Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost in the Shell or Transformers, just my OC's and the plot.
Additional Disclaimer: Matti belongs to JillTheCrazy1
Warning: A bit of hard swearing here and there
SPARK IN THE SHELL
CHAPTER 52: I REALLY DON'T NEED THIS!
"And so, after we circled the mountain range one last time we headed back here after we picked up the helicopters approaching on our long range scanners, then we spotted you all on ground and; well, we didn't exactly know how to approach you, on account of our previous 'relationship' so to speak, we argued over it but then you two came crashing down on our wings and, well, here we all are!..." Skywarp finished in a snarky voice, Jazz and Jetfire both looked at one another sceptically, and then looked to Deathshot, who surprisingly shook his head in response, if anyone could pick out a liar he certainly could, and apparently these two hadn't been lying even once. For the last thirty or so minutes the two seekers had been explaining their circumstances and how it lead them here, the kids and section 9 agents stood off to one side while the rest of the human soldiers had gathered round to see what was up (being sure to give the two strange robots a wide birth) and had listened in on the whole conversation while the Autobots stood around with their weapons still primed, waiting for them to make a wrong move.
"And that's all?" Jazz asked bluntly
"Pretty much; like I said before, we didn't really know what we were doing when we defected...all we knew was that we couldn't go back, and that Starscream no longer trusted us the same way he used to...if anything, by all rights we should have defected long ago" Thundercracker replied in annoyance
"But why? Even if you had defected back then it wasn't like he really trusted anyone anyway; why did you guys stay with the cons for so long if you'd been having your doubts about your wing commander in the first place?" Jazz asked, a short moment passed as the two seekers looked at one another in a mix of reluctance and doubt, they didn't want to say what was really on their minds, but Deathshot's cold deathly glair told them that they didn't have a choice; trust was at a premium here, and being honest was the only way to earn the Autobots trust at this point, something the two seekers were not well acquainted with on account of countless centuries of being enemies. Skywarp passed a heavy sight and dropped his gaze while Thundercracker's scowl turned into a look of hard disappointment.
"...To be honest, we haven't believed in Megatron's cause for many centuries now, after the battle of Tyger Pax the war descended into madness and everyone was stuck fighting, it got so bad to the point that it became war for the sake of war with no purpose or prize to be won anymore; it was just insanity and endless carnage, and Starscream changed too, in the beginning he had wanted to end the war and lead the Decepticon's to victory; Starscream may have been our wing commander but when it came to the future he could never see past the end of his nosecone, and he could never have foreseen just how the war would transpire, regardless of whether he had an influence on it or not. We had hoped to reason with him, maybe even convince him to defect with us" Thundercracker replied reluctantly
"Then why isn't he here?" Hot Rod asked
"...Because, Megatron's insanity had left a greater impression on him than we had originally thought; after he returned from earth without the Allspark he completely lost it, branded most of us traitors and threatened to offline us; we didn't think he was serious, until he off lined Soundwave...most us tried to fight back but it just all went to the pit, he even set the Nemesis to self-destruct!" Skywarp retorted
"Seriously? he blew the Decepticon's flagship? I know Starscream was always unhinged but I find it hard to believe he would destroy a whole battle cruiser?" said Trailbreaker.
"Well regardless of what you think he blew it up anyway! I don't know how many of us managed to get away nedalone survive the initial blast, we barely got away with our spark chambers intact! If the Autobots hadn't had picked us up we'd be scrap metal floating around the Vellexi system!" Skywarp retorted
"Alright, but getting back to here and now, who did Prime bring with him?" asked Jazz
"Uh, Ultra Magnas, Ironhide, Hound and Ratchet of course, then there was Cliffjumper, Springer, Warpath; and the femmes Arcee, Chromia, and Prime's Sparkmate Elita 1, and us" Thundercracker replied
"Elita 1, Chromia and Arcee? They're really here? When did you all make planet-fall?" Bumblebee asked eagerly
"About a month ago, literally the day after you all fell through the rift" Skywarp replied, the Autobots looked at one another in surprise
"And why did Prime think to bring you two along?" Sideswipe asked sceptically
"Well, there was a 'problem'; when Wheeljack managed to determine what caused the DRD to activate; he discovered that duplicate DRD was on this of the rift that was responsible for opening the portal..." Thundercracker started, "I knew it!" Darren murmured under his breath, "When he investigated this further he discovered a Decepticon harmonizing frequency on the other end, that's when our usefulness as former cons came in handy and after a bit of work we discovered that there was defiantly Decepticon activity on this side of the rift, on this version of Earth" the blue seeker continued, "So those bots we faced this morning were cons after all" Bluestreak thought aloud.
