Apologies for the delay on this, I wanted to get through most of the remaining Rescuebots stuff other than Optimus doing his thing later, annnd things just kept getting longer.
On the bright side: Have some Words.
----------------
"You said you were going to get a seagoing alt mode... And you're scared of a little water?" The firetruck scoffed slightly.
"I am not!" I glared at Heatwave as he folded his arms. "I just – Want to be sure, you know? Have you ever been put back together by a human working on a few joors of second hand instructions?"
That wasn't a slight against Doctor Greene. The fact I still worked at all was an indicator that he was good at what he did. I still wanted to test all my systems before having to rely on them again.
He frowned slightly and looked away, "… Yeah, fair enough. Look, we're here if anything goes wrong, let's just do this. Ravage has already passed; you'll be fine."
And truth was, he was right. My seals had actually been upgraded a bit, at least in theory; bots on Cybertron didn't usually have to worry too much about long term water intrusion, so the basic seals were, well, pretty basic. Blades had switched both me and Ravage over to the Hostile Environment seals the Rescuebots used which were rated for full immersion in things a lot more caustic than H2O – at least long enough to get out of it again.
But there was theory, and then there was practice. And 'Practice' meant throwing myself into a pool of water again to actually real-world test those new seals.
Alright. You can do this Spitfire. It's... Just a little water. You're fine. Your seals are all freshly replaced and pressure tested. There's no danger whatsoever.
Just... take a little step forward.
I squinted my optics shut as I forced myself to take a step forward, feeling the sun warmed water surrounding me before my paws met with the tiled floor and I opened them carefully, ready to seal my shutters again at the faintest hint of a leak.
But the seals around my outer lenses held, as did my other seals, and I could make out the tiled walls of the – currently otherwise empty – public swimming pool, and above the slightly shimmering form of Ravage and Blades standing by the edge just in case as I carefully brought up my other sensors to check how they worked underwater. I'd not really paid much attention last time, admittedly, and a lot of them had been offline anyway.
At this range my comms should still work, so - +I'm in. All good so far, seals are holding.+ I reported, +I'll walk around for a few minutes to make sure, but I think this is going to work.+
It had been Blades idea to test our redone waterproofing in a small body of water first, where we could be quickly fished out if anything were to happen. They'd already been pressure tested as best they could be, but the only way to be sure was to actually try it.
He was confident that nothing would go wrong, but was also very much in agreement with me that it was best to test that somewhere safe before relying on it in open water again. And for any open water dives to be done in stages until we had fully re-characterized my pressure tolerances.
When everything still read as green ten minutes later I climbed out using the pool steps and shook my plating out, flaring out the edges to let any water otherwise trapped under my outer plates escape.
It make me temporarily look like a giant spiky puffball – or perhaps a wet Turbofox - but not properly drying off from a dip in a swimming pool would be an embarrassing way to get a rust infection.
I may have also accidentally splashed Heatwave a bit, given his displeased grunt. "Whoops, sorry Heatwave." I said quickly as I slicked my plating back down again. "Didn't realise you were that close."
Heatwave grumbled quietly but nodded. He did that a lot, I'd noticed.
"Well, I'd say that's a successful test. Thanks, Heatwave, Blades." I nodded to each of them before looking back to Ravage, "Looks like we both pass."
Ravage agreed with a nod, walking over to me again, "Seems so. I'll have to remember to get the Doctor and the Rescuebots something nice. Especially upgrading your seals. I'd… Honestly forgotten you wouldn't have gotten any wartime updates like I did." She admitted softly, looking away guiltily. At least until I jumped up to nuzzle her cheek lightly.
Maybe I should still be more mad than I was, or at least not outright comforting her about it but… That sounded like a path to both of us being miserable for no good reason. Ravage had begged Megatron to spare my spark, and it had worked, just – not in the way either of us had expected or wanted. And I could be mad at her for that – or I could blame the mech that had actually done it and the one that lied to her to get her to go along with it.
It wasn't a very hard decision given I already wasn't feeling particularly charitable to Megatron or Soundwave.
Ravage would probably have been fine if she'd just jumped in from a normal height. But even the best seals couldn't do much when the chassis they were attached to was buckled from impact damage. Cybertronians could usually handle some pretty big jumps, but groundbound Minicons jumping out of a fast moving spaceship at high altitude was a bit too much.
If anything my seals had likely already been degraded from simple passage of time and just never been noticed until they were suddenly stressed again, given Ravage had absorbed most of that impact – they should have held for at least a little while - But I could definitely agree that I felt a lot more comfortable now as I dropped back down onto all fours. "Yeah, I'd never have been able to afford that upgrade on my old salary, annnd nobody really cares that much about the seals on a gun. Least till it stops working." I shook my helm a bit to shake off the darker thoughts, "Well. I was going to head over to Professor Baranova to see about my alt. Did you get anything from Greene about yours?"
