"It took a good two weeks for the Decepticons to start noticing Ravage's new…accessory."
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Title: Because You Won't Find It Here
Warning: Serious psychological problems abound. Just not of the expected varieties.
Rating: PG, for off-stage activities.
Continuity: G1
Characters: Decepticons
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): #1: Task - Write a scene in the life of a character with a serious psychological problem, and how those surrounding him/her react to it - and make this as plausible as possible! That means no "love heals everything", or anything like that. #2: "If at first you don't succeed... cheat. Repeat until caught. Then lie." #3: Scenario - taking the credit for someone else's work. #4: Dread.
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#1
Things at the Decepticon base being as they were, it took a good two weeks for mechs to start noticing Ravage's new…accessory.
To be perfectly fair, it wasn't like most of the Decepticons noticed Ravage all that often anyway. Because, well, duh, the technimal was small and dark-colored in a large base with chronic lighting problems. Also, Ravage was one of the Decepticons' best spies. Spies weren't known for neon signs hovering over their heads advertising their presences(1).
So the presence of the thin, bright collar around Ravage's neck caused many a double-take around the base when the Decepticons first started noticing it. The red color was enough to make any mech wonder if Mixmaster was slipping additives into the energon dispenser again, but the shiny bow artfully off-center on the back of the technimal's neck started a queue outside the repairbay. It was carefully crafted metal, but it looked like a satin gift ribbon, complete with scrolled tails and plump loops. Proportionally tiny to fit on the Cassetticon(2), it might have been unnoticeable except for the fact that it was bright yellow.
The whole picture of cat with bow was quite cute. For much the same reason, it was therefore very, very wrong.
Hook opened the repairbay door at the beginning of his on-duty shift, eyed the line waiting outside, and harrumphed. "Who's here to mentally scar Scrapper for life today?"
Two hands went up near the back. Brawl and Ramjet did ask, even if they didn't tell. Better to consult with the experts beforehand, or the Constructions would be forced to extrapolate on the unnatural affair — in public, because they believed in punishing the willfully stupid — based on the damage done afterward.
"Love you, too, ya fraggers. Get in here." The Constructicon stood aside as the duo smugly elbowed their way up the line and into the repairbay. "It would be you two," he muttered, then directed a scornful glare at the sheepish-looking Decepticons still waiting. "Who's seeing things?"
"I see lots of things," Skywarp said from somewhere in the middle, and Thrust and Thundercracker smacked him on the cockpit not a moment later. "Ow! Ow! Hoooook, they're hitting me~!" the Seeker whined, grinning.
"Good, do it harder next time. What are you, Autobots? Leave dents," Scrapper said as he passed by the open door. His attention shifted in the direction Brawl and Ramjet, best left unseen, had gone. "Not again!…Primus help me, because I might actually want to know this time. How did you even - that's not supposed to bend that way, and don't come complaining if it snaps!"
Hook cocked his head as a ripple of curiosity went through the hall. The nearest Decepticons tried to peer around him. He folded his arms and did an outstanding imitation of a wall between their nosiness and patient confidentiality. If they wanted to know the disturbing details that badly, they could pay a bribe like everyone else. "You heard the mech," he said at the jets.
Thundercracker and Thrust snickered and smacked their black-and-purple companion again, harder this time. Skywarp winced and covered his cockpit as something cracked ominously. "Stoppit!"
"Orders," the other two jets chimed, all innocence.
"Anyway," Hook interrupted before Skywarp could do more than ball his own fists, "who is seeing an adorable little bow on our favorite Cassetticon kitty-cat's neck?"
There was much shifting of feet. Decepticons avoided looking at each other. It was one thing to decide independently that one was delusional and needed to seek repairs; it was a completely different matter to admit to such a weakness in front of a crowd. Insanity was only a problem in the Decepticon ranks if somebody knew about and could therefore take advantage of it.
"Mixmaster poisoned-poisoned the dispenser," Shrapnel threw out eventually, sounding sulky.
"Did not!" Mixmaster shouted from inside the repairbay. "Anyway, I haven't whipped up anything lately that'd make everyone hear bells. Take your accusations and shove 'em up your exhaust pipes, bug!"
"Kinky," someone murmured.
"Stop giving them ideas!" Hook barked over his shoulder.
"Wait. Bells?" That gave everyone out in the hall pause. Wide-opticked looks were exchanged, trying to see who'd heard bells and whether anyone would admit to it.
Hook crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe comfortably as he waited for someone to gather courage and spew information first. A steady, low-voiced rumble of conversation continued from inside, broken periodically by Scrapper's increasingly irate litany of, "No, no, no — oh, slag, no. Where did you learn how to do this, from a diagram drawn by Wheeljack? You're going to need an architect and an astrophysicist to make that work properly, and I don't have the time to — what? No!"
Finally, Shrapnel decided he'd throw himself on the bomb again. "I didn't hear anything-anything, but Bombshell said he did."
"What? I never - !"
The floodgates opened as all the Decepticons in the hall started talking at once. "Sometimes on Level 5 after my shift, there's some noise."
"Is that what that was?"
"It's high-pitched enough. Too high for anything outside the ship to be hitting the hull. It's gotta be something inside."
"Something small. Thin. Definitely metal. I hadn't thought of a bell…"
"It's been bothering me."
"Yeah, me too. Airvents carry noise like nothing else. Is it coming from up on Level 3? Because I tried to track it down, and I swear it's in one of the common rooms."
"Who uses the rooms on Level 3?"
"I used to store human armaments in some of them, but the Stunticons started messing with my stock."
"Why didn't you just bribe them to cut it out?"
"I did. Who do you think did all the shipping for that lot?"
"There was that one time on the bridge…but that was weeks ago."
"I thought it was Starscream kicking Skywarp in the shin."
"What? I'm not tuned that high! My armor is far too thick to sound that - "
"So you heard it, too?"
" — um. No?"
