could be Overlord taking a step closer. Every clink could be the triple-changer preparing to confront him again.
Klak-ting!
Ping. Alone? Alone. Was he sure? Ping-ping. Yes, alone. Good.
...no, seriously. Was he absolutely sure? Ping-ping-ping-ping.
The 'copter fretted, trying to lean toward the open door as if he could catch more sounds that way. Had the fragger been monitoring him and was coming back now that Vortex was online? Could the quiet sounds be a drone? There was no way he was lucky enough that it was some other mecha. It had to be Overlord - or a drone. Please let it be a drone!
He didn't think he could face Overlord right now. His tanks were roiling with anxiety, and his rotor hub was flexing helplessly inside its rewrapped plastic prison. His shoulders tensed and failed to move as another tiny sound drifted through the open door:
Shffff.
Ping-ping-ping!
Sick gratitude pulled at the base of his spark when his scanning hardware insisted there was no one there. He wasn't even sure who he was grateful to, but some cosmic entity had decided Overlord wasn't about to walk into the room, and therefore Vortex was grateful to it. Two more paranoid pings revealed the same lack of anything nearby, and Vortex's tense cables trembled slightly as they relaxed. He was safe, for the time being. He didn't know for how long, but he couldn't do anything about that so he wasn't going to worry about it.
He was more worried about the odd anxiety creeping up on him. There was nervous paranoia about Overlord approaching, of course, but every time his scanning hardware updated, a different anxiety washed over him. It had a different source, one that felt odd and contradictory, and he was trying very hard not to think where those pangs of uneasiness were coming from. Something under the surface of his mind curled in on itself, starting to crave, and this was not the time to think about that.
Vortex squirmed restlessly, resetting his visor rapidly since it was the only pseudo-motion he could manage. He wished he could blink away the kneading claws starting to perforate his mind. Claws of need worked at the underside of his thoughts, making his attempts at rational thought a little shakier by the minute, a little more ragged around the edges. Right now the burst of an air pocket wasn't important. It never was! It was just a tiny popping sound! But right now, even less important than usual.
Yes. Really.
Not thinking about it, he wasn't, nope.
Plink.
Ping-ping. He tried to stop thinking about the bubble sound and dwelled on his relief that Overlord wasn't near. Ping. Yep, sure wasn't near.
That was a good thing, and smelt any part of his cortex that thought otherwise!
The Combaticon ripped his thoughts out of that well-worn rut and turned to hastily reviewing recent events. He had been outmaneuvered. All the pain and humiliation was secondary to that important fact. Which was exactly what it was, because he couldn't change it. It was a fact, and he had better get used to it real quick. He simply couldn't beat the other Decepticon at this game.
In reality, it wasn't a game at all, at least not anymore. It had probably ceased to be so a long time ago, but Vortex was - or rather, had been - too proud to acknowledge that this was Overlord's game, not his. He was the toy. Helicopter-dolly didn't want to play, but like any toy, helicopter-dolly didn't have a choice. The point hadn't been ground into him this thoroughly until now, and now Vortex had been horribly humbled before it.
He couldn't think of any way to evade, bend, or block what Overlord was doing. As much as he had thought this very same thing before, the consequences were far more clear after the multiple forced reboots. He had never been more hard-pressed to find a solution, yet so bitterly aware that helicopter-dolly was going to be played with however Overlord wished.
Beyond the doorway, something went clink-tonk.
Fear rushed through the Combaticon's systems. Ping. Ping-ping-ping.
Alone! Yes, okay. That was...good. Wasn't it?
Yes, of course it was good. It had to be good! He wouldn't let it be not-good, because not-good would imply that he wanted something different than that, and he didn't. He didn't at all.
Vortex gritted his teeth and diverted what power he could to his sensors, combing the resulting tiny increase in data for what he could again and again. He would not be cowed by this. It was a change in tactics, not a completely shift in circumstances. Darkness and an open door would not send him into a panic. Frantically guessing at whatever was going tink in the dark was just wasting his time. He needed an answer, and for that he needed to concentrate.