"Apparently he just got the green light. I was going to head over to point out a few changes I'd like to make." Ravage agreed, "We should be able to get there with our Holoforms up, if you two want to head back." She said to the two Rescuebots with us, "Meet you back at the Firehouse in a couple joors?"
She had quite vehemently refused to get shuttled everywhere by one of the bots or to stay locked up in the Firehouse all the time. We'd compromised by promising to use our holoforms anywhere humans might see us. We had an island that was mostly wilderness and even if it wasn't mechanical, we were both quite happy to make the most of it.
Heatwave and Blades quickly agreed before they headed off back towards the Firehouse again, picking up their human partners that had temporarily closed the swimming pool for this on the way.
Ravage smiled and padded up next to me as we both jogged out away from the main road into a nicer forested area. Sure, it'd be even better if the stream was made of Energon and there were some critters around to hunt, but it was still… soothing.
"Ah, this is nice…" She admitted after a moment, as I felt her tail twining round mine gently. "I can't even remember the last time I could just… Go for a walk, without it being some kind of larger scheme."
"You pretty much went straight from oppressed proletariat to interstellar spybot." I agreed, chuckling a little, "Might have skipped a few steps in the middle there."
"Maybe. This is what you call a 'holiday', right?" She asked innocently, though smirking lightly at me as I laughed.
"Well, technically this would count more as medical leave…" I grinned at her, as we both settling in for lightly poking at the other until we reached the point where we'd have to split up for now.
And Ravage turned to me with a slight grin, "Oh, before we head off, could you transform into as regular a rectangle you can in gun mode? I want to check something."
I paused and reset my optics in surprise before thinking it over a little. "Bit of an odd request, but sure." I shrugged and focused for a moment. Most of the time it wasn't used much, but altmodes weren't completely fixed, even with non-multichangers. You could still move things about, part-transform things or just let certain bits stick out a bit more or less than usual. It took focus, and good luck on the altmode lottery to be able to make something with any advantage over just transforming normally, but I had a feeling what at least one of those modifications she was talking to Greene about was going to be.
One of the main uses of these kinds of transformations was ersatz combiner modes after all, usually reconfiguring one bot's altmode to connect to another's Root mode to provide extra weaponry, flight capabilities, etcetera.
Some bots could also transform parts of their bodies mid combat to assist in combat, like using their alt mode's wheels to move around faster or move a limb out of the way of an incoming strike – or in the case of some jet based flyers torch their opponents with a thruster-blowtorch or simply fly around in Robot mode.
Normally my alt wasn't much use in other bot's vehicle modes, nor by itself… Unless said vehicle modes had specific mounting points for it to connect to, that is.
Usually that was an external turret or just being mounted externally with a magclamp or something. Specifically modifying your altmode – or especially your Root - to better accommodate your partner's specific configuration was something only seen in either long-term partners, Amica's or Conjunxes.
Literally designing yourself around your partner was a pretty big sign of commitment after all.
Feeling Ravage carefully catch my suddenly inert gun mode with her tail rather than letting me drop into the grass was… gratifying, I'd admit. I'd kept my scope tucked in and collapsed my stock as much as possible along with keeping the trigger and handle assembly folded in. It wasn't like they'd get much use if this was for what I thought it was after all, which kept me as a roughly rectangular block of black, grey and white metal.
That did mean I had to make do with my short range omnidirectional sensor suite rather than the targeting sensors in the scope or my optics though. It was… hard to explain in human terms, more a level of awareness of everything around me than what you would normally term 'sight'. The same system allowed Vehicleformers to maintain awareness of their surroundings even when their vehicle mode didn't come with built in cameras. Or for me to maintain awareness of what my scope wasn't pointed at.
I was used to it. The limited input had made it easier to rest when left on a rack at least, since I had been able to turn down the range enough to just get a warning when it seemed someone might pick me up and otherwise… Well. Daydream about things other than staring at a wall all orn.
I felt the tingle of active sensors running over my chassis as I was turned around and upside down, before she nuzzled my stock lightly and – "Alright, go ahead and change back now!" Ravage grinned, tossing my altmode up into the air.
Just high enough for me to transform and twist my chassis around to land on all fours again, "So, how'd I do?" I grinned up at her as I landed again with a soft thump.
"I think I can make it work. I know your mass shift factor, after all." Ravage smiled and nuzzled my cheek plates lightly "See you soon, Little Wolf."
I sighed softly and butted my head up against one of her forelegs, "See you soon, Ravi-rav." I agreed, getting a rumbling purr in response as we split off from eachother, Ravage flicking up her Holoform as she emerged onto the side of the road up to the lab.
I generated my Samoyed Holoform and a generic avatar of my own and trotted off as well to my own meeting.
There were other humans on the island that knew about us, of course, most notably Professor Anna Baranova, who had been filled in on the whole thing after seeing the Rescuebots and Optimus Prime working to rescue her in Dino mode and putting two and two together – as well as the fact that she and Doc Greene was presently Engaged to be married, so of course he'd told her what was going on with us.