"Ha!"
"Ow! Hook, make them sto~op!"
"Children," the Constructicon said, six kinds of amused tolerance in his voice, "do be quiet." The Decepticons stopped their milling about(3) and looked at him avidly. Hook took that tone when he was about to drop something blatantly obvious on their heads. It was one of his few amusements in life. He tilted his visor as if chiding them. "You do realize that if you are all seeing and hearing the exact same thing, it's not likely to be a hallucination. Yes?"
"…yes?" Skywarp agreed hesitantly. Beside him, Thundercracker's face contorted in an expression that could have been translated into words as "D'oh!"
"So..?" The Constructicon made a sort of Go on, connect the dots, you morons! gesture with one hand.
"So…Ravage is wearing a collar." Skywarp looked confused, but resigned to his fate at the same time. No one else was speaking up, after all. The look on Thundercracker's face had deepened to a kind of horror. The rest of the Decepticons just seemed pole-axed.
"With..?"
"With…an itty-bitty bow on it."
"It is exceptionally charming, isn't it?" Hook's arch look swept over them. "All tiny and frilly, if you're into that kind of thing."
"It's got a bell, too, hasn't it." Skywarp sounded plaintive, because he hated when he had to say the blatantly obvious aloud for everyone else. It always made him sound like a blithering idiot.
"Ding ding, we have a winner!" Mixmaster crowed from inside the repairbay.
"He wasn't talking to you two!" Scrapper snapped. "You're not using that position, and my decision's final. You'll get stuck. Try again!"
Curiosity almost outdid frightened realization for a moment, but the Decepticons lapsed back into fear after a moment's struggle. Ravage with a collar and bow they could endure, because a certain amount of craziness did a mech good. The bell, however, tipped the scales from Just Smile and Nod into the realm of Stuff Done To Mess With Our Heads. The bell meant that there had to be a reason for the whole deal, and therein loomed a real chance that the Decepticons might actually understand said reason. Understanding a fellow Decepticon's insanity was one of the more terrifying things that could happen to a mech.
Hey, their own minds were tough enough to navigate. There wasn't enough GPS available in the universe to prepare them for the scary plunge into someone else's head. It was comparable to giving asbestos underwear to someone about to go spelunking into an active volcano; nice thought, but sadly inadequate.
Hook surveyed the lot of them — despondent, shell-shocked, and nervous - and nodded briskly. "My work here is done."
The door closed behind him. Some wise-aft had carved Help Wanted on it.
It was either a plea or an observation.
#2
For all the Decepticons' mass hyper-awareness of Ravage's choice of accessory, nobody said a word to the jaguar. That just wasn't how things were done on in the Decepticons. Outright asking about something would be admitting to not being fully aware of the situation. That would be a weakness. Such weaknesses were openings for mockery and exploitation by others, even if the others were just as ignorant.
It would be one thing if any of them were confident enough about the situation to come out and tease the Cassetticon, but they weren't. The technimal continued to stalk through the shadows of the base with an eerie silence bizarrely at odds with his newly-beribboned look. The only difference was the occasional jingle that filtered down through the airducts. The mysterious bell haunted Level 3 in particular, but Skywarp could have sworn he'd heard it mid-shift on the bridge. The Insecticons tried spying on the spy for three days straight but heard nothing; on the fourth day they found they'd been watching Soundwave's chest long after Ravage had left the base on a mission, so that didn't say much about their spying abilities. Blast Off got one look at Ravage's pretty bow, turned on a thruster, and hadn't come down from orbit since. Jingling at the time or not, it was still just...wrong. Decepticon spies should not wear bows!
All around base, consensus was that Ravage wore the thing on purpose. That was the only thing the Decepticons agreed upon about it. The assumption, therefore, was that they were all completely missing something about the collar. Something really important, if Ravage failed to react to wearing it. Something they really needed to discover before trying to use it against him. Nobody wanted to go into verbal sniping against a spy with weaponry - even of the information variety - half-loaded and misaimed.
Since every Decepticon was so concerned with covering his own aft, what everyone failed to realize in the scramble was that...nobody knew. No one at all. Not a single mech engaged in the whispered inquiries had a clue as to why Ravage had suddenly taken to jingling his way through the Victory's halls. That cluelessness went up to and included Megatron, although he hadn't been part of the rush to the repairbay. Megatron simply had ironclad self-control and zero self-doubt. His belief in his own sanity was strong enough that he could allow Ravage to…deviate.
In reality, Megatron was Lord Commander over an army of crazy mechs on a good day. Unlike most of the truly twitchy in the ranks, however, the technimal's loyalty was unquestionable. His competence couldn't be doubted. The Lord Commander might have wondered about that last if he hadn't witnessed for himself the way the noise from the technimal's little bell cut off like a thrown switch when Ravage wished to move silently. In a strange way, the bell even added to Megatron's pride in Special Operations.
Now that was a talented Decepticon spy(4).
Megatron still didn't understand what Ravage was doing, but he wasn't willing to admit it, either. Alright, that brought into play a fairly common bit of Decepticon misdirection, a.k.a. philosophy: "If at first you don't succeed... cheat. Repeat until caught. Then lie."
So when Starscream delicately probed for information, Megatron pretended to know what Ravage was about. When his Second in Command demanded more information, the Decepticon Lord Commander waved him away with the assurance that everything was going according to plan. What the plan was, he refused to tell Starscream. Because it wasn't Starscream's business. He'd tell him when everything had fallen into place.
Since a lack of information was a weakness, Starscream, in turn, pretended that — of course! — Ravage's belled, bowed collar was part of the latest Decepticon ploy, which he — of course! — knew all about. Soundwave inwardly doubted the flyer's loud claims, but he remained at his most calmly inscrutable. The tapedeck had been putting off actually requesting information from Ravage in the hopes of finding out by himself, and now he'd feel a fool if he had to ask his own Cassetticon about what Megatron and Starscream already knew.
