A/N: Oh geez, I'm starting to get some writer's block for this. I know where I want to go in this fic, but right now, I can't connect the dots to get there. So I had Soundwave on his own for a bit with Ravage, and Ratchet and Starscream catching up on some late surgery.
Disclaimer: No I don't own Transformers.
Turning Point – Chapter 13
"I like it here," murmured Ravage, curling up further on his creator's lap, glad to know that Soundwave didn't flinch at the contact.
"Do you?" inquired the telepath, watching as the rest of his creations played tag with each other in an area not too far from the Ark, under supervision from himself, Blaster and (although he wasn't supposed to know) Mirage. The spy was invisible of course, writing away on a datapad.
Yawning and purring satisfactorily in an uncanny similarity to a human cat, the eldest cassette muttered, "Well, I don't have to watch my back as much. And it is rather nice to be given regular energon and even high-grade."
Soundwave hummed absently in agreement, smirking as Rumble shook a fist up at Buzzsaw who had tagged him. Ravage lay there in silence, confident in the self truth of those words. Killer he may have been, it didn't mean he wasn't thoroughly enjoying the relative peace they were living in. True, his creator was being overprotective, but he had expected it after the…event. He could only marvel at how far Soundwave had come in the two and a half weeks they had been on base. The party a week ago was fun, and rumour had it there would be another in a month.
And Blaster.
It was great to get to know his 'other creator' again, even though the memories he had were so distant and so fractured. The other cassette player was a good mech. It was hard to think of all the times he and his siblings had been sent in to try and kill the Autobots and the other cassettes now, although a month ago it would have been one of the surest things in the universe. It was funny how changing faction meant changing a life. It was slow, but steady.
After all, who would have thought that he and Steeljaw would like to play snakes and ladders in the afternoons while Eject and Rewind cheered them on? That his youngest brother actually enjoyed hanging out with Jazz and Bluestreak? But then again, considering the speed at which Bluestreak and Ratbat spoke at sometimes, it shouldn't have come as a surprise, the feline mused. Not only that, but Rumble and Frenzy were on speaking terms with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker! Of course, the Lamborghini's kept calling the cassette twins 'little glitches,' but there was not too much malice in the tone. Ravage had been taken aback at how the warrior twins had so readily let bygones be bygones. He had thought that they – meaning himself and his siblings – would have been attacked on sight by them.
No, it was the more aggressive minibots they had to watch out for.
Bumblebee was the nicest of the lot, that much was certain. He actively sought the Seekers out as well as the cassettes. Just to say hi, or share a piece of gossip or ask how they were settling in. It was quite comforting. It was funny how Starscream had looked at the VW bug like he was some sort of squishy gel alien the first time this happened.
No, it was Cliffjumper, Huffer, and Gears they had to watch out for. They were the most obvious in their distaste of the ex-Cons. Cliffjumper, being the heavily spiteful mech he could be, regularly did petty actions like try to trip up the cassettes.
Tracks was another issue entirely. His distain was obvious, and it was not the physical attacks he utilised, but verbal and non-verbal movements.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Ravage murmured, "Are you truly going to DJ again?"
Soundwave turned his attention to his eldest and nodded slowly, as if not truly believing it for himself.
"The challenge will be invigorating. I no longer know Blaster's extent of abilities on the holo booth," replied the telepath, ruffling Ravage's mechano ears in affection.
"It'll be awe-inspiring for the rest of my brothers. After all, they never saw when you and Blaster caused fights to break out between mechs who just wanted to come in and see you both."
Soundwave let out a dry chuckle, thinking about his old popularity in the clubs. Memories long filed away came back to him, of the scent of rich high grade, the dancing mech and femme frames as he and Blaster mixed and pounded the music straight from the speakers, grinning at each other to try and out do the other mech. The friendly competition would always make them strive to do their best.
"Ravage, when this happens, do me a favour," Soundwave requested quietly, unable to hide the smirk in his voice.
The black cassette caught onto it and grinned, saying, "Get some footage of the shock?"
"Indeed."
"It's about time you showed up in my medbay again," growled Ratchet, pointing irately to the nearest medberth as Starscream walked in, scowling slightly.
"I had someone babying me," protested the jet, hopping up on the berth and looking haughtily down at the medic.
Ratchet knew it was an act. He saw right through it but didn't comment. He knew that Starscream was getting back to his normal self. What he hoped for was for Starscream not to retain his backstabbing tendencies. It would be a blow to all the Autobot's tentative trust. Nevertheless, he was a healer, and he was here to finally get rid of the last injury left on Starscream's frame.
The virus in the vocaliser.
It intrigued the medic as to how the Seeker would sound after he completed the operation. Would he be screechy, but less so? His curiosity was prevalent as he got his tools ready, registering the slight nervous shuffling behind him.
"Are you ready?" Ratchet asked, turning around with a sedative line in his hand.
The crimson optics alighted on the line and he chuckled bitterly, "You know, I'm not even sure. I can't even remember what my original voice sounds like sometimes."
Ratchet said nothing, looking at the tricoloured mech with a melancholy expression, offering up the sedative line. With a sigh as if he were looking at an apocalypse, Starscream laid down on the berth, letting the medic secure the line to him and hook up medical scanners to monitor his processor cycles, his spark pumps and pulses, and his general systems. As he stared up at the medbay ceiling, the last thought before he slipped into a sedated recharge was, 'That colour clashes horribly with my paint job.'
