Chapter 6 - Is This Normal?
A/N: Okay guys I know I don't normally do notes first, but I need to prep you all for a few things before I kick of this particular chapter:
I know I've said it before, but I'm going to remind you all - Vosian legal age is 3 decades, and the legal age for the rest of Cybertron as a whole is 5. Where I live, you can vote at age 18 but you can't own property until you're 21, and it's a bit like that. If you find yourself in-between those two ages, you kind of get thrown into a bit of a weird legal limbo situation. So Vosian minors are anyone under the age of 30, and Cybertronian minors are anyone under the age of 50 - Cybertron would see these three idiots as children, but Vos sees Thundercracker as a legal adult.
We are done with angst for the most part. Don't worry, there are going to be enough hiccups down the road to warrant two more chapters, but the three are pretty much done with being turned into emotional porridge. At least until part 2 that is. :D
I want to thank everyone for all the amazing kudos and comments, and I want to thank all you wonderful people who follow me, whether you started today or have been with me since day one. Your dedication to this enormous mess means so much to me. Also, I cannot tell you the number of times a comment has made me blush so bad I had to go sit in time-out for a minute. If responding to comments didn't feel like private messaging (which feels inherently personal to me, which makes me slightly uncomfortable unless I've already developed a rapport with you) I would basically give all of you all of the hugs ever.
Next post date is November 22. TC and I will toast another successful year of legal limbo for me.
This point is last, because it is just so important: This is my favorite chapter. Not that I'm saying the rest of part 1 is slag, and I haven't written enough of part 2 to know if any of those chapters will surpass my love for this one. It's just that this one was the most fun to write. Even after having reread it 3 times to edit it, I still smile when I read certain bits. I just love it, and I hope you guys all do to.
Without further ado, chapter 7.
Starscream was more than a little peeved that Skywarp was graduating earlier than he was.
"Starscream, it's just one year. What's the big deal?"
"The big deal," Starscream snarled, getting into Thundercracker's faceplates, "is that Skywarp is half as intelligent as I am. I should be the one graduating first!"
"Well, technically, I graduated before either of you, so - "
"That's not the point!" Starscream snapped, and he started pacing again. From the floor, Thundercracker looked up and met Skywarp's optics, who just shrugged. Neither could figure out why Starscream seemed so annoyed either. It was probably better to let Starscream wear himself out, rather than get in his way when he was in a mood.
Neither could figure out why Starscream seemed so annoyed, but were in silent mutual agreement that it was better to let him ride out his mood than try and get in his way.
"I didn't know you when you were graduating. I know Skywarp, and I'm telling you, I have the marks to graduate right now - "
"Then why aren't you?" Thundercracker asked, unable to keep a slight laugh out of his voice.
Starscream shot him a particularly black look, then flopped angrily onto Thundercracker's berth. "It's very simple," he said, his tone snippy. "Hailstorm hates me, and deliberately failed me just to spite me."
"I like Hailstorm," Skywarp said, perking up.
Sensing an imminent explosion, Thundercracker jumped in: "Starscream, if the geography professor really hates you, wouldn't he want you out of his classroom as fast as possible?"
Starscream snarled. "See, you'd think so. But nooo, he spouted some slag about me 'not applying myself' well enough. Like it's my fault geography is the most boring slag I've ever had to put up with!" He punctuated this with a rude hand gesture aimed at the ceiling, expression dark.
"You know, you sort of kind of need it to be able to fly straight," Thundercracker said. He thought about that a moment. "Which…actually explains why you crash every time you get into the open air."
"Oh who even asked you?" Starscream snapped, throwing an empty energon cube at Thundercracker. He easily dodged the projectile. It sailed past his helm, and Skywarp caught it, placing it delicately on the table.
"It's so stupid to have to repeat an entire year at this asinine institution because of one class. You know, I was going to apply to the University on Iacon after this, but apparently that doesn't mean anything to anyone around here. 'Why would you want to go to a grounder's school?'" he mimicked sarcastically, doing a near-perfect impression of Freefall. "Oh I don't how, how about because half the time I go to use the burners, they either don't work or explode in my servos?" He began to list out all his grievances with the lack of funding the academy got, articling several scientific tools that neither Skywarp nor Thundercracker had ever heard of. They shared smiles at Starscream's expense.
"I mean, couldn't they at least have had the decency to hold Skywarp back a year as well? Then I wouldn't have to feel so inadequate!"
"That might have been Hailstorm's point, now that I think about it," Thundercracker mused.
Starscream's eyes spelled murder as he slipped to his pedes, looking for all the world like he was going to slap Thundercracker's face off, when Skywarp's voice piped up.
"If they held me back, I'd be over thirty. I'd be over the legal age," Skywarp protested. "You know they don't do that unless they have to."
Starscream grumbled and looked away, leaning against the edge of the berth.
"And Starscream wouldn't?" Thundercracker asked, his interest suddenly piqued.
Starscream fixed him with a trenchant expression. "That is none of your business."
Skywarp grinned impishly and leaned in towards Thundercracker, playful. "He's actually way underage."
"Skywarp, shut up-"
"He forced the professors to test him out-"
"-none of your concern-"
"-and he was good enough to skip a ton of courses-"
"-you prying, insolent-"
"-and the professors didn't really want him in their classes anyways, 'cause he's sort of a jerk."
"-idiotic, utter afthead."
Thundercracker grinned and looked over at Starscream. "So how old are you really, then?"
Starscream glared daggers at Skywarp, who just sipped at his energon and stared off at one of Thundercracker's walls. "For your information, Thundercracker, I'm twenty four."
Thundercracker stared at him, and then started laughing. "Primus, are you serious? I was living with my first trine when you were sparked! I'm practically twice your age!"
Starscream just glared at him. "Yes, it's so funny. You have a whole two decades on me. Whatever shall I do? Oh, I know, I'll outlive you. I'll be standing there, laughing at your grave, while you slowly rust away, you monochromatic moron!"
"That . . what kind of insult was that?" Thundercracker asked, tossing the empty energon cube resting on the desk back to Starscream. "That was pretty tame coming from you, Starscream."
The thin mech just chucked the cube back at Thundercracker. He tried to catch it, but Skywarp plucked it out of the air before he could grab it.
Thundercracker and Starscream broke off their argument to both look at Skywarp. "What?" he asked.
"You made that look really easy," Thundercracker commented.
"Uh…sorry?" Skywarp said.