Soundwave's lack of denial or agreement led Skywarp to brush off the other jets' gossip (sorry: "information gathering sessions"), claiming that Starscream had confided in him. Ravage's collar was nothing important. But! It related to the western-most oil dig in Siberia somehow, and who cared about that?
Skywarp's embellishment got to Ramjet, who of course was talking to Brawl because trying to scandalize Scrapper wasn't the only thing they did together. Once Brawl knew, Swindle found out. Between Skywarp and Swindle, however, the tale had grown to Ravage assuming control of the entire output of the Siberian oilfield operation. Because Swindle liked to be friends with the 'in' mechs among command posts, he found time in his busy conmech schedule to track down the technimal Cassetticon — much to Swindle's frustration, that mission was harder than it sounded, for all that he was searching for a jaguar wearing a fragging bell - and insinuate that if Ravage needed anything, anything at all, Swindle was at his service.
Somewhat to the mild surprise of both of them, Ravage actually wanted help with something.
When the out-of-control spaghetti-knots of misinformation writhing through the Decepticons eventually led to the Autobots capturing Ravage, Megatron was able to claim that it had all been part of his plan. Which, by then, he'd thought up and implemented(6) with the help of the Constructicons. They actually did know what was going on but weren't talking. That annoyed Megatron to no end, but he couldn't shake Hook until answers popped out without admitting that he himself had been lying all along about knowing anything. That would mess with his omniscient leader image (no, not the lying part - the ignorance part) unforgivably.
Obviously, this was all Starscream's fault. Megatron hadn't figured out quite how, yet, but he had every confidence his treasonous Air Commander was to blame somehow.
Anyway, while the various kerfluffles were happening at the bottom of the ocean and in the Autobot base (depending on which tangled thread of drama you were following at any one moment), Swindle was busy negotiating a favor with Reflector's components. It wasn't a big favor. A minor irritant, but nothing Reflector didn't put up with on a regular basis anyway. Being promised the opportunity to get a picture of Ravage in his collar was enough of a bribe. Everyone remained vaguely ashamed of the fact that they found the jaguar entirely too cute while wearing it. Decepticons would pay for the picture, and pay more for Reflector to forget that they'd bought it.
By the time Ravage returned to base, Reflector's components were grumpily waiting on the Victory's bridge during their off-duty shift. They gave the technimal a slightly resentful look — oh, the things they went through for a decent picture! — and followed him off the bridge after Ravage finished reporting. Starscream, Megatron, and Soundwave watched them go. Not one of them asked where the camera and the Cassetticon were going. The mystery of the collar seemed to have been solved; Ravage's report had revealed part of the reason behind its purpose, not that anyone was going to admit they hadn't known in the first place. A nefarious escape tool? Intriguing.
…although that still didn't explain why Hook had made the collar in the first place.
Curiosity hadn't killed the cat yet, but some of the Decepticons were just dying to know.
#3
"...I see." Megatron steepled his fingers, then abandoned the pose to stare quizzically at Vortex. "I don't, actually. No. You want to assign the Stunticons, ah," he paused, expression a little confused as he tried to parse the concept into military terms, "auxiliary team members. Is that correct?"
Vortex nodded. "Close enough, yeah." He leaned forward on his feet, the very image of a concerned psychologist except for the restrained sense of glee. It was hard to seem solemn - or legitimate, for that matter - when he was exercising his Hook-given right to mess with the minds of fellow Decepticons. Megatron wondered why he bothered to try. Trying to appear innocent never worked for Decepticons. "They need friends."
"Friends." Starscream's question fell flat as Wily E. Coyote on the pavement. The jet shifted behind Megatron's shoulder, and the Lord Commander exchanged wary looks with him in a quick glance over his shoulder. They weren't sure where this was going, but they knew they probably weren't going to like it(7).
The nodding took an earnest edge directly countered by the evil amusement coloring Vortex' tone. He was trying to pull off a Concerned Comrade act and was playing Dr. Mengele instead. "They're not socializing voluntarily. If they don't socialize, they won't mature. As individuals, it'll just stunt their mental growth. Their combat abilities, too, if I'm any judge." He shrugged, rotors giving one satisfied whrr before stopping again. "They'll probably die quicker." There was an unspoken "No big loss!" tacked onto the end of that statement. "The worrying part is that so long as they're still stuck in youngling mindsets, Menasor is, too. He's unstable enough, mentally. The longer the Stunticons are allowed to keep to themselves, the worse Menasor's behavior will get, and the harder it'll be to break them of their, er, individual quirks."
That was a polite way of phrasing what the other Decepticons called the separate buckets o' crazy that made up the individual Stunticon members. Megatron let his mouth twist in distaste. While the other four Stunticons kept well out of his way, he had to deal with the Stunticon team leader enough that he knew exactly what Vortex was referring to. Motormaster was an egotistical muscle-head with a crippling self-doubt underlying his every move. It caused him to go to extreme lengths for Megatron's approval. If the semi was half as confident in his proclaimed title of 'King of the Road,' he wouldn't need Megatron's approval that way.
Although, from what Vortex reported, that could be bleeding over from one of the other Stunticon's particular errors. Insecurity and paranoia seemed one of their special problems, come to think of it.
"This is ridiculous," his Second in Command said shrilly, waving one hand to illustrate just how ridiculous it was. Or to sketch out the inner workings of a whale; the gesture flailed rather unclearly. "They're Decepticons, not - not human infants. They'll either adapt to fighting or die from it, and good riddance if they do get themselves offed!"
"With all due respect," insinuating that no respect was due, of course, "unlike some mechs I could name, the Stunticons aren't dumb. They're just young!"
The jet narrowed his optics at the smug helicopter as if trying to discern the Combaticon's angle by the power of glaring alone. "I don't know what you think you can get from handicapping the - " He broke off as Megatron raised a hand to interrupt.