Vortex knew that Overlord would have to unwrap him eventually. His logic hubs assured him of the validity of that statement, and he could trust them for the moment, however useless they were the rest of the time here. So Overlord would have to return him to Earth when the benefits of Bruticus came to outweigh the amount of irritation Vortex had caused Megatron. Lord Megatron, that was. Lord Megatron to him from now on, because the 'copter wasn't going to risk getting sent back to Overlord's tender mercies once he was finally released. Chalk one triumph up for the fat-lipped fragger: the Combaticon was going to keep his head down for a while, keeping himself out of the Supreme Commander's sight and hopefully out of mind.
But for that escape to happen, Vortex would have to either wait until Megatron decided Bruticus couldn't be spared from the war effort anymore (and what a fantastic strategy that has been so far), or he'd have to...comply.
The word tasted like crude petroleum in Vortex's mouth, thick and disgustingly organic, but it was the purest drop of fine high-grade to his deep code. It thirsted for that compliance. Everything below the uneasy calm of his higher functions felt parched, just waiting to soak up orders and directions like an obedient sponge until his machine beast waxed fat and happy under an outpouring of officer approval. That was the part of him seeping a poisonous anxiety counter to his more rational fear.
The uneasiness grew, and Vortex couldn't ignore it. He tried, but the need was carving out great chunks of his willpower. His pathetic, already frail strength of conviction had been drilled through by the facts at this point, but now the need to not be alone was undermining even the flimsy skeleton left over. The craving had been closing in to usurp his fear. Rationally, he feared that Overlord would return, but that would imply that Overlord wouldn't return, and -
Vortex, focus for frag's sake!
Overlord had been running this rigged game from the first, just playing Vortex, but even through all the pleading, the Combaticon had always nursed his defiant spark...hadn't he? He wasn't sure anymore. He'd been doing exactly what the sadistic slagger wanted so far. He'd bent, contorting like a pretzel. He'd begged for the stupid plastic bubble because he hadn't had an alternative. To his gestalt-links, it was either scramble after the teensiest substitute or go crazy, and the gestalt-coding was the part that controlled him when the training began. He begged because he didn't have a choice. It was either bend, or be overridden by his body and code when the blasted plastic was in Overlord's hand.
He had never wanted it. The sound itched through his fuel lines, but he didn't want it. His spark pulsed with greed at the thought, however, and strained to hear it. There were little tetchy sounds of internal gears turning, and the gurgle of fuel in his tanks. They were unimportant, and he couldn't hold onto them. They slid away, ignored background noise that didn't matter because that one lovely, horrible, all-too-brief sound was absent.
His spark gave a funny little backflip when another noise echoed in the dark. It would have been unimportant, too, but Vortex didn't know what it was.
It could be Overlord!
Ping-ping! Ping.
Not Overlord. The Combaticon's fuel pump hammered in his chest, and he couldn't quite tell anymore if the results reassured or disappointed him. Either way, his pump rate steadied again. For the moment, anyway. It'd pick up the second he heard another noise, he knew. He was still alone. Everything was good, and perfectly fragged up.
He could feel how bad off he was. He turned inwards, pulling up his own system logs to check. He watched, nauseated, as his logs showed just how his functions had been taken out of his control. The danger of another forced restart should have remained at the top of his priority list. He could easily call up the files from the month after being reactivated under the loyalty programming; the danger of cold reboots had led to his CPU constantly reminding itself that certain thought patterns had to be avoided, certain mecha had to be avoided, certain behaviors had to stop. When he compared then and now, his spark lurched. Instead of that entirely reasonable reaction this time, the restart warning signs and associated caution had been consistently kicked down the priority list one proximity ping at a time.
Tags for the - frag Primus and His rusted creator aft! The slagging pop sound had worked its way back up the list! The fragging statis protocolswere active again! How was that even possible? Had the darkness triggered them to activate faster? Had rewrapping shut off his coolant pumps again out of sheer, blasted familiarity? How long had he been in recharge?
How had Overlord done this to him?!