In my case, that was relevant because while both Greene and Baranova were… well, a lot more learned than I was, Prof. Baranova was the one that had pursued oceanic research in her (relative) youth, including designing and operating a self-sufficient undersea research lab that had been marooned partway down a sea trench for almost thirty years, after being partially crushed and disabled by a rockslide, with the rest of it remaining entirely intact and functional all that time.
If anyone was qualified to design and/or endorse an altmode design for underwater ops, it was her.
Her current house and lab was a recreation of that very base that Greene had built back when she had first been rescued, in order to give her something familiar, a large cylindrical central piece with a domed top surrounded by four cylindrical pods, portholes and windows dotting the surface.
There was also a small outside garden that I carefully walked around – small as I might be by Cybertronian standards, I was plenty heavy enough to accidentally trample the smaller plants and that was not the first impression I wanted to make.
Instead I walked up the metal ramp to one of the concessions to it now being a surface building – namely, the front door.
And carefully stood up on my hind legs to press the doorbell before sitting down again in front of it.
Soon enough the greying professor opened the door and looked down at the fluffy white Samoyed sitting in front of her door, "Oh! Hello there, are you lost boy?"
Oh, right. Doggo. Useful for walking around populated areas, not so much for conversation.
I disabled my Holoform and reset my vocaliser with a quick blat of static, "Hi! Sorry, I've been keeping my disguise up in case anyone saw me walking here. I'm Spitfire, I believe I'm expected?"
"Hmm, a holographic disguise system?" Ana nudged her glasses back up before visibly forcing back the urge to interrogate me on her doorstep. "Right, yes, Ezra mentioned you may be coming over." The woman nodded to me, "Please, follow me." She invited and walked us back into a workshop – slash – laboratory area, "Ah, I'd offer you something to drink, but…"
"The offer is appreciated nonetheless." I smiled a little, making sure not to show too many teeth. "Did Doctor Greene mention why I would be coming over?"
"Ah, yes, he said you wanted to ask me about a new… 'alt mode', I believe you call it?"
I nodded in confirmation, "Correct, given the… issues I encountered trying to operate underwater recently, and the fact that this planet is mostly water, well, having a mode that is specialised towards operating in that medium is probably a good idea. I figured I'd ask you since Doc Greene is already busy with Ravage and… Well." I gestured a paw at the replica deep sea lab we were sitting in, "I read through the Rescuebot's mission logs. I know you just lead the project, but something that can survive almost three decades in an ocean trench after being partially crushed is a pretty impressive set of credentials. Of course, I'd need something a lot smaller." I added with a chuckle, "We can cheat with altmode scale a little bit, but something like this would be a bit too much for me."
"Hmm..." She looked at me for a long moment, "I would be happy to help, and I am glad to know you have that kind of faith in my design skills, but... well. It has been decades since I designed anything to be submersible. Technology has changed a lot since then. And, I've always had help." She admitted, "Fortunately, I've been corresponding with a promising young scientist who specialises in state of the art underwater robotics. If you can give me some general requirements, I believe that between us we should be able to put something together given what he's been working on already."
"Deep sea diving capable, independently powered – though, don't worry too much about what the battery life would be, that'll be covered by Energon – thrusters powerful enough to function as an Underwater Manoeuvring Unit for one or more divers, along with onboard sensor and camera systems. And, preferably failsafe – if it loses power it should be positively buoyant and float to the surface. In as compact a chassis as possible. I can scale things up and down a bit, but the closer it is to my usual mass the more efficient it'll be." I listed out quickly before sitting back, "… I get that some of that likely isn't possible combined with the other stuff. I'm not an engineer or designer, and I'm especially not used to the tradeoffs you need to make for operating in a liquid environment. That's just a wishlist." I added quickly.
"Hmm… Well. Fiction does love a challenge." She mused, "And I know he's been working on some underwater robotics projects… We should be able to get most of that for you at least. Though don't be surprised if you end up with a lot more sensors than you asked for. He's a big believer in data gathering, and I think I could pitch it as an underwater research and search and rescue drone. He was muttering about that so I think he might have something already mostly finished."
"I believe the expression is 'Beggars can't be choosers'." I grinned at her, "Thank you. I'll owe you and your colleague after this, if either of you need help with something in the future, just ask."
She laughed softly, "Well, if you'd let me get some readings of you scanning it and transforming for the first time, I would be happy enough with that. I'll give you a call when I have something."
"Thank you." I nodded, "And sure, I don't mind you watching. If you manage to figure out how it works you'd be one step ahead of me." I admitted, shrugging my forelimbs a little.
"Hmm. That is something I've noticed, I would have assumed that self aware robotic organisms would understand their own workings." She admitted.
"You're a self aware biological organism, can you tell me how your brain works?" I shrugged slightly, "Oh, you can describe what it does, and even some observations of how it works, but based on what I've found so far there's a lot of areas that are a complete mystery to modern human science."
