"Ironforge?"
Cybershock called out the name quietly – growing just a bit uneasy as she drove further into the ruins around her.
The place she drove through – carefully as she could manage to, with her small wheels rolling over endless debris – was at the 'east end' of the once massive city she called her home. But it was little more than rubble now – and the endless remains of tall imposing buildings that stood, still crumbling around her as she drove, followed the remains of what was once a roadway.
She shouldn't have been there at all. The youngling knew that much! And she knew exactly why, as a sheet of jagged window glass – large and thin, and fully blocking the road it lay across, crunched and then snapped and shattered under her tries. She shuddered – well aware that the place was more than just a little bit dangerous. But she was searching carefully for the young Predacon, who she'd promptly lost sight of, as he flew into the ruins himself, promptly vanishing into the darkness, around the side of some high structure that had once been an energon refinery!
She saw his shadow then – a miniature flying beastly shape against the nearly hidden rays of the sun high above. And with a triumphant laugh, she turned sharply, off the sheet of splintered glass and around a corner to her left, puffs of exhaust following behind her as she pushed her little engine just a little harder.
"Caught ya!" Cybershock called out, laughing when she heard him land nearby. And she rolled up carefully, then stopped to transform into her bot-mode, watching him for a moment as he kneeled on the dust-covered ground, his hands at the edges of a pile of all manner of junk that fully blocked that section of the roadway.
The little Predacon laughed, with his back toward her.
"Impressive driving, Cybershock," he said. His hands yanked a metal bar free from the pile of rubble, causing bits of glass and a few twisted bits of frayed cable to tumble down the side of the wreckage. But the entire thing otherwise remained stable as he began to cautiously kick the pile with a sharp-clawed foot.
Cybershock laughed for a moment – uneasy, as she looked up, high over her head at the twisted, broken spires of several once near-identical towers reached far above the ruins. She shuddered again, her optics intent on a crumbling balcony many floors up, halfway to detached from the side of a partly still intact wall and at clear risk of crashing to the ground below to cause an accident that could be certain death.
"Not nearly as impressive as your flying skills are," she said. And she hopped backward, dramatically, landing on the edge of the rubble pile – her legs swinging casually as she sat perched on top of something that may well have once been a commercial-grade energon dispenser.
"What are you doing in here?" she asked the Predacon, looking down at him intently, as he tossed the bar behind him, letting it land with a resounded clang against the rough metal of the ground.
She shouldn't have been near him at all. And she knew that just as much as she knew of the dangers of the wreckage. She'd heard her creator's firm warning against it – and she was not exactly known for disobeying either him or her carrier when they said anything so serious and fully important. But still, she stayed where she was standing – her optics taking in the details of the devastated neighborhood, and the side profile of the Predacon now standing within it – because in her spark, she couldn't help herself regardless.
"Salvaging."
Ironforge's answer was simple and matter-of-fact – his tone one of a young bot, oblivious to any real risk. And Cybershock remembered that she'd asked him a question at all, only once he'd answered it. He pulled another bent bar free from the pile – straightening it out between his hands with some clear effort, even as a small wave of busted junk tumbled down around his feet.
"We can use these to reinforce our home's inner walls," he explained. The bar, which he tossed easily behind him, landed with a loud and echoing clank the on roadway. And the Predacon youngling shrugged once before his attention returned again to the pile. "Anything too bent up, we can melt it down for metal... and then build with that."
"These ruins belong to the Autobots," Cybershock said – uncommitted to fully caring less even as she spoke. "So, these junk piles do too."
She watched, instantly regretting her near-thoughtless words, when Ironforge turned his head just a little, his hand pausing, momentarily hesitant over the pile now with conflict clear in the tension of his frame. Cybershock dug through the pile for a moment herself, quickly locating two more almost-straight metal bars, before she tossed them unceremoniously onto the others in the middle of the street. She shrugged then, sighing – dirtying her own once-shinning paint in an instant, and scrapping her knees just to grab another one from underneath a twisted, broken window frame. Because the Predacon was her friend – or at least she hoped he one day could be. And his own people needed the metal perhaps more than her own then.
"Thanks," the Predacon youngling muttered, smiling when he looked up again from his work – turning to face her this time as she looked back at him – reveling the chipped paint of his faceplate right along with two horrible cracks down the right side-seam of his metal.
"What happened to you?" Cybershock questioned, choking back her near-instant gasp of dismay. But the Predacon just looked at her, shrugging again before he laughed a little, nervously.