There was an undertow building in the back of his head. It strengthened, sucking at his conscious mind, and Vortex made a muted sound of despair. The support structure for his programs was starting to insistently nudge him in the cables, asking for more proximity checks, but Vortex feared they had little to do with reassurance. His deep code wanted something very badly, and very persistently. The fact was that Overlord had him exactly where the triple-changer wanted him in order to exploit the needy internal metal creature that was Vortex.
He didn't want to, he truly didn't, but the 'copter couldn't stop himself. There was no sound, but now there didn't have to be. Now, the silence triggered him.
It was an extremely familiar situation to be in.
Ping. He waited, straining to catch something and hating himself for hoping to do so. Ping?
The Combaticon knew the sounds of Overlord's systems, every single hiss of his hydraulics and the two-toned heavy clangs of his stride. Vortex yearned to hear the buzzing thrum of a large power plant he had only heard while idle. He wanted to listen to the minute creaking of multiple layers of armor-thick altmode kibble from a mecha made for three transformations. He had catalogued the sounds once, trying to find anything in them out of boredom and a desperate search for some weakness in the officer. His analysis of the sounds had yielded nothing except familiarity. Overlord's system-sounds were as intimately familiar to him as the sound of his own combiner team by now.
He longed so badly to hear them. That, and the other set of sounds he had internalized to a close meld into his own desires that no lover and not even his own combiner team had managed. His gestalt bond itself longed for the slight, slick scrape of soft plastic against polished metal. He wanted the tiny squeaking sounds of air and plastic under almost enough pressure.
What would he do for those noises? No, what wouldn't he do? That list was shorter, and getting shorter the more time that passed. He obsessed over that list, picking out the options he thought would please Overlord the most and wondering vaguely how he could get ready to do them. Because if Overlord was gracious enough to allow him the chance, Vortex wanted to be ready. Had to be ready, and he'd be sure to thank his officer for the opportunity to show how obedient he could be. He imagined what he'd have to do to demonstrate what a good subordinate he was and shivered, but even as horror chilled the inside of his tanks, he wished fervently that Overlord would come soon.
The Combaticon knew the triple-changer could walk in any klik now. Maybe tomorrow, or next week, or - or maybe next month, and he shuddered at the thought. He could barely wrap his cringing mind around the concept of not having even the smallest chance at earning Overlord's fickle favor for that long. Forgiveness was too much to hope for, but if he was exceedingly lucky, Vortex might be able to…regain his officer's attention? The tiny opportunity to not be looked at as a disappointment? If he could somehow manage that, then he could do his best to earn some leniency, just enough to be permitted to follow orders.
And then...and then perhaps, just maybe, Overlord might eventually see fit to reward him with that precious, all-encompassing noise. The burst of a single bubble...
The plastic around the Combaticon's head crinkled slightly when he jolted, snapping out of his reverie. His visor slid to its widest extension, and he whimpered somewhere in the back of his throat as he realized just how low he'd sunk.
Vortex had spaced-out thinking with dreamy longing about Overlord's systems and, yes, driving his scanning hardware senselessly with nonstop pinging trying to get positive feedback. He had no idea how long he'd zoned out. Several kliks, at best. Hours, at worst.
He wanted to vomit. If he could only purge the twisted, artificial craving like tainted fuel!
The discrepancy flared in his mind, an almost physical line where internal code clashed against his conscious thoughts. It was unstoppable. The wild craving deep inside rose to the surface, pushing against what he knew was logical, and he could see it subsuming him. It stained his thoughts, spreading like dye through a sponge, and it turned him inside out without a single concrete reason. He wanted everything he shouldn't, and Vortex was helpless to stop the need gutting him, slow and excruciating.
He was terrified of Overlord's return, as it would most likely bring more forced restarts. After what he'd been put through, it was painfully clear the officer was doing whatever he wanted. The game was meant to make Vortex suffer, no matter what other goals would be met at the finish line. What Overlord wanted was to cause the Combaticon pain and panic, and he'd found the right button for that. Overlord had discovered how to make Vortex squirm.
Vortex had gone under screaming, and he knew that he'd shriek for mercy if Overlord threatened to repeat the torment of multiple reboots. Vortex was a warrior, an interrogator, and not a glass sculpture by any means, but he was a Cybertronian. He could only take so much, and Overlord had found the button labeled 'Breaking Point.'