"I see. I had assumed you built eachother, but if you do not fully understand certain components…"
I waggled a paw in a so-so motion, "Sometimes we mostly build a body ready to put a Spark in. That's called Cold Forging or Cold Constructing, but they still don't form a T-Cog and some other critical systems until the Spark has been implanted and has taken. But a lot of us just land on a patch of cybermatter and form an initial protoform from that. I literally just… woke up one orn in the underlevels below Iacon." I shrugged, "Which was pretty confusing I'll tell you that much."
So we went back and forth with questions for a while. Indulging her curiosity was a small price to pay for assistance in getting a new altmode after all.
---------------------------------
Over the next couple days my and Ravage's chassis continued to re-assimilate our new components, and each of our new altmodes grew closer to completion while we played with Cody – the kid was only too pleased to have a few people that were both the right size and willing to play some ball games with him, and I'd even managed to teach Servo a few new games (Mechanimal intelligence was odd… Animal-level reasoning, but they were still running on computers and could fairly easily be given a sequence of instructions they could follow just fine - which could be the rules for a game just as well as instructions to infiltrate somewhere and insert a compromised USB stick) – as well as listening in when the Rescuebots went out on missions and just wandering the town in our holoforms.
Ravage had even thrown a few sticks for me, which was nice. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a long enough string on a stick for her to try.
Okay, so we'd mostly just been joking around, but it was still fun and something I realised I'd desperately needed. Throwing myself into tasks had kept me from dwelling on things too much, but having time to process things and make new memories… I'd needed this.
And I think Ravage had too. She was still jumpy sometimes, but it was better now.
But finally, it was time to get our new Altmodes.
Ravage's was ready first, since it was a modification of a physical vehicle that had already been on the island for testing.
Which led to me sitting outside the secure hangar of Griffin Rock's small airport as the large doors slid open to reveal a sleek drone fightercraft in Ravage's mix of purple and silver tones, a few light pink biolights pulsing softly on its flanks as its control surfaces twitched slightly as the sunlight hit its fuselage.
Other than the colour scheme, whatever changes had been made weren't… immediately obvious to me. Which rather made sense, since the XQ-18A was supposed to be stealthy and having random bits sticking out would rather ruin that. Still… Well. I'd always liked the look of modern stealth aircraft, and the fact this one in particular was Ravage certainly didn't hurt.
"Wow..." I mumbled softly as I walked around the fighter jet slowly, looking up at the V-tail either side of her single centre-mounted engine as the ruddervators to either side slowly shifted from one extreme position to another, clearly running through a calibration and test cycle. Her wings were a bit of an unusual shape – the leading edges were a pretty normal delta shape, but the inner half of the trailing edges, where her ailerons were located, was actually mirrored from that, angled back forwards,, and the wing narrowed towards the mid point before shifting to run parallel with the leading edge up to the wingtips.
I could just barely see some seam lines on her flanks that I had a sneaking suspicion would hide her weaponry when not actively in combat, and overall it was a much more streamlined look than I was used to seeing from Cybertronian flyers, most of whom used their prodigious thrust to just brute force air resistance out of the way.
"You make a very pretty plane, Ravage." I smiled up at her as I sat back down next to her nose gear. "Very elegant."
The purple fighter drone vibrated in place as she purred softly, "Elegant..? You think so?"
"I do. It suits you, Ravage." I smiled, rearing up to nuzzle under her nosecone, "You ready to try moving under your own power?"
"I think I've figured out this whole thruster thing, yeah. Control surfaces are still weird, feels like I'm bristling my plating in odd ways, but I can move them. Wheels, uh…" Her nose gear hydraulics hummed slightly as the steering mechanism turned left and then right, "Yeah. That works. Stand back, I'm going to try taxiing onto the runway."
I quickly got out of the way as her new turbine span up with a high pitched whine before it settled into idle thrust and started increasing again more slowly. But she wasn't moving, instead lowering onto her nose wheel as it failed to rotate.
"Ravage, brakes!" I shouted quickly, and the jet jerked back slightly in surprise before her wheel brakes disengaged and she started rolling forwards sheepishly.
"Right, right, got it!" She said quickly, "Still getting used to that. This is… not intuitive. You'd think it'd be easier since I flew before, but operating controls is very different to being the vehicle…"
I watched as Ravage taxied forward carefully, and as her nose left the cover of the hangar her colours shifted into the dark blue and orange markings of the test vehicle – and then into the plain grey used by a lot of newer fightercraft, USAF markings and all, before going back to her preferred purples and pinks as she tested her Holoform generator's new settings.
Not usually my preferred colours, but... I dunno. They looked good on her. They were something that set 'my' Ravage apart from others I vaguely remembered, always black and grey with maybe a few Deceptcon-purple biolights.
"Holoform projector still works." She said proudly, "All diagnostics report fully functional… Looks like I'm good to go. Well. Enough that the only way I'm going to find anything else is with a test flight. And, well, thankfully this is an uncontrolled airport, so no worries about getting takeoff permission."
Ravage came to a stop on the runway dead on the centreline, staring down the small runway mostly used by small propeller planes. Even then rarely, hence them not bothering with an Air Traffic Control tower.
