milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

bumblebee,
rad

(no subject)

"-I was passing my time away
To the left and to the right
Bulidings towering to the sky
It's out of sight-"

Bumblebee's still pretty thrilled about how things worked out at home after all the hell Megatron and Shockwave put everyone through. Hence the choice of song. On the other hand he's here now, and that's good too; it's been a while since he's seen some people. Getting everything back in working order at home keeps a mech busy as anything. Nothing wrong with a little R&R.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Consuming energon will have to wait until Rad can even think of consuming anything.

This is... This is...

Sickening is what it is.

"There was a Swarm back home. People died. It devoured them." Pause. "Even Prime faced it. Only his spark chamber was left when it was done. He said the last person he saw consumed was Jhiaxus, who dared to challenge it."

And this Swarm was likely more mindless and even more ruthless than Rad's. Optimus managed to reason with that one in the end.

Bumblebee nods.

"I am afraid," the scroll says, "that the mech that Shockwave used for this was Hot Rod."

Rad is just one big :O!

There's nothing he can make his audio circuits say in response.

Sitting down for this was a wise choice, and better than falling down in shock.

"I am sorry."

After the words scroll away at the top, he resumes.

"The Decepticons began a series of strikes across the planet shortly afterwards. We had secured the full cooperation of several major governments and their militaries, so we moved to assist them wherever we could, but the strike zones were scattered across the planet. It was very obviously a diversion tactic, but one we could not afford to allow to pass."

Rad will mourn later, because to him Hot Rod became Rodimus Prime after Optimus. And this is part of the reason why he will keep this information away from his leader.

Rodimus feels enough guilt over Optimus. No need to trouble him with alternate selves too.

"Shockwave is a master tactician. One of the best the Decepticon army has ever had."

Pause.

"And he knew you had to be out-numbered with some of you on Earth and the others in space. Diabolical."

"Yes. And he had another plan in mind from the beginning. The waters where Megatron's body was sunk by the humans are deep and were patrolled by the humans' navies, but there isn't much their fleet can do when a Decepticon the size of an aircraft carrier smashes into them from orbit. They had brought Tidal Wave to serve as their base of operations, and they sent bots down to retrieve Megatron from the deep- among other things."

That's Shockwave for you. His plans are as dimensional as a dodecahedron, and possibly more so.

"New name for me."

Pause.

"That couldn't have been much trouble for them. We can survive space. Water pressure in the tons is not that hard to withstand."

In other words the mission to secure Megatron's corpse had to be absurdly easy. With intentions that did not involve recycling their dead leader.

"Did... Did they make him operational?"

Zombie-tron is a scary thought.

"It required locating the Matrix of Leadership," says the text scroll. "And capturing Sam Witwicky, the last living being to handle the Allspark."

"But yes."

"And together they made him more than just operational."

If he knew about it he'd liken it to Optimus Primal's return to life after the destruction of the Planet Buster. Not just kinda back but BACK.

"Shockwave would never leave the leadership open to chance when he had a proven leader to rebuild and the means to rebuild him."

Bumblebee nods. "The Matrix was lost long ago, in the time of the Second Prime and Second Lord," the text-scroll says. "When Megatron's plans for the galaxy first began to take shape he ordered Shockwave to search for anything that could bring him to victory. He had been calculating its likely path and position for longer than most mechs had been alive. It was not very hard for him to send Skywarp and Thundercracker to find it, and then to find where we were trying to retrieve Sam as quickly as possible."

Time and patience and logic.

Rad never wanted to face his own Shockwave in battle, and he wanted to face this one even less.

"What happened to Sam? Is he alive?"

Note that he did not ask if Sam was well, when Sam would be lucky to live through it.

"Sam is."

"For a time I was not."

"You ... died. And then lived. How did you survive?"

Possibly one of the less intelligent ways to ask but he can't ask it any other way.

"Shockwave was second to a Lord, and only persuaded the Matrix to do his bidding because he was acting on his Lord's behalf," the text says. "And he forced Sam's assistance. Optimus asked Sam to try, and opened the Matrix himself."

"It was a call that I could not turn away from."

He does not really look like he is likely to say any more on the subject.

And the Matrix was only doing what it was designed to do.

"Sam almost died. You almost died. Almost. But for the grace of Primus himself. Like a miracle."

Pause. Miracle is the right word for it.

"What came after? Are the Decepticons back on Earth again?"

"There are some," the text scroll says. "Most have pulled back. Shockwave established a base on the minor planet Varuna. Those who could, withdrew there after the final battle in the desert."

"There's no rest for the righteous, is there?"

Pause.

"In the desert? Is that where you all converged?"

He is thinking about the Space Bridge. If Shockwave got it before it could be destroyed there will be Real Trouble on the horizon.

"Our base has been there since the Americans first let us settle on their land," the text scroll says. "It was where Megatron supposed those few who escaped from Tidal Wave would be taking Sam. I was offline then."

He still hasn't mastered typographical tricks to indicate hesitancy.

That's the thing about textual communication. The subtle nuances found in speech just don't translate too well into written dialogue.

"Did you win?"

Logically a battle had to have been waged.

"With everyone still operational?"

"We lost Perceptor," the text says. "His alt mode was an atmospheric research airplane; he flew out to Tidal Wave with some of the others, to rescue Sam. He fought Megatron and survived five whole minutes, to buy them time to escape unnoticed."

"And we lost others, as well- but they knew that might happen when Ironhide used the space bridge to bring them to Earth."

More familiar names. And he thinks of nerdy, fussbudget Perceptor and what things would be like if they lost him.

"You ... used the Space Bridge? Rodimus didn't—"

Pause. Rodimus would understand why Ironhide did what he did. There would be no disapproval.

"It needed doing, I suppose. Did it work?"

"It did," confirms the text. "It brought all those whom Ironhide could find, and they were there in time to relieve Prime, who had held off Megatron's forces with only a handful of mechs. I was among them, by that time. All of us fought them back, but I will admit that it was Starscream who brought Shockwave down- him, and the Swarm."

"I do not think Shockwave was able to entirely purge the last traces of the sparks from those mechs he converted into his drone army. It would have gone better for him if he had."

"I'm glad to hear they made it in time, and that I hope they also got home in time too—

Pause.

"Starscream....

...did what?"

Blinkety-blink.

Well, regarding the Swarm there are things even Shockwave can't do. Sparks are complex things that even the brightest on Cybertron struggle with understanding.

"Attacked him, when Megatron had dispatched them both and they were out of his sensor range," comes the answer. "They tore each other apart. Starscream, I think, saw the Swarm coming. Shockwave thought his disengaging was a trick, and tried to press the assault. That was when the Swarm broke his control and overwhelmed him."

"Shockwave is now offline."

You underestimated Starscream didn't you?

"Can't say anyone's going to miss him any."