The Combaticon had suffered a sparkbox already. He knew what enough deliberate mistreatment could do to mecha's mind, and he'd experienced a tank-sinking dose of that medicine himself, enough to make the link between a new Box and that particular punishment. He couldn't go back in the Box again. He just couldn't.
The problem being that Overlord had found that magic button to push. Why should he let up on it? Would Vortex have, if their positions were reversed? No. Primus help him, no. He wouldn't have, and Overlord made Vortex look like an Autobot. He could admit that now, facing the fact that he was outclassed and outmaneuvered and so screwed drills were envious. Overlord was going to mash that loyalty programming key over and over again for the sheer, unadulterated sadistic joy of watching Vortex self-destruct.
Overlord had already made good on his promises. However much Vortex hated it, his coding had undeniable learned. The metallic beast uprooting his logic hubs like a cyberhound digging up a rusted girder would sit up and beg on command. More importantly, it wanted to. It knew that just being allowed to scrape and plead for the opportunity to obey would be a mercy beyond mercies after Vortex's stupid act of defiance. Not that Vortex himself didn't regret every moment of his ill-fated attempt to defy Overlord, but his internal code-creature was ready to throw him out of the driver's seat and start submitting all over the place if he didn't do it first.
Vortex would, as Overlord had promised, be grateful. His deep code would adore Overlord as it followed his every command. Vortex wouldn't have a choice about that, because everything but his higher functions had been tamed to heel, and even those were glumly coming to terms with reality.
What could Vortex expect, when - not if, please not if - Overlord returned? The addicted junkie inside Vortex's structure knew what disobedient little untrained subordinates could expect: deprivation. Overlord might even punish him this time, and Vortex's spark shriveled at the thought of what the triple-changer would consider punishment. Months alone? Statis-lock? Complete abandonment?
Primus spare him, he'd been put through so much already that the mere idea of something new terrified him. The unknown had become scary instead of an open possibility. The training was safe. Incredibly terrible, but at least Vortex knew what to expect.
But he'd disappointed Overlord. The Decepticon officer was under no obligation to give him another opportunity to prove himself a good subordinate. The massive mecha could just come back whenever he wanted a bit of entertainment, when he wanted to watch Vortex crash again and again, not when there was training to be done. Vortex desperately tried to hold onto the knowledge that Bruticus was important, the Combaticons as a united team were valuable, but his conviction slipped through his fingers as fast as he could gather it. Was he a worthwhile soldier given to a harsh trainer as a pet project, or just an amusing reward for a sadistic officer?
He didn't know, and that scared him. It scared him, and that made him want the relative safety of the training even more.
Before, Vortex had wanted the bubble. He'd wanted it, and had been willing to do anything to get it. The tiny, infinitesimal chance of earning his fix of the popping noise had been worth total obedience.
Now Vortex had gone one step further. He'd transitioned from wanting the bubble - the spurt of substitute gestalt activity, his fix - to craving the conditioning itself. There was no reward without training, after all. He couldn't be a good 'copter for his officer if his officer didn't command him.
The part of Vortex that recognized himself as a conscious being was on the metaphorical losing side. It could see. It could watch the other part, the metal code-beast of raw instinct and basic program cradles, and it marked the conditioning's progress on that subconscious creature. That self-aware part of him was the part plunging into a sort of numb terror in slow-motion. It could see how the training had gradually tuned his systems to the sound of its need, amplifying the ache for the noise that Overlord had carefully written between the lines of his gestalt code.
The I-Vortex piece of the Combaticon's mind writhed under the weight of the warped code, but as much as he disagreed with the changes, it was impossible not to listen to them. He had to listen. A large, growing part of him wanted to listen, because that was what Overlord wanted him to pay attention to. The triple-changer had made sure to cut off every other path.
The conditioning told him to be a good soldier. To be silent and turn left at the command of 'left,' right at the command of 'right.' It reminded him of his place under Overlord's feet, his place in the Decepticon ranks under his officer, and the meek internal creature also known as Vortex listened.
