Chapter 2 - Gestalt
"We shouldn't be allowing this! To have one of those squishy fleshbags within our walls."
Onslaught sighed heavily, but allowed his gestalt mates to speak their mind. They could argue all they wanted to, the human was coming to live with them anyway.
At the moment Vortex was pacing around angrily, his rotors spinning from time to time. Swindle was sitting at the far side of the room, looking pretty smug, he was no doubt making a plan to sell the human. His first comment to the news had been: "there has been quite the demander for human slaves on the market lately."
After that the con-mech had sat down and stayed quiet. Brawl had been so angry that Onslaught had asked him to leave the room. Simply so the equipment wouldn't be damaged.
And it didn't come to any one's surprised that Blast Off's reaction was a simple shrug. The gestalt leader wasn't sure what he had to do to make the space shuttle just look like he cared.
"Enough, it will be as Megatron has said. The human will be part of this team and I expect all of you to not kill" he looked at Vortex and the helicopter scoffed "sell" her pointed at Swindle who lowered his head "or hurt it." The commander said making ready to leave the room "It should arrive in an hour, the storage room in the west wing will be it's room" he said and left his gestalt mates.
"Well, he said 'not kill, sell or hurt it' nothing about how to treat it" the 'copter smirked evilly, slowly a plan formed in his head. If they couldn't kick the fleshling out, they would just have to make it beg to come back to the Nemesis.
Aria looked sadly at her sister. "Do you have to go?" the girl's eyes tearing up.
"Tenth time you ask, and yes I have to" Maria was in the middle of finding her bag in the pile of garbage. "Where is it!" she hissed and dove into the pile.
"Can't you just ask to be transferred, the Combaticons are really dangerous" Aria said her voice shaking "Aria, they are all dangerous" her sister pointed out and threw a bag back at her. "That one is yours; mine should be around here then…"
"I know that, but… I heard that the Combaticons are really bad" the smaller one tried to reason. "Aren't you late?" her sister then asked and the little one froze. "I-I forgot!" Aria threw herself at her sister, hugging her goodbye "be careful" she whispered.
Marie snorted "please, it is me we are talking about!" Aria grinned "exactly why I worry" Marie pushed the girl off of her "off with you now, don't want to get in trouble."
The two sisters waved at each other and Marie finally found her bag. A drone came through the room and started picking up the other garbage. "What are you doing?" The human asked confused. "Order: dispose of unnecessary junk" it said simply.
Grabbing another bag the drone looked at her "this one is also mine, carry on with your duty" she smile sweetly at it and walked off with her new bag of treasures.
If the others weren't quick enough to grab their belongings it wasn't her problem. And as the drone said, it was junk, which meant that everyone could take it.
She moved down towards the hangar and sat on a crate, her orders were to wit here until someone came to take her to the Combaticon's personal base. "Great" she muttered, if the shit fell down between her and the cons, she would be screwed. If that happened, she hoped it would be on the supply day so she could get out of there fast.
"So you're the one that everyone is talking about" a voice snapped her back to reality, she turned her head to look up at a big silver and purple 'con. She tilted her head confused "pardon?"
The robot smiled or rather smirked "excuse me, where are my manners! I'm Astrotrain and I will fly you to the Combaticon's base" the shuttle introduced himself. "I'm Marie, nice to meet ya" she said and smiled back.
"What I meant was, that you must be really brave to agree to join the Combaticons, or really stupid" he added lowly, he signaled to a drone to raise the tower. It wasn't long till the hangar started moving upwards and the roof opened to show the lovely weather outside.
"Now, let's get moving" the 'con transformed and Marie slowly entered the shuttle, "come on up here, I don't bite" the shuttle said sniggering and Marie settled herself in the pilot seat. "Thank you" she muttered, fastening the seatbelt.
"No problem, You might need some moral support before going into that base" Astrotrain said grimly, "what do you mean? They can't be that bad" Marie said hopefully, the shuttle simply snorted and started his engines.