"You're sure you're ready?" I asked her carefully.
"I've flown before, Spitfire. This is just… Getting used to some new controls." Ravage replied lightly, "Oh – and we might as well test one of my new features too."
One of the seams I'd noticed on her dorsal surface split apart to reveal a rather conveniently proportioned gun mount partially recessed into her nosecone.
"Well. I did always want to fly…" I said softly before jumping up onto one of her wings and padding over to it, checking the exact dimensions I'd need before transforming into my compacted gun mode and dropping into the gun position like it was made for me. Which of course it clearly had been.
It wasn't just holding me in position and occasionally sending commands to fire like the chin mount on Fowler's helicopter had done. This was a full hardline connection, allowing Ravage to share all her systems with me and vice versa, if we wanted to.
Ravage triggered the gun mount to close again after a moment, but unlike other times I had been hidden away somewhere, this just felt… cosy, rather than claustrophobic. Safe.
To be fair that was likely because she was giving me a feed from her own sensors through that connection, so it wasn't like I was just stuck in a dark box – we were both sitting on the runway, staring up at the clear blue sky above.
+You comfy in there Spitfire?+ Ravage sent over local datalink.
+The leg room kind of sucks.+ I deadpanned before chuckling lightly, +I'm fine, you're actually pretty cosy. Thanks for sharing your sensor feed though. This is amazing.+ I sent back. My processor was actually struggling to make sense of some of the data, until I realised that some of it was air pressure data, airspeed, and other things my own chassis simply had no need of.
It wasn't a full system merge, and nowhere near sharing sparks – but we were each aware of what the other was doing and just enjoying the closeness that came of that.
+Oh, you haven't seen anything yet.+ Ravage's metadata carried the sensation of an eager grin and she crouched down on her nose gear again as her engine ramped up.
I felt her radar and other more esoteric sensors go active for a few seconds to verify no other aircraft were nearby or wanting to land before her brakes released again and we started rolling down the runway – slowly at first, then with increasing speed until she carefully rotated her nose gear off the ground, followed by her main gear as we left the ground.
The first part of our flight was taken slowly – despite being confident in her abilities Ravage clearly didn't feel like taking too many chances while carrying me along with her – but as she got more used to how her new altmode responded, how much power she had available to turn into thrust, she started taking turns faster, running her thrusters hotter and before too long we were cruising just under the speed of sound above the clouds when she spoke up again.
+Alright. Think I have this whole being a plane thing down now… How about we do something a bit more fun?+ She asked as she started angling towards the nearby 'Island of Misfit Tech'.
I was mostly just enjoying the phantom feeling of wind on 'my' chassis and flight, but I grinned nonetheless as I caught her undertone. +Target practice?+
+Target practice.+ She agreed as her gun covers all opened this time, both myself and her own pair of purple-lensed blaster cannons that were now folded out of either side of her fuselage.
+TARGET PRACTICE WOOOOOOOO!+ I laughed as Ravage rolled and pulled into an inverted dive as I felt her fire control systems attempting to connect to my own. I allowed it, obviously, and settled in for a fun and productive evening of blowing stuff up. It wasn't just fun, it was also productive!
Really, what kind of night couldn't be improved by that?
-----------------------
Both Ravage and I were well on our way to being combat ready again, and after another call with Optimus it was agreed that once I had my new altmode sorted we would return to Omega One after a final medical check.
Something must have convinced Optimus it was a good idea to prepare for abandoning the base, because a good chunk of our recovered Energon had been sent into the shielded tunnels under the Firehouse, along with a few locked boxes that likely contained supplies that would be hard to find again otherwise.
No relics or the like, that would both turn the Firehouse into a target and put them at even more risk given it didn't have military grade defences, but it would hopefully help if Omega One still fell.
Admittedly I hoped it wouldn't, but… Well, I wasn't really sure what else I could do. Ravage had already made sure Optimus knew the base was likely compromised, he clearly agreed but there was only so much you could do while trying to maintain operational readiness to go after the Omega Keys. And we needed to find the Omega Keys. If the show had ever had enough details for me to track them down, I'd forgotten it since – even Cybertronian memory wasn't perfect over as long a stretch of time as it had been – and while it was nice to be on Earth again my spark deeply wished to be able to return to Cybertron one day.
I stumbled slightly as a tremor ran through the ground under my paws, looking over at Ravage just as the Firehouse bell started sounding and we had to duck out of the way as the Rescuebots rushed into the garage along with their human partners.
Ravage and I instead rushed up to the control centre with Cody to watch, as we had a couple times now.
We'd offered to help, but… Well, pointing out that Servo had more rescue training than either of us was a bit rude, but not inaccurate…
We entered the control centre to find Cody already relaying emergencies to the rest of the team.
Several small fires started by ruptured gas mains, some buildings had been damaged though not collapsed – then Cody gasped as one of the remote camera displays showed a cloud of dust and debris where the new multistory car park had been before – the structure intended to house the vehicles of tourists from the mainland that took the ferry over, that being the source of much of the islands non-research funding.