"Slipped, while searching for construction bolts," he said simply. And he shrugged just a little a little – just as though a faceplate cracked down to the mesh, because indeed his so obvious was, was hardly worth a second thought. "Tried to catch myself. And... I did. or... at least I did at first."
Ironforge gave another tiny almost-laugh – rubbing at his faceplate now in a way that was surely unconscious, before his attention went right back to the junk heap. He grabbed for a large sheet of copper plating, bent at the edges. And he nodded, gratefully when Cybershock instantly helped him, shoving from the far end of the piece until it came loose and slid down the side of the pile.
"Well... that sounds like a sure way to fall flat onto your faceplate," Cybershock said, seriously
And for a long moment, the Predacon looked at her – pausing in mid-reach for another long metal bar half-buried in the rubble – with a strange impossible-to-read expression on his faceplate. Finally, he laughed just a little himself – a just slightly uneasy and strange kind of laugh as he smiled her way.
"Yeah..." he said, in a voice just barely tinged with hesitation. "It is..."
"That looks... pretty bad," Cybershock muttered the words thoughtfully and hesitantly, as she looked again at the Predacon's damaged faceplate. She sat back down on the junk pile then. And her optics watched him intently, as he reached for another bit of scrap. She saw all too clearly, the extent of the cracks along his faceplate – energon dried over it in a bluish mess, and many smaller scraps and scratches covering the rest of the entire right side.
"You should really have that looked at I would think..." Cybershock smiled, confidant through her growing concern as she spoke again.
But Ironforge shook his head slowly – looking down toward the ground now as he stumbled just a little before he fast regained his balance in the shifting junk heap. He reached up to his faceplate again, touching it lightly – just barely reacting with a look of obvious discomfort from the damage – before he sighed and went on sifting through the wreckage.
"I can't do that Cybershock," he said simply. And his tone was one of finality as he tossed another bar toward the pile of them forming on the ground.
"You could... go into the city, and to the hospital!" Cybershock was determined now – even if the Predacon himself so clearly was not. "Any one of the medics will fix you right up. And.. my creator is the younglings' medic! He'd help you in a second because he'd help anyone... I'll take you there!"
Ironforge, however, just shook his head again – sighing once and rubbing at his so clearly pained faceplate – before he reached back down toward the junk pile, digging for another nearly straightened bar of metal.
"Medical centers were built for your people, Cybershock," the youngling Predacon muttered, serious and final in his tone, before he sighed again and yanked the bar free with effort. "Not for my own..."
Cybershock sat down on the top of the junk heap. And for a long moment, she just stayed that way – staring off into the endlessness of the wreckage around her. The Predacon was right. And she knew that – even if it had only just occurred to her fully when he'd spoken the truth. She never had seen a Predacon inside the hospital – which she spent some decent time visiting simply because of her creator's profession. She'd never seen one in the marketplace either... or near the playground, or even in the sweet shop. And for the first time, it occurred to her that this truly was because they were entirely unwelcome.
"Will you... be okay?" she asked – extending a hand to her fellow youngling, urging a break from his work in her urgent hope that that would be enough to do him even just a little bit of good.
She opened her storage compartment then – recalling it's contents in an instant. And she grinned brightly as she pulled out a wrapped powdered-energon and iron cake – a snack she'd grabbed from a stack of them made that morning by her carrier, because they were her very favorite. She recalled the stack full well in her processor – piled on a tray beside the energon dispenser, drizzled in reds and blues and greens of so many different rendered metal powders, collected for their boldest of colors... sold in the market... purchased with excitement by much of the city's population. And with a growing grin, she shoved the one she'd brought along into the hands of the injured Predacon.
"You'd think you haven't fueled much in days!" she remarked, laughing at first, when Ironforge devoured the snack in just a few fast bits, and with his expression truly grateful. But she stopped laughing at once, when he failed to join in, and instead sat looking down at the ground in his own too-clear despair.
Thud!
The young bot's body hit the mats hard, to lay for a moment where Bulkhead had thrown him – in a scuffed, purple-painted heap, groaning for a moment while he rubbed at his shoulder.
"Sorry, man," Bulk' said, muttering the words in his obvious remorse as he reached out with a big green hand to help his young opponent to his feet.
"It's..." the purple-painted student fighter looked at the floor for a moment – his unease more than clear for a long and dragging moment, until he looked the Autobot in the optics, taking his offered hand slowly. "It's.. all good."
"You were hesitant." Soundwave walked toward the pair of them, addressing the purple student as he did so – his red optics locked intently on the young bot's blue ones, and his tone every bit as serious as the expression on his faceplate. "For a second I thought you would block. Then I thought you might attack. And then it was clear that you hadn't decided for yourself on which one before he was already swinging."