And because that part of Vortex listened, Vortex's vocalizer automatically prepared itself to apologize and beg. His body twitched inside the plastic, circuitry itching under his armor as it tried to become more receptive and ready to pay the most dedicated attention to the subtleties of Overlord's electromagentic energy. Anything, any hint at all in that EM field, might help him parse what the right answer was.
In all of this lay the nebulous possibility of someday earning the bubble reward, and perhaps even, although it was probably too much to dare hope, maybe he wouldn't have to be afraid of being restarted again. If the training resumed, and he was obedient enough. If Overlord thought he was worth training anymore. If the officer cared to even consider the idea of continuing to train the disgraceful disappointment that was Vortex.
It was sickening that Vortex thought that, but a large portion of him believed it was true. He was a disgrace, and a sticky, sorrowful ball of regrets and shame for his behavior made a lump in his tanks that wouldn't process. He knew it was the conditioning speaking, not his own thoughts, but he still couldn't stop blaming his faults for Overlord's absence right now.
The Combaticon hated himself so much right then, Overlord wasn't even a close second. Undiluted self-hatred for his weaknesses and idiocies and - and smelt him, all the mistakes he'd made, he'd been a rusted moron from the very start! That kind of hatred was far richer than anything that could be directed at anyone else.
In the middle of his self-loathing, Vortex felt himself accept the facts. The popping sound was now a basic necessity in his life. Fuel, coolant, safe refuge, gestalt bond, and the POP. Not necessarily in that order.
Because he was Vortex, drowning as he was inside his own mind, he knew how this warped, distorted, horrible situation worked. Overlord had made sure he was aware, curse him for a fool, and therefore the 'copter could translate the necessities into appropriate real-world terms: Fuel, coolant, safe refuge, gestalt bond, and obey, beg, grovel all over the floor, cater to Overlord's every whim, and ultimately hope for mercy. Definitely not in that order.
He raged against it, hot fury rushing through his tubes like fuel as he tried to do something, anything, but no. His body was held physically helpless, and Overlord had stripped his mind's defenses away line by line. The craving had nothing to do with logic, or even will. It just was. It had etched into him by an external source, and it was solid like the blasted metal he stood on - that was, if he wasn't suspended above it by untold layers of plastic. Aha ha. Ha.
…he was so screwed.
Vortex's visor had gone the lifeless, dull red of a drone's optics. Something far away made a noise, but his auto-response scan was listless. Behind his face mask, his mouth didn't hold any expression. The reality of his situation left him feeling bitter and hollow. The defiance was still there, but the ability to defy Overlord's training had been torn from him. That was the truly diabolical part of the slagger's methods: Vortex's mind hadn't been changed about anything, but Overlord had steadily taken away all choices but utter obedience.
He had been looking for a solution? There was no Primus-fragged solution. There was no way to eel around the conditioning, and he couldn't escape this plastic blanket prison Pit. Even if he could think of a way free, he couldn't think the changes back out of his coding! He couldn't so long as the loyalty programming ruled him, and that certainly wasn't about to disappear. The gestalt code had his machine substructure under its sway, leaving half of his processors already warmed up to the idea of being Overlord's...whatever the frag the sadistic glitch wanted him to be.
Vortex felt a strong pang of agreement from somewhere deep and gurgling with machinery. Happy agreement, like a cyberpuppy wriggling in glee at the sight of a treat, but it was him responding to the subservience slathered throughout that last thought. It was him, the part gaining ground every day that his conscious mind couldn't suppress, and the 'copter keened softly in response. It was a little sound, choked by self-hatred and honest sorrow.
Overlord didn't even had to do anything more. Vortex's processor was already corrupted enough that hearing -
The 'copter paused. That last thought struck a note in him. Something about hearing was important.
He took that fragmented idea and turned it over in his head.
That...could be a solution, perhaps. A poor excuse for one, but right now, a lousy attempt was still better than nothing. It was the blasted soundthat triggered the cascade of screeching nightmare desperation, right? Sure, he wanted the touches, but it was the stupid bubble popping sound he craved with the all-consuming need of an addict. But, like mecha addicted to circuit speeders, it was possibly to break an addiction if the mecha were physically separated from the next fix.