A bad-tempered glare of his own made the jet subside, if unhappily. Starscream was impetuous, but most of the time he was also firmly under Megatron's control. The Lord Commander didn't need Vortex riling up the Air Commander today. It did seem to be a specialty of the Combaticons to ruffle Starscream's wings, but personal amusement had to wait until business was finished. No matter how funny Megatron found jet-baiting to be usually, he had more important matters to deal with today than watching his SiC and impromptu base psychologist try to verbally kill each other.
The issue here, so far as Megatron was following things, was relatively simple. The Stunticons were too young to function on their own yet, and they required some guidance. Fine. It wasn't a normal part of base life, but the Decepticons would adapt. The alternative was to stand by and let Menasor degenerate, and the gestalt was far too important to the war effort.
However, it seemed that Starscream was too close to the problem to properly see it. Starscream understood Motormaster trying to prove himself and his team, but that didn't mean the jet approved of the aft-head's over-the-top attempts at garnering Megatron's attention. If the jet had stopped to look at the situation with a level head, Megatron privately thought that he'd see that he and Motormaster had more in common than either would like. But Starscream stubbornly thought that he didn't have to prove himself. He was the Prince of Vos, the acknowledged ruler of the skies, and he needed no one else to recognize that obvious fact!
Ruler of the skies, meet King of the Road. Pot, meet kettle. Black? Black. Really, black? Oh, yes indeed: black.
Megatron occasionally had the nagging feeling that all of his warriors were little glitchmice with the suicidal need to have the biggest, baddest predator around watch them pull their newest bout of stupidity. Lookit meeeeee, boss! Me! It had been handy when he'd been assembling his army. It had almost been too easy, tempting the bored and uncertain with a bit of danger. Stroke an ego there, listen attentively there, and the big bad caninandroid could eat them right up. Eat them up, train them down, and set them loose on the Autobots as the regurgitated children of violence.
For the most part, it had worked. Starscream could charm the bolts out of the walls and destroy an enemy base with nothing more than his onboard arsenal and wicked wits. That didn't stop the jet from reverting to an insecure mech sometimes. Usually at the worst of all times, too. Multiply that by the entire Decepticon Elite, divided by varying amounts of self-confidence and self-control, and Megatron was Lord Commander of a kindergarten some days. Toddlers with big guns and comparable egos.
Megatron really did not need this slag right now. One problem at a time.
Vortex had gone still and quiet before him, programmed loyalty and common sense freezing even his rotors. Megatron eyed him with scant favor; he disliked bearers of bad news who enjoyed delivery. With a shrug of one massive shoulder, the silver mech turned to dismiss Starscream from the discussion entirely -
- only to find that his Second in Command had already flounced off. He had relocated to the Communications console and seemed to be listening to Ravage report to Soundwave. Megatron looked at the small gathering with the world's blankest expression, giving no hint of surprise or relief(8). The technimal was sitting on the console in front of Soundwave, one forepaw playing with the belled collar on his neck while the other rested on one of the small download datasticks the Cassetticons favored using for information-heavy reports. Soundwave was apparently scrolling through the information already, but Starscream had casually leaned one arm on the back of the Communication Officer's chair as he listened to Ravage. It was a picture of Decepticon efficiency.
It was a misleading picture. Nothing in the ranks ever worked that well. Even as Megatron watched, the Air Commander reached out and delicately tinged the Cassetticon's bell. Ravage rose to stretch kinked cables, hindlegs and tail straight up and forelegs out, sharp front claws working mischievously on the keys Soundwave was trying to use. The Communication Officer plucked the jaguar from the console with the long-suffering patience of a mech who knew a losing battle when he saw it. The Cassetticon hung from his Cassette-host's hands and shook his head hard enough to send the bell into a clamor of jingling. Soundwave didn't even bother standing up; he transferred the technimal to one hand and shoved Ravage at Starscream's cockpit. Starscream straightened in surprise, arms automatically catching the Cassetticon. Soundwave turned back to his work as Air Commander and technimal gave each other appraising looks. A low growl and answering high-pitched chuckle boded ill for Megatron's peace of mind.
"Hmm." Megatron shook the matter from the forefront of his mind, turning his formidable attention back to Vortex. The helicopter had been watching the three mechs over by Communications as well, but he snapped back around when Megatron's optics lit upon him with an almost physical force. "Friends, you say."
"Uhh...ah, yeah." Vortex's visor popped through reset in three different phases, left to right, making it look like a human lightshow instead of a hardware error-check. "It's socialization in a context they understand. Get them used to working with the rest of us under orders, and they won't find it so hard to make the change to off-shift mingling. Things like," his rotors shrugged, whrr whrrrr, "sparring practice. Getting know how the rest of us fight together and trying to fit into the tactics instead of just plunging through blindly. Casual conversation would be a refreshing change." The helicopter ducked his head, muttering a comment Megatron may not have been supposed to hear, "It's costing me way too much in high grade to pry their vocalizers open right now. My job sucks exhaust fumes."
"Interesting you should say that," Starscream said from behind Vortex, and Megatron might have warned the helicopter but he had his own juvenile sense of humor to indulge. Vortex jumped like a petrorabbit. Starscream's hand clamped down on one rotor before the assembly could kick into emergency escape protocols, I.e. Starscream is behind you, fly awaaaaaaay. "It seems that Vortex here," the jet silkily reported, other hand snaking through the rotors to seize a shoulder, "has not been doing his assigned duties so much as," he grinned, all satisfaction and spite, "taking credit for work already done."
Vortex's visor darted around the room, trying to find a way out. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
Without a whisper of sound, night-black and silver metal relocated from Starscream to the chopper's free shoulder. Only once Vortex's head whipped around did Ravage let the bell jingle again. Megatron had no idea how Ravage managed to make a bell sound sinister, but Vortex, visor to optics with the tiny technimal, was quite clearly the intimidated one. Starscream's hands tightened enough to make metal squeal, and Ravage peeled his lip up to show a very sharp fang. He did resemble Earth jaguars in every way the alt-mode programs could change: retractable claws, dental molds, and a tendency toward playing with his prey.