Most of the team quickly made their way to there while Heatwave and Kade finished putting out the fires. It seemed like things were being brought back under control until another emergency message came in.
"Dad, another emergency call. There's a group of cave divers that were under water when the quake hit. One of them lost their mask and they can't find their way back out, and now the tide is coming in!"
Heatwave, as the only bot with a dedicated water mode, was quickly sent to check on that one, but...
Listening in as they struggled to get close made it worse, and then –
"Gah! It's no good. I can't fit into the cave." Heatwave hissed.
"And I don't have any scuba gear. Or um. Training. I'm a firefighter, not an underwater cave diver." Kade spoke up, though he sounded more irritated at himself than anything else.
"Oh no... there has to be something we can do..." Cody said quietly, "The water level in the cave is still rising. If we can't get to them soon..."
"... You need someone small enough to get to the divers, I'm your mech." I spoke up, "Hold on just a few minutes, I'm on my way!"
I sprinted back out of the Firehouse and only belatedly engaged my Holoform as I ran over to Professor Baranova's lab. Come on, it had to be ready by now…
"Professor! Professor Baranova!" I shouted as I approached, skidding slightly as I tried to stop on the grass as I spotted her. "Please tell me that's the prototype."
"Ah, yes, I had just taken delivery and was going to run some tests before calling you over." She confirmed, looking at the large metal crate sitting on the grass. Huh. Not sure how that got delivered actually… "This sounds like its urgent though. Something to do with the quake?"
"There's a group that was cave diving when it struck. Apparently it damaged at least one of their tanks and debris blocked their way out, so they're trapped in an air pocket. Heatwave and the other bots are too big to get in there with them."
"Then there's no time to waste." She nodded quickly, walking over to a keypad on the front of the container and typing in the code, the front of it unlatching and falling open to reveal the black painted mini-sub. "We just have to trust what tests were run before it was sent here."
I shifted to look at the black ROV, the basic shape was a large rounded rectangle, relatively squat with four inset floodlights on the front corners around a pair of front facing cameras. A set of four vertical thrusters stuck all the way from top to bottom to allow active movement both up and down, and each corner had its own angled ducted thruster to allow for free movement and rotation in any direction.
Sticking out around it was a pair of metal grab bars that was presumably intended for just this kind of rescue operation, or just using it as a faster way to get around. Or maybe it was supposed to be a bumper.
Diving straight in, without the option of slowly testing all the systems let along my own waterproofing… It was risky. But leaving someone to drown because I didn't want to take even a small risk, knowing that I was capable of helping?
Cody must have filled his dad in, because his voice came over my comms channel again. +Spitfire, Cody says you ran off to get your water alt mode. Are you sure you're up for this?+ He sounded concerned. For me. Which was nice, but I'd already decided.
+… Probably not. But I'd never forgive myself if I didn't try.+ I replied back over the combadge signal. +Just… trust me, okay? And tell them to be ready for that drone.+ I said quietly as I walked over to Ana. "It's ready?"
"Self tests report that everything its functional." She nodded, "It looks like we'll have to save the recording of the scan process for later." The scientist sighed disappointedly.
"I'm sure you'll get a chance." I nodded in agreement, taking a deep breath of coolant, "Okay… Let's do this."
My optics flashed brighter and a red scan beam washed over the drone as my T-Cog analysed the design. As with any such drone or even manned vehicles, the control systems were completely replaced by my own processor and its onboard sensors were supplemented by my own and upgraded to Cybertronian specs. Still, it was weird feeling my body shifting and changing in very different manner to how I was used to.
In this case, one of those was… well, not a completely new sense, but feeling my auditory systems reconfigure to allow for passive and active sonar was certainly… Different.
The ducted thrusters were also replaced by Cybertronian equivalents, which meant I could probably use them in a vacuum too or even in regular air… Though experimenting with that would have to come later.
I clattered onto the ground as I tried to process the new array of information my chassis was sending me, shifting and powering up different systems as I poked around and figured out which bits corresponded to each function. I felt something get hooked onto the grab handles and shifted my attention to the professor attaching a waterproof bag of… Something there with a rope.
"Rope and a couple spare emergency rebreather masks. They won't last for long, but… Hopefully long enough." She nodded to me, "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be." I sighed, "Send me in."
Being pushed off the slope and into the waves was certainly different, especially as various sensors started feeding back information on water pressure, estimated depth, salinity and pH levels, thrusters stuttering slightly as I was faced with a barrage of unfamiliar signals.
I immediately de-prioritized most of those new sensors. I couldn't afford to get distracted trying everything out.
I knew Heatwave was holding position near the cave entrance, so I oriented myself on his transponder signal and headed in that direction as best I could.
This feels... really weird after being used to only moving with my legs for my entire life. My locomotion subsystem kept complaining about missing hardware and nothing quite moved how I expected it to.