"No no, don't apologize," Thundercracker said. "It's kinda cool, actually. Hey, can you toss that in the trash receptacle? That's what I was aiming for when Starscream caught it - "
"You are a terrible liar," Starscream said, and Thundercracker just grinned at him.
Skywarp ignored their spat and sent the cube sailing easily through the air, over Starscream's helm, and into the bin. Thundercracker turned to look at Skywarp again, impressed. "Wow. Nice shot."
"Thanks," he said. "It's pretty easy, actually."
"Yeah?" Thundercracker said. "Well then here." He looked around and grabbed another empty cube lying around and pressed it into Skywarp's servos. "Betcha can't make that shot a second time."
Skywarp shrugged and tossed the cube overhand. It sailed in the same perfect arc it had before, landing squarely in the trash compactor.
"Lucky second shot," Starscream said. He drained what was left of his cube and handed it over to Skywarp. "No way he can do that a third time," he said, crossing his arms and standing next to Thundercracker.
Once again, the cube sailed delicately through the air, following the exact same path it had for the first two throws.
"Um…wow," Thundercracker said. He nudged Starscream with his elbow. "Hey, maybe we can get him to clean that bomb zone you call a room like this."
Starscream shoved Thundercracker. "My room is fine," he snapped. "I live there, don't I?"
"As far as I can tell, you live in my room."
"Oh shut up."
"Hey, Skywarp, can you do it with your optics off?"
They spent the next hour trying to make Skywarp miss the trash compactor. He never did.
[[Maybe he'll miss if you blow in his audio receptors,]] Starscream told Thundercracker in a private comm.
[[Get fragged.]]
[[I'm TRYING to be a wingman. So sorry for looking out for you.]]
[[I'm not in love with him, Starscream.]]
[[So you've said,]] Starscream said, managing to sound unconvinced. [[But why not figure out if HE'S in love with YOU?]]
[[The likelihood of that ever happening is next to - ]]
[[Shut up and watch.]] Starscream said. He sauntered over to Skywarp and put a scrap of metal in his hands. "Here," he said, grinning evilly. "See if you can throw this."
"Easy." Skywarp liked making the baskets, mostly because of how impressed it made his friends. As he was setting up to throw, Starscream stretched up to whisper in his audial receptor: "Thundercracker's really impressed by that."
It was the first time all day that Skywarp had missed a shot. Starscream turned on his heel to beam at Thundercracker.
Thundercracker looked ready to punch him. [[What did you tell him? I swear to Primus, Starscream, if you told him that I like him, I will personally - ]]
[[Oh calm down. I may be an emotionless aft who will jerk a mech around for his own twisted amusement, but I don't play with sparks. But if you don't tell him soon, it's going to be another mech that does it. Believe it or not, Skywarp is a very popular mech in the berth, and it's only a matter of time before one of his many partners decides they want him for their very own.]]
Thundercracker's first reaction was one of shock. This was quickly replaced by a flash of possessiveness that, frankly, frightened him.
Starscream caught his look and just laughed. He spread his hands. "Deny it all you want, but don't be surprised when people stop believing you."
"What are we going to do?" Skywarp asked suddenly, looking between Starscream and Thundercracker.
"Um…what are we going to do when, Skywarp?" Thundercracker asked.
"After we all graduate," Skywarp said.
Starscream and Thundercracker shared a glance. "I, uh…hadn't really thought about it," Thundercracker said.
Starscream waved a servo dismissively. "We'll all probably all part ways and go back to being our same old boring, miserable selves. I'll be a successful scientist studying at Iacon Academy, Thundercracker will continue to be a freeloader at the academy until he turns half a century and they're legally able to kick him out, and you - you'll probably end up a berth toy to some rich, successful seeker." He examined the tips of his digits. "Hardly any mystery to it, my dear naïve Warp."
"Oh," Skywarp said, his expression falling a little. He stared at his pedes as he shuffled them. "Cause…I dunno…I always thought we'd end up trining."
Silence.
"What?" Thundercracker asked stupefied. At the same time, Starscream exploded with "Excuse me?"
"Well yeah," Skywarp said, suddenly getting excited about the idea and looking up at Thundercracker and Starscream again. "I mean, we spend all this time together anyway. TC, Star and I are already practically living in your room. We eat together. We do all kinds of stuff together. Stupid stuff. For hours. And…I don't know. It just…it feels right? The idea of being with you guys forever. I can really picture it. Can't you?"
Thundercracker was about to snap out that that was ridiculous. That this was too sudden, too soon. That they all needed to sit down and really think about it, talk about it. That those kinds of arguments were great and all, but not really compelling reasons to commit to someone.
And then his mind flashed back to the sheer amount of time he'd spent with these two. He thought about how much they'd shared with each other, despite their initial differences, despite their fights and bickering and misunderstandings. He thought about how much he wanted to kill Starscream some days, to just wring his neck and shut him up, and he thought about how quiet, how uncomfortable, how bitter Starscream had been during their first real conversation, how new it had all seemed.
He thought about Skywarp's face as he fumbled through metaphors, how he shrank into himself when confronted with anger, how hopeless and necessitous he was. He thought about how lonely and scared Skywarp seemed most of the time, how much protection he seemed to need. He thought about his own surprise when Skywarp - naive, literal-minded, docile Skywarp - stole Stabilizer's journal and graffitied the Academy walls with direct quotes as revenge for Thundercracker's imprisonment.
He thought about the self-possessed way Starscream would sweep into a room and suddenly dominate the conversation, his loudness, his self-assuredness, the way he refused to just shut up and listen, and the way he'd redirect conversation whenever things got too serious. He thought about Skywarp's bed partners, the casual way the mech would fall back on interfacing whenever reality got too much, and he thought of the strange, confusing blend of frustration and protectiveness it elicited in him.
He thought about how Skywarp had gone out of his way to find Starscream when he'd disappeared, despite not liking the mech at the time. He thought about how angry, prickly Starscream had given Skywarp brightly colored chemicals to play with to distract him from his fears. He thought about how absolutely brilliant Starscream was, and above all, he thought about the look on Skywarp's face as he slowly fell into recharge in Thundercracker's chair.
He thought about everything the three of them had experienced in the short time they'd known each other. And he thought - no, he knew - that he'd gotten to know these two mechs better than he'd gotten to know Flashflood and Stormseeder in the decaded he'd been bonded to them.