"Er. Well, I. Plans might be based on. Off. Others." Knead knead knead went Ravage's claws as he made himself comfortable. "Ow, ow, ow, alright already! I've been watching Ravage, and he has some ideas!" Newly-perforated armor leaked fluids, coating the ragged edges. Ravage curled up on the bed of energon, dangerously close to the main linkages exposed on Vortex's unarmored throat. Helm and mask were no help at this range if the technimal chose to attack. The Combaticon shivered, unable to defend himself against any of it, and only an idiot wouldn't know about Vortex's fetish for powerplay. Ravage had the larger mech exactly where he wanted to be. "I didn't - !" Despite his protests. Pride, after all. The Cassetticon reached out and let one claw snag, snaaaaaahfraggit!ag, and Vortex slumped in Starscream's hands, defeated.
"He's been working with the Stunticons on his own," Vortex admitted in the direction of the floor. "Reflector spends one shift every three days paired up with Breakdown, and DeadEnd's been loaned to Tactical as a contingency planner. Drag Strip is…" He hesitated, half-looking out of the corner of his visor at Ravage in question. "I'm not sure. He's been assigned to Communications a lot."
"Drag Strip: consultant for Shockwave," Soundwave put in, sounding as unflappable as ever. "Stunticon's turn of phrase is useful for public relations in current intergalactic negotiations on Cybertron. Commentary on victories has recast Decepticon conquest in positive light."
"That makes sense," Vortex said slowly, seeming to work out the logic as he spoke. "So the others — "
"— may settle down when they are socialized properly." Starscream loosened his grip and instead slung an arm around Vortex's shoulders like a vise. The Air Commander beamed at Megatron like he'd personally won the war. "Another idea proposed first by Ravage, I might add. After due consideration, however, I believe I have the perfect choice for auxiliary member assignment to the Stunticons! As Vortex pointed out," Vortex looked as though pointing things out was recent history he'd rather everyone forgot, "there are some mechs we could name who don't have youth an excuse for their stupidity. Or as I'd rather phrase it: 'socially backward actions.'" Starscream let go of the helicopter in order to lightly smack him upside the helm. Vortex had frozen in a flinch, seeing the orders coming and already knowing how his team was going to react. "I think Motormaster and Onslaught will get along just fine, don't you? And you'll have that much more time to work with Wildrider one-on-one."
"Erk," Vortex said, somewhat less-than-intelligently.
Megatron distantly wished he felt surprised by any of this. He looked over at Soundwave, and then at Ravage laying there on Vortex's shoulder like the cat who'd caught the glitchmouse. Sometimes, the big bad predator had well-trained minions to do his work for him.
"I see," the Lord Commander said. And this time, he really did.
#4
Perhaps the oddest thing among all the odd things associated with the collar was that Ravage truly didn't mind.
Soundwave had assigned him to monitor the new combiner team, and he'd approached the assignment with the same curt efficiency he did every mission. There had been a slight hint of dread for what insanity these newbies would pull out of the base walls, yes, but for the most part, Ravage was accustomed to the wide spectrum of crazy that Decepticons sported. Since there was no level of covert observation required, he'd decided the best course of action was to introduce himself to the Stunticons as an ally and work from there.
Things hadn't exactly gone as planned.
The Stunticons were, well, stunted. Emotionally, of course, because they were young and violent. However, their minds hadn't had time to acquire situational awareness, either. They were a group of Cybertronians with limited information dropped onto a planet teeming with organic beings. Talking, typing, transmitting sentient creatures with almost infectious philosophies of living, viral train-wrecks of thought, and styles that defied Cybertronian common sense. The Stunticons, not knowing any better, took it all in. Lacking censors or guidelines, their gestalt links traded and affirmed bonds of underlying interests and beliefs that nobody but nobody had thought to keep an optic on.
For the most part, it hadn't mattered. Humans were fundamentally weird aliens that the Stunticons hadn't had the time or inclination to get close to. On the other hand, they shared living space with a few dozen Elite Decepticons from whom their experience-starved subprograms immediately began gleaning routine information. That was all well and good. Left on their own, the Stunticons might have enough stimuli to adapt to life in the Decepticons as warped individuals and a conglomerate with basic functionality.
Ravage's job was to watch and make sure they didn't get any funny ideas about Autobots or humans in the meantime. Later, it would become Vortex's job to prod their underdeveloped selves toward maturity. Somewhere in between those jobs came the simple fact that the Stunticons had some thoughts of their own.
Forcing a group of violently psychotic younglings to merge into a war machine had made them agree on some things real quick, just to avoid tearing themselves to pieces. Menasor was a team dynamic, like it or not, and they couldn't ignore that. For that most part, the agreements were positive changes. Unfortunately, one of the things decided by the merge had been, something learnt from the humans.
The Stunticons liked cats. No, not 'like.' They loved cats(9).
Ravage discovered this fact when the door to the Stunticons' new quarters opened to his override - and he was immediately scooped up off the floor and into Dead End's arms. "I am seeing things. Someone call for the Constructions." The new Decepticon looked glumly down at the startled technimal and ran a finger down the cat's back. "Although it's probably too late to save my damaged processor."
"Kitty!" Breakdown barreled into his gestaltmate and reached grabby hands for Ravage. "Give him here! Oh, don't look at me that way. I'll take care of you, yes I will…d'aaaaw."
"A cat? Here?" Drag Strip appeared in the common room as if by magic. "Mine."
"No way!" Wildrider peered over the closest shoulder, optics bright with fascination. "Whoa — way. No way is that so way as that way."
"Back off, he's mine!"
"Don't be that way!"
"I'll be any way I want to if you don't get out of my way!"