"Right..." the young bot rubbed again at his shoulder before he returned Soundwave's look. And his tone was serious himself, if not still uncertain. "Think faster... got it."
"Try it again," Soundwave said, encouraging now as he stepped closer to the younger bot, then nodded to Bulkhead – who nodded back only after a long and hesitant moment in which he so clearly considered.
And Soundwave watched then carefully, pleased when his young student headed his advice at once, this time holding his hands up in front of him, committing fully to a blocking move, as Bulkhead lunged at him. The purple student paused then, optics black and showing no a thing of his intended move, before he spun sideways out of the way, nearly sending his 'attacker' stumbling forward into his knees, before kicking him lightly in the side panel.
"Very good!" Soundwave said loudly, over the sounds of metal banging lightly against metal all around him, as he turned to watch his other students practice in their own paired matches.
He nodded once to each of the two combatants – well matched in fighting style and level of ability, as each blocked and kicked and tried as hard as the other, both managing a hit here and there while both stayed fully on their feet. And then, thinking fast, and barely even looking, he stepped sideways – catching one among the youngest of his little group, stopping her gently as she trembled, distracted from the edge of the mats in a clumsy set of backward flips.
"Stay on the mats," he told her, as he stood her upright in a single motion, spun her around so she faced her own opponent again, and let himself laugh just a little as he did so.
"Soundwave! Watch this, watch this!"
He turned, amused, to Bulkhead's small adopted youngling – watching intently as she trained with a hanging punching bag in the corner of the gym. Switchgear was simply too young for any real fighting – she certainly couldn't practice with any one of the adult students who gathered weekly in the training gym. But she showed true potential regardless of her age. And Soundwave watched her for a moment as she jumped to kick the bag twice before landing again on her feet, to then punch it three times, hard enough to send it swinging wildly.
"Stand up straighter," Soundwave told the youngling. And he carefully rested his hands on the sides of her small frame – daring to do so only because he knew full well that the youngling daughter of his trusted friend – had long felt safe in his presence. He pulled her up straight, then smiled as she held the position while he placed her hands back into a striking stance.
"Try again, Switch'," he told the youngling with a nod toward the bag. "Hit like you mean it, and follow through fully, before you move to hit again."
"Okay!" The youngling bot replied. And she followed the instruction with impressive skill, before she paused again, to grin up at him with youngling confidence showing fully on her faceplate.
"Soundwave."
The well-familiar voice of Ultra Magnus, speaking from somewhere behind him, made him turn around at once. And he found the police captain quickly, standing by the wall, close beside the open door of the gym – his body held in a calm and easy stance, as he watched the students with his own approving look.
"Can you spare a moment?" he asked, easily. And Soundwave nodded without hesitation, waving toward Bulkhead, directing him without a single word, to please take over with supervising the still hard-at-practice group.
"I must say, Soundwave," Ultra Magnus tipped his head toward the bots inside the gym, as he lead his subordinate outside of it and into the hallway. "They are certainly doing well." He rested a hand on Soundwave's shoulder panel firmly, and stood for a moment, simply looking him in the optics with a look that was more certainly pride and approval.
"Of course," he said cheerfully, "much of the credit for their success is owed to their teacher."
"Thank you, Sir," Soundwave muttered the formality while he watched the little group of his students again. And finally, when it was clear that his mentor was waiting for more than just that simple formality, he spoke up again, somewhat hesitantly.
"I... must say, Sir, despite my initial doubts, you were right."
"Oh?"
The police captain was so clearly interested, curious, and fully pleased with himself all at once. He stayed quiet. And Soundwave understood quickly that he was waiting to hear more.
"Some of them..." Soundwave looked toward the purple-painted refugee still sparing with Bulkhead – faceplate down on the mats yet again, and jumping at once back up onto his feet with obvious determination. And his optics moved then to the pair in the middle of the room – big brutish barely-adults, who he recalled so easily having locked into cells more times than he could count in the past several years. "Trouble makers... the up and coming criminals of New Cybertron... I'm more than a little convinced now that they did indeed need some way in which to better direct their pent-up rage at the world."
"Of course a few others..." he looked toward the youngest of the student combatants – practicing again at her clumsy back-flip maneuvers and doing just a little better at it now. "They're just relishing the chance to see what they can do, now well away from the refugee ships."
"You made an excellent call, enlisting Bulkhead as your training assistant," Ultra Mangus said, with another look of genuine approval. "I understand he's also started teaching construction to a couple of these bots." He laughed just the slightest bit as he watched the mentioned bot – clearly just barely growing comfortable with the thought of 'beating on' the refugees, despite their voluntary status as his sparring partners – help his newest opponent back onto his feet after knocking him down.
