Chapter 18: Drama
I aint dead.
Note; this is G1 cartoon Shockwave, with more than a little of the TFA version thrown in. I only know the comics from fanon, and the movie version didn't seem to have a lot of characterization.
I don't own anything recognizable, yadda yadda. No one who isn't of age/maturity for adult type shenanigans should be reading this, y'all know the drill…
Skyfire sat on the largest of the adjustable medical berths, which was still much too small, though it would probably be roughly the right size for the Prime. She resisted the urge to fidget.
Her fuel consumption and a few other systems had been off recently, and she had come down to medical in case she had damaged herself somehow during her recent…exertions. Soon after joining the Autobots, she had discovered that the best way to avoid Ratchet's famous temper was simply to come in for a checkup when something might be wrong. As far as she could tell, much of the medic's bluster was calculated to overcome patients resistance to things that were for their own wellbeing.
Well, and some of it was just Ratchet's naturally sunny demeanor, of course.
The boxy red and white femme came in and smiled at Skyfire, though the flier could see a touch of strain around her optics. Word of Perceptor's abrupt trip had come only a little while ago, and all anyone knew was that the bridge coordinates had been set for Cybertron, but not refined. Everyone was hoping desperately that she had arrived somewhere safe.
Skyfire liked the quiet little scientist. She had never looked at broad white wings and thought "Freight hauler" or "Decepticon". She had brightened noticeably when they had been introduced, and had been delighted to find that the mech unfrozen from the polar Ice caps was a fellow researcher, and could follow her when she waxed eloquent about her first love, engineering.
Skyfire's specialty might be in a very different field, but the two of them had always found things to talk about. She would never judge Perceptor for being a little overly verbose in an attempt to cover for her awkward shyness in social situations, and in turn the delicate researcher would never ask pointed questions about Starscream, or Decepticons, or her unwillingness to fight other mechs except in life or death situations.
Ratchet gave her a not-quite curt order to lie down on the med berth (doing so required some low-level gymnastics, since she didn't actually fit) and wheeled over an electromag imager. Using the detachable scanners designed for large or oddly shaped mecha, she ran several passes over her patient's head and chassis. Her optical ridges went up. She fiddled with a few settings, and repeated the process.
Then she sat down hard on an adjacent stool, and opened her mouth. Then she closed it.
Skyfire was starting to become concerned.
She sat up. "I do hope it isn't anything fatal, Ratchet." She said in her best deadpan. "I have results to write up."
That seemed to shake the medic out of her daze. "I think I can safely rule out any dying on your part." She said dryly. "At least if you follow your medics orders, get the proper nutrients, and don't do anything foolish for the next Earth year or so. Though the father or fathers might potentially be in trouble, depending on how you came to be sparked up."
"… Sparked up"? It was probably just as well that she was already sitting, because she might have landed of her aft on the medbay floor otherwise. "As in, I'm carrying a newspark?"
Ratchet put on her best Compassionate Medical Professional expression. She hoped the shuttle wasn't going to glitch or have hysterics or something. It would make a mess of her nice organized medbay. Fortunately, the big femme was looking more surprised than traumatized.
Skyfire opened her mouth. "Um." She said. "I truly did not expect that. Oh dear, this is probably going to lead to Drama."
Perceptor was set upon by a pair of flying security drones moments after being dumped unceremoniously on a soot-covered street in a burnt-out section of Cyybertron. She had no fragging idea where she was beyond that, but her onboard sensor suite recognized the atmospheric chemical mix immediately. A few clicks later, her pattern recognition software kicked in and she also recognized the ruined skyline of Kaon. She had barely hauled herself to her stabilizing servos and taken stock of her situation, when she heard the tell-tale engine whine of Shockwave's guard drones.
She sprinted towards a nearby ruin, hoping for some reasonable cover. Frag, frag, fraaaaag. Damn Wheeljack and her overly permissive parenting skills!
Perceptor threw herself behind the pathetic excuse for shelter provided by some crumpled, and apparently half melted remnants, capacitors whining as her scope transformed its function from microscope to laser canon.
There were only two drones so far. She sank her stance into the solid structure that would allow her enough steadiness to target the fast-moving machines. Her scope wasn't truly designed as a weapon, but as she had been planning nothing more aggressive than a mild argument with Jack or Skyfire, it was what she had to servo.
Her focus narrowed in on one of the searching drones, and she squeezed off a shot, hitting it in an engine. Unfortunately, its companion now had a read on her location, and came in firing.
A laser blast scorcher her shoulder armor, the burn a line of agony. She fired despite it, and clipped the drone, which didn't go down, but did appear to lose stabilizer function. She hit it again, and the mechanism exploded spectacularly. Not good.
She made a run for it before the light and heat show drew every guard and drone in the quadrant. This was Shockwave's domain, and her only chance was to make it to the underground, and try to meet up with an Autobot or even a Neutral. Problem was, she had no idea how to find Elita's troops, and the nearest friendly could be a very long way off.
Shockwave was surprised when the proximity alerts went off. That was strange…it was a lightly patrolled area relatively near his own fortress. He had few guards there, because it was nothing but a wasteland. There was nothing in that part of the quadrant but ruins. At least as far as he was aware.