"But that was only half problem; we found that the signal itself was actually a specialized sub-sonic harmonizing frequency used for relaying online systems data, A-type 306 module" Skywarp interjected
"A-type 306? But that frequency hasn't been used in over four million years? It was made redundant after the battle of Omniex Pii saw the use of destroyer-class electro- plasma bombs; it rendered the signal's output completely useless" Deathshot frowned
"Either way, that particular frequency could be used between multiple units in real time, its output was so large that it could only be used between no fewer than two hundred troops at any one time, both on and offline; I remember because it was always a fragger to crack!" said Sunstreaker
"That's what we said, and that's why Prime thought it best to bring additional troops with him to sort this out, he brought us along as an 'advisory capacity', as well as have an additional team on standby, ready to provide back-up in case things got dicey, although, when we came through the rift things were already dicey with this little welcoming committee here to greet us" Skywarp gestured to the dead robots all around
"So there are more bots on Earth? Who?" asked Trailbreaker
"Prowl of course, and then there's Brawn, Inferno who were already here; Smokescreen, Beachcomber, Tracks, Blurr, Mirage, Jolt, Kup, and Omega Supreme" Thundercrack replied, the others gasping surprise
"No way...Omega Supreme? He's really here?" Sideswipe gasped
"On the other side of the rift, he's on standby too, and I can tell you, after eons of drifting through the void he's itching for some action; which reminds me, we got a surprise for you!" Thundercracker smirked down at Ravage, who regarded him with a look of bemusement.
"What surprise?" the panther growled, the blue seeker's cockpit swung open with a hiss of air and three metallic objects fell out and tumbled onto the ground, the humans jumped back in alarm as they realized two of the objects were actually giant eagle-like birds, each as big as Ravage with wingspans in excess of over nine metres across, with sharp hooked beaks, long powerful legs with equally powerful talons and long wing feathers that looked more like a set of giant razor blades; one was black and silver with yellow streaks running down it's back, wings and breast plate with an upturned crest on the back of its head while the other one was black and dark grey with red streaks running over its wings and tail with a down turned crest on the top of its head. The third form however was the spitting image of Frenzy, a small insect-like drone with a black colouration all over and four red optics, and unusually large robust forearms, each with a set of three sound whoppers on the elbows and sides. As the humans and Autobots stared in dumbfounded surprise, Ravage and Frenzy both approached the creatures with wide-eyed shock as they instantly recognized the three strangers.
"...Brothers?..." Ravage asked nervously
"Ravage? Frenzzzy?" one of the birds replied in a slight daze as it stood upright on its legs, the five drones stared at one another before they all let out shouts of delight and shock. They embraced each other, cuddling, nuzzling and burying themselves into each other's chest's and necks as they squeaked, cooed and chirped in delight; then, a tiny bat-like creature flew out from the cockpit and landed straight on Ravages face just below his optic, it was a bat alright, a TINY bat drone with dark purple armour plating and a set of ear-audios that seemed to be one size too large for its tiny head, it's wings were long and spindly with a thin black mesh membrane that seemed to glisten with a violet tint. The happy spectacle lasted for a minute or two before the drones calmed down and looked one another over, as if they had seen each over in a long time.
"Aw! How cute!" Batou's Tachikoma squeaked in delight
"Well well, never figured we'd see you guys again...you defected too huh?" Jazz grinned; the six drones abruptly stopped and looked up at the first lieutenant.
"Yessss, we no longer serve that murderous seeker; we want only our brothers, we want only our freedom now that our creator is gone..."one of the birds hissed, the one with the yellow colouration
"Prime told us not to come, sssso we snuck into Sky-wimp's cockpit and snuck away with the rescue party; it's still sooo easy to sneak past him, even as an Autobot"the other bird gleefully hissed
"A-a-a-andyougotnewv-v-v-vocalizers!" Frenzy cheered
"Nice to know you four haven't changed a micro-inch either" Sunstreaker deadpanned
"Uh, this is all very interesting but who're these guys?" Danny called up from where he stood behind Deathshots feet, the two birds eyed the boy sceptically before one of them darted forwards grabbed him in his talons and pinned him to the ground, Deathshot was quick to bend down to try and swat him away but the bird beat him to it and delivered a sharp hard peck, drawing energon from the sniper's fingers and making him back away, the bird turned his attention back to the boy who was now sweating bullets at the prospect of being pecked to death.