Smirking at the relaxed faceplates of the jet as the sedatives did their work, Ratchet could only marvel how young Starscream looked when he wasn't hiding beneath that mask of defensiveness. Placing any other thought out of his mind, Ratchet transformed his fingers into small tools that carefully made an incision in a seam above the vocaliser housing. Once done, they slowly peeled the layers of metal and metallo mesh apart, revealing the protoform metal and the vocaliser underneath. Pulling back and transforming his fingers back into whole digits, the medic got the small, intricate scanner from the berth side table. This scanner was meant for a vocaliser and for that purpose only. The plug was miniscule, made of delicate and highly conductive crystal found only on Cybertron. Carefully plugging it in, Ratchet sat back and waited for it to do it's magic. It would detect any anomaly, viruses included.
A moment of tenderness came over him when he saw Starscream's relaxed faceplates. He looked so…innocent.
"Poor sparkling," murmured the white and red mech, running a finger down the jaw line. He reflected that it wasn't fair for a mech who had so much potential to be ripped away from innocence: first from Megatron enlisting the Seekers and to fight, and secondly from Megatron assaulting the Seeker before him.
The vocaliser scan beeped and transmitted the finds to Ratchet's terminal, the holoscreen displaying the anomaly virus clearly in red cybertronian glyphs. Turning, his processor clicking over onto 'work mode,' Ratchet looked at the coding, analysing the purpose of which it was there in the vocaliser and how it was implemented, before looking at how to get rid of it. As he did, he frowned.
Something wasn't right here. According to Starscream, the virus was a tool for humiliation, to make him sound screechy. But the strength of the viral coding was too strong for that single purpose. As he set the analyser to destroy the code, a message popped up.
:-Would you like to re-activate the weapon?-:
"Weapon," mused the medic out loud, looking from the terminal to the prone Seeker and then back again. What possible kind of weapon could Megatron had hoped to stop by putting this virus in the flier's vocaliser?
Typing a complex set of codes, the source revealed itself.
He was caught between gaping in astonishment and chuckling. Obviously Starscream's voice was more of a threat to all apart from delivering audial ringing shrieks. According to the scanner and subsequent code reveals, when Starscream went to a certain decibel and got the specialised reverberates in the sides of the vocaliser to resonate enough, they would actually shatter the thin filigree wires and metals that helped to make up mech's audials, as well as any other wires that thin, such as some in the processor. It was no wonder Megatron had the virus implanted. If Starscream had managed to scream loud enough, it would have been enough to incapacitate the warlord from deafness.
Deciding to lift the virus completely, Ratchet initialised the antivirus program and defrag.
When the Seeker woke up, he'd have to ask about that ability. It could be very useful in defeating the Decepticons at last.
Rumble pouted, sitting in the 'out' corner as Ravage ran around trying to tag Buzzsaw, who was only allowed to fly no more than five feet off the ground to keep it fair. He had been the first tagged and it sucked. He had been waiting for the past ten minutes for someone else to join him on the sidelines. He was bored.
At least, another two minutes later, Ravage finally managed to tackle his twin Frenzy, pinning the red and black cassette, effectively tagging him.
As his twin reached him, Rumble grinned and said, "About time, bro."
Frenzy grumbled, dropping heavily down and saying, "I would have gotten away with it if I hadn't have seen Blaster making googly optics at our creator."
The grin disappeared from the purple cassette and he blurted, "What?"
Pointing over to where Blaster was bobbing his helm as he listened to music in internal speakers, Frenzy said lowly, "Just watch 'im."
Rumble did, wondering what he was watching for. After all, Soundwave was next to Blaster, reading a datapad. On what, Rumble didn't know, but if he searched telepathically, he guessed it was something to do with comm. frequencies. He kept looking. They looked to be two friends chilling out while their creations had a ball playing tag.
"Zee, I don't-"
"Keep watchin'. He's gonna do this look…there!" he whispered excitedly as it happened.
The cassette twins could only watch as Blaster's helm turned ever so slightly to the side, looking in the direction of the visored mech, and smile this little, sappy smile, the blue optics going soft and affectionate. It wasn't there for but a few seconds, but it was enough for the twins.
"Oh…my…Primus," murmured Rumble.
"Yeah. Looks like Blaster's got the hots for our creator," Frenzy said flatly, crossing his arms as Blaster went back to his previous content expression.
Rumble bit his lip and muttered, "We can't know for sure."
"Mech, when a bot starts doing the googly optics like that, you know he's got it bad. Now the real problem is this. We can't let Wave know, and we gotta make sure that we keep an optic on Blaster. I don't want him to do anythin' to our Boss that he ain't gonna like, but agrees anyway cos it's Blaster. We gotta keep this real secret Rumble," Frenzy insisted, red visored gaze locking with his twin in complete sincerity.
Rumble sighed and asked, "Well, it means that when Wave is better that Blaster might make a move."
"Yeah. What do you reckon will happen? And besides, what do you think about? If it does happen, should we let it go ahead, or…eh…'sabotage' 'im?"
"It shouldn't matter as long as Soundwave is happy. If it does get to that, I reckon unless Blaster starts hurting him that we just let it go. Might be nice to have a second creator. As for what'll happen. Mech, I don't know. Dad's gettin' a bit hard to read nowadays," Rumble replied, slinging an arm around his twin and briefly embracing him to lock in the statement.
"But until then, keep an optic out."
"Agreed."
A/N: This was painful to write because my muse is heavily rebelling. I hope you liked 'Starscream's special ability.'
PLEASE REVIEW! I like to hear what you thought.