"Another one I haven't seen in the lock-up cells for a good while now..." Soundwave mused as he watched the young student – a dark blue and bright white painted bot, known not long before, for petty theft and far too many threats involving charged blasters in other bots' faceplates.
"Kid's finally got himself an honest job with housing maintenance," Ultra Magnus said. And Soundwave followed his idle gaze along the corridor, watching curiously as the police captain protectively watched a pair of youngling girls – forth-frames clearly, and nearing their adult years – walked together, amid a laughing conversation in the public hallway, moving toward the records office.
One youngling stopped first – a blue and white one with an unmistakable resemblance to the one the pair of police-bots had just been discussing. And her friend – painted yellow and red and perfectly polished, stopped only to follow her gaze. The two young ones promptly started giggling, exchanged inaudible whispers while looking oddly in the direction of the police-bots, and then giggled again just a little louder.
"Good evening, young ladies," Soundwave said in polite if not truly awkward, uncertain formality. And for the many responses, he might have expected, a further fit of giggling – particularly from the blue and white one now, while her friend grabbed her playfully by the arm and pulled her fast around a corner - was certainly not it.
"What was that about?"
Soundwave looked toward his supervisor as he muttered the words. And he didn't even bother to hide his baffled confusion then, because he knew, surely just as well as anyone that there was little point in even trying to. Ultra Magnus, to his utter dismay just stood for a long moment, shaking his head in his own obvious amusement.
"Sir?" Soundwave muttered that word just as much as he'd muttered the first. And his dismay only grew when the police captain started to laugh openly.
"Soundwave," Ultra Magnus placed a heavy hand back onto his shoulder panel. And for a long moment, he just stood, clearly, and most uncharacteristically amused. "It would seem that you, my friend, are now on the receiving end of a harmless youngling crush!"
Soundwave only shook his head, bewildered for the briefest moment, before he simply turned his attention away from the still retreating younglings entirely, to look instead back at his commander.
"I assume you have an assignment for me, Sir?"
"Scrapheap," Ultra Magnus said at once, surprising Soundwave with his answer. He paused briefly, then added urgently, "I realize you have... negative history, with that bot to say the least. But I've received multiple reports from various residents of building three about him prowling around there at all hours of the night – usually intoxicated and generally being a particularly obnoxious kind of nuisance." The police captain lowered his voice just a little, looking around himself cautiously as the group of trainee fighters began to leave the gym with their practice now over. "Bulkhead lives in building three with his adopted daughter, correct?"
When Soundwave nodded, instantly concerned, the police captain continued on. And his voice was quieter still as more bots spilled from the gym, in a small wave of colored paint-jobs and lively conversations. "I just need you to keep an optic on the situation for now. It doesn't take much reasoning to assume he's carefully watching his creation – well as carefully as one can do anything while nearly falling over drunk, anyway. And we obviously can't arrest or even fine him for just being close to a building. The most we've got him for so far is public drunkenness. And that would hardly have him in the lock-up for more than a day. But I don't like him. I don't trust him. And I know full well that you don't either."
"Indeed I don't," Soundwave muttered the reply, as he hid his sudden great unease behind a slow and deliberate intake of air. "I'll... keep a close optic on him."
Stormwave was tired that evening. And Firestorm was glad of that fact, simply because she was so tired herself.
It was all she could do just to keep working – sketching on the data-film that lay across her living room table, while her tiny son recharged close by, comfortable and bundled into his little basket by the window.
Firestorm was also freezing cold – an odd state for a bot to be in, even if it was not fully impossible. And she pulled her soft and warm blanket – her favorite one in a pale blue color, and a recent gift from her bondmate – tighter around her upper frame as she worked.
There was a mistake in her simple, rough sketch. She saw it, all too slowly, after she'd studied it and then done so again for too many long moments.
Speed, performance, and horsepower. That's what her paintshop client had asked her for, in formal Cybertronian code. And now she saw, to her greatest of dismay and frustration, that she'd so clearly sketched out performance entirely wrong. She double-checked the reference image on a datapad beside her on the table, huffed in her annoyance with a shake of her head, and dropped the pad again, to shake her head once more over her silly mistake.
She insisted to herself for a good, convincing moment that the mistake was completely understandable. After all she – like so many of the refugees she'd gown up among – could barely read or type in formal code, let alone sketch the most basic of the words by hand. But then, it hardly took a hint of any real education to simply copy something from a data pad, and she knew that too. Sure, the growing lack of mental focus, the steady short bouts of pounding somewhere inside her head, and the periodic blurring of her vision did nothing for her ability to accurately draw!