" – think for one instant that I want to be bonded to you two morons for the rest of my natural life, you've got another thing coming," Starscream was saying. "You two are the lowest life forms I have ever met, and that's including non-sentient organic vegetation that I boil daily in corrosive chemicals! You are the most pathetic, vile, idiotic - "
Thundercracker put a servo on Starscream's shoulder. "Yeah. Like Starscream's trying to say," he said quietly, smiling at Skywarp. "I'd be honored to be your trine-mate."
Skywarp's face lit up and Starscream started swearing louder.
"Oh shut up, Starscream," Thundercracker said over the red mech's shrieking. "Like you're going to find another two mechs who'll put up with you as long as we have."
Starscream opened his mouth to retort, but no words came out. Thundercracker could practically see the wheels turning in Starscream's head as he considered the conversation. Finally, he stuck a digit in Thundercracker's face. "You're a moron. You're both morons." He turned to include Skywarp in his diatribe. "You'll slow me down, neither of you has anywhere close to the scientific mind that I possess, the kind of mind that's necessary for anyone to bond with me." He vented heavily for a moment, his optics flicking between Skywarp's upset face, and Thundercracker's wry expression. Finally, he rolled his optics. "I swear to Primus," he hissed through gritted teeth. "If either of you lets me down in any way, I will dismantle you both with my own serv - SKYWARP PUT ME DOWN!" he shrieked indignantly as the bulky mech picked him up and spun him around the room.
Thundercracker watched his new trine-to-be and laughed, elated. He hadn't felt this happy since the night he and his original partners had celebrated bonding for the first time. A wave of guilt threatened to destroy his mood - thinking about his old trine, really? Idiot, selfish idiot, freaking tactless is what - but he pushed past it, focusing on the two idiots yelling in front of him. An image of them, trined and together, bickering but happy, stole to the forefront of his mind and he smiled. He could do this.
His spark sung.
Technically, law stated that Vosian minors weren't allowed to trinebond. Technically. Traditional Vosian society expected seekers to be trindbonded at or near the time they graduated from the Vosian Academy, and so the law had developed some leeway. As it stood, if at least one of the seekers was over the legal Vosian age, the trine was legitimate. The only stipulation was that none of the seekers could be over the age of fifty, as that was considered the legal age of adulthood for the rest of non-Vosian Cybertron. If one seeker was over fifty, the rest had to wait until they too had reached fifty.
Luckily, Thundercracker was at the comfortable old age of forty.
He was sitting in a consulting office at the trine clinic, staring across the desk at Windrush, the head processor surgeon. Windrush had his digits steepled and pressed against his lipplates, his elbows resting on the desk. The office was completely silent as he contemplated Thundercracker, the psych profiles of all three mechs spread on the desk in front of him.
"Let me just see if I understand what you're asking me to do," Windrush said slowly. "You. Want me. To cut out two pieces of your processor. Then, you want me to place one of them. Inside Starscream. Starscream." He indicated the corresponding file, which contained several ringing endorsements from the Academy's professors as to the mental state of the thin seeker, all of which Windrush had taken special care to summarize for Thundercracker.
"Yes sir," Thundercracker said.
"Then, you want me to take the other one. And put it in Skywarp's head. Skywarp." Again, he glanced meaningfully at the matching file, with its own insights from the Academy staff.
"That's correct."
There was a moment of silence.
"Just so we're clear," Windrush said again. "This is a potentially dangerous medical procedure. I am cutting into your processor. And you want to risk it for Starscream. The biggest aft in a city-state known for its... unsavory characters. And Skywarp. The only mech who...how do I put this delicately...the only mech incapable of outsmarting an organic life-form."
"Yes," Thundercracker said.
Again, Windrush let the silence hang for a moment.
"If I might just rephrase - "
"Look, Doc," Thundercracker said, venting slightly in frustration. "I've been trine bound before."
Windrush leaned back a little in his chair, his optic ridges going up in surprise. "Well that might certainly explain a few things," he said quietly to himself, and Thundercracker resisted the urge to roll his optics at Windrush.
"I don't have processor damage. The cuts were clean, my post-op exam checked out. But I know exactly what's going to happen. In the processor there's an area specifically dedicated to identifying foreign matter in a mech. It's the part of the processor that keeps track of vitals and allows us to check them on our HUDs. It also makes sure all data coming into the processor from the body is accurate, which is why doctors have to hardwire into that portion of the processor to run diagnostic scans. Otherwise our processors might interpret any radio wave or electronic impulse as being a readout from our frames.
"You're gonna take out two small, identical sections from this part of my processor. You're going to take out two from Skywarp and two from Starscream. You put one of mine in the empty slots in Starscream's helm, and the other in Skywarp's. Skywarp's parts go into my processor and Starscream's, and Starscream's take up the last slots in my helm and Skywarp's. When I boot back up, my processor is tricked into thinking that the signals it's getting from Skywarp's and Starscream's processors are extra diagnostic data for me. I can pull up their vitals on my HUD whenever I need to. It also means that the three of us will have an unhackable comm system, because no one can remotely tap into a mech's thoughts."
"Yes," Windrush said, clearly unhappy with how well Thundercracker understood what was going to be done to him. "You seem to understand the procedure...surprisingly well and you…still wish to proceed?"
"Yes," Thundercracker said, for what felt like the hundredth time.
"You understand that you will have Starscream. And Skywarp. Inside your head. At all times. You will be unable to get away from them. Ever. You will always know what they are thinking."
"Unless I tune them out," Thundercracker said.
Windrush gave a sigh of frustration. "It is very difficult to - "
"Luckily, I've had some practice with that," Thundercracker interrupted. "Having a trine before this one did have its benefits." He folded his servos on the table. "So, are we going to do this thing before I turn legal, or what?"
Windrush scowled at him, but pulled out a datapad from inside his desk. "Since they're both Vosian minors, they'll need to sign this. Also, I'll need a signature from a Cybertronian adult to witness that neither of them were coerced into this." Thundercracker reached for the datapad, but Windrush pulled it out of reach for a moment. "And I suggest you give this some serious consideration. Before you make any permanent decisions."
Thundercracker took the datapad and scanned it briefly before slipping it into a subspace pocket. "Nothing's permanent, Doc. I'd've thought you of all people would know that."
The doctor just rolled his optics at Thundercracker and waved him out of the room.
