Title: Backstage: Stage Hands
Warnings: Powerplay? Buncha helpless Decepticons? Reprogramming.
Rating: PG-13
Continuity: G1
Characters: Combaticons, Decepticons
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): "This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." - HAL 9000
[* * * * *]
How disgusting, that 'normal' for the Combaticons involved guarding a…the…
…well, as usual, Blast Off didn't really know what it was. Vortex and Swindle were debating names for it, and Stunticon Redux had been the most flattering choice so far. Hook had looked up from its insides long enough to pitch a piece of pipe in their general direction when that one had been suggested. The Constructicons were apparently still a bit sore about creating the car wreck in progress otherwise known as the Stunticons. That meant dubbing the…thing…Stunticon Redux had become an instant favorite among the Decepticons idling nearby.
Swindle had set up a poll on the short-range communication frequency and began taking votes. Bonecrusher had threatened bodily harm. Swindle switched to anonymous voting.
'Normal' on Earth was a somewhat relative term.
On Earth, Skywarp hovered in the air above the ocean and did a ridiculous human dance every time he signaled the docking tower to rise. It had some kind of ritual significance, or so he declared when asked. Why a highly ranked weapon of mass destruction waggling his aft in imitation of some kind of feathered avian was significant escaped Blast Off.
On Earth, Dirge, Ramjet, Mixmaster, and Blitzwing could - and did - sing the national anthem of every human country on the blasted planet, and they did it intentionally out of harmony and in the wrong languages. The quartet of audio torture openly hired themselves out to whomever felt the need to get Soundwave back for something. The more they were paid, the higher Dirge's fake falsetto squeaked.
On Earth, Megatron claimed to have no idea how the stolen billboards kept getting hung up on the Victory's command bridge like bizarre art on the walls. Starscream had confided to the other Decepticons that the Supreme Commander had developed a horrid fetish for human advertisements. He'd immediately pointed to this as yet more proof of Megatron's unworthiness and another reason he, Starscream, should lead the Decepticons, and blah blah blah.
Starscream's familiar treachery had been cut short that time, Blast Off recalled. Rumble and Frenzy had run by the common room carrying a giant kayak and yelling something about white water. Later that week, Soundwave had sent Blast Off to pry the errant Cassetticons out of a deep part of the river in the Grand Canyon. They'd been utterly unrepentant. They'd held a slideshow in the common room detailing their adventure. It seemed, for reasons they couldn't adequately explain, to be mostly upside-down. They decided it wasn't extreme enough and had been negotiating with Thundercracker about towlines and with the Constructicons about something called 'water-skis' the last Blast Off heard.
And this was 'normal' on Earth. The Stunticons were 'normal' on Earth.
It amazed him every day that the Autobots fell for it.
The Decepticons, mercenaries and patriots and cold-sparked slaggers to their cores, spent their days on Earth mocking Starscream to his face and betraying Megatron every other day. They disobeyed orders, broke ranks during battle, and lost to the humans. And the Autobots fell for it.
How disgusting. The Autobots were Earth-mad in the worst way, something Blast Off hadn't fully understood in the short time between reactivation from imprisonment and banishment to the asteroid. If he'd understood, would he have reacted differently? Would he have refused to follow Starscream's real plan under the silly front put on for the watching Autobots? Would the Combaticons have stood at Megatron's side while the Air Commander was exiled alone?
Useless questions, questions that wouldn't change what had actually happened, but it was either think about that or stare at his fellow Decepticons' buffoonery. He wasn't around the other, more important players in Megatron's master plan often enough to have gotten used to their personal takes on the Earth act. He had to get used to seeing Decepticons acting like idiots every time. The clash between normal and 'normal' on Earth was disorienting.
That was also something that he had to wonder about. Would that be different? If they hadn't rebelled, hadn't used Bruticus to take over Cybertron and try to destroy Megatron, would things have changed? Maybe it would have.