She shook her head again, fighting back the mental fog that threatened her with a vengeance, and pulled the blanket tighter around her as her internal temperature dropped just a little more. She was still shaking her head, just the slightest bit, when the apartment door slid open, and then quickly closed again, followed by light and careful footsteps.
"Firestorm!"
Soundwave called her name quietly, carefully. And he stepped into the living room on still-so-quiet feet, looking around quickly until his optics found the baby, sure enough still fast asleep inside his simple basket in the corner.
"I thought so," he said quietly, of the little bot. And he smiled in his son's direction for a long and peaceful moment, before he looked toward his mate.
"I'm home late tonight, I know. I'm sorry, Firestorm."
"Your work is important," Firestorm replied, easily. Because though she certainly did miss him when he was away, and particularly later in the evening, she understood it all the same.
Her visuals chose that very moment to flash through a wide range of colors in alarming succession – from blue into green, to yellow and orange, and then into red – and all while her audial receptors buzzed loudly before ringing in a high and irritating pitch. And she sat where she was, unmoving, on the living room sofa, forcing her faceplate into a smile of interest. Because through the buzzing and ringing, she could hear the slightest hints of her mate's voice as he went on speaking to her. And thouhg the flashing colors she could see him grinning at their still-recharging baby nearby.
Her vision and her hearing cleared again. And when both had fully done so, she saw him now close beside her – his faceplate just the slightest bit concerned as he sat down on the sofa.
"You are... not well today," he muttered. And his optics looked her over carefully now, his gaze falling on the blanket, which Firestorm was glad now hid her once-again shaking hands.
"I'm fine," she answered. And a gaze at her still-present work on the table hid her hesitation behind simple distraction instead. "I'm just..." she fidgeted with the soft of the blanket's underside – glad to know she was at least not lying in the least when she added slowly, "just a little cold is all."
"Hmm..." Soundwave muttered the sound under his intakes. But he sounded less than convinced. And he looked her over again, slowly – his attention pulled away only when Stormwave began to fuss just the slightest bit inside the basket.
The fussing worsened quickly, becoming the slight and tiny urgent cry of a hungry baby needing fuel. And Soundwave stood to pick him up at once, sitting back down again – feeding bottle in the hand not supporting the weight of the baby, and the happy little smile on his faceplate just as much as it always was when he held the tiny youngling.
"How was training tonight?" Firestorm questioned, just as much out of genuine interest as to redirect their conversation far away from herself.
She never heard his answer though – because the ringing noise inside her head returned then. And she could only stay seated where she was, struggling with the greatest of her efforts just to smile and nod, in a way she hoped was truly convincing until the ringing sounds gave way to a horrifying burst of pain inside her processor.
It didn't go away this time – at least not nearly as quickly as it most often did. And she looked around the room, her vision turning to a hazy blur from fast worsening discomfort, while she forced another smile. That smile didn't last. It couldn't. And when the pain finally did fade again, she found her bondmate looking down at her far-from-perfect work with confusion in his optics.
"I.. don't understand," he said. And even with his voice still distorted as it was, as the pain further faded, the level of uncertainty and bafflement within it was fully unmistakable. "Speed... window... and horsepower?"
Firestorm only laughed it off – glad for once of her lack of any real education. Because that was still an easy excuse for her ridiculous mistake. And besides, hearing it literally translated – something she could have actually done, despite knowing it was in fact incorrect, was at least a little bit funny.
The med-bay was quiet, at least for the moment. And Ratchet - taking advantage of a break in the usual and expected chaos of his workplace – stood in the far corner, busy sanitizing a few small pieces of his equipment.
He was in a strangely good mood that day. He hummed under his intakes, as he loaded the sanitizer, pressed the start button, and promptly turned back around to gather his next batch of items from the nearby worktable, to toss them carefully into the loading tray.
He wandered away then, toward the room's only window. And for a long moment, he just stood looking out.
A group of younglings played in the courtyard – a welcome sight as ever, and one becoming all too common now. And the old medi-bot smiled, laughing to himself as the young bots played their game – divided up into two teams it seems, as he watched them for a moment. And they kicked around a large red ball, laughing and shouting as they did so – several of them trying hard to keep it away from several others, while they passed it to their teammates, with powerful kicks and fast-thinking throws.