There was a lot of variety in how trines reacted to the idea of having their processors stitched together. Some trines preferred to be prepped for surgery in separate rooms in order to savor their last moments of solitude inside their own heads. There were those who liked to be prepped in separate rooms, but to be woken up in the same room, as a sort of symbolic coming together as well as an actual physical connection. There were still other mechs who preferred to stay in the same room throughout the whole procedure – these mechs were usually those who were nervous about the idea of surgery and needed the comfort from their trine members. Still others wanted to be woken up in separate rooms as a way of testing the new connection the second they woke up.
The medical staff at the trine center thought they'd seen it all. They clearly had never met Starscream before.
"I don't care what Skywarp wants," Starscream was saying nastily to Thundercracker in the corner of the waiting room. The nurse had just come in to ask them which combination of apart/together they wanted. Thundercracker and Starscream had had some initial disagreements, and they'd left Skywarp alone on the waiting-room couches to read one of the magazine datapads left on the low end-table. Starscream and Thundercracker had dragged the poor nurse along with them to witness their argument, and Rainsong's wings were drooping in exhaustion, embarrassment, and exasperation at being forced to be included in the argument.
"Well, by the Primes, I'm shocked," Thundercracker whispered hotly back at Starscream. "The high and mighty Starscream doesn't care what somebody else wants? How very unlike you, you strut-less excuse for a jet."
"Now now, let's not get nasty," Starscream tutted, shaking a digit at Thundercracker. "We wouldn't want to distress dear Drizzlesing here."
"Rainsong," the nurse corrected, but the other two mechs ignored him.
Thundercracker gritted his denta. "Look, Starscream, Skywarp is pretty freaked about this procedure. Can't you at least pretend you want to be in the same room as him as they put him under? The guy's terrified of anesthesia!"
"Oh no, little bitty Skywarp is scared?" Starscream said snidely, his sneer twisting his handsome features. "If only there was actually someone here who gave half a frag! Besides, look at him, he's fine!"
"He's fine now," Thundercracker snapped back, "because he's distracted. But the second he gets on that operating table, he's going to freak out, especially if there's no one there with him!"
"He'll get over it," Starscream said dismissively, fluttering a servo.
"You have no idea how disorienting it is waking up with two new people in your processor," Thundercracker said, trying to talk some sense into the stubborn mech. "Having the other mechs there can help relieve that disorientation a little."
"I'm sure I can handle a couple extra voices in my head," Starscream said, tone dismissive as he tried to pat Thundercracker's servo in a pseudo-reassuring manner. "Well," he amended with a chuckle. "More like one and a half extra voices. Let's not give Skywarp more credit than he's due."
"It's not just that," Thundercracker snapped, yanking his hand away. "There's also vertigo and nausea, at least for the first few hours. There's processor aches that last for the first few days, and your systems runs less efficiently than usual for the first week after as it readjusts to the new physical data it's being fed!"
"Oh well when you put it that way, why are we even doing this at all?" Starscream asked sarcastically, not bothering to keep his voice down. "Look, your excellent impersonation of a warning label aside, I think I can handle a little bout of nausea. I'm not a sparkling. Just let us be in different damn rooms! I don't want to have to deal with his hysteria as I'm going under!" Starscream snapped, gesturing over to the black and purple mech.
'These three actually WANT to trine?' Rainsong thought incredulously as he watched the argument escalate. 'I don't think I want to see who their other options were.'
Thundercracker regarded Starscream for a moment. "You're afraid of the anesthesia too," he said suddenly.
"Excuse me?" Starscream demanded, his pitch rising a little too high in incredulity.
"That's why you don't want to be in the same room when Warp goes under. You know he's going to freak out, and that's only going to freak you out more!"
"If you want to keep your wings intact, I suggest you stop talking," Starscream growled.
It was eventually decided that they would all be in the same room for the pre-op. However, the three would be separated by screens so they couldn't see one another, and Starscream demanded they be put in a large room, so that he could be as far from the other two as physically possible.
"Are these guys for real?" Skychaser muttered under his breath to Rainsong as they were prepping the anesthetic program together. "These three are actually going to trine?"
"Apparently," Rainsong muttered back. "You should have heard them yelling at each other in the waiting room. The blue one and the red one were about ready to slit each other's spark casings."
"That's enough chatter over there, you two!" Windrush snapped at them and the two nurses instantly shut up. They cast each other dubious glances before trotting over to deliver the program to the three mechs.
Rainsong was in charge of delivering the anesthesia to Starscream, and as he did he watched the mech carefully from the corner of his optic. Starscream seemed stoic and disinterested in the whole process, but he tensed infinitesimally when Rainsong jacked into his system. If Rainsong hadn't been looking for it, he would have missed the tell. 'What do you know,' he thought as Starscream's optic lids drooped and the light behind them faded. 'That blue guy called it. He was afraid.'
Rainsong could hear Thundercracker's voice carrying loudly across the room as he tried to sooth Skywarp's fears. Rainsong looked into the peaceful face of Starscream. 'He could probably hear the blue guy's voice the whole time I was knocking him out,´ he realized. Thundercracker certainly wasn't making any attempt to keep his voice down.
Rainsong just shook his head. "This is the weirdest trine I've ever met," he grumbled to himself as he wheeled Starscream into the sterile room where the transfer would take place.
Thundercracker slowly felt himself drifting back into consciousness. Distantly, he could sense his processor running local systems checks and diagnostics as he booted up from the anesthesia. Then he felt the tell-tale sensation of his processor verifying the signals it was receiving from two new sources, as the procedure essentially tricked his processor into thinking he had three separate bodies.
Thundercracker groggily watched the progress bar on his HUD as the validity of the signals were checked, and a small smile touched his lipplates. The bar filled, and a green light flashed once next to the bar with a pleasant little ping as the connections were authenticated. There was one last brief moment of solitude, and then the connection took hold.
Thundercracker felt his processor being crushed as data began flooding in unimpeded, and he let out a sharp cry of pain. It was like nothing he'd ever felt before, a deafening wall of static as numbers and data began flashing nonsensically across his HUD. Dimly, Thundercracker was aware of a few of the nurses flocking to hover worriedly over him, but he couldn't see past his HUD and its ever-changing wall of text. He couldn't even bring himself to read it, there was simply too much there to process, all he knew was that his brain felt like it was being ripped apart from the inside.