Ravage had been too surprised to protest as they passed him around, going from hands to arms to shoulders. Four pairs of hands constantly touched him in ways that only Soundwave - and occasionally Megatron - had previously dared. Despite the arguing, the Stunticons were roughly gentle as they stroked over his audios ("Lookit the bitty receivers! Think he gets cable?") and fondled his missile launchers ("Ha! A Decepti-kitty! Is that cool or what?"). The constant verbal barrage of bickering was directly contradicted by nonstop pleasant physical sensation, and he only recovered his equilibrium when Motormaster stormed out into the common room like a deep-voiced harbinger of destruction.
"What are you idiots going on about out — " The Stunticon leader came to an abrupt halt, stopping in his tracks when Drag Strip whipped around with an armful of Cassetticon jaguar. The four smaller Decepticons stared up at their leader in fear, Drag Strip's hands clutching the cat as if to protect him. The tiny technimal sat up, drawing on reserves of dignity untapped in order to face down the looming tyrant of the combiner team —
- who bent down to look him in the face, a helplessly delighted look obliterating the rage like it had never been. "Where the frag did you morons get him? A mechanical cat? This is even better than stealing the tigers from the San Diego Zoo and outfitting them with lasers!" A hand bigger than Soundwave's took the Cassetticon from Drag Strip's unresisting arms and held him up for inspection with the unexpected tenderness of a semi-truck transporting Faberge eggs. "Less chance of Lord Megatron turning the idea down, too…whose is he?"
The Stunticons started chattering again, this time with Ravage held firmly in Motormaster's lap as the Stunticon claimed the best seat at the battered common room table. It…was not as uncomfortable as one might think. In fact, the Decepticon faction's lead spy was having difficulty doing more to resist than turning over to let surprisingly talented fingers tickle his underbelly.
It was at that point that Ravage gave up hope of regaining control of the situation and just called for Soundwave to come get him. A different plan was required.
Soundwave had explained to the newbie Decepticons in a few short words about his various technimal Cassetticons. The Stunticons as a whole had been mortified to learn that they had been cuddling a superior in the ranks. Motormaster in particular had been humiliated by the implied scolding coming from their Lord Commander's Communications Officer, and he'd taken it out on his team. Ravage had shaken it off as another strange wartime experience and thought it a lesson learned by all.
But…the Stunticons really liked cats.
Ravage noticed the hands that strayed in his direction, although they were jerked back with wistful expressions if he turned to look. Dead End moped more than usual around him. Wildrider squeaked nonsense frequently upon spotting him, fists held to wide grin as if trying to contain sheer joy. Breakdown jumped, spooked, when Ravage caught him staring. Drag Strip made it into a game of drive-bys, competing to see which was faster: his wheels getting closer or Ravage's reflexes getting away. Motormaster just brooded and beat on his team for doing what he had too much pride to do.
It was endearingly bizarre. It was rapidly becoming a frustration instead of amusement. There was only so much (badly) covert attention a spy could tolerate, and the Stunticons' collective stalker-like behavior was really pushing it. Ravage came to dread returning to base after missions, just because he could think of no easy solution to the problem. Problem compounded on problem as, by this time, he'd detected the individual glitches among the younglings that would soon ingrain permanently if someone didn't forced the Stunticons out of their self-imposed team isolation. Consulting with Soundwave produced no answers. Going to the Constructicons got Vortex assigned to psychologist duty, which would probably cause more issues in the long run than he cured. Nobody was really doing anything, and the situation was becoming quite pathetic.
Having no other choice, Ravage decided to approach the problem directly. He went to the source. He overrode the Stunticons' door code, let himself in, and jumped right onto the table in the middle of what looked like a roleplaying game involving a giant Monopoly board and about eighty Hot Wheels cars arranged in esoteric formations on Park Place.
Silence.
Breakdown dropped a handful of fake money and hotels. Drag Strip (who was winning, if it could be called that) slid his chair slowly back from the table. Dead End stopped counting his pile of fake money into Breakdown's growing pile of fake money — which was now on the floor, anyway — to eye the jaguar uneasily. Wildrider, who was on the floor and thus suddenly richer, poked his head into view before retreating back beneath the table to hide. Also to hoard his new-found, ill-gotten wealth.
They all stared at Ravage wordlessly for a solid three minutes. Ravage sat there and looked back. Going in without a much of an initial plan required making it up as he went, and he had no idea where he was going, so making it up had stalled. He wanted them to make the first move. At least then he'd know which way to dodge.
"Kitty," Breakdown finally peeped, half-cringing in a way that suggested Motormaster was going to appear out of nowhere to smack him into the wall for saying it. The other Stunticons hissed through their intakes.
"I," Ravage said before anyone could scramble for an apology or insult, "am not a kitty."
Dead End toyed with the fake bills in his hand, all of his attention seemingly riveted by the bright colors. "We know."
"It's kind of obvious." Even Drag Strip seemed subdued. Motormaster had not been pleased with his team's continued fixation, apparently. "What with the talking and all. Cats don't typically talk." Wildrider contributed nothing more than a hysterical giggle that may have had a smothered mention of Disney buried in it.
"Good." Ravage nodded, dignified and sleek as only a cat could be under such circumstances, and got up to pick his way across the gameboard to the nearest hand. It was Breakdown's, and the Stunticon seemed too petrified to move it from the table as Ravage curled up close enough to brush against it. The technimal rested his jaw on one foreleg and dimmed his optics. "What is the point of this game?"
"Uh…"
Silence gradually gave way in blurts and starts and stammers to awkward attempts to explain a game that only Stunticons could have invented. Explanations were interrupted to explain further or argue about an interpretation. Attention became diverted. The Hot Wheels parking points were introduced, and around then Breakdown noticed that Wildrider had somehow ended up with all his cash. Fake or not, such thievery could not be tolerated. The table nearly went end-over-end when Breakdown grabbed Wildrider by one leg and pulled. Dead End sighed, holding the table down with both hands, and proposed trading a hotel for car shipping via the Railroad to Drag Strip. They settled down for some serious bargaining while Breakdown pelted Wildrider with fuzzy dice until the darker Stunticon surrendered the money. Ravage watched it all with some amusement and more confusion. This was harder to understand (if potentially less lethal) than Skywarp's free-for-all freefall version of Twister, and that was saying something!
