Been here before
13
New Master was here. Master's Brother as well.
No harm could come…
That was the same statement he had believed before. Before Hot Spot had retreated from battle, Hot Spot, who had always been the superior they unconditionally followed.
Hot Spot had abandoned the Protectobots with the fake promise that he would bring reinforcements. He never returned.
The four limb-mechs were broken and subdued by the victorious Decepticons. Who knew what had happened to the others? When his slave code had forcibly been activated, he lost contact with his gestalt mates. Streetwise's last encouragements still echoed in his audials. Groove also went down fighting. Blades? Blades was the lucky one, he'd been given to Skywarp, that duo was seen soaring the Decepticon-ruled homeland's skies like that was the most natural thing to do.
"Master…"
With every interface, he was forced to remember Hot Spot's parting words, Blades' betrayal, Groove's futile sacrifice.
"Master…!"
"I'm here. But you know my name. Just as you know my brother's."
"Leader... Leader, don't leave me alone…"
14
"Do you remember your gestalt's name?"
Shine stood up from the berth, and moved to the corner of the room, so that he could get a better view on anything going south. So far, he had only observed the medic's interface opening again. No other sign of desire. Yet.
"Protectobots. Defensor. I'm certain I had no memory from before onlining on Earth. Streetwise had often asked how we were made, and we were always told that it was mostly from Earth materials. So I think it's all right that I don't have memory of anything preceding that."
He fell silent, suppressing a moan. He tried to fix his gaze on Leader's optics, but it somehow always sank to his crotch area again. "I never asked. If our sparks and cogs and B-modules had been placed in new frames with no memories, I'm certain the Autobots had done that for our own good."
"Well, if you say so…" Shine inserted sarcastically.
"Ignore my brother. I think he never heard about a blissful deletion."
The medic now looked up at his owner's face effortlessly. "Do you think I was functioning previously? Here? I mean… On Cybertron? Away from Earth?"
"I think so, mech. What do you know about gestalt technology?"
"All that was available for the medics."
"History?" Shine queried.
"Decepticon invention." He didn't really care to learn more.
The two chrome mechs exchanged odd looks. Silence fell on the three of them.
"Yes, Decepticon invention," Leader sighed. "When their uprising started, they fought against the rich, the powerful…Many of whom were slave-keepers. This left the 'Cons with quite a lot of former slaves among their lines. They had an army of mechs with unstable programming, and in such situations, original morals and ideas bend incredibly under demands of a powerful military."
"Were… Were the first gestalts all slaves?" the mech asked.
"First? No, medic. Not the first. All of them. Once you're created with it, slave coding cannot be eradicated. It can be twisted, it can be modified, ownership data can be manipulated. Sometimes the spark's own integrity code contradicts it on a level that practically results in an independent mech…"
"You're being preached by one such glitchbrain," Shine interjected.
"Independent mech," Leader repeated, seemingly ignoring his co-molded's comment. "But the coding is still there at the base. Creating fighting units where the members are literally limbs of a central mechanism was desirable for various reasons. Most importantly, because their coding was present anyway, and it provided a potential danger. Cog told me it takes a lot of skill and experience to steal one mech's ownership from another, while a feral's code can be triggered by as much as a few careless words."
"Were we… Were we all…The central mechs too?" The medic's valve spasmed, but little did he care about it.
"No. They were the one the limbs would imprint on."
"Did… Do you think Hot Spot knew it? Did he know he was leaving us in Decepticon hands with slave coding that only needed a skilled hacker to bind all of us?"
Leader fell silent. He didn't know what to say.
"As an Autobot-made Autobot, I doubt he did. But that's just my half-shanix," Shine mused. "Your loop is getting rather active again."
"I'm trying to control it. I'm a medic, and as such…"
As a medic, he should have known that identifying himself as a medic would only spin his own desire for Leader's spike completely out of his control.