"Look brothers! One of their petssss!" he cheerfully squawked, however he made a fuss as Deathshot swiftly bent back down and picked him up, being sure to keep his wings firmly held together. "Lazarbeak, don't do that to the human's, especially not to Deathshot's charges, fun as they are they're not built with armour plating so be careful okay?"Ravage purred as he strode over to Danny, grabbed his T-shirt in his teeth and pulled him up off the ground. "Seriously? I bet their fun to hunt!"Frenzy's lookalike giggled, "Indeed they are, but for now, just behave yourselves alright? I'll explain everything later"the panther coolly replied as Deathshot gently placed the bird back on the ground and with an angry squawk he hopped back to the panther's side.
"Nice to know you guys already know each other, but who are they?" Mikaela asked
"Th-th-theseareourb-b-b-b-brothers! L-l-lazarbeak, B-b-buzzsaw, R-r-r-rumble and R-r-r-r-ratbat!" Frenzy squeaked as he stroked Lazarbeak's neck
"Seriously? But, Ravage thought you guys were dead, we all did" Hot Rod replied bemused
"We thought he was gone too, with our creator off-lined the telepathic bond that binds us together was sssnapped, creator must have sent our brother ahead of us, he must have wanted us to meet up on Earth; but when the Nemesis self-destructed we were caught in blast and thrown off course, by that time brother was ssso far away we couldn't sense him anymore, therefore we thought him dead too" Buzzsaw cawed
"But now, we are together and our bond is whole again!" Ravage happily purred as he sensed his brother's minds reach out and fill his own, bringing that warm reassuring pulse that pushed the loneliness away and filled the forefront of his mind with their presence, like warm sunshine after a long grey rainfall. The six of them closed their optics for a moment as they allowed one another to reaffirm their connection; then, they sensed another in Ravage's mind, another individual, not telepathic or empathic by nature, but one that had meaning to him; through the bond they sensed it was one of the human children, the boy in the red hoodie with slate blue eyes and in the panther's mind they saw he was enveloped by a turbulent red aura that stirred around him like storm clouds. Ravage instantly wrapped his mind around Ashley to keep them from prodding too much, they then saw him standing atop one of the fallen trees with his spear in hand.
"Borther, why is that human part of the bond?" Rumble asked as he swiftly approached the boy, the other's approached too but Ashley was quick to pull off a back flip off the tree so as to keep clear of eagle-drones sharp beaks and talons.
"Ah yes; brothers, met my student, Ashley" Ravage replied with an air of pride in his voice, the other drones snapped their heads round and stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses, "You? Hisss teacher? Your student? Are you mad brother? He's a flesh bag!-" Buzzsaw retorted angrily. At that, in one smooth leap, Ashley leapt forward and clipped part of Buzzsaw's breast plate with the tip of his spear and pulled away before the surprised bird had a chance to peak him. "A flesh bag that knows how to fight, ya tin turkey!" Ashley retorted as he retreated back onto the tree, the bird stared at him in surprise, he tried to lunge at him but Lazarbeak quickly held out his wing to stop him, "Wait brother..." Lazarbeak cawed as he approached the boy; everyone watched as the bird sniffed him and down and then stared him straight in the eyes. Ashley frowned up at him and was about to say something when suddenly the bird's vivid red optics began to glow and Ashley suddenly felt, what seemed like an ominous presence all around him, the sights and sounds of everything and everyone began to slip away and only Lazarbeak was standing in front of him. But to the bird's amazement, Ashley stared straight back at him with a defiant gaze and everything seemed to come back into the range of his senses once again, the ominous presence had gone too and Lazarbeak and the other drones were left with an intense look of mixed surprise and curiosity upon their face plates.
"It would ssseem your choice of pets is well founded brother; he has the ssscent of death and war about him" Lazarbeak replied in a brooding manner
"I'm no-one's pet!" Ashley retorted, Ravage couldn't help but smirk, through the bond the others sensed his liking for the child's defiant attitude, how he was so much like the panther had been in his younger years, that same unrelenting predatory spirit that made him so formidable; in that moment they backed away from the boy and submissively stood still, allowing him to approach his teacher and stroke him on the neck.
"What was that all about?" he whispered, "I'll explain later, but for now you're in my brother's good graces; that's near impossible for a first meeting with them so consider yourself very lucky" Ravage purred as the boy climbed onto his back.
