First, I apologize for how long it has taken between updates, that's my bad absolutely. Secondly I apologize once more because the amount of time between updates is unlikely to change very soon. At present I'm struggling to upgrade my schooling. Physics, actually. Right as soon as I believe that I'm getting the hang of it, I look at the clock and realize I've been working on the module for nine hours... Means to an end, 'tis but a means to an end, if I keep telling myself that, hopefully my natural stubbornness will pull me through.
Many thanks to my dearest Bee for her undying patience, and to Khalthar, whose plot demons will be the end of me
~K
Chapter 192 - Adjustments
(MPOV)
I vented a deep sigh as I made the final approach to our headquarters, a ping of an energon signature proved the ground bridge up and running again before the signal disappeared. I circled my usual landing pad then snorted in amusement as a massive circle opened like an iris in the roof.
Obviously, I'd been in Australia going over the necessary treatises for another base for too long.
::. Think of the devil and she shows her face.:: my little brother sent to me with a broad grin. I couldn't help but laugh, lightly threading my way through the sky-portal Wheeljack had insisted was to be his best invention yet.
::. And what brings me to your processors, little-brother?.:: I asked with a smile.
"See!? My greatest invention yet!" Wheeljack crowed, grinning at me as he set the iris portal to close again.
"But my point stands 'Jackie," I laughed, looking up at the iris as it closed. "It is still wholly unnecessary for me to land directly in the entrance bay. I am more than capable of landing outside and walking six steps through the door!"
"But now you can open the roof and drop into the Entrance bay unannounced!" Wheeljack grinned. I planted my faceplates into a palm as Bee snorted.
"If she drops in unannounced she's liable to crush someone," a middle-aged woman announced patiently. I glanced down in surprise as Bee's door closed.
::. Shyamala Kulkarni, she's Sentinel's femme!.:: my brother informed me cheerfully as he transformed beside the woman. I cycled my optics and scanned the woman, medium height, dark hair and eyes with a beautiful caramel complexion. Only a lock of silver gracing a temple gave any real indication of her age.
In a moment, I had my holoform online and walking toward the woman as Bee's holoform deposited her luggage in his own palm. Closer inspection showed her clothing in great disarray, soaked through with muddy water. A rapid sampling of her scent proved the after-tones of fear, shock, and a great deal of stress.
::. What in Primus name happened?.:: I demanded.
Quickly, my little brother sent his logs in a data burst, updating me as to the past five hours' events. I shook my helm and immediately strode to the woman.
Obviously, I'd been in the air too long.
"Miss Kulkarni," I stated immediately. "Please let me be the first to apologize for this inconvenience-"
"Nonsense," the woman smiled at me, a hand straying to her hair as she looked around. I couldn't help but smile at her in return. "I came to America for an adventure and this has certainly been one! And none of this Miss Kulkarni business, you're going to call me Mala. Now what is your name, my love?"
"Ambassador Mikaela Archangel Banes, call me Kae," I smiled as she shook my hand. "First things first let's get you set up in the guest's quarters and out of your wet clothes."
"I should have thought of that!" my little brother complained as my Optimus led Sentinel and Ratchet into the Entrance Bay.
"Bear it in mind for next time young man, and you'll have a lady friend yet," Mala stated in an amused tone before she threaded her am into mine. "Now tell me Kae, how did you get messed up with these trouble makers? Certainly they can't have forced you to be the ambassador."
"Well, there are certainly days that it feels like they did," I laughed as I began leading the woman toward the guest's quarters, receiving and scanning the reports our unit began sending to me.
"There will always be days like that," Mala agreed vehemently.
"Where are they taking her!?" Sentinel's voice demanded behind me.
"In the everlasting words of my Weapons Master, they're off to do femme things," my Optimus rumbled with a snort. "Get used to it."
Ratchet finally leaned against the hangar wall, howling with laughter as he sent me his own assessment of Sentinel's femme, and the condition of the elder Prime.
"You have him well trained," Mala informed me in amusement.
"I had little to do with it," I chuckled. "Ratchet tells me you were trapped in your car in a sinkhole, which explains the state of your clothing but not your acceptance of this situation." I prompted the woman patiently.