Primary awareness at 99% air pollution 12% facing NE lateral view obstructed rerouting to limbic extrasensory percep-traffic analysis subrout- #0000FF #FFD700 #0000FF #FFD700 kkkkkklcome to flightboard 356, we will be landinnnnnnn moving along x-axis at 5km/h coordinates TBD Nurse1 Nurse2 stationed Nurse1 moving S at 5km/h light analysis subroutines functional 01100110 01110101 01100101 01101100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110110 01100101 01101100 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 00110011 00110011 00100101 ERROR rerouting primary processing to - armor density 34% greater than SELF measurem -
As the data rushed by, Thundercracker tried to start making sense of it. It moved faster than he could comprehend it, but he managed to snag bits of code here and there. What little he could decipher wasn't coherent, just bits and pieces of thought and equations, isolated and broken. The first line of code he managed to actually understand seemed to be describing the descending arch and velocity of some object he couldn't identify. The code devolved and fell apart, morphing into what seemed to be a detailed description of the exact shape and mass of one of the nurse's leg-guards. The rest of the calculations he managed to grab made even less sense, being completely filled with mathematical jargon he'd never come across in his life before.
"IS THIS NORMAL?" he heard a voice rip through the roaring static. "HOW IS THIS NORMAL? PRIMUS, I'M GOING TO EXPLODE!"
Thundercracker could hear the nurses and doctor talking rapidly and worriedly around him, but words were beyond him, and he could discern only their tone.
"I don't understand it," Windrush snapped as his nurses darted around the room, trying to appear useful, trying to find something, anything to explain the two mechs writhing on their berths in pain. "The cuts were clean! The monitors showed nothing abnormal. This procedure was textbook!" The only thought that flashed through his mind was 'lawsuit'.
Thundercracker registered a shadow that fell across his field of vision, but all he could see was the white flash of changing text from his HUD. He heard Skywarp's voice, but nothing other than Starscream's shrill words had been able to penetrate the mass of numbers as of yet.
' – hope they're alright, Primus let them be alright…'
'Warp?' Thundercracker thought frantically, latching onto that voice, soothing even in thought.
'TC! TC I can HEAR you!'
'CAN'T YOU EVEN THINK QUIETLY?' Starscream demanded of them in their head, and both mechs flinched at the volume.
'Sorry,' Skywarp thought at a more subdued volume. It didn't help. Thundercracker curled in on himself and vented through the influx of information.
'Wait a minute,' Thundercracker thought. 'Starscream, say something again.'
'Shut up, TC, I'm in enough pain without having to listen to your insipid chatter - '
'Great, perfect, now shut up,' Thundercracker thought. 'Warp, think something.'
'Uh…what should I think about, TC?'
There!
"Doc," and instantly Windrush was at Thundercracker's side.
"I know you're in pain, Thundercracker, we - we're trying to figure out what could've gone wrong - "
"Doc," Thundercracker croaked, his voice thick with static as he tried to talk through the surge of data he was getting. "Doc, you need to show Skywarp how to put up a firewall."
"What?" Windrush asked incredulously. "What good would that do?"
"Just do it," Thundercracker moaned. "Before Starscream and I go into shock or something."
Windrush shook his helm, but beckoned Skywarp towards one of the mobile medical monitors lining the room. Skywarp followed. In a few minutes, after some discussion between the two of them, Windrush plugged Skywarp into the machine. He walked Skywarp through the firewall process, showing him how to block certain parts of his processor. It wouldn't prevent his trine from seeing the data, but it would prevent the data from spilling over to dominate the trinebond. Skywarp would also always know when one of his trine members went poking behind it, and would be able to deter them by adding extra security to it. Granted, Skywarp didn't actually know how to add security, but at the very least, they'd be spared the barrage of data currently incapacitating two thirds of the trine.
As soon as the firewall was established, the flood of data receded to a trickle. Thundercracker could still see the data streaming through his HUD with unbelievable speed, but it was isolated to its own column next to Skywarp's newly revealed vitals.
With a groan, Thundercracker managed to sit up for the first time. He looked around himself, and saw that they were once again in the pre-op room, portioned off by the screens. Nurses were trying to coax Skywarp back to his berth, concerned that he was on his pedes so soon after processor surgery, but he refused to move, hovering anxiously at the edge of Thundercracker's berth.
The blue mech tried to manage a smile at Skywarp. "I'm okay, Warp. I'm better now."
"TC, what happened?" Skywarp asked, his face stricken with worry. "I was getting error messages from both you and Starscream. There-there were a lot of them and, and, and your HUDs weren't working and-"
"I know, Warp," Thundercracker said, putting a soothing servo on Skywarp's arm. Idly, he noticed that his own hands were shaking.
"WHAT THE PRIMUS LOVING SLAG?" Starscream thundered from his berth across the room. "No, get off me, I need to see my trine NOW!"
A nurse's thin and wavering voice could be heard saying something, but Starscream's distinctively grating snarl cut him off.
"Then wheel this abominable contraption over there! It has wheels, doesn't it? THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE FOR, AREN'T THEY?" he demanded, his voice getting progressively louder as he got himself more worked up.
The nurses had no choice but to do as he demanded or risk sending his energon pressure spiking to dangerous levels as he became more and more upset. He was slowly wheeled into view by a confused and terrified looking Rainsong.
When they brought him to a stop, he just turned to glare up at Skywarp. "What the slag?" he demanded. "What the actual slag?"
Skywarp shrank away from him, sidling closer to Thundercracker's berth. "Are-are you mad at me?"
"Mad?" he asked quietly. "Oh no. Oh no no no. I'm not mad." He pushed himself into a sitting position to get as close as possible to Skywarp's helm as he could while still staying on the berth. "I AM FURIOUS!" he roared and the nurses rushed to push him back down.
Skywarp shrank back further against Thundercracker's berth, nearly sitting on it, shaking slightly.
Thundercracker rubbed his trine-mate's back soothingly out of instinct, but he couldn't help looking in awe at Skywarp's helm. "Pit be damned," he muttered under his breath.
Both Thundercracker and Starscream were staring at Skywarp with near-matching expressions of awe on their faceplates (albeit Starscream's was mixed with anger). The medical staff shared confused and nervous glances. In the long centuries of their experience, they'd never witnessed such a severe reaction to a trine bond before.
The silence was eventually broken, unsurprisingly, by Starscream. "You selfish aft," he growled at Skywarp. "You pit-spawned, glitch-ridden, rust infected, sparkling of a scraplet. You…moron!" he spat, shrieking the last word. He jabbed a finger at Skywarp. "You were supposed to be the slow one! You were the village idiot, the one everyone used for their own pleasure and then tossed aside. I have seen you held back twice because your marks weren't up to snuff! How dare you - "
"How are you only graduating on time?" Thundercracker demanded, cutting Starscream off. For once, it didn't seem to bother the thin mech as he continued to glare in bewildered frustration at Skywarp. Skywarp, for his part, just continued to look between the two in confusion and anxiety. "How?" Thundercracker repeated.