Ratchet recognized Hotwire at once – a far-moving yellow streak of motion, running for the ball in hot pursuit of Runway, who tossed the ball around between his hands, keeping it moving as he looked around fast for someone to pass to. And there was Switchgear. The medic found her just as quickly. And Cybershock too – both young ones laughing together as they cheered for their friend, who'd finally succeeded in intercepting the ball before Takeoff could catch it. Switch' caught it without missing a beat. And with a dramatic jump, she passed it off to Speedtrap, who gave it back to Hotwire... who quickly lost it to Headlight. Said bot then kicked it clear across the courtyard in a single move.
Blastwave was out there too. Ratchet smiled brighter when he spotted him – because that young bot was actually participating in the game. He caught the flying ball with both of his hands. And quickly he began to run, tossing it from hand to hand as takeoff had done. In the next mere second, he was running from Switchgear - who made no secret at all, with her determined dash after him, of wanting the ball back for her own team.
"Blast' is a flier. He could outrun her all too easily in his alt-mode and he knows it..." The voice, chuckling with easy laughter beside him made Ratchet turn away from the window at once. And he chuckled himself, to see Soundwave now intently watching the younglings' game himself.
"Well that would surely be cheating," the medic replied, with a laugh. He watched Soundwave nod, understanding - before the navy blue defector looked around the room with obvious care.
"I am... sorry," Soundwave muttered the words as he looked toward the open door, and back again. "I'm looking for a bot that may be a patient of yours... needed regarding police business."
"Oh?" Ratchet stood up straighter And he instantly turned serious. Soundwave nodded instantly.
"You've likely got a victim on your hands," he said confidently, and with immediate assurance "Not a violent attacker. Some young bot was kicked in the head today just outside the marketplace. Sounds like a case of mistaken identity. But that didn't stop things from getting fully out of hand. Perpetrator thought the younger bot had insulted him last night in a bar, as I understand from witnesses. The young one started talking back, not knowing his aggressor was both very drunk and very short-tempered... But nobody knew who he was. No one got a decent look at him..."
Soundwave sighed then, leaning back against the window frame. And Ratchet recognized at once, and all too clearly, a bot who was well beyond fed up as anyone, of deals with the city's still too rampant violence, as returning refugees continued to struggle with just finding their own place within the madness of it all. The old bot gave a small sigh of his own and nodded slowly.
"Oh yes, that young one is definitely here," he said, confirming. "Undoubtedly he's the one that came in this morning, barely conscious and badly bleeding energon from the back of his head. Never did get his name... he was talking but barely. And it made no coherent sense. You won't have any luck in getting a report from him today I'm afraid. But if you try again tomorrow..."
"Thank you," Soundwave said, nodding understanding as he sighed again.
The defector was troubled by more than just a simple assault case. And Ratchet knew that from simply looking him over at a glance. And so he led him, with a hand not quite touching him, across the room and near the door that led to his office.
"Perhaps you can spare a moment to chat?" he invited, easily and hopeful. Because it had certainly been a while since they'd simply chatted with each other, regardless of the circumstances.
Soundwave followed easily. And for a long moment he just stood, looking around at room from his new position well across from where he'd started out – hands held stiffly at his sides, and his body oddly tense in his standing position.
"You... haven't seen Firestorm recently, have you?" he asked, when he finally spoke up. "She hasn't by any chance come to seek out medical treatment? Or... or any sort of scans...?"
"No." Ratchet shook his head, confused, then instantly concerned instead as he looked again at his so clearly uneasy teammate. "Is there some reason she should have done so?"
"I... don't know." Soundwave was so obviously uncertain, worried, and doubtful all at once, as he signed again and wrung his hands together. "She is... or was... Is... has been..."
Soundwave quickly began to struggle with words – an issue that continued to come up every now and then, when placed into exactly the wrong set of circumstances.
"Do you think she's unwell?" Ratchet questioned. And his simple question had surely allowed for some focus. Because Soundwave appeared to consider for a moment, before he nodded, paused, and appeared to consider again.
"I'm... not sure," he said slowly. "I... yes, something is certainly wrong. I can tell that much. But... she tells me she's fine. I... want to believe her, because of course, she would know. But..."
Soundwave stopped speaking abruptly, his words dying in the air, as he stood still and staring forward.
"Tell you what," Ratchet said. He smiled assurance in his teammate's direction. "I'll go tomorrow and pay her a visit at her paint shop... pop in on the pretense of being in the neighborhood and simply wanting to say a quick hello to her and the baby. If anything really is wrong, then maybe I can convince her to admit to it, so that I can help her."
"Thank you," Soundwave answered. And he sounded more than grateful and relieved, as he, quite distractedly fumbled with a data pad he'd just retrieved from his storage compartment.