But I was a Cybertronian, and this drone's computer carried programming that allowed for three dimensional movement, thruster mappings for moving in specific directions and processing logic for those new sensors that my subsystems were already running through and assimilating.
Seeing the red fire engine standing by the underwater cave entrance, I flashed my lights carefully at them as I moved up. +Alright, I'm here. Making my way into the cave system now.+ I reported as I slowly manoeuvred into the cave, fighting back a sudden worry over getting trapped myself if I got lost in the caves. I didn't need to breathe, I had a hell of a lot longer than those divers did.
+Hey. Look, just... Well. Good luck.+ Kade transmitted over Heatwave's radio as I passed.
I turned and bobbed my nose up and down slightly, +Thanks. Don't worry, I'll get them.+
Fortunately the divers hadn't been complete idiots, and had left a guide line to mark their route from the entrance that I could simply follow, occasionally pulsing out an active Sonar scan to help build up my mental map of the tunnels. From the number of dead end and branching paths, it was no wonder that so many cave divers got disoriented.
The Sonar map fed back into my visual processing centre as another alternate vision mode, appearing as a wireframe of estimated topography based on the returned sound waves, as well as marking contacts in my tactical systems where the returns were too weak to get a proper 'picture' of them.
[New SONAR Contact: Bearing 133, Range 0.94. Undulating Propulsion. Designation: Light Biological]
Mostly fish, so far.
Soon enough I came upon my first real obstacle; the entrance to the chamber they were in was blocked by debris and so much kicked up silt that my lights and conventional vision were rendered almost useless.
+Spitfire to Chief Burns, I'm outside the chamber the diver's are trapped in, but the entrance is completely blocked up even for me. I'm going to try to find another way in, let them know I'm almost there.+
+Copy, Spitfire. Good Luck.+ Came a slightly distorted response as I moved to investigate a side passage, relying on my Sonar and mapping software to keep track of my location and where I needed to get to. In the end I had to circumnavigate almost the entire cavern and enter from the opposite side, quickly picking up the group of five humans treading water in an increasingly small air pocket, who all turned to try and look at me as my lights reached them.
I carefully moved up and surfaced next to them.
"The bag this drone is carrying is holding a pair of emergency rebreather masks. Anyone with compromised gear or injuries should put them on immediately, then tie yourselves onto the rope." I announced quickly – referring to myself like that still stung a little, but that was secondary to getting them moving, and clear instructions were critical. My disagreements over our cover were secondary.
The one without a mask immediately grabbed the bag and put on the rebreather mask, followed by another that I now noticed had a damaged tank too, and a third that still had their gear but I could see a faint red mist spreading from somewhere on their legs started hooking themselves onto the rope.
They had just finished attaching themselves to the line – with the two better off ones grabbing onto the grab handles on my sides – when my Sonar went ballistic as the water started vibrating and the ceiling started shaking apart. "Aftershock, hang on!" I shouted before gunning it, diving back towards the entrance I had found as quickly as I could.
+If anyone is receiving me, I have the divers but the tunnel's collapsing!+ I reported quickly, +I'm getting everyone out of here as fast as I can!+
I grimaced slightly as my hypersensitive sonar picked up a pained grunt behind me as I shifted direction – it looked like a broken mask wasn't the only injury they'd taken – but it was either this or get crushed under a thousand tons of rock when the cave came down.
Because it was coming down, my Sonar returns were almost useless from both the cavitation of my own thrusters and the group of divers I was towing, but weaving around deceptively slowly falling rocks and almost blind I had no choice but to trust my inertial reference system yet again as I followed the maps I had taken on the way in and hoped against hope that the route was still there.
We were almost there when I felt a sudden pull on the rope before the line snapped, spinning around to see that a rock had fallen on the rope, leaving the two divers with temporary rebreather's trapped behind it.
+Divers, the exit is 25 meters further along this tunnel. Go. Now. I will attempt to recover your friends.+ I sent to their underwater communicators. +Go!+ I shouted again when they hesitated, before turning back to the trapped divers that were trying to free themselves from the rope. But it had been tied too securely, and the emergency rebreathers weren't designed for prolonged physical exertion – I could already see them starting to slow.
Fortunately the unarmed rescue drone wasn't the only thing I was.
I fired a carefully calibrated beam into the rope, cutting it instantly, and manoeuvred next to the two injured divers
They were both still with it enough to immediately grab onto my grab handles at least, and I immediately gunned it back out to the entrance where Heatwave and the other divers were waiting.
'Come on, almost- Scrap!' I barely had time to process a Boulder above the entrance as it started to fall just as I got to it.
I braced myself for the pain of being crushed, but though something hard and unyielding clamped down around me, it wasn't crushing... And I could feel the faintest trace of a Cybertronian EM field surrounding me.
I reactivated my sensors to realise that Heatwave was holding the rock up with one manipulator while the other grabbed me and carefully pulled me and the remaining divers out, the cave finally collapsing with a crash behind me as he let go and the rush of escaping water sent me drifting and a small circle before I corrected with my thrusters.