Somewhere around trying to pin down the reasons for the rule behind passing Go and collecting 200 MPH, all four Stunticon cars were talking over and around each other, Wildrider was laughing louder than even Drag Strip's yelling, and Breakdown had absentmindedly begun tweaking Ravage's audio receivers. None of them were even paying attention to the cat in their midst. Ravage had accomplished what only the Decepticons' best spy could have done: he had disappeared in plain sight.
That was about when Motormaster burst into the common room, pumped with macho-truckdom(10) and fresh from a planning session with none other than the Lord Commander himself. The other Stunticons looked up without much interest, and Motormaster opened his mouth to roar angrily at them — and fell over his own two feet when he spotted Ravage. The Cassetticon was half-covered by Dead End's hand as the gloomy mech consoled himself over inevitable loss in the game by petting him.
Motormaster hit the floor face-first with a Ka-WHUMP-clang! that made the table dance. Drag Strip and Wildrider squawked and grabbed for the gameboard while Breakdown went over backward in his chair — he'd been balancing it on two legs while checking the room for hidden cameras — and Dead End dully looked down at their fallen team leader. Ravage rose to all four feet and stretched luxuriously, feeling like his cables had undergone an in-depth retrofit from a professional maintenance mech. He could get used to this level of pampering.
The three Stunticons still at the table blinked at him owlishly as if just remembering he was there as the Cassetticon jumped down from the table and sauntered over to where Motormaster lay groaning. "Kill you all," the truck muttered as he pushed himself up to sit on his heels and shake his head.
Ravage boldly climbed into the Stunticon leader's lap and curled up.
Motormaster just about fell back over. "What in the name of Nascar are you - !" It wasn't quite a natural sound, but Ravage managed to run his cassette spools roughly enough to approximate a purr. "You - !" Prrr prr prrrrr came from the cat. No, Motormaster had to remember that this was the fiercely intelligent spy Cassetticon technimal who could infiltrate Schrodinger's Box if given half a chance. "You - !" Prrrrrrrrr. "You can't — " He glanced from jaguar to the other Stunticons, who were no help whatsoever. " — Soundwave will — " Red optics looked up at him as innocently as a kitten from the Pit: Prrrrowr? " — I'm not — you're - fine."
Motormaster gave up on coherence and just pet him. Far be it from him to try and deny a Decepti-kitty what he obviously wanted, even if they all knew better than to call Ravage any form of 'kitty.'
As far as plans went, this one hadn't turned out half-bad. Ravage slitted his optics and rolled over to plot some more. Meddling in the affairs of a combiner team could be surprisingly rewarding, and in this case, he got five personal masseuses willing to drop everything to bend to his will. Not a bad thing, in his opinion.
In return, of course, there was the small matter of the collar. Ravage didn't mind it all that much, although Hook gave him a pitying look when he handed the completed, frilly accessory over to Drag Strip. The technimal didn't move from his lazy sprawl on top of Motormaster's head-shield. Instead, Ravage lit one optic dimly to watch the Constructicon and dismiss the pity, and then shut it off again.
"Check it out!" Drag Strip exclaimed, puffed up with how awesome the collar — his idea, of course — had come out. "It even color-matches!" The bow had to match his paintjob; it had been Hook's design, but the Stunticons had decided on the colors. Drag Strip had given them no peace until they'd agreed on the gold bow.
"It won't last," Dead End said gloomily. "Gold is too fragile."
"Life is too fragile, in your book," Wildrider said sagely. He ruined what could have been words of wisdom by going on to list everything in life that Dead End found too fragile. " — chicken eggs, plasterboard, sprinkles, desks, clouds, armor — "
Motormaster smacked them both into opposite walls. "Shut it!"
Ravage ignored the byplay and let Drag Strip coax him down from atop Motormaster's head to put the…thing…on him. Personally, the Cassetticon was more wryly amused than anything at the lengths the Stunticons had gone to turn something the whole team agreed was 'cute' into a useful escape tool. Dead End had presented the idea to him that way, emphasizing the lockpicks and hidden chemicals over and over again before hesitantly mentioning what shape this escape tool would be in. The shape Stunticons wanted. Then he'd quickly gone back to talking about how having a 'just in case' collar could be a good idea in case of capture, which would happen eventually as it was only a matter of time until the Autobots got them all, and —
Ravage had only stared in the implacable way of cats and spies, making Dead End squirm uncomfortably as the Stunticon talked himself into the same corner he always got stuck in: " — not that it matters, because we're all going to die." Strangely dismayed by his logic for once, Dead End finally ran out of words and sat in a depressed huddle at the table. He avoided looking at the technimal. The other Stunticons had elected him to persuade Ravage into wearing the collar they'd bought at quite a bit of expense from Hook, but he could have predicted that he'd fail.
"If I agrrree to this," Ravage said softly, rolling his 'R's because he knew the Stunticons thought it was adorable, "you will take the duty shifts in Tactical."
"…yes?"
"Verrry well."
The bell turned out to be a challenge, and an entertaining one at that. Ravage liked challenges. He liked challenges that Autobot Special Operations choked on even more. Besides, wearing the collar was well worth the bother since it coerced Dead End into Tactical, where his pessimistic outlook on, well, everything turned into an asset when poking holes in proposed plans. Agreeing to pose for pictures in the slagging thing also exposed Breakdown to Reflector, as Ravage utterly refused to be caught on film unless Breakdown was in the background. It was a small crack in the Stunticon's paranoia (Yes, they are really watching you, but they're on your side. Now hold still!), but one that Ravage was determined to work on. Drag Strip had been easy enough to talk into speaking with Shockwave, and Ravage had been pleased to find that Shockwave understood youngling mentalities better than most Decepticons on Earth.