"TC, you're freaking me out," Skywarp said, edging away from the blue mech now.
"Good!" Thundercracker said, suddenly sitting up. Skywarp flinched, every line of his frame tense with apprehension. Thundercracker turned to look at Starscream. 'He honestly has no idea what we're talking about. He HONESTLY doesn't understand that nobody else thinks like this.'
Starscream just continued to stare at Skywarp, shaking his helm slowly.
'Starscream, he thinks he's an idiot. Everybody has told him all his life that he's an idiot. He thinks everybody else thinks like him, only BETTER!'
"Oh you moron," Starscream snarled and Skywarp flinched away from him once again. Starscream sat up and glared even more at him. "I was supposed to be the genius here! I'm supposed to be better than both of you at everything! How dare you! How dare you have this…this thing that makes you better than me?"
'It's why he was held back so many times,' Thundercracker realized, the idea coming unbidden and racing along his new neural connections to be shared with his trine. 'He can't focus with all that data streaming along in his head. It takes him nearly twice as long as everyone else for an idea to penetrate that wall.' He couldn't keep the amazement out of his optics as he just stared at Skywarp.
Skywarp's eyes were wide. "I…thought it would be a lot louder than this with you two in my head," he admitted quietly. "I - you - you're saying this isn't normal?"
Starscream banged a fist on his berth, making him jump and the nurses collectively surge forward to restrain him. He swatted them off. "Of course it isn't normal, you dolt!" Starscream snarled. "You think everyone runs around instinctively creating perfect virtual reconstructions of their surroundings into spatially accurate maps?"
The nurses all collectively stared wide-eyed at Skywarp. He could what?
Skywarp shuffled his pedes nervously and offered up a very small "…yes?"
"You're a moron!" Starscream yelled at Skywarp.
"He's a genius," Thundercracker corrected, glancing quickly at Starscream then turning back to continue staring in awe at Skywarp. "A spatial genius."
Windrush shook his head, a little disappointed. What were these mechs thinking? Without realizing it, he said aloud "Ridiculous. This is ridiculous." He almost added that their wires must have been crossed at some point in the procedure, but that would be as good as asking for a malpractice suit. He'd had enough of that for one day. Addressing the new trine, he said, "You're experiencing confusion and distorted thinking as a temporary side effect of the anesthesia. It will wear off with time."
The nurses began murmuring among themselves, some quietly agreeing. They hadn't known what to make of such odd declarations from such an unlikely trine, particularly so soon after two of its members had just been writhing in pain on their berths. Some were mollified by the doctor's assessment, while others remained skeptical.
"You think we're lying?" Starscream demanded and the medical staff all jumped. Apparently the three were still paying attention. "You think we're delusional?" Starscream and Thundercracker were glaring at the nurses, Thundercracker holding Skywarp's servos as Skywarp just stared off into space, his optics wide. 'I'm…I'm special,' he kept thinking over and over again. 'I'm special, I'm not - I'm - I'm special. They think I'm a genius, they don't - they don't think that I'm dumb or anything, they, they actually think I'm special, Primus-'
Starscream just scoffed at the nurses after a moment. "If you think we don't know our own minds, you're even stupider than Skywarp is - pardon - appears to be." He turned back to his trine and said aloud for the nurses' benefit "They're not worth our time. Ignore them. Let them run their scans and then we don't have to put up with their stupidity ever again."
Thundercracker squeezed Skywarp's servo comfortingly, and Skywarp turned to smile at Thundercracker. Relief lined his face, his wings had relaxed, and his expression was happy, free, as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders.'I'll show you how to modify that firewall,' Thundercracker said. 'Or we'll get Starscream to. That way, you won't have your spatial functions constantly clogging up your primary cognitive awareness.'
Skywarp considered that, then shook his head. 'Thanks, TC, but… knowing WHY it's so hard to think all the time is all I need.'
'But - '
'I've been the idiot my whole life, TC. It's enough that you and Star don't think I am one anymore.'
Thundercracker shook his head. 'It wouldn't delete the programs, Warp. It'd just push them back a little. Make it easier to focus.'
'Look, TC - '
'Oh let him be an idiot,' Starscream interrupted. That was the problem with trines. Even when a thought was only meant for one member, the third mech couldn't help but overhear. 'We can always write him the firewall later. I'm enough of a genius for the three of us combined. Especially now that I can steal some of Warp's insights,' he added as an afterthought. He sounded delighted at the prospect of sounding smarter than he actually was.
Thundercracker just rolled his optics. 'If you're such a genius, how is it that you have no idea how to handle people?' he asked.
'I got the nurses to leave us alone, didn't I?' Starscream demanded indignantly as said mechs managed to lead Skywarp back to his berth.
'That's…not quite what I meant,' Thundercracker thought with some amusement. 'Getting people to leave you alone is not the same thing as being good with them.'
'Well not everyone can be as perfect as you, TC,' Starscream said snidely.
Thundercracker just rolled his optics with a chuckle. As he watched the nurses wheel Starscream back behind the divider, he leaned back on his berth and shut off his optics. With his last trine, there had been long stretches of quiet in his head. Something told him that would not be the case with these two. Between Skywarp's ceaseless stream of observations and spatial recognition software, and Starscream's constant derisive feedback on Thundercracker's every idea, he had a feeling it was going to be quite busy in his head. With amusement, he realized he wouldn't be able to use either mech's processor as empty storage space for his own information – both Starscream and Skywarp's processors were jam-packed with data of their own and would have no room to take Thundercracker's overflow. He shook his helm with amusement. 'Guess I'll just have to start writing things down,' he decided.
'Do you HAVE to think so loudly?' Starscream demanded. 'I don't need updates on your diary-keeping habits.'
It looked like he'd also have to practice keeping thoughts to himself. Wouldn't want to annoy Starscream and his delicate processor.
'I heard that,' Starscream growled.
'I know. I meant for you to. Speaking of which, we should all work on how to keep our thoughts private and how to tune out each other's chatter. It can be hard, but I've found a little privacy can be a nice thing to have. It's also really hard to ignore someone yapping away inside your processor, but sometimes you just have to. It's not like we're ever going to be able to turn this thing off. I can show you a few tricks I learned in my last trine.'