"Okay, this was all very interesting if not a little heart warming; but what do we do now?" Sam asked; as he surveyed the scene, Jazz sighed and placed his hands on his hip plates, and glanced over at the dead Batou and Major pretenders, still lying where they found them. "What do you want to do Major?" the first lieutenant asked, "I'd like to get those 'pretenders' back to HQ for a structural analysis, as well as the others down in that supposed base; since everything in that place was smashed up we can't download anything but if the hard-drives are still intact we might be able to find something we can work with, at least now we know who the enemy really are..." the Major replied as she and the rest of her team walked around from where they had been standing behind the two seekers, they both noticed the little purple haired female as she came in view, and right away noticed her red eyes, "Is she an ex-con too?" Skywarp asked discreetly "No, but with her attitude she sure could pass for one; be careful, she ain't one you wanna cross" Jazz replied, the two seekers quirked their eyebrow ridges at one another but said nothing. "What are we gonna do with them?" Batou thumbed up at the two seekers, Jazz regarded them both with an impassive look as they looked at him with concern, wondering and secretly dreading what his decision was going to be.
"How serious are you about helping us? If Prime brought you both along that could only mean he had confidence in you; which suffice to say I find difficult to believe considering our shared history, but never the less I wound never question his judgment unless something else was going on, so that only begs the question; are you serious about this? Or did you just defect to assure your own freedom?" Jazz asked coolly, the two seekers blinked in surprise; apparently the first lieutenant was still as sharp as they remember, and their anxiety hadn't escaped his notice. With an agitated frown, Thundercrack slowly got up on his feet, being sure not to spook Deathshot into hurting him again, and looked down defiantly at the silver bot.
"Let's just get one thing straight; I'm not particularly fond of any you bots, I may not believe in the Decepticon cause anymore but I certainly wasn't singing Prime's praises when I defected either, and the only reason he came along was because he didn't know any better!" Thundercracker thumbed over at Skywarp who just stared at them somewhat dumbly, "Yes we both defected because we know how seriously you take your 'freedom is the right of all sentient beings' policy and that you can't turn away a con who willingly defects; I value my freedom, and I will do what's necessary to ensure I can keep it, even if it means having to take orders from you" he continued in a brooding tone.
"That's fine by me just so long as you can haul your own aft's outta the fire; I ain't asking you to like this, obviously I'm not keen on this myself, but the way things have been going for us of late we need all the help we can get, even if it come in the form of you two airheads; the only thing that's not up for debate, is how you treat about our little friends" Jazz gestured down to the humans standing at his feet, "if you wanna whine about getting organic grease smears on your armour, do it in your own time, and to yourselves; I detect so much as one blip from your comms about how gross or small they are and I will let the twins here haul your aft's to the junk yard and have your wings scarped for sheet metal; are we clear?" he continued in a low commanding tone.
"Transparently" Thundercracker deadpanned
"Wait! One last thing!-" Ashley called up, grabbing the blue seeker's attention. "Earlier, Ravage picked up the scent of some humans heading eastward up the valley wall, did you see where they went?" he asked, "Yes, the human leader Lennox brought them with him, why?" Skywarp replied, "One of them's my dad, did you see where they went?" he asked again, blinking in surprise, Thundercracker bent right down to the human's level and after studying the twelve year old's face, quirked an eyebrow ridge in bemusement.
"Your Brigg's creation?" he thought aloud, that grabbed Ashley's full attention, as well as his other cousin's.
"You've met my dad?" he asked eagerly
"Well of course, he's the leader of the human's covert unit; he and his team went on ahead of the rest of the rescue party to find you all...I know he said you were the 'spitting image' of himself, but Primus the resemblance is just weird" the seeker replied as he got back up.