"I must... be heading back to work," he muttered. "I will... return tomorrow to see about that recovering patient of yours."
Ratchet returned at once to his work, just as soon as Soundwave had departed. And he resumed his humming too – cheerfully improvising a tune as he emptied the sanitizer, and loaded another filed basket into it. He pressed the start button and then began to cheerfully sort through his now clean tools, which he'd dumped out onto a sanitized work table. He stopped again, only when the sound of the door sliding open behind him, made him turn to look quickly.
"Ratchet?"
The voice was a small, but confident one. And the medi-bot looked in its direction, dismayed to find Cybershock, all alone in the doorway of the medbay, with her small body blocking it from closing. He waved her inside with a motion of his hand. And he chuckled just the slight bit under his intakes, at the confusion, then fast realization on the youngling's faceplate, as she understood only then that she'd been blocking the door.
"Cybershock," Ratchet greeted the young bot quickly before his faceplate turned serious. And he looked her up and down when his own medical programming left him no choice but to do so.
"You aren't sick, are you?" he asked her. But just as soon as he'd spoken, he immediately doubted, and much to his instant relief at that too – recalling quickly that she had just been outside, happily playing with no sign of distress.
"No," she confirmed with a shake of her head. And for a moment she just looked around the medbay – looking so oddly small and out of place inside the large room, without her creator beside her. "I was hoping I could talk to you about something."
"Of course," Ratchet told her, smiling at once, as he resumed his task of sorting tools on the worktable.
The Youngling helped him at once, and without even pausing to offer first – picking up a few related items to place carefully and quickly into a nearby cupboard, just as she'd done for her creator many times before in her young life. She fetched the last bin of still-dirty ones then, putting them all into the sanitizing tray with just as much caution before she placed the whole tray into the machine.
"Is it true that the Predacons aren't welcome in the hospital?" she questioned, as she reached up high to push the sanitizer's start button. And Ratchet, now carrying a small stack of medical tools in his hands to carry them across the room and put them away, nearly dropped them all in his utter dismay. Because that, of any possible question, was the last one he'd expected – even from his colleague's notoriously bold and tenacious young daughter.
"It... certainly is at the moment," he told her. Because he saw little good in saying otherwise.
And he was about to further explain – to teach the child a valuable and simple lesson in the moment about how the safety of their own kind surely outweighed any needs creatures known and proven to be dangerous in too many situations for him to easily count quickly. But he looked up then, from re-balancing the handful of tools in his too-precarious grip, to see the child looking back at him, optics brightening then dimming, then brightening again as she considered his answer with utter disbelief clear on her faceplate. She blinked again, then her frame quickly tensed, and she stared at him in the utter and emboldened defiance of a youngling barely past an age where she was capable of such.
"That... isn't right," she said simply.
She turned and walked away then – her optics showing the slightest hints of her newly forming tears before she simply walked faster. And she didn't stop, didn't turn around again, as the sliding doors slid closed behind her.
"Cybershock..." the medi-bot muttered the youngling's name as he hurried to the door after her.
Something had made the young bot so immediately upset. And as he hurried from the medbay, watching her round a corner quickly, still not looking behind her, his mind raced – wondering helplessly what could possibly have made the usually so understanding and patient little bot so terribly angry.
Cybershock had no idea where she was running to exactly. She was simply running!
Leaving the hospital building in a hurried huff, she'd reached 'downtown' quickly, in her vehicle mode. Too quickly. The realization dawned then. And she understood only then that she'd been speeding.
She still was – roaring past the sweet shop and the credit exchange, then the refugee center at speeds she would normally have dared reach only on the racetrack. She slowed down then – sheepishly. And carefully, she rounded a corner, passing the hall of records a home decor shop, and several housing buildings before merging onto the wider and faster-moving main road heading South.
It was late into the afternoon now. And rush hour was well underway all around her. Cybershock listened, just the slightest bit anxious, to the loud, impatient shouts of too many bots just trying their best to get home. The odd sequel of tires sounded too, here and there through the crowd. And the little bot paid more attention now – her frustration fading just a little in the effort of driving properly amid the still-growing swell of moving traffic.
She was not supposed to be on the main thoroughfares – not alone, and especially not during rush hour. And Cybershock knew that. But she wanted to drive – to let her wheels free her from her mounting anger as she knew so many other bots so often did. And more bots than not protected younglings on the roadways. She knew that well from years of personal experience with her own people.
Sure enough, a bright blue three-wheeler blasted his horn at her once quickly, before he slowed down just a little, inviting her to get in front of him just as an aggressive, enraged green bot with an oddly low riding alt-mode blew past while shouting incoherently.