Maybe the Combaticons wouldn't always be banished to the fringes of the Decepticon crew. Maybe they wouldn't obediently play the bit parts grudgingly handed them. They might still be stuck guarding the Stunticon Redux - Constructicon wrath nonwithstanding - but after the upcoming sham of a battle, would the Combaticons follow the other Decepticons back to the underwater base? When Prime's pack of fools came to blow the stupid thing up, would Swindle film the Autobots and sell it to Laserbeak for the technimal Cassetticon's ongoing video show of stupid stunts? Would Vortex collect his winnings from the One-Liner Bingo game and nail his card on the Wall of Blame in the common room? Would Brawl and Blitzwing get into fistfights and yelling matches, emerging dented and waving a completed rulebook for the brute squad Cybertronian equivalent of American football? Would Onslaught get Humiliation Pay for pretending to be anything but the brilliant tactician he was?
Would the Combaticons in general get paid? It was a question Swindle frequently asked.
Blast Off didn't know how his life might have been different. The gestalt circuitry would still be there; the combiner team would entwine through his mind, body, and spark like an unwanted presence overlapping him, or a constant, intimate contact. But when he returned from orbit after a mission or patrol, would he have his own, personal quirk to fool the Autobots with? Something to elaborate on himself instead of awkwardly performing a handful of lines assigned to him every time?
Every time he returned from guarding idiotic machines the Autobots spent far too much time and thought destroying, would he have to face his probation officer and accept the chain of a cerebro-shell placed on him every day like a leash? The original agreement between Bombshell, Starscream, and Shockwave had hammered out a definite rehabilitation period for the Combaticons. The three officers had apparently agreed that 5 million years in prison statis had punished them sufficiently for their crimes. It would have been probation, but comparatively light and short.
Instead, combiner team had come online after their failed takeover attempt with loyalty programming so deeply integrated into their gestalt codes that it took a lot of internal reflection for Blast Off to even notice them. Sometimes, he was still startled to find new aspects of behavioral deviations and thought limitations now forced on him.
Almost worse than the programming, the Combaticons were separated out from the other Earth Elite and sent to another base entirely. They were coldly cut off from their own kind. It made the situation very clear to them: they were not Elite, and they were not actual warriors. They were prisoners, and Megatron was still deciding what to do with them after their usefulness in the Earth act expired. They were sent away to a base, into what looked like independence to the Autobots and was essentially a prison complex, and there they rotted.
The three Insecticons put in periodic appearances in Bali and Indonesia to distract the Autobots, but they'd come to Earth to stand guard over the prisoners. Shrapnel, Bombshell, and Kickback caged the Combaticons in that prison-base more effectively than half a dozen Decepticons stood guard on the Stunticon Redux.
When the Combaticons weren't visible about the base or among the other Decepticons on duty, they were clapped in chains. Inside the base buildings, safe from Autobot spies, their real duties awaited. Equipment from the Decepticon underwater base sat inside, ready for repairs and cleaning and whatever other scutwork Soundwave sent up from the ocean floor. Shrapnel assigned prison duties during the Combaticons' supposed 'off duty' times with hard efficiency, sending the Combaticons to their knees scrubbing barnacled, greasy machinery, or keeping them busy doing basic maintenance work. The Insecticon probationary officer accepted no excuses and allowing no slacking, and despite his size compared to them, the combiner team feared him.
A few necessary times having their bodies under Shrapnel's control had taught them all the value of just doing what they were told. Disobedience brought hours trapped inside their own bodies, 40,000 volts of electricity as reminders of what exactly they were, or - worse yet - being written up on report. On those thankfully rare occasions, Kickback would take one or another of them aside and, well, Blast Off didn't like to think about those times. Kickback was very good at what he did. With the Combaticons prostrate under loyalty programming, chains, and fear of complete mindwipes, he did what he did best and let them go crawling back to the team broken a little more to heel every time.
Bombshell just seemed to specialize in making Blast Off's life a living Pit. The shuttle speculated so often on what life would have been because life as it was sucked like a black hole.
Speaking of which, best to get this over with.