"Sentinel explained it to the class," Mala shrugged beside me. Then she smirked. "I knew there hadto be a reason he kept staring at me, I thought it was because I'd spent the entirety of yesterday listening to the ravings of the Brotherhood - I came here to listen equally to everything," Mala smiled at my curious look.
"Then may I ask your opinion or are you still gathering data?" I asked with a smile. Mala laughed.
"The Brotherhood raised a few good points, one of which seems to be leaning a bit more toward the truth, come to think of it," she stated, giving me an amusedly stern look.
"The heart wants what the heart wants," I stated urbanely. Mala chuckled, pulling my arm a bit more tightly into her side.
"That's what I thought," she murmured.
"You feel the pull already?" I asked her curiously.
"Mm, the same pull I've felt toward many the lover," Mala chuckled wickedly. "I never could resist a bit of a taste of the finer things in life." she looked shrewdly at me then, catching my chin in her fingers. "But then I suppose you never really had much of a chance to play that game."
I smiled.
"Naught much past the games of children," I murmured.
"Yet you do not regret it?" Mala asked me calmly.
"That I married young?" I asked in an amused tone. Mala looked down at my holoform and laughed.
"I should give you a good smack for that you cheeky girl," Mala informed me with a broad smile as I led her into the guests quarters.
"So I've been told," I chuckled, grinning at the woman as she immediately strode into the bathroom and gave a relieved sigh to see the massive shower and thick terry-towel robe hanging in the closet.
I smiled at my little brother as he grinned at me, holding up the woman's purse and luggage.
"Oh thank you so much my love," Shyamala immediately stated with a broad smile, pecking a kiss to Bee's holoform's cheek before collecting her luggage from him.
"See you in Med-bay," I laughed at my little-brother's flabbergasted expression before he winked his holoform out.
(SePOV)
The scout was taking his femme. Sentinel frowned, shaking his helm.
"Sentinel, re-sync your processors," Ratchet commanded him with a frown.
Sentinel rolled his optics at how readily he followed the orders of a certain blasted medic and cycled his processors. In moments, his HUD informed him that the medic was scanning those processors, evidently there was a large amount of regolith stuck to his armour as a result of it's mixture with a large amount of dihydrogen monoxide.
"Were you this thorough in examining Optimus' processors?" Sentinel demanded irritably. The scout was taking his femme to headquarters, and he was getting further away as the moments increased.
"Optimus kept his helm on straight long enough that I didn't have to be this thorough with-"
Enough words, the scout was taking his femme! Sentinel rose and transformed, following the pull of his spark.
"Sentinel!" Ratchet bellowed behind him. Sentinel ignored the medic, he knew he'd regret it later. But he'd known, he'd just known he'd needed to see that femme again! She'd been at his seminar, had listened intently and watched him. He'd let her get out of his sight and she'd almost been crushed by Shockwave's destroyer. The scout was taking his femme, and Sentinel needed to catch up in a hurry!
Shyamala Kulkarni had watched him, not simply in this dimension, but in the mindspace. He'd seen her eyes on him, he hadn't found that strange, the class had watched him, and any number of the humans stared at him regularly. They were a young species, and obviously still unused to his impressive size.
But there was a difference, the woman had not stared. Shyamala Kulkarni had watched him, regularly giving his examples and diagrams a cursory survey before her eyes would watch him again.
Sentinel had watched her right back. Surreptitiously, of course, a Prime did not stare, never once did he let the class know that he could see from more than one perspective in the mindspace, it was a trick he'd developed for dealing with younglings, and now it proved useful indeed as his secondary visuals never left the woman's face. His young friend was there, a few of the human's minutes later, leading him in the same direction that his spark pulled.
The scout was taking his femme, perhaps his young friend was joining him in the quest to rescue her!
::. Sentinel, can you hear me?.:: his young friend's voice rumbled worriedly.
::. Optimus, the scout is taking my femme!.:: Sentinel rumbled worriedly.