"What happened and where did they go?" Deathshot asked
"After we emerged from the rift and ran into all these guys everything went to the pit; during the fight we found an underground lair that was meant to serve as some kind of bunker, or medical facility? Either way it was filled with online systems so we figured it would help us find you all faster if we were able to hack into and hijack a navigation guidance satellite from there. But, apparently there was this group of Pretenders hiding down there; come to think of it they were all duplicates of you lot!" Skywarp pointed to the Major and her team, who stared up at the black and purple seeker in dumbfound surprise, "You only now realized that?" the Major asked incredulously, the seeker merely shrugged innocently, the Major rolled her eyes while Thundercracker face-palmed with a loud clang. "Anyway; Brigg's team took on most of them while two of them went after Briggs himself, we thought he'd need help but amazingly he took them both on managed to off-line them; some of his team found the computers were still online, the pretenders had data on their duplicates but much of it was protected by some heavily reinforced security programming" Skywarp continued, "What data did they get? Asked Deathshot, "Hardly any, with all the chaos of the battle they only had time to get hold of a large scale map of this whole area, and with it directions to a city somewhere on the coastal region called 'New Port', apparently there's a place called 'Section 9 HQ' that was on the data files but it didn't show it on the map. Regardless Brigg's saw it as a lead to start with and after conferring with Prime and Lennox he took off with his troops to head for this 'New Port'; but halfway through the fight things got dicey and we got separated from Prime's main force, we tried follow Briggs to provide some air cover but these guys took shots at us, after we finished blasting them away Prime and his troops had already gone and we tried to find the humans again but they were already gone too, about three miles east of the valley we found the remains of some more pretenders who must have tried to stop them, we've been searching for them and Prime all day, but the Autobots have been maintaining comm silence, probably because their still being pursued" said Thundercracker
"So he's okay?" Ashley pressed him
"I didn't find his off-lined remains, so he probably is" the blue seeker shrugged, Ashley frowned up at him in reply
"Oh very encouraging..." Ravage sneered with a deadpan look
"So in other words we don't know where either of them are" Jazz sighed
"Uh?...Pretty much" Skywarp replied with a slight wince of embarrassment
"So what do we do? Try to go after them?" Hailey asked
"As much as I'm tempted, no; trying search for them at this hour would be pointless, their long since gone and if Prime and the others are being pursued by the enemy then their gonna be sure to cover their tracks, as for yer creator kid, if he's coming to New Port that gives us an advantage, even if he doesn't know where Section 9's HQ is we can still sweep the city with a bio-scan, fifty percent of his DNA coding is in you so we've got a good enough sample to go on; let's wrap it up here and get those dead pretenders on the tiltroater" the first lieutenant ordered.
Three quarters of an hour later the Tilroater and Autobots were on their way back to New Port, the special forces stayed behind until the military sent an additional deployment to guard the area, though this time they were sure to keep an eye on the situation, in case anything else of an unforeseen nature were to occur. The fires in the remains of the Sukaitawa buildings were still lighting up the city skyline by the time Section 9 returned to their HQ, although no-one had seen any combat tonight everyone was feeling unusually weary, the discovery of the true nature of the Black Lotus's base had somewhat thrown the section 9 agents for a loop, and a passive sense of mixed relief and dread had fallen over the team; relief for the Autobot's unintentional intervention that day they were set to raid the base, and dread at the prospect of what would have happened to all of them if they had gone ahead with the raid; either way, being back at HQ brought some level of calmness back to the team as they went to change out of their combat gear. Twenty minutes later Batou emerged from the changing rooms to find Ashley and Tom standing by the door.
"Hey, you guys been waiting for me?" he asked
"In a way, your sister's been asking for you; the chief's still out and the Major and Ishikawa are downstairs in the lab helping with the analysis of those dead pretenders and everyone is busy with everything else so we decided to check on them for you, and I can tell you, she ain't in a happy mood" Tom replied, "Damn! I can't believe I forgot Matti and James!...which room are they in?" he huffed in frustration.
"Uh? Upstairs in room 3?" Ashley replied as they followed close behind, a quick trip up the elevator brought them to the floor where the living quarters were situated; glancing through one of the windows as he walked by Batou saw Togusa's family, along with the other kids and their families who were still in protective custody after that incident with Saski pretender; the security personnel from the intelligence department who were guarding the door politely regarded the ex-Ranger with a discreet nod as he pass by. Further down the corridor he saw Jay-jay fast asleep with the Waineright twins and Hailey and Mikaela chatting in the same room. Finally he arrived at room 3, wherein he found a tired looking Matti slumped over the side of a table with five polystyrene cups next to her, and James who was fast asleep and snoring on the couch in the corner; looking up with heavy eyes she got up from her seat and stepped towards him with a listless snarl across her lips.
"Finally, you decided to show up" she impassively grumbled; Batou's face fell flat, he knew that tone didn't bode well for him 'Oh boy...' he thought wirily as he prepared himself for the oncoming 'chewing out'.