'Well thank Primus we have you to save us, TC. Who knows how we would have muddled through without you and your expert knowledge?'
A particularly loud burst of static as Skywarp's programs picked up the radio waves of a transport ship flying overhead and communicating all its spatial data to the international air traffic control tower.
'I thought the trans-trine firewall was supposed to stop that!' Starscream snapped.
'Sorry, Star…'
'Don't apologize, Warp. You can't control it any more than Starscream can stop being an arrogant twerp.'
'YOU- '
Thundercracker just grinned as Starscream started mentally spitting insults that seamlessly switched to verbal threats mid-sentence as one of the nurses did something to annoy him.
Thundercracker let the nurses bustle around him, tapping into his HUD's vitals display and checking them on monitors, scanning his processor's brainwave patterns.
He started thinking about Skywarp's rather unique talent. The intense, instinctual spatial awareness must come as naturally to him as walking to most mechs. That sort of understanding, that instant, unthinking comprehension of the relationship between objects and the negative space between them wasn't something programmable. Even the best downloading software couldn't replicate what came to Skywarp naturally. People had tried - many scientists had attempted installing localized warp engines into test drones, but without consistent, correct, impossibly precise mathematical formulas, the risk of reappearing inside a solid wall and dying was too high, and experiments were inevitably deemed a failure. No program could handle the strain, no person could produce the data fast enough.
Except, apparently, Skywarp.
Not only could Skywarp compute those formulas correctly, he could perform those warp jumps using nothing more than his own internal power source. It explained why he guzzled energon, why he was always running at such a high temperature.
'He literally can't get overcharged,' Thundercracker realized, letting the thought transmit to his trine. 'His metabolism's too high. He burns through regular energon at an impossible rate running up the energy he needs to perform his warps. He goes through high grade just as quickly. His system has already finished processing it before he can exhibit any symptoms of being overcharged.'
'Okay, I officially hate you, Skywarp,' Starscream snarled.
'You don't mean that, right Starscream?' Skywarp asked, a little worriedly.
'Of course he doesn't,' Thundercracker assured him. 'He's just bitter because if you can't get overcharged, it means you can't be convinced to make a fool of yourself and you're never going to have to deal with a hangover.'
'Oh. Okay,' Skywarp replied. 'I still have no idea what you guys are talking about, though. Nobody's explained what overcharged is to me.'
Thundercracker sighed and tuned out the barrage of insults Starscream started throwing at Skywarp out loud. Thundercracker heard a nurse threaten to sedate Starscream if he didn't stop it, and Starscream just shifted to griping mentally.
Skywarp's ability was…incredible, to put it mildly. Such an advanced awareness of the space around himself meant that Skywarp could not only perform warp jumps, which was amazing all on its own, but he most likely –
Thundercracker cut himself off mid-thought, his optics going wide. He waved off a nurse who was shining light in his eyes to check their response. The nurse put his hands on his hips and snapped "You realize that you're going to be stuck in here until we finish these tests, right? The sooner you let me finish, the sooner I let you go!" Thundercracker just ignored him. He had more important things to think about.
'Skywarp, I just thought of something.'
'Oh for the love of the maker, are these epiphanies of yours going to be a common thing? Cause if so, I'm seriously reconsidering this whole trine thing,' Starscream complained.
'What did you think of, TC?' Skywarp asked, ignoring his trinemate.
'Can you fly?'
Starscream snorted mentally. 'Woooow, probing question, TC. Just because he's an idiot savant doesn't mean he's physically handicapped, you know.'
'Okay sorry, let me rephrase that question then,' Thundercracker said, annoyed at having his train of thought derailed. 'Could you fly well? Or…Primus, how do I say this…how were your marks in the flying examinations?'
'Uh…well, I always scored top of the class. I was the best flier out of everybody.'
'Well whoop-dee fragging doo for you,' Starscream said sarcastically. 'We got us a regular genius over here.'
'Yeah, and how were YOUR marks in flying exams, Screamer?'
'…shut up, TC.'
Thundercracker ignored Starscream's suggestion and said 'Warp, say I wanted to fly back to the academy from here. Could you give me the data to do it safely?'
'Sure.'
In less than three seconds, Skywarp not only sent Thundercracker the necessary numerical data to program a safe flight plan, he also sent over a three dimensionally rendered map of the flight path, complete with color-coded dots to show Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Starscream's current locations.
Several nurses shouted, and Thundercracker assumed Starscream must have sat up suddenly. Thundercracker winced as he was instantly bombarded by unintelligible static from the thin mech's end of the bond. He heard Starscream shouting profanities at both of the nurses and Skywarp, and a few at Thundercracker just to show that there was no favoritism.
Windrush had finally had enough. "Sedate them all and finish the scans!" he roared before storming out of the room to the quiet of his office. He was done trying to deal with this problematic trine, and he would be glad when they were finally off his servos. He gave them three weeks tops before they decided to split again.
Once in his office, Windrush took down some of his hidden stash of high grade from a high shelf and self-medicated for his processor ache. These younger mechs were really too much. He remembered a time when it was completely unheard of for a trine to break up. It seemed to him that trines were splitting all the time these days. What was the world coming to if seekers couldn't even keep their own trines together? If things kept up like this, seekers would become nothing more than glorified jets. What was a seeker without his trine? Windrush just shook his helm, and took another shot of high grade, checking his chronometer to see how much time he had before his next consult. At least he could console himself that the next trine he linked together would be sane.
Windrush shook his helm again and returned his high grade to its hiding place before telling his assistant to send in his next clients.
It was an odd thing, to be returning to the academy's three-mech hab suites with Starscream and Skywarp. They were completely unlike his old trine, a fact that brought Thundercracker an inordinate amount of relief.
Perhaps the only thing this experience had in common with his first trinebond was the crippling vertigo. The second they walked out of the clinic doors, Thundercracker had stumbled, and Skywarp had had to catch him. Behind them followed Starscream, looking grayer and grayer by the second.
"TC, what's wrong?" Skywarp demanded. 'He's sick he's sick Primus I knew it he's really sick I should've made him go see Stabilizer - '
"Skywarp." Thundercracker said, instantly getting the mech to be quiet. "I'm not sick, it's just…just some dizziness." The ground was rocking beneath his pedes, and he leaned heavily against Skywarp, putting a servo to his helm as though that would help anything. "It happened before. I'll be fine in a few days."
Skywarp cocked his head to one side, considering. Then he sent a garbled mess of code at Thundercracker and asked "Will this help?"