::. Yes Sentinel, Bumblebee is taking Miss Kulkarni to our headquarters.:: Optimus rumbled in a cajoling tone. Ah! Headquarters! Yes of course!
Sentinel followed his young friend down the somewhat tight ramps leading into the Auto-bot headquarters and transformed.
"Well there are certainly days where it feels like they did!" Archangel's holoform laughed quietly. His young friend's mate had his femme now!
"There will always be days like that!" his femme agreed vehemently to whatever topic the two femmes were speaking of. But Archangel was leading his femme somewhere, somewhere away from him!
The scout was following them!
"Where are they taking her!?" Sentinel's demanded.
"In the everlasting words of my Weapons Master, they're off to do femme things," His young friend rumbled with a snort. "Get used to it."
Sentinel glared at his young friend as the medic transformed, leaning against the wall and laughing his tailpipes off.
"Come along, Sentinel," his young friend rumbled in a kindly tone, catching hold of his elbow.
"But-" Sentinel rumbled, looking after the femmes.
"My Kae is seeing to the armour of your mate, it would be well for we two to see to your own," Optimus informed him gently. Sentinel looked down and realized that there really was a rather massive amount of regolith caked on his armour and struts.
"Planning on starting a rose garden?" one of the humans called up to him with a laugh.
"Is a rose garden necessary for the courting of one of your people?" Sentinel immediately demanded in a worried tone. Did he need to keep the regolith collected by his servos whilst he saved his femme!?
His HUD immediately informed him that the medic was scanning him again.
"Uh... no... Sentinel... let's get you cleaned up hey?" the soldier asked gently. Sentinel nodded absently, for tiny creatures the humans were remarkable in their ability to reach into the nooks and crannies of a frame and clear away the gathered grime that naught but a solvent bath on Cybertron had ever truly reached. Sentinel followed the tiny soldier as he jogged ahead into the Decon chamber, connecting the thick hose that regularly knocked the men over in the hot seasons.
Not that the pressure of the hose was really that severe, however the jet of water did reach a remarkable distance out into the hangar...
"You're a sucker for punishment, Chance," another of the soldiers called out with a laugh.
"No, you are!" the soldier laughed, cranking the water on and blasting the man for a moment as Sentinel shifted slightly to stand over the gratings designed to catch the larger particulates before the water was caught by the recycler.
As a bonus? The freshly recycled water was always warm. Sentinel hummed somewhat as he reached down, rubbing at the mud to hasten it's release from his frame beneath the little jet of water. He watched the soldier in amusement as the human wrestled with the hose. The human was getting drenched, and covered in mud, but obviously saw his rush, and aimed the water precisely where he needed it. Kind of him. Quickly, Sentinel finished cleansing his armour of the worst of the particulates and straightened, flashing a surge of energon over his frame to clear away the water and whatever that water had missed and put a good shine back into his old metals. Sentinel nodded his thanks to the human.
"Much better," Ratchet's voice stated behind him before something zapped him!
In an instant, Sentinel knew what was wrong. His motor-controls were now shut down... the slagging medic was working with the scout!
"Slagger," Sentinel snarled, just before the medic shut him into stasis.
(RPOV)
"Now will you tell me what's wrong with him!?" Chance demanded with a laugh as Optimus quickly caught hold of Sentinel's frame.
"I knew I should have never let him leave the base with his processors ready to go!" Ratchet grumbled irritably, gesturing for Optimus to drag the older Prime into his Med-bay.
"What happened!?" Chance demanded.
"Sentinel has conveniently preoccupied himself with a woman he's only just met today," Ratchet grumbled in amusement. "I do see why, now," he added, glancing at Bee as the scout meandered into the med-bay behind them.
"Why what?" Bee asked in an amused tone.
"Why you rarely pipe up about who's spark is reaching for whose. His processors might have handled the extra load if Bumblebee hadn't confirmed the spark-thread there and then." Ratchet snorted, easing Sentinel's helm away from his primary circuitry. His spark-daughter chose that moment to stride into the med-bay, listening to the final reports of the orn as she did. "Kae, pass me the splicer," Ratchet grumbled, accepting the tool lightly placed in his servo as his daughter walked past, stroking the faceplates of her mate before settling down at her workbench.