"Sorry, I've been busy all day" was all he could think to say
"Oh really? You don't say?" she replied sarcastically, the hint of venom in her voice didn't escape Batou's notice
"...Look, I'm sorry about earlier, but in case you forgot we were kinda in the middle of a crisis this morning, I had to get you guys outta there fast-"
"By having me flown up in the air by some girls with freaky superpowers? WHAT THE FUCK'S UP WITH THAT? Do you have any idea how terrified I was? Being dragged up to over a thousand feet above the ground by a girl covered in blue fire! Not knowing if I'd fall or not? And as if that was bad enough, I get dumped here and am told not to leave! We've been asking what's going on all day but nobody's told us anything! And as for you, what the hell were those robots and how did they know you?" Matti snapped angrily as she stomped nearer to him, over on the coach James abruptly woke up while Batou just stood there, his flat gaze turned into a slight frown as he drew in breath; this was going to be anything but easy.
"Please Matti...if it were any other time and place, anything else, I would tell you; but this...this is way too complicated to explain, and trust me, the less you know the safer you'll be-"
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You're a security guard not some secret government agent! How does what happened this morning qualify for not telling me anything! I WAS THERE DAMN IT! I SAW WHAT HAPPENED! Don't try to tell me it didn't happen!" She snapped viciously. A long tense moment passed as Batou stood there, his frown steadily turning into a scowl as his reluctance began to build; slowly, as she reached her mind out to his, Matti suddenly felt a terrible pang of truth ring in the forefront of her mind as she realized the contradiction of her outburst.
"You're...not a security guard?...but, how?..." she said in a slightly shaky voice, James watched in silent anxiousness while Batou passed a heavy sigh as he dropped his gaze for a brief moment, and stepped towards her with the sense of a heavy weight having been lifted from his shoulders.
"Come on Matti I'm your brother, you may be able to glimpse at other people's secrets but you can't get the drop on me, I know you too damn well kid; besides, letting you in on my real job is not a luxury, it's a big liability, and in my line of work, even your own loved ones are not above reproach in the eyes of the government, I wish it wasn't but it's a sad fact the matter...It's nothing personnel kid, it really isn't, it's just part of the job..." Batou replied frankly, but Matti failed to pick up the hint of regret in his voice as her mind started to turn in disbelief.
"Part of the job? You deliberately lied to us? To me? Your own sister! Why the hell couldn't you trust me to keep it a secret? You of all people should know what it means to keep an important secret! Especially a personal one!" She spat
"This has nothing to do with that! And don't even say I don't care! I have done nothing but care for you, James, Molly and everyone else! This is a job I do because I can't stand to see good people suffer at the hands of others, you know that! So don't even think that I do this job just for kicks, cuz believe me I haven't been doing this job for as long as I have and suffered for it!" Batou snapped back, his loader voice made her wince slightly, but her anger was the only thing keeping her rooted to the spot, too annoyed and stubborn to back down, and certainly not in the mood to let him have the last word.
"Oh Really? Well maybe if you had told me sooner I might have actually been there for you like you've been there for me all these years! Fuck the government and whatever regulations you have to follow! After everything we've been through together I can't believe you would not even consider trusting me on this! After all the trust I had in you how the hell can you be such an asshole and go back on your promise? You said we'd have no secrets between us!" She spat, now Batou was getting annoyed
"Didn't you hear what I just told you? I didn't tell you for your own good! Even if you could keep it a secret it's doesn't mean other people might figure it out! You know the world isn't all peaches and cream kid! There are some real sick twisted freaks out there who can read you like a book, and believe me, it's the ones you don't see coming that'll kill you in a heartbeat; and that's not the worst of it, for every good person out there there's at least ten more fucked up evil geniuses that spew out into the world faster than anyone can think them up!...And it works both ways too you know. Until today, no-one, not even my own teammates knew you existed, and I was hoping to take that to my grave, least someone would use you, Molly or James against me; I even arranged things so that if anything happened to me and I died you'd be told it was an accident...I've made a hell of a lot of sacrifices to keep you safe Matti, don't you dare say I couldn't give a rat's ass to the consequences of my decisions and how it would affect you, cuz it's the one think that keeps me awake at night, and haunts me every time I stare down the barrel of a gun!" he growled in irritation, but Matti simply glared at him, angry and unconvinced.
"I don't believe you! Do you seriously expect me to just accept the fact that you've been leading a double life this whole time? I don't care what you say or what you think about your decision! The fact is you lied to me! After what I've been through, after what I've had to go through to gain any semblance of 'normality' for my life, you turn around and become a hypocrite on everything you taught me!" she venomously spat back, folding her arms and turning to the side.