"Wanna bet? You have no idea what you are in for human" the human shuddered and the shuttle laughed. She didn't know why, but all of a sudden she wished she had asked for the transfer. "I'm sure it will be fine" the hope in her voice from before only just hung onto the words. She wasn't sure if she believed that herself.
Far too soon the shuttle landed "we are here" Marie perked up, and looked through the glass up at the tall metal building. She gulped and stood up, "thanks for taking me" she said nervously and stepped out. The engines roared and she watched as Astrotrain left with a heavy heart, not knowing that the Decepticon smirked upon seeing her distressed look.
Marie took a deep breath when she was alone and rapidly looked around the landing platform. The base was literally carved into the rocky dessert ground, and it was burning hot. She took hold of her bags and moved closer to the gigantic door. Before she could make it entirely over there it whooshed open, revealing a large con with missile launchers at his back, he wore a battle mask and an orange visor, making Marie unable to tell how he was feeling.
She stopped death in her tracks and stared up at the con, waiting for his order. She assumed from by the way he held himself, that this bot was her new commander: Onslaught.
"Welcome human, I am Onslaught your new commander." Marie opened her mouth to answer but the commander interrupted her. "Let me make something clear to you human, we do not need neither do we want you here."
"I have read your file and I see that you're more suited for paper work than field missions, which I think we all approve of." He snared, Marie snapped her mouth shut and looked at the ground. "You will have your own quarters in the west wing, which will be shown to you. You will be working in control tower, where all communication and monitor equipment also is set up. You are not permitted to go down the east wing."
He waited until Marie nodded on her head, showing that she understood. "Good. Now follow me and I will show you around" he turned and walked back into the base, Marie grabbed her bags and followed suit, hoping that her new commander would warm up eventually.
Onslaught started by showing her, her quarters, she was fairly disappointed to see that it was a messy storage room, which had a quick wash rack built into it and a makeshift bed on the floor, leaning against all the junk.
The commander was quick to move along, and Marie just had time to put down her bags before having to run to catch up with him. He then showed her to the control tower and told her where she was to work.
"How many are there on the crew? I wasn't passed much information" Marie asked curiously. Eyeing the commander nervously.
"Five; Blast Off, Brawl, Vortex, Swindle and myself. There are a couple of drones by they hardly do anything other than clean up and such." He answered calmly and checked the main computer.
Again she was disappointed to see that she got all the boring work, he told her that most of the crew rarely got up here and it was mostly before a battle they assembled up there. That meant that it would be some long, lonely work days.
She couldn't stop the scowl from appearing on her face, but quickly wiped it off; she didn't want to make him hate her more than he clearly already did.
He showed her the dining room, or recreation room which was pretty small. There was a human sized table set up in the far corner and she guessed that was for her. As they walked back towards her quarters they stopped briefly at the start of the east wing "This is the east wing, as I said before you are not permitted to go down there, if an emergency arises, call me over the comm."
Marie looked down in annoyance; this stay was getting worse by the minute. Her reaction did however not go unnoticed by Onslaught "It's for your own safety" he said and led her to her room.
"You have the rest of the day to settle in; I expect that you turn in for duty at 8 o'clock sharp in the morning. Food will be handed too you in the rec room at 6', 12' and 18 o'clock precisely, if you miss it you will have to wait for the next ration, there are no 'snacks' in between and Primus show you mercy if I catch you sleeping on the job. I expect of you to have fulfilled all of your duties before resting."
"If you have any questions, again contact only me, don't bother the others" with that the Combaticon commander turned and left. Marie stared speechlessly after him before entering her room, feeling utterly miserable. "Well that could have gone better… I hope that Aria is doing better than I am" the human sent a volatile thought to her sister at the Nemesis.
She glared at the junk pile in her room; it was nearly two in the afternoon. With determination she turned on the cold light in the dark quarter, and started clearing out the mess. She was very surprised when she found a build-in shelf in one of the walls. She had only cleared out a little bit when a knock sounded from her door.
Confused she made her way to it "didn't remember getting told they were well-mannered" she thought and opened up.