Thundercracker looked at the code, but couldn't make much out of it. "Uh…what…do I do with this?" he asked.
"You just…here." Skywarp mentally leaned over into Thundercracker's headspace, and Thundercracker let him. Skywarp activated the code, and almost instantly his world stopped spinning.
Thundercracker reset his optics a few time and took a tentative step forward. "Whoa, it worked!" he exclaimed, turning to grin happily at Skywarp. Skywarp's faceplates were screwed up as he returned to his own headspace. He wasn't used to the sensation, and it took him a few moments before he managed to get the action right.
"Whoop-dee doo," Starscream said, clutching to a lightpost along the path. "I don't suppose your magic brain has anything for nausea, does it Skywarp?"
The large, dark mech had to think about that for a moment. "No," he finally concluded. "I'm sorry, Star…"
"No, it's fine," Starscream snarled bitterly. "I know Thundercracker's your favorite anyway. Why not rub it in a little, just to be sure I get the message across - "
"Shut it, Starscream," Thundercracker snapped. "Warp's not a doctor, he can't just make every little ache and pain we have go away. Vertigo happens to be the one area he specializes in – space. If you're really suffering, we can' take you to Stabilizer when we get back…"
"I'm not suffering nearly enough to justify seeing that glitch," Starscream muttered.
"Then shut up," Thundercracker told him amiably, throwing an arm over Skywarp's shoulders. 'Starscream's an aft. He doesn't mean half of what he says,' he thought, mostly for Skywarp's benefit.
'You think you know me SO well, don't you? You've just got me all figured out, huh? Well you can go jump in a rust river, you overgrown - '
"Hey TC," Skywarp said suddenly, tugging at Thundercracker's arm in sudden excitement. "We're a trine now."
"Yeah, but what does that - "
"So we're legal to fly within the city limits of Vos!" Skywarp said, excitement making his optics get bigger, his wings stretching as though looking for a good air current.
Starscream gagged, and Thundercracker looked over at him worriedly. "I…don't think that's a good idea. At least until Screamer feels less sick, yeah?"
"Oh," Skywarp said, face falling.
"We'll do it soon, 'kay bud?" Thundercracker said, squeezing Skywarp's servo reassuringly. He went over to Starscream and slipped an arm under one of Starscream's.
"I am not a sparkling!" Starscream snapped, struggling to get out of Thundercracker's hold. "I don't need some two-bit flyer coming in and helping me walk like I'm some sort of invalid grounder!"
"Don't insult grounders," Thundercracker told him wearily, taking a few steps forward and yanking Starscream along. "Most of them could probably snap you in half."
"Oh - oh Primus, oh no," Starscream gasped, and Thundercracker halted to let Starscream suck the cool Vosian air into his systems, hands on his knees as he struggled to get the unsettling feeling in his fuel pump back under control.
"Hey!" Skywarp said brightly. "I had an idea!"
"Stop the presses," Starscream said sarcastically even as he vented heavily. "Ditch the story about rising alkaline metal prices. Skywarp having a thought is way more important."
'Either shut up or hurl,' Thundercracker thought at Starscream.
'If I do hurl, I'm aiming for your pedes,' he snapped back.
Skywarp ignored them both. "I could just warp us back to the academy!" he said, beaming at his own brilliant idea.
Thundercracker thought back to the first time Warp had jumped with him and winced. "Um…while that would be quicker, I don't think it's such a great idea what with Starscream feeling so bad." He sighed. "We're probably going to have to walk unless we can catch a transport pod heading to the academy."
Skywarp drooped a little as Thundercracker shot down his idea. "Oh…" he said, staring at his pedes. He glanced back up at Thundercracker, sheepishness blended with his disappointment. "But I hate walking," he said quietly.
Thundercracker vented and looked between his two trine-mates. On the one hand, Skywarp wasn't going to be alright with waiting around for Starscream to make his agonizingly slow way back to the academy. On the other hand, Starscream was in no shape for rapid transport back to the academy. With a small, forced smile, Thundercracker looked at Skywarp and said "Hey, Warp, why don't you go on without us? You can…I dunno, you can start moving your stuff and my stuff in."
'If he so much as looks at my room, I'll smelt the moron down for scrap,' Starscream thought viciously.
The black mech looked nervously at Starscream, and Thundercracker released his thinner counterpart to pat Skywarp reassuringly on the back. "Better not touch Screamer's stuff. It might blow up."
"Cool," Skywarp said, his optics brightening a little. Behind him, Starscream insisted that his concoctions wouldn't blow up, how dare they suggest his experiments were dangerous, he was very careful with them, they didn't know anything and were all very obviously stupid. Thundercracker forced a vivid mental picture of energon over the bond, with a substantial amount of flavoring added, and Starscream faltered and doubled over, gagging.
Skywarp grinned up at Thundercracker. "I'll go do that, TC. The unpacking thing, I mean." 'Now I'm hungry,' he mused to himself as he trotted off. Skywarp waved before vanishing, the air making a low thwmp noise as it rushed to fill the space he'd just vacated.
Both Thundercracker and Starscream winced as static burst through Skywarp's firewall and spilled over in the split second it took Skywarp to calculate and complete the jump.
"Is that ever going to stop hurting?" Starscream demanded. Mentally, for Skywarp's benefit, he added 'Hey, moron, you think you could possibly warp withOUT giving us migraines?'
'Hey, Starscream, I can hear you!'
'Of course you can hear me, you IDIOT! What, did you think the trine-bond was limited to when we're within sight of each other?'
'Shut up, Starscream.'
Starscream swore vigorously at Thundercracker who ignored him and looped his arm back under the mech's frame and slowly guided the ill seeker down the road. Eventually Starscream's nausea was enough to cut him off, and he just gritted his denta and continued swearing vigorously in his head.
At the academy, Skywarp seemed to feel the need to not only name, but comment on every single object he was placing in the room, and between Skywarp's cataloging, Starscream's ranting, and Skywarp's constant stream of spatial data and weather report subroutines (which Thundercracker quickly realized was harder to tune out when he was tired), Thundercracker had a splitting headache well within an hour.
'They're going to kill me,' Thundercracker thought, working to keep his thoughts separate from his trine. 'If I don't strangle one of them first, they're going to kill me with their brains. Who in Primus's name thought trining was such a good idea?' He had plenty of time to ponder that as he and Starscream took nearly two hours to walk what should easily have been a five minute flight.