"Mala is intent on taking a four-hour shower, she thinks the recycler is the most spectacular piece of technology the bots have shared to date." Kae stated in an amused tone, her attention obviously returning to her surroundings.
"Considering the composition of the mud Sentinel pulled her vehicle from I do not blame her in the slightest," Ratchet grumbled. "Bumblebee if you insist on haunting my shoulder pass me that coil of replacement neurals Kae grew in the central."
Ratchet didn't need to look to know when the little scout grinned and scampered to the wall of stuff. In moments the coil was in his hand.
::. Skids! Mudflap! Where are you two?.:: Ratchet demanded on the Primary.
"Yo Boss-bot!"
"We's right here!" the twins called out, screeching in and transforming the next moment. Their bench was dragged behind him with a screeching scrape the next moment, and Ratchet's periphery sensors stated that two curious younglings were once more devotedly hovering over his shoulders.
"Bring your holoforms online," Ratchet commanded them patiently. "You can help me align the new processors with his neurals."
Three hours later a much cleaner, and far more relaxed appearing woman strode into the med-bay arm in arm with his spark-daughter's holoform.
"What happened to him?" Mala asked curiously, in turn climbing into Kae's hand and settling into the recliner perched on her workbench.
"Burnt out processors," Ratchet grumbled irritably. "He's already been over-doing it with his seminars then you show up-"
"I did that to him!?" the woman screeched.
"Whoa! Mala! Chill!" Bumblebee called out, bringing his holoform online and catching the woman's hands. "Calm down," he grinned. "It happens to the best of us, you over-use a part and it wears down, even humans get that."
"There is a world of difference between a knee replacement and a processor, Bee," Kae murmured in an amused tone.
"Agreed," Ratchet grumbled. "I can make the nanites build a new knee, and processors are far more annoying."
"I thought you said servos is the most annoying!" Mudflap stated with a broad grin.
"No, today it's processors, tomorrow it'll be servos again," Ratchet grumbled irritably.
"Often enough that after a while, you just get tired of putting people back together again," Mala stated quietly. Ratchet glanced up and nodded deferentially to the knowing look in the woman's eyes, she knew.
~Should I be jealous, my mate?~ Arcee murmured to him. Ratchet smiled, carefully connecting a final neural bundle before he gently settled Sentinel's helm back into place.
~That Sentinel's femme is as wise in the way of life as my own exquisite femme?~ Ratchet sent back to his mate in contented amusement, not that he'd let it show on his faceplates.
~So Sentinel has a femme now does he? Good, his spark is still somewhat erratic, the stability will do him good~ Arcee murmured contentedly.
Ratchet smiled for a click before he glared down at the Prime resting in stasis lock
(MaPOV)
Shyamala Kulkarni stepped out of the massive, heavily steam-filled shower enclosure and smiled at the young woman sitting patiently in the chair beside the door. Kae didn't respond, Mala looked at the girl in concern for a moment, her eyes were rather blank and unseeing. Then, she noticed her clothing neatly laid out on the comfortable appearing bed in the 'guest quarters.'
That was going to take a bit of getting used to, the guest's quarters in this place were a full sized refrigerator and stove shy of being a rather lavish flat. The shower alone was spectacular; Mala knew for a fact that she'd spent a solid two hours – if not more – beneath the hot, high-pressured spray. The pressure so high, in fact, that she'd had to turn it down a bit. Just a bit. Normally she would have cringed at the thought of so much good water wasted, but the shower itself hummed along, collecting the water and cleaning it before returning it to it's tank.
Spectacular.
"Better?" Kae asked her in an amused tone, Mala looked at the girl again and nodded to herself, the vibrant blue eyes sharply alert once more. So she had simply been concentrating on whatever was going on around her metallic form.
"Much," Mala stated contentedly, quickly shimmying into her clothes. "How did you manage to get these clean and dry so quickly?"