The woman was merrily surprised when she saw a drone stand at her door, it stared emptily down at her and she up at it. "H-hello?" she tried when it made no signal to talk. "Welcome to: Combaticons Headquarters." It said in a monotone.
Marie couldn't help but smile "thank you, that's very kind of you." The drone stood bombstill pointing to the pile of junk "offer: help to dispose?"
Marie looked over her shoulder and carefully nodded her head, the drone took a crate that had stood by the door and proceeded inside.
Marie wondered how in the world she could have missed a crate that big, and wondered if the drone had brought it for this sole purpose.
It started picking up the trash and dumping it in the crate. All the while Marie only stood and stared confused at it. When the crate was full the drone reached out for her, very gently, with open palm. The hand was clawed but the woman took the hint and stepped onto it.
She was gently placed on the top of the junk, where she sat down. The drone lifted the crate with ease and carried the human out. He walked further down the west wing and down to the cargo hold. "You aren't gonna throw me into the trash now, right?" Marie asked unsure if she should trust this being. "Negative" it said in the same monotone as before.
The silence was unbroken and it rung sharply in the humans sensitive ears. "What's your designation?" she asked when it set the crate down beside a pair of others. She jumped down from it and followed the drone out again, the drone grabbed another empty crate and briefly looked back at her "Decepticon army drone nr. 7532374327963-"
"No" the human interrupted. "Your designation, your name" she defined with a growl. The drone stopped for a minute, like it was thinking over it. "Designation: none" it then said and started walking again, like it didn't matter.
"Doesn't it bother you that you don't have a name?"
"Negative"
"Hmm… It would bother me" the human said, "what should I call you?"
There was silence for a moment before someone shouted "DRONE!" It took a moment for Marie to figure out that it was the drone who had replayed a recorded clip, and she unintentionally bursted out laughing.
They made it back to her room, and once again the drone continued. When Marie tried to help him, he shooed her gently away, taking the task upon himself.
They repeated this several times; until they had carried the last crate down to the cargo hold. Marie was talking quietly to the silent drone when a new voice interrupted them. "Then I take my precious time coming down here to meet our new team member, and she's more busy talking to a drone" it was a happy voice, but a twist of annoyance underlined it.
Marie looked up to see a red visored, silver mech stood by her door. One his back was four gigantic rotors, all spinning softly. The drone bowed it's head and walked off, like it hadn't just spent two hours, helping her clean up.
Marie looked curiously at the new mech and tried with a smile. "Hello, I'm Marie" she greeted. The con groaned and knelt by her, still being twice her height. "What a small thing you are" he commented and Marie wasn't sure if it was an insult or a simply statement. "I'm Vortex and you better remember it" he snared, giving her the elevator look before growling, his rotors had picked up in speed and suddenly a mad smile spread on his face.
"I was thinking maybe you would like to play a game with me?"
The human's confusion shone in her eyes and the mech's grin grew wider. "Yeah, I have it all set up down in the east wing, why don-"
"I'm sorry" Marie quickly said getting worried by the mech's behavior and strange smile. "Onslaught said I couldn't go down the east wing" she defended when Vortex snarled. The 'copter seemed surprised by the excuse, and eventually the mad smile disappeared. "I see" he said, sounding almost disappointed.
"It's for your own safety" the sentence echoed in her head as the helicopter turned and walked away. It was first then the cared mech was out of sight, that she let go of the breath she realized she had been holding.
More calmly than she felt she walked into her, now clean, room. She smiled and noted that she would have to thank the drone for his help. The room hadn't turned out to be much larger, but she didn't mind, it was kinda pleasant to have a small room.
She inspected the wash racks and found it very well built. "How long have they known I would be coming?" she asked nobody and walked back into the room. She moved the bed to lie against the far wall in the corner. She had been lucky that an old drawer had been in the pile.
She moved it to stand at the foot end of the makeshift bed, and started filling it with her clothes and belongings. The build in shelf also got a few decorative and it didn't take long before the small room looked inhabited.