"Don't you dare say I'm a hypocrite! And furthermore don't you dare make this out to be about only you! This situation is way bigger than you kid and the last thing I want is for you to get mixed up in all this!" Batou jabbed his finger at her, she didn't budge.
"Get mixed up in what exactly? The middle of some government conspiracy to hide the fact that some giant humanoid think tanks went berserk and decided to have a major slam down in the middle of the city? Oh yeah you'll really be able to cover that up! Not to mention the fact there are super-powered girls out there who can levitate people and shoot blue fire from out their asses!" she replied sarcastically.
'Giant humanoid think tanks? Yeah, that'll do' Batou thought, 'at least she didn't get the hint that they were aliens' he thought in the back of his mind, being sure to keep his mental defences up in case she sensed anything was off; she didn't, drawing in a deep breath he stepped back and tried to calm his nerves down.
"Look, I really don't need this right now, I've had a long, and frankly very hard day; I'll arrange for you stay here tonight and in the morning I'll arrange for you both to be taken home...just, please, think about what I told you and take the night to cool off, okay?" Batou pleaded in a flat tone, Matti simply glared at him and stomped over to the door at the opposite end of the room and loudly slammed the door behind her. James got up from his seat and approached Batou with a sense of cautiousness; Batou relaxed his stance, indicating he'd dropped his defences.
"I know she doesn't make it easy Batou, but she's still a kid, she's still got a lot learn about why people do what they do, ironic as that sounds considering her past, but even the most seemingly straightforward of circumstances turn out to be not so straight forwards we like to believe...please, don't think she said what she said to spite you, you know she doesn't mean it" James reassured him in a hushed tone, making sure Matti couldn't hear him from the other side of the door; Batou simply regarded him with a mixed impression of frustration and sullenness.
"...I know, but even after all this time she still that little kid who-..." Batou stopped himself, unable to say what was he was thinking as his mind racked back and forth with doubt and regret. "...Well, anyway, she just needs time to cool off; I just wish she'd at least consider things from my point of view every once in a while and stop being such a stubborn teenager; I know she has her 'issues' to contend with, but she's not the only one who has to work hard to protect what she has" Batou huffed in annoyance; a short moment of silence passed before James spoke up again.
"So?...You're, really a government agent?... For how long?"
"...Since I first moved back to Japan, but I've been with this outfit since it was first formed back in 2029"
"As long as that? I guess it explains a few missed family get-togethers huh?"
"That's not even the half of it; but like I said, I never meant anything personal by it; it's just, the nature of this job and what's required of it, it really takes up your time, and the criminal element doesn't care if you've got a dinner date or birthday party to keep"
"No I suppose not, but seriously? Your team doesn't even know about your own sister? I can understand trying to protect her on paper, but not letting anyone know of her existence at all?"
Batou looked James in the eye, a sense of tense unease passed between them as they both realized they had arrived at point neither wanted to say aloud, but didn't have the luxury of hiding, least any misunderstandings arise from this, in the lowest, most softest voice he could muster, Batou stepped closer and bowed his head to bring his mouth closer to James ear.
"James, I didn't tell anyone about Matti for three damn good reasons; firstly, after everything she went through after that incident with dad the last thing I want is anyone thinking she's a nut-job that needs to be put away in some psych hospital, even if the people in this unit are my friends, I don't want a single word of any gossip getting around, nothing is sacred is in this job including your personal values, and you, Matti and Molly are as personal as they get for me. Secondly; right now, I am risking my job by keeping what Matti told me this morning secret, those symbols she showed me are only known by a handful of people outside the government and outside this building and have been kept under lock and key to boot, the fact that she saw them in one of her 'visions' puts her in a very delicate and very dangerous position, if anyone asks her where she saw those symbols and she's forced to tell the truth, not only will nobody take her seriously, once they bring up her personal records her mental state will be called into question and it'll be a repeat of the psych ward and doctors all over again and at the very worst she'll probably be branded a liability of the state and be arrested for either spying or illegal hacking of government networks, that, and I'll be arrested for withholding vital information and possibly even treason...But thirdly, and more importantly, if anyone were to find out what Matti is and what she can do, someone could get ideas and think they could use her to their advantage; far-fetched and crazy at it sounds that anyone in this day and age would believe in the existence of psychics, every once in a while there's that one individual who's willing to believe in anything if he believes it can get him ahead in the game; and the fact that Matti can 'see' things before they happen, or even reach her mind out to read other people's thoughts, even see their ghosts...it maybe wild for many to believe, but if they saw what she can do, it would freak them out to no end, not to mention it would stir up a whole load of questions she'd never be willing to answer; she's not some freak-show to be put on display for the world to gawk at and I went to a lot of trouble to make sure she could have the life we never had as kids...Even if this mean's I go to prison, I'd rather it be my freedom that's sacrificed, not hers. That's why I don't want her looking into those symbols, its bad enough that she found out about them, but if she found out about their true nature then her will be in serious danger"
James stared at Batou in disbelief, a cold sense of dread ran up his spine as Batou's face told him he wasn't kidding; his gaze drifted off into space as his mind tried to wrap around the seriousness of the situation whilst Batou passed a heavy sigh, wondering if he hadn't already made the situation more precarious than it already was. Unfortunately, the ex-ranger hadn't counted on the bare walls of the room acting as a crude acoustic space, amplifying his hushed voice just enough that it could be heard at a short distance; outside the room just behind the door, Tom and Ashley stood staring at one another in amazement, their bodies practically frozen still and their breaths so short and soft that they couldn't even hear their own breathing (when it came to eavesdropping, they had it down to an art).
