Wait for Me Chapter 3: Spark-drone, a transformers fanfic

Generations of Primes rose and fell as time marched on, never halting for anyone. Time did not heal wounds; it simply scabbed them over and buried them.

But they never healed.

The remaining Originals buried the Fallen's prison and passed the reigns on to Nova, Nemesis and Jhiaxus; it was done within the cycle they returned to Cybertron. They then faded out of sight as they hid away and came to terms with what had happened; Vector kept his distance, though allowed Safeguard to interact as the minicon pleased. Of everyone, Vector seemed to be the most adjusted. Rung theorised that it was likely because of the minicon there to act as an anchor. No-one knew and no-one cared.

Rung changed his frame and name then slipped into Cybertronian society without a backwards glance. Several Seekers followed him out of loyalty and treated him like a Prime, and perhaps in Whirl's mind, the Lord Protector was. Rung was there in history, but he avoided conflicts as best he could. Involving himself wasn't an option for many reasons, and by the end of the 3rd Dynasty, he'd made a niche for himself under a new name and new life. It wouldn't last forever but if Rung wanted to delude himself, then so be it.

Logos didn't care what their sibling units did as long as they left them alone. The pain from the broken, aching links faded with time, but they left damage.

They'd been driven to the edge of madness.

It didn't matter. None of it mattered anymore after what had happened, of what they had been through.

Revenge wouldn't bring back what was missing. Nor would it take away the pain of the broken links. Nothing would.

So, Logos dove headlong into experimentations with coding. Over the teravorns that followed, hundreds of frames were created and imbued them with life. Almost all of them were failures. Perhaps because of a defect, or a glitch in the code. Hatchlings that failed to thrive. A bad third instar moult had once resulted in a hideously deformed frame -discarded without a thought; the thing was twisted and of little use. Guttered sparks that didn't take to the new shells as expected. The drone coding strangled the spark at some point, or other such nonsense. Some had been turned loose, yet, no. Logos had enough deactivated shells to provide a reasonable conclusion of certain death for each experiment.

But each error and setback proved insightful, never mind the number of moves to avoid being caught. It seemed the children considered experimentation on hatchlings to be... crass. Crude. Simply not done.

Logos was a god to them, and status gave them the right to do as they wished.

Sometimes, the experiment simply exploded, leaving a charred wreck of a frame behind. The last one had been that.

But not this one. Logos had changed the designs and upgraded the newest hatchling while still in its pod, kept in stasis throughout the process and it seemed to have helped. The coding modifications had been copied from another hatching – a telepathic technopath who'd died in one of the earlier experiments – then amplified and refined. The simulations had proven it to be a success.

And now the readouts that monitored the blue form as the protective gel drained away proclaimed the same.

Cybertron's first created technopath would need a name fitting for it and its role.

Unit designation: ...|

The visor flared red as the spark took to the frame and coding.

Within kliks the bootup sequence completed and the one standing above nodded in satisfaction. The newly onlined mech allowed himself to be hauled up, protocols identifying the odd Cybertronian as his master.

Data streamed in and the new technopath could do nothing but let it wash over him. The thoughts and voices of the masses were open to him – his master's mind open – and for several kliks, he struggled to control the impulse to reach out and read the data. To pillage the minds of all around him for information.

He failed.

His senses brushed against his master's mind -

/Happiness smug-pleasure-and-pride lots-of-pride exasperation-and-amusement-at-newest-toy - pain-pain-pain loss not-whole-never-whole-again loss-of-stabilising-forces hurt blame-falls-on-Prima revenge-desired no wait-watch-learn create-more-experiments newest-toy-is-success it-will-help this-is-good –/

-he physically reeled back from the onslaught of information that a single word contained. It was like a web, meaning spread out before him, but every new word brought more meaning until the web was impossible to navigate, let alone make sense of.

It left him with a processor ache and he wisely withdrew, shaking his head as if that would help. His back rippled as tentacles retracted into the protective casing that was his frame.

His master chuckled. "We must leave."

The new mech didn't question, simply obeyed the order from his master. He stumbled yes, but soon found his legs and hurried after the Prime, even as he heard the thoughts of mechoids nearby and the temptation to reach out with his sensors yet again and glean what information he could hovered in front of him still.

He was a technopath. One of those feared by Cybertronians. Why?

It wasn't important. Reading another's mind right now wasn't important. He'd defend himself if needed, but the hows and whys of the technicalities he now faced were unimportant. The important data was in his datatracks. He accessed it, even as they walked through the tunnels of Iacon. He'd created to serve. He was the eyes and ears, the ultimate spy for his master.

He was created –coded– a technopath for that reason. He found no reason not to believe that.

He found he liked the idea. But then, why shouldn't he? He was a drone, granted a spark so that he might take initiative on the mission and better serve his master, but he was a drone at the core. To dislike a mission was foolish. Unthinkable.

Blasphemy and treachery weren't something he'd been created for.

Slowly, they moved away from the cacophony of thoughts and voices and information, all save one, but he would never read that mind again; it was forbidden. The initial reading had been expected. How could something so new control its powers in the first breams of life. But now the time had passed, he was expected – no, commanded – to never read Logos' mind again.

The drone would obey.

It took them cycles to leave the confines of the city. The drone didn't understand why his master didn't use their powers. The drone didn't question though.

"Your first two." His master pointed out into the wilds that teamed with life.

Menagerie units. The Sparkdrone tilted his head to the side. There were a lot of choices he could have. "Options: Limited?"

"No."

The spark-drone nodded. He didn't need to know what was going on. He simply scanned the wilds, picking out what he felt would work.

His scans fell on a cybercat and cyberhawk; he didn't think, simply send a subsonic blast to disorientate them. "Units: Selected."

His master nodded and the blueish satellite made his way to the fallen animals. His master followed, but the drone didn't care. If the Prime was curious, then so be it. A glance over the animals and the technopath nodded.

"Unit designates: Ravage. Laserbeak. Acceptable?"

"Yes."

He nodded and placed a hand over their heads as tendrils of wire slithered out and embedded themselves into the mechnoids helms. Modifying them was a simple enough task given all he had to do was reach in and tamper with core coding. The more invasive modifications and upgrades would have to wait until he had the means, but already he was uploading the required data. The primitive intellect they had was ruthlessly pushed aside, as were their complaints of pain.

They were his; what they wanted, right now, did not matter. What he, the master wished, was far more important.

The coding for the links took. He'd known they would. No-one would ever deny him. Why should they, when he was one of the most powerful psions on the face of Cybertron? Later, far, far later, he'd come to know the only one that surpassed him. For now, that mechanoid was but a far-off glimmer in the threads of a destiny.

Something akin to pleasure wormed its way into his field as the first of what would be a dozen menagerie-links stirred to life, pulsing with confusion and fear.

The technopath touched their minds, calming them with ease.

"Come. Trypticon awaits."

"As you command, Master Prime." He held his arm out and the cyberhawk landed on it, wings half mantled as he reached up to stroke it - her. A female? No matter. It changed nothing.

Ravage kept pace beside them with ease as they walked through the wilds, and the sparkdrone tilted his head as he regarded both. Just as he was the eyes and ears to a Prime, these menagerie-units would be his eyes and ears. There would be nothing he did not know.

| Soundwave.
... Superior.|