"Same concept as the recycler," Kae shrugged. "It deconstructs the garment, removes the contaminants at the molecular level then reconstructs it again, essentially in reverse order of the clothing my holoform wears." the girl grinned then, "The real trick is telling it which stains to remove from stuff made of natural fibres, otherwise it'll straight up bleach the entire thing white."
Mala stared at the girl for a long moment before she burst out laughing.
"You sound so human still," she commented with a smile, lightly cupping the girl's chin.
"Well I should hope so, my mate made a backup log of my human traits to be sure of it," Kae laughed as Mala slipped into her walkabout shoes. A complex large enough to house the Cybertronian kind was certain to be far too large for anything but sensible shoes. "Would you care for anything to eat?" the girl asked patiently, rising and holding the door.
"No, I'm quite alright love, and I'll be much better if you stop treating me like a crystal glass," Mala stated with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm sorry, Mala," Kae laughed. "Primus only knows how many times I've said that myself, but you surprised even me with how well you've been taking this."
"That's because you weren't there for the water-works," Mala shrugged. Then she allowed herself a small smile, the 'holoforms' as the Cybertronians called them, had a habit of disappearing then re-appearing again. Occasionally, their eyes would go blank, but the holoform would keep going. Which was strange, but strange was to be expected.
She was walking down the massive corridors housing a ruddy great pile of alien robots intent on abiding by the generalized laws of the planet they'd just so happened to have landed on.
"You know the Brotherhood of Man are certain that your lot are here to steal the women," Mala informed the woman walking beside her.
"They're not, honest!" Kae stated with a laugh. "I know it looks bad, four femmes in as many years-"
"Four?" Mala asked with a raised eyebrow. The brotherhood had stated that only two women had been turned into the 'huge metal demons.'
"You'll be the fourth woman to manifest a spark-link with one of our mechs," Kae stated patiently. "I'll introduce you to Symphony in due course, she's asleep at the moment."
Mala glanced at her watch and gave a small start. It was already midnight, the artificial lighting in the corridors dimmed in respect of the hour.
A comparatively short walk, considering the full length of the corridors, and Kae turned her through a set of massive bay doors. The girl's holoform blinked out then, even as the lithe, femininely framed Cybertronian leaned down and offered her a hand. Midway across the bay, two little bots hovered over the shoulders of the medic, watching whatever he was doing to Sentinel's head.
"What happened to him?" Mala asked curiously, climbing into Kae's hand. The femme lifted her carefully to the table she sat at, and Mala settled into one of the pair of recliners with no little amusement. Compared to the size of the bots, and the table she sat on, the full sized chairs looked like a doll's furniture.
"Burnt out processors," Ratchet grumbled irritably. "He's already been over-doing it with his seminars, then you show up-"
"I did that to him!?" Mala screeched, leaping to her feet again.
"Whoa! Mala! Chill!" Bumblebee called out, bringing his holoform online and catching her hands. "Calm down," the young man told her with the irrepressible grin of youth. "It happens to the best of us, you over-use a part and it wears down, even humans get that."
Mala took a deep breath to respond to that, the medic wasn't exactly setting a broken arm...
"There is a world of difference between a knee replacement and a processor, Bee," Kae murmured in an amused tone. Mala nodded.
"Agreed," Ratchet grumbled. "I can make the nanites build a new knee, and processors are far more annoying."
"I thought you said servos is the most annoying!" the little green bot stated with a broad grin.
"No, today it's processors, tomorrow it'll be servos again," the medic grumbled testily, and in an instant Mala knew precisely why his tone held such irritability. According to the reports, emotion directly translated across both their species; and the stout, blocky mech carefully attending to Sentinel had no doubt been a medic throughout the entirety of their war.
"Often enough that after a while, you just get tired of putting people back together again," Mala stated quietly. The mech looked up and caught her eyes for a long moment. Mala was admittedly surprised to see emotion there; true, readable emotion. But more than that emotion was agreement.
The aged soul that had seen so many in so much pain in the course of his life had sickened of it. Yet, he still maintained the bots around him, compassion outweighed weariness. He was still a medic.
Ratchet smiled for a click before he glared down at the unconscious Sentinel.