He hailed his probationary office through the secure channel and tried not to feel the humiliation burn. *"Sir?"*
*"What."*
*"My shift ends at sundown, sir. Since we will not be returning to the base, I ask leave to - "*
*"No, no."* Bombshell's voice shaded up from chilly acknowledgment into amusement at the request.
Blast Off's bitter embarrassment swelled with it. On the other side of the build site, Onslaught and Vortex looked up from their own quiet conversation as Blast Off's degradation flooded the gestalt link. He squelched it off, of course, but this wasn't an emotion he could consciously control. The other Combaticons found vastly more fascinating things to suddenly ask the Constructicons about, loudly and at length.
Blast Off loathed himself for the slight glimmer of gratitude for that. They'd all been thrown down and disgraced by their imprisonment at one point or another, but he could never predict how Swindle or Vortex would react on any given day to his shame. Brawl thought it entertaining, but the kind of simple glee Brawl radiated could be dealt with. Vortex's twisted interest or Swindle's calculating gaze stripped his gears down to the bare metal. Kickback's sinister understanding of what made Blast Off tic gave Bombshell endless ammunition, and the Insecticon took sick delight in digging that knowledge in and wrenching.
The sun inevitably would set. When it did, Bombshell's cerebro-shell would come creeping through the shadows, undetectable to Autobot spies. Blast Off wouldn't even feel it jack in, infiltrating his circuitry, but there would abruptly be certain inhibitors like straight-line directives through his mind. They wouldn't allow him to move off the course set for him. There would be no chains around his limbs, but freedom was a mere dream.
For the purpose of the mission, the cerebro-shell had been removed. Off duty, however, Blast Off would be returned to the mental cage carefully set up for his personal imprisonment.
*"Sir,"* he started, unable not to try, *"Astrotrain goes on duty for the night shift. He's technically the superior officer on site, and it will look strange if I do not respond to him. If nothing else,"* he continued, knowing he wasn't persuading his probation officer but, Primus help him, he couldn't seem to stop, *"he is another shuttle. We speak while on missions. If I can only have leave for a single hour, I will - "*
*"This conversation can serve no purpose anymore, anymore. Goodbye."*
Mortification dripped down his chest and pooled heavy as iridium over his lasercore. Conversation over; don't call back, or else. All the Combaticons knew that tone.
Which meant that, in less than an hour, Blast Off would feel his own mind slip away. All the downloaded information the Combaticons needed to function on Earth came from Soundwave, and downloaded information was not the same as learnt information. Blast Off had always known that, but he'd never had the difference slap him in the face before waking up on Earth. Learnt information could only be erased by a mindwipe. Downloaded information could be taken away with an ease that left him appalling ignorant.
The Decepticons on Earth, by orders, spoke and communicated only in Earth languages. When the cerebro-shell came, it'd cut off access to downloaded files. Without the downloads, Blast Off knew a smattering of English. Everything, everything else he needed to know in order to interact with the mechs around him would shut off, and Megatron's orders explicitly forbade him from possibly giving away the game to the Autobots by trying other means of communication.
In less than an hour, Blast Off would be functionally illiterate and linguistically incapable.
When the cerebro-shell came, Blast Off would wither a bit inside under the other Decepticons' knowing optics. He'd keep his visor studiously down as he curled up around his cringing spark and sat as far away from the others as he could. If approached, he'd respond as briefly and reluctantly as possible. It might look like arrogance and aloofness to the spying Autobots, but he was simply trying to conceal how bad his spoken English remained and how very little of other languages he even understood. Bombshell had - mercifully or sadistically? - provided him with a datapad crammed with language data. Blast Off spent his precious, rare free time at the base and off duty and pretty much any time missions didn't allow for this kind of handicap learning from it. He had to.
So he'd sit alone, learning the grubby, noisy, awful details of Earth's native tongues. He'd painfully trace out the letters and characters with tiny motions of his fingers on the datapad, and under his breath he'd sound out the words. The other Decepticons barely even laughed at him for it anymore.
On Earth, this was 'normal.'
How disgusting.