There were more things that the Stunticons had to do, many of which Ravage would have to somehow force them into doing. Finding something to temper Wildrider's hyperactive psychosis frustrated his best efforts. Leading the yellow Stunticon on a merry chase through the base trying to find the jingling bell on his collar kept the nutjob occupied for the time being, at least. Bending Motormaster to his will wasn't easy, either, even granted the supreme power of curling into a physically-improbable donut shape on his back the floor, exposing his belly like a siren song of temptation.
It was a difficult job, and one that not many of the other Decepticons understood. Even Hook had expressed doubt one day when Ravage had gone in to check the fit of the collar. In his best neutral The Only Reason I'm Speaking With You Is Because It's My Duty voice, the Constructicon had asked, "Do you know what you're getting into?"
Ravage had done him the honor of gravely considering the question. After a few minutes of reflection, the Cassetticon bent nearly double to scratch with one hindpaw at the bow, resettling it. "No. I've never had one pet, much less five." He straightened and heaved air through his intakes in a resigned manner. "But what else could I do but adopt them? They were just so pathetic on their own."
Hook watched him jump off the table and trot out the door, bell jingling all the way, and could think of no helpful response to that.
But, then again, not many Decepticons went to the repairbay for help.
[* * * * *]
Footnotes
[* * * * *]
(1)Jazz totally did not count. Although so far as diversionary tactics went, having a notorious Autobot saboteur show up in the spacebridge on Cybertron toting a brilliant, red neon sign blinking Eat At Joe's! had worked pretty spectacularly. Shockwave had stood staring in the middle of his tower for about 3 breems, unable to process the light show that made the arrow appear to curve down to point directly at the Autobot as he boldly hacked into the Decepticon systems.
(2)Once Astrotrain and Blitzwing tentatively revealed their individual hallucinations to each other and found — much to their relief — that their insanity was apparently mutual, they theorized it was small and just flat enough to allow Ravage to transform. Soundwave was made slightly paranoid in the following week as the theory spread and various Decepticons attempted to be sneaky while avidly watching for him to eject or accept his jaguar Cassetticon.
(3)They had a good gossip session going on at that point, to be honest, but Decepticons don't gossip. Sort of how the word of Brawl and Ramjet's renewed perversions wouldn't be passed by word-of-mouth until everybody knew about it. That would be plebian. Instead, the Decepticons were participating in an excited exchange of information with intent to destroy, delight, despoil, deny, deprive, or desecrate. Or whatever slightly-more-dignified Decepticon variation of the word 'gossip' they could tell themselves they were doing.
(4)Six days later, the Autobot Special Operations team was thrown into a jealous tizzy when Ravage savagely shook his iddy-biddy widdle bewwy-wewwy, d'awww! through the cell bars at them. The point was well taken; the Cassetticon had been captured by accident (Gears, in the common room, with a candlestick), not because of anyone hearing the bell. That was how good Ravage was. Since the spirit of Anything you can do, I can do Better! was alive and kicking between Decepticon and Autobot Special Ops, Ravage had gleefully warned Soundwave afterward to listen carefully for spies wearing jangly things(5).
(5)The 'afterward' had come about because the Autobots had been so caught up in taunting Ravage over his cutesy collar that they'd utterly missed that the gold bow had three lockpicks carefully stitched among its soft metal pleats, and the bell clapper was actually filled with enough metal oxide to create a concentrated thermite reaction. Hook had outdone himself on the collar, titling the final product Escape Art.
(6)The Decepticons raided 114 appliance stores while the Autobots were distracted by Ravage. 645 Whirlpool washing machines later, and the Constructicons began sucking oil tankers down to the ocean floor to be drained. Mirage was almost unable to stop the machines and save the crews' lives because Soundwave heard him coming. Who knew that moving smoothly enough to not chime a bell was so difficult?
(7)Anything proposed by the Combaticons always required the command staff to show a united front. Onslaught alone was dangerous, loyalty programming or no, and Vortex thought word-weaseling was a game. Megatron and Starscream had been yelling at each other over the latest energy-gathering plan, as per usual, when Vortex had logged into the bridge-shift and blipped a scheduling request at Soundwave. The Communication Officer had politely waited for a pause in the insultfest — a surprisingly effective method of planning among the Decepticons, believe it or not — and informed them of the new appointment. As always, that had prompted an amazing 180 degree turn in attitude between Lord Commander and Second in Command. They met Vortex's arrival with no evidence that, moments earlier, Starscream had been detailing Megatron's genealogy without once mentioning anything sentient while Megatron talked trash about the jet's abilities as Air Commander.
(8)No tantrum? Well, that was a relief. Starscream made creatures with tentacles seem stand-offish on his clingy days. Which…was the kind of thought that Megatron really didn't need running through his head at any time. Earth had done strange things to Decepticon minds, and Megatron blamed Japan specifically for a lot of the weirder developments lately.
(9)'Love' as said by Breakdown, with a few 'U's and an 'R' added for extra emphasis: Luuuuuurve. Motormaster even had mudflaps that proclaimed, "I brake for pussy." He hadn't just gotten them to skeeve off Optimus Prime. He once caused a 13-car pile-up when he'd jackknifed across three lanes of traffic braking for a kitten on the freeway. There had been 6 hospitalizations and 2 deaths, but the cat escaped unscathed.
(10)This was actually a term borrowed from the Autobots, as the Decepticons had never encountered the generalized phenomenon of large trucks in the ranks before. They'd always assumed it was just a Long Haul-specific thing until Motormaster came along. Apparently, the bigger the trailer, the bigger the need for total dominion via overwhelming truckdom vibes. Who knew?