One of the patrol drones had managed to transmit a snippet of video. He examined it as he remotely activated more guardians and sent them after the source of the disturbance. It was hardly any thing but a silhouette, but it was informative for all that. The figure was no Decepticon, that was certain. Besides not being sufficiently bulky, its elegant curvature made it clear just which subset of the Cybertronian population it belonged to.
Whichever Autobot had just arrived in his territory was on the small side, but not miniature. He didn't recognize the intruder, but given the poor quality of the image and the recent changes in the Bots' forms, that didn't mean much. It wasn't Prime or any of the fliers, and he was thankfully able to rule out the ones who turned into extinct giant organics.
Wheeljack had to be the one behind those creatures. The fragging younglings breathed fire, for pits sake. The cheerfully pyromaniac inventor might as well have signed their hindquarters. Perhaps she was his visitor? That would be pleasant. Well, if the creations didn't come after her, anyway.
Besides the remote guard drones, several of Shockwave's other, more advanced sensors were registering readings, but he disregarded them for the moment. An Autobot intruder was much more important. He rushed to his control room, summoning the few nearby sentients under his command and powering up his drone soldiers. If there was an Autobot here, he needed to capture her. If she was one of Elita's, he could trade her for favors from his counterpart. If she was from Earth, he would FINALLY get some decent intel on what the frag was going on out there.
Perceptor was in Trouble. And it was all that fragging Dinosaur's fault. Why couldn't Wheeljack build NORMAL sized younglings? Or failing that, prioritize grace in their developmental hierarchy, instead of fripperies like fire breath?
She ran once more, using ruined structures and even the long greyed-out chassis of a dead mech. The whole place was nothing but a desolate wasteland. The part of her that wasn't desperately trying to get out of Shockwave's perimeter before she got either slagged or captured was crying out in grief. It was a terrible thing, to see the ruin of her home world.
Frag the Decepticons, and Frag the Council, and Frag everyone who had to go and try to address problems with weapons instead of actual work and communication. She was going to die here, alone in the cinders, because of a stupid, stupid accident caused by an underclocked youngling who should not have been allowed near delicate equipment. Of any kind. Ever.
A bolt grazed her hip, leaving a firey line of pain and screaming error messages. She was not built for this kind of slag. Another laser burst hit the back of one of her legs, bringing her crashing down into the soot covered ground.
She tried to roll clear, only to find herself staring down the barrel of an enormous canon. Behind the hovering guard drone, nearly a dozen others were coming into range.
A precise shot hit her arm, making her drop her weapon, and through a flood of errors, she saw a bright green Seeker with a disturbingly gleeful look on his face land, surrounded by non-sentient shock troops.
She had really had better days.
Shockwave had honestly been expecting either an unlucky lab assistant or junior engineer, or simply an Autobot grunt, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Possible but less likely, Wheeljack him er, herself, standing sheepishly at the center of another explosively disastrous experiment gone wrong. He had hoped it would be Wheeljack; the two of them had been distant acquaintances once, before the war had broken out. He was fairly certain he could simply chat the inventor up in order to acquire most of the information he wanted.
He had not been expecting his guards to dump a disheveled Perceptor at his stabilizers.
The microscope lifted her chin in frightened defiance, big blue optics wide. He dimly registered Acid Storm grinning like a predator who had found some tasty, fluttery prey animal.
Shockwave was glad that no one would be able to tell that he was gaping like a fool at the respected scientist's new sweetly curvy frame and (comparatively) delicate build. "Perceptor" he said. "What a pleasant but unexpected surprise."
Incredible. The being in front of him had the same colors and similar features as the blocky, utilitarian mech he remembered. She had the same kibble, the lenses of her microscope glinting in the dim light, and the same blue optics as before. The whole effect was very different indeed, however. She was as lovely as Elita, but much more approachable looking.
"I would happily volunteer to look after the prisoner, Lord Shockwave" said Acidstorm. "She was injured while fleeing your guard drones. A few repairs, and a nice cozy cell…"
Shockwave could tell that his creation was merely needling him for his twisted amusement. Damn Seekers. Acidstorm knew full well that a prisoner from Earth would be overseen by Shockwave himself. Let alone one of the enemy faction's most preeminent scientists. Of course, he also didn't know who she was, in all probability.
Shockwave allowed a touch of dark humor into his voice. The young Seeker might have brains and talent, but he still had a lot to learn. "Acidstorm, this is the Autobot scientist Perceptor, preeminent authority on wormhole technology and quantum physics, and author of enough important research that you might as well simply look her up in the database. I shall deal with her."
He turned his attention to the Autobot, who was staring at him with wide, apprehensive optics. Her gaze strayed to his servos, one heavily clawed, the other replaced with a weapon. They were the hands of a killer and a soldier, not a scientist. They were replacements, functional in his current post, but definitely not what he had had when they had first met a long, long time ago, when he was a diplomat from Tarn and she a young mech with a brilliant mind and near nonexistent social skills.
"So very nice of you to join us, Percy." He purred.