Cybershock drove in front of the blue bot for a while, staying on the main road as other bots turned off a few here and there onto other streets leading into housing areas. And when she saw her 'protector' signal his own upcoming turn-off she dimmed and then brightened her little taillights at him in a gesture of acknowledgment.
"Take care, Kid," the blue bot said – his tone so clearly impressed. "Drive safe, will ya."
"Thanks," Cybershock called back at once.
She turned off next, onto a quiet and still unfinished side road at the Southernmost edge of the city. And still, without any real plan in mind, she simply drove onward, over the increasingly bumpy and rugged terrain – until the road disappeared entirely in front of her.
She drove forward regardless, slowing down, and then slowing further as ruts and cracks gave way to upturned metal chunks – some the size of herself in her vehicle mode... and many just a little smaller. There were ruins too – on that side of the city just as much she'd seen elsewhere. And for a good, long moment she just sat, paused on the remains of what had once surely been a multi-lane high-speed highway, looking up and all around at more falling remains of what had once been the industrial sector of the old, fallen city.
Predacons had been there! She could see the tracks of at least a few large adults – pressed into the layer of fine dust that covered the ground. And there was energon too – a rough splatter of it over the tip of some bent piece of wreckage left tossed onto the ground in front of a small rubble pile, and more of it, trailing away in a lessening stream toward the east.
Another one was injured. She understood that in an instant. Some member of the Predacon species who may well have hurt themselves badly, while digging through the wreckage. Another one who might never find the help he surely needed urgently.
Cybershock looked around, glad for a second to see no sign of the Predacons in question – and then always instantly just as disappointed over just that.
"Hello?"
She called out, with hesitation, into the vastness of the ruins, transforming into her bot form, to stand and look around quickly as she did so. And slowly, cautiously, she called out again.
Carefully, she sat down on the rubble pile. And for a while, she just sat in the silence of the ruins, letting her earlier anger return without a single try at fighting it back. She thought about the old medi-bot who she so greatest respected, and his too-easy dismissal of her try at questioning him. And then of her own creator, who she loved the most of any bot on Cybertron – and how even he didn't understand this time. She thought of her own future in the now-restored world she'd been born in. And understood, fully for the first time since they'd met, that one day she'd be anything she dreamed of, while Ironforge would still be near-starving in the rubble piles with his arms stacked high with heavy bars of bent and twisted metal and not the slightest luxury of dreaming at all.
Cybershock had never been an angry child – not usually, and never greatly so. But the anger she'd felt when she'd run from the medical center, returned to her now with a vengeance. And that anger evolved so quickly into near rage. She'd never been destructive. But suddenly she wished only to break something – to throw things, and scream at the empty air all around her.
And so she did exactly that – picking up a large and heavy chunk of jagged metal from somewhere close to her feet, and tossing it just as hard as she possibly could, toward the crumbling frame of a surely-once-great building a short distance away. It hit with a strangely satisfying thump, despite the considerable distance. And the little bot only did it again – this time accidentally busting out the remains of a window, somewhere low down on the side wall of said crumbling structure. She listened – oddly pleased with herself – as the metal continued to bounce for a moment, its sound growing smaller and smaller, before fading away somewhere inside the ruined building.
She found another, small bit of metal near her. And she picked it up, ready to toss that one with just as much force as the others – but she stopped, pausing with her arm half-raised into the air, when a sound from within the framework of the same decimated building caught her immediate attention instead.
Cybershock lowered her makeshift projectile. And then she quickly dropped it entirely, before standing up, slowly and carefully and balanced on the rubble pile to listen intently.
"H...hello?"
She muttered the word quietly – because the idea of meeting fully grown adult Predacons in person all too suddenly didn't seem nearly as ideal as she'd thought just a short time before.
But it was not Predacons inside that falling building. And she knew that in another instant. The noise – when she heard it again, and then repeatedly – was the sound of something far too small.
No... not something. She understood that in another fraction of a second. Somethings. So many of them... fluttering about behind the busted window, and then soon outside of it, as they found a way through the jagged opening in the shattered glass. And they were moving toward her, and fast.
"Scraplets!"
The youngling spoke the word out loud, as full realization and utter horror dawned all at once. And she stumbled back, falling from the junk heap to land on the ground with a painful thud, as so many of the most feared beasts on Cybertron swarmed closer...
Notes – Aaaaand there you have it! Another one done. Sorry about the cliffhanger. I simply had to. Obviously, I am going to do something about that extremely deadly situation.
Thanks for continuing to read and follow, as always. More to come soon!