"How did I do that to him?" Mala asked in a calmer voice, she knew her voice was calmer, she was calmer. It had taken some time, but two and two were adding up once more.
"The same way I do this to my Optimus," Kae stated in an amused tone, shooting a frankly wicked, commanding glance at the blue and red bot standing patiently near her before she rose, catching Optimus and depositing him on another massive platform before he could dent the floor. Kae turned and sat on the berth beside her mate. It was fascinating the way her wings simply shifted, curving out of her way as she sat. Mala smiled to see the way one slender, dextrous hand gently, idly caressed the frame of the male – the touch of a wife to her husband. "A healthy set of processors will automatically shut down before the spark's attention can cause the excess energon to short them out. Rather like a circuit breaker going before the wiring is burnt out. It doesn't hurt him to fall over, really, Cybertron's gravity is far heavier besides."
"Except Sentinel spent so much time trapped and ticking down in the crash vault he's finally overclocked his processors, I should have replaced them orns ago," Ratchet groused, scanning the older Prime again. "Kae, wake Optimus up, if Sentinel re-boots in battle mode I don't want to be the one trying to get him to stand down."
"No-bot wants to be the one trying to get Sentinel to stand down," Optimus rumbled in an amused tone, catching his mate's stroking hand and bringing it to his faceplates for a moment.
"Isn't it... dangerous... to have him running the seminars without fully functional processors?" Mala asked worriedly.
"No, I built the Central and Mindspace to be fully separate of the bots," Kae stated with a smile, gently tugging her mate to his pedes again. "If Sentinel had blown his processors in the seminar Ratchet would be fully capable of putting him into stasis lock and ensuring all of the human's minds were safely in their own bodies. Hence Ratchet or I always being there to play second."
"You actually believe I would allow a human to come to harm?" Ratchet demanded flatly. Mala jumped and looked at the mech with narrowed eyes.
"If I had actually believed I would come to harm would I have attended Sentinel's morning lecture?" Mala asked in an imperious tone.
The Medic stared at her with stunned optics for a moment before a broad grin split his faceplates.
"Are you ever in for it now, old friend," Ratchet chuckled, patting Sentinel's chest-plates for a moment before Sentinel's optics suddenly brightened.
"Where are you taking her!?" Sentinel bellowed, jerking upright. Mala just about jumped out of her skin as the mech swung off of the berth. Sentinel stood an easy thirty feet, yet that size moved with a grace that seemingly defied logic itself.
"Sentinel Prime! Stand Down!" Archangel Prime commanded flatly.
But that couldn't be true, because there he now stood, glaring about himself with a presence that had absolutely nothing to do with his size.
Two bots stood, frozen in place. Archangel Prime held her blade steadily to the helm of the larger, made acceptable only by the fact that Sentinel had also drawn weapon.
"Where have you taken my femme?" Sentinel growled in a dangerously soft tone. Mala raised an eyebrow, she couldn't help it, straightening her back and crossing her arms.
"You've a ways to go yet before you start calling me your's." she stated in her absolute best, self-possessed and imperial tone.
It was perfectly worth it, to watch the way one of the oldest sentient beings in the hundred mile area promptly dissolved right back into a fourteen year old kid, awkwardly putting away his toys as he began stammering.
"Ma'am! I – I – I uh..." Sentinel rumbled, fidgeting in obvious agitation, reaching for her one moment and restraining himself the next.
"You may wish to utilize your holoform, Sentinel," Optimus rumbled in an innocent tone. Spoilsport.
In a moment Sentinel's holoform was standing in front of her.
"We know each other already," Mala informed the wide-eyed man in an amused tone. "But as we both were distracted by your lecture and then the destruction of a certain roadway, courtesy states we begin again. My name is Shyamala Kulkarni, but you'd best get used to calling me Mala here and now." she held out her hand and smiled as Sentinel took it in both of his own.
"My name is Guardian Prime Sentinel of Cybertron, and it is an honour to meet you, Shyamala Kulkarni." Sentinel murmured in a soft, reverent tone.
Mala blushed as the holoform then bowed over her hand, and pressed a featherlight kiss to her fingers.