Maybe, if the other Combaticons were present, or at least other Decepticons to fulfill the itching, crawling need, Vortex would be able to to wean himself off the inane plastic air pocket. Lacking that option, however, quitting cold might still be an option. No, he couldn't alter his core programming back to normal, but he might be able to just outright escape the stimulus/response cycle that was feeding the trained behavior. Maybe he could avoid activating it entirely, if he could get away from the triple-changer and his code-deep conditioning. Bodily away, putting enough physical distance between them to prevent himself from hearing Overlord's orders and thus falling prey to the sick urge to place himself under the triple-changer's heel.
Theoretically, the plan was solid. The bubble noise was what brought him to his knees, and it was going to be absolute torture to power through the junkie-cravings for that auditory drug. Yet if he could escape Overlord, he could find someone else to fulfill his gestalt-link's pathetic need for interaction, and that should keep the torment down to a mere stroll through the Pit. Other mecha would keep his overactive statis protocols down even if the physical activity didn't, and once he got clear of Overlord, Vortex would beg, borrow, bribe, threaten, or stow-away back to Earth and his combiner team.
Iron ore and scrap, even thought of combining with his team made his systems twist tight and hot. Combining had to be enough to break the conditioning's hold on his gestalt code! As for the bubble noise, well, the plastic from from Earth; there had to be more somewhere on the planet. He could pay Swindle to find him some, and from there work on reducing his dependency himself. Most important of all, once he reached Earth, he could go before Megatron - Lord Megatron - and convince the Supreme Commander that returning him to Overlord's tender mercies was unnecessary.
Then he could actually be free.
He just had to get away from Overlord. Out of sight and audio range completely, because if Overlord held the bubbles over his head or gave him an order, Vortex's plans would collapse like Onslaught's strategy had before Shockwave's troops. A direct order would be bad enough - the 'copter wasn't too sure he could defy those anymore - but Overlord knew how to knock the struts out of him, now. Given half a chance, Overlord would trigger the loyalty programming, and everything would be over.
Getting away was the plan. It didn't bring him hope. Not like Vortex had assumed having a plan would. Cooperation was the only strategy left to him, because only by Overlord's grace would he be released from this plastic-bound Pit. If he was cooperative and a good subordinate Decepticon who never contemplated insolence toward his superiors, eventually Overlord had to free him.
That, of course, relied on Overlord returning, which he wasn't so sure would happen. He hoped, but no. He had to believe Overlord would return, or he would go mad with fear.
So, at some point in the - dear Primus, please let it be near - future, Overlord would return. Vortex didn't know how much torment and training it would take until the triple-changer unwrapped him enough for escape to be viable, but he had to be prepared to go along with the fragger's disturbing games. 'Copter-dolly needed to stay alive and sane, so 'copter-dolly would be his cruel officer's plaything. He would be an obedient entertainment in order to get his sanity-preserving bubble-pop...for a while longer.
That time period was going to be like being force-fed toxic waste swill not even Swindle could sell. Vortex was going to have to eat his words, purge them back up, and slurp them down again with piles of groveling humility heaped on top of every moment of compliance from now on. The Combaticon trembled inside the layers of plastic as he thought about what to do when Overlord returned. This was going to be most unpleasant. Temporary, yes, he clung to that thought, but it was little comfort.
Because Overlord would return. Please.
Ping-ping. Ping? Ping?
Vortex shuddered violently, backwashed in aching need swirled with fading relief. The ache won out in the end, as he'd known it would, and the metal beast curled up around his spark whined quietly using his vocalizer. His code firmly suggested the the natural thing to do, the right thing to do. It was a suggestion only in that he either did it or his sniveling base structure would do it for him while he futilely protested as a passenger in his own mind.
The 'copter sighed and begun choosing his words carefully. Perhaps, if his pleading used pretty enough words while debasing himself entirely, if it was honest enough and appealed to the rusted afthead's vanity and pride, if he managed to convey just how much, how much he was sorry...maybe.
He wasn't done fighting yet, strange as this battleground was. Vortex wasn't that easy to break. He just hoped Overlord didn't figure that out before he was more than the sound of rotor blades fleeing in the distance.
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