"Psychic?" Tom mouthed to his cousin, being sure not let a single breath of air pass his lips, for fear of Batou's super sharp cyborg hearing picking it up.
"Don't know, but what symbols was he talking about?" Ashley mouthed back
"It sounded real serious, should we tell someone?" Tom mouthed, but Ashley held up his hand suddenly as something caught his ear, tilting his head, behind him he could hear the characteristic thrum of a therm-optic camo; the two lads nearly jumped out of their skins when something soft brushed past between them and stood in from of the door, the feminine scent it gave off immediately told them who it was, and the two of them braced themselves for whatever was about to happen next.
The door creaked open, Batou and James nearly jumped when they saw Ashley and Tom standing there, but Batou's stomach dropped and the blood drained from his head when the Major disengaged her therm-optic camo and stood there silently with a look of pure death in her eyes; Batou's mind reeled a thousand panicked thoughts a second, but of all of them, he knew this was it, he was done for and there was no point in asking her how long she'd been standing there; he knew she'd been listening long enough to know what she needed to know, and what she knew right now, was that the one person she thought she could count on had been keeping something from her, something, from the sound of it, constituted her stepping in and taking charge of it. Stepping forward she strode across to the room Matti was in, opened the door and found the girl laid out in one of the sleeping capsules, Matti glanced up at the female commander with a quirked eyebrow, her purple hair and crimson eyes being the first things to immediately grab her attention, but the Major's stern gaze sent a cold shiver up her spine.
"Miss Walsh?" the Major asked sternly
"Yeah?" Matti replied
"I want you to come with me, and explain how you came across these..." the Major pulled out of her pocket Matti's little crumpled up note with her scribbles of the Autobot and Decepticon symbols; Matti froze in a mix of panic and confusion, was she in trouble? Did the symbols really mean something? Judging from the strange woman's response it seemed they did, but what? Batou's train of thoughts froze as he saw the note and realized the Major must have slipped it out from his pocket earlier when he wasn't looking.
"How did you get that?" Matti asked in slight alarm
"It doesn't matter, what matters is that effective immediately you are under arrest, and I want you tell me all about your involvement in this" the Major coldly stated as she turned to leave the room.
"Wh-WHAT? Under arrest? What am I supposed to be involved in?" Matti exclaimed as she scrambled out of the sleeping capsule, she froze on the spot as the Major snapped her head round to gaze at her, those crimson eyes had a real look of coldness about them that made her wonder briefly just who this woman really was.
"...I think you know perfectly well what I mean..." the Major replied, as she left the room as she stopped and looked up at Batou, for once he really couldn't read her face, nedalone assume what she was thinking, but the fact she simply glared up at him without a word and walked off out into the corridor told him that she was seriously pissed off, and in a big way that was not typical of his usual weakness of his temperament fraying at the edges in the height of a mission. With his adrenaline beginning to spike and his mind reeling in a mix of panic and dread, Batou, for once, truly feared the Major, but even more so, feared for Matti and what would happen to her next; he turned round to find her glaring at him lividly, her cheeks turning red with anger.
"HOW THE FUCK CAN I BE UNDER ARREST?" she practically screamed
Oh Dear 8( The Boss-man's in hot water, stay tuned...R&R please!
