DISCLAIMER: Still not mines, nor the world. Back to the drawing board.
NOTES: Unbeta'd and oh hey I bet no one was expecting me to revive this story again. *eyes newly awaken bunny*
Once again:
#Symbol Legend#
'Blah'=Name spoken in cant
Blah= Speech in cant
Blah= Speech in wing cant
Blah= Word is being stressed
This medbay had first seemed like the labs to him and his look alike, the sterile smell and bright lights far too much like there, even if the smell of decay and rusting metal was missing. Unease however was hard to get rid of when you were expecting the sting of needle to a tube and the fuzzy almost awareness of foreign liquid sloshing and mixing with energon. It was why neither could stop the slow, up and down swish of anxiety/wary/stay away even when the soft purr answered them of safe/protect/no harm/together. He nearly let go of the buzzing pieces of himself to disperse in fright when a white mech came in. The glinting of red on bits of paneling the only thing stopping him at the last moment, even as he felt more then heard the fizzing and loud pop as his look alike rebooted his systems when he unconsciously attempted to slink into a shadow that was not there in the brightly lit medbay.
The white with red mech suddenly was sharp optic and still as he focused on 'unseen and still' just as optics cycled through yellow, red, and blue as the reboot finished. The unknown mech seeming to be uneasy by the color cycling his look alike's optics had done, even though everyone in Prefect did that, and some had even modified their eyes to cycle even when not rebooting or coming back online from recharge. He didn't venture saying so though, because he still stumbled over the words and found it so frustrating how complicated yet bland this way of speaking was, and that 'defies the void' was now going watch/patience/caution in a rumble that was so low he and his look alike often times wondered how he and 'warns of darkness' could even hear or feel such when they had their own sensory feeds twitching in just such a way to catch those low sounds from those two. Though, the how didn't matter right now as he followed the instruction and silently watched this unknown, focusing more on his jittery and dancing pieces that wanted to scatter and float instead of remaining dense and packed together to make him solid, when the odd tickling of scans finally swept over him and off his look alike.
The newcomer didn't talk like them but, it was close enough to get a feel and know there was shock and several other emotions at whatever it was that had been found. He wasn't surprised; look alikes tended to be played with by a lot of the white mechs in the lab, before they got bored and either fed them to the recycling center or sent them out into the streets to study how they managed out there. They had been played with a lot and even though the white mechs also spoke in words at them they also gave numbers and those he could understand. Especially on those (dice) and (cards) while his look alike made the numbers change when playing some of the games the white mechs brought in with the little black and white pieces (Chess) and the large map with colored pieces (War). It was hard to show the numbers to the two jumpers, but that was okay because the jumpers couldn't get the look alikes to see how they can make a large mech fall unconscious so easily. Which was funny because their numbers and the jumpers with their glowing spots on mechs worked really well together when other groups had tried to take them apart.
Though, that wasn't what he should be thinking about as the white and red mech turned to the other two. Leaving the look alikes alone finally. The ticking sound as scans stopped and the screens scrolled quickly with more of those words as the odd mech seemed to not be happy by what those blinking words were telling him. Maybe they hadn't been played with enough for this one, or not in ways he liked. Some of the colorless ones had acted like that when they were not happy they couldn't really do what they wanted if they got some look alikes after another colorless had played with them.
Even when more of those words went by too quickly for any of them to grasp and understand with their slowly being built lexicon of terms in this odd way of speaking. Which this new one picked up on because he suddenly had a familiar look many even in the dark areas had when they were down there. That look of one who thought they were too glitched up to know right from left, let alone survive and even more helpless in seeing and understanding what was going on around them. It was insulting because they knew quite well about what was going on around them and how to survive it, they just did it differently is all. Really it wasn't like they had any use until now to learn how to use words or know what they mean before this. They were efficient as 'unseen and still' would say and words were hardly that.
Yes, it wasn't their fault these word users for some reason couldn't understand them when they clearly had the better way to communicate.
Ratchet didn't know whether he wanted to hit something or just pretend the entire cycle had never had happened. Especially when that little errant code he had learned to trust had began to niggle at his processors with the thoughts of the day going to the Pit. Even when he had gone through a typical bout of repairs and verbal chewing outs on some of the regular idiots that he had the misfortune of seeing limping or being dragged into his medbay. A common ritual, though he was loathed to call it such as that would actually mean he would need to admit to having some superstitious beliefs, that had happened for far too many vorns now as the war seemed to escalate instead of slowing down as Cybertron looked like a pockmarked hunk of slag with each new assault.
No the schnick as the blade that had hovered over his head with trepidation finally fell to settle snugly between his shoulder struts came in the form of a spindly little scientist that he had so little interaction with that he actually had to log on to the database to get a designation, poked his head cautiously into his domain. The static stuttering and blatant hesitation as the usually talkative, from what his record said that is, scientist to explain what he needed of Ratchet had only made that knife shift ever more snugly into place as he soon found himself, against all common sense, following the other to an out of the way area a good ways from any patrol units of both sides. That had made his little knife of Bad Feelings twist just so before hitting home as he laid optics on what it was he had been brought out to see.
Younglings. Primus take it all younglings that could not have been born anytime but during war from what his initial scans showed. Which in itself was already causing an ache in his logic units as considering the severity of the war and the general consensus of bonding in a way to produce a sparkling was to be avoided by each side of the war. Yet staring at him were four of them and unless he was in dire need of a system overhaul two of them were at the very least twins. The other option he didn't really want to contemplate as he unconsciously took note of the far too similar to be healthy coding the two had in his initial scans.
They were also eerily silent. None of the clicks and whirrs of ones who may not have fully integrated an actual lexicon of simple phrases. Or the short bursts of eloquence before the limited vocabulary caught up with them. Instead they just watched wary and in a certain…he dared to call it such but it was the closes thing his experiences and knowledge had of such, flocking pattern he only saw in those with fragmented flier coding of the Vosnian type. The group following the oldest lead in trusting and what to do, as the minibot sized him up in a way a youngling of his age should never have even known how to do.
Slagging war and all the complications it seemed to like making him figure out.