Whew. That was... far too close for comfort.
+Hahh... Thanks, Heatwave...+ I sent to him quietly. +Everyone... okay?+
+All present and accounted for.+ Heatwave nodded firmly to me, +You did good, Spitfire. Now let's get these people to the hospital to be checked out.+
Heatwave's main mobility underwater was just walking, jumping and climbing, so the injured divers just held on to me as I moved rather more sedately up to the beach, while the uninjured ones swam alongside.
Before too long I was floating in the surf as everyone finally made it onto the beach where Dani and Blades were ready to take them to the island's hospital to be checked out.
I just let myself float for a moment as my systems dropped out of fight or flight and back into something approaching normal operations.
Well.
That was certainly one way to stress test my new altmode.
+Spitfire to Chief Burns, mission accomplished, all Divers safe.+ I reported finally, going to find a more private spot to transform back and climb out of the water.
-------------------
Chief Burns sighed softly in relief as that report came in, even as he made a note to order some underwater rescue equipment. They'd gotten so used to the Bots being able to do it that someone stuck where a Rescuebot couldn't follow had almost ended in a death.
They were lucky that Spitfire had still been here – and that he'd volunteered so quickly. If that tunnel had collapsed with the divers still in it, because they didn't have underwater rescue equipment...
Well. As far as he was concerned they'd more than earned their keep with that alone.
Which meant there was now just one mess left as he made his way to where Graham was talking to Cody.
"What's the situation?"
"Based on the security camera footage almost everyone who entered had already left when the quake started. But there's at least one family unaccounted for." Graham said quietly, as they stared at the mound of rubble that was formerly the new multistory car park. They were going to have some very damning reports to make for the company behind building it, but first, rescue work. "The Conroys. Their kid had run out ahead but the parents were still inside."
"Well, then we have to find them." Chief Burns replied firmly, "Boulder, can you-?"
"NO!" Graham shouted quickly, "Even if we could risk it, Boulder's sensors are set up for structural analysis, not lifesign scans. I could tell you where there were voids, but not which one of them they might be in."
Or, which pile of rubble they might be crushed under. He didn't say, though everyone was aware of it. But until they had proof they were dead, it was still a rescue mission, not a recovery.
"There has to be something…" Charlie frowned, looking around – and then pausing as a certain Lieutenant marched up with a purple coloured robotic feline.
"Chief Burns, I couldn't help overhearing your situation and I believe I can help." 'Lieutenant Ivanova' said with a slight smile as they approached from the cleared ring of civilians watching them.
"You're sure?" He asked carefully.
"Ravage has an extremely sensitive sensory suite and sophisticated tracking software. Not to mention should be able to get a lot closer than your bots without causing a potential collapse. If you need to issue instructions to the civilians, I can tie in your radios to their loudspeaker."
"Well. We'd certainly appreciate the help. What do you need?" Chief Burns asked after a moment.
"Anything they recently touched or interacted with. Thing of it like… A scent tracking dog." She grinned just slightly.
Spitfire had leapt into motion as soon as he realised he might be the only way that some people would survive. Even though he didn't even know them, Because that was the kind of mech he was.
Ravage... knew she wasn't like that. She never had been – never had the luxury of looking out for everyone else when it was hard enough just keeping herself online.
Even in the Decepticons, caring about someone else was a luxury that could be permitted only if you were strong enough to defeat those that would inevitably try to take advantage of that weakness.
But she couldn't stand to just sit idly by while Spitfire was risking himself again, even as small a risk as this truly was.
And maybe she regretted not being able to do more to save the other Recordicons.
Maybe she wanted to at least try to do something unreservedly good for once.
"… I think we can do that. Ravage, follow me?" Charlie nodded to her slightly as she followed him over to a young boy. He looked like he'd been crying, and Ravage had to force herself to stay quiet as she sat down next to the Chief as her spark twinged.
"Alright, Levi, Ravage here is a tracking bot that we're going to send in to find your parents, but it needs something to track. Do you have anything that would smell of them, anything they gave you recently?"
"D-Dad gave me some money to buy sweets with…?" Levi said uncertainly.
Ravage nodded slightly to Charlie. Provided they'd been in his dad's pocket for a while, that should work. She'd have to filter out the child's own scent, but with him right in front of her that should be simple enough...
"That'll do great." he nodded and quickly accepted the five dollar note to hold up to her.
Ravage nosed it carefully, rhinarium flaring slightly as she ramped up her chemoreceptors to full. She instantly discarded the scents of the bill itself, focusing on the traces it had picked up from others. The Chief was obvious, his was the newest but also had only been in contact with it for a few seconds. The others were… Harder to pick out but…
She took a step towards the boy to take a quick sample for comparison's sake, and – yes, that one was his, so the other must belong to the sparkling's carer.
"Chemical signature isolated, initiating tracking protocol." She intoned carefully to let him know it had worked before running back towards the wreckage and starting to clamber over it, nose tracking against the ground as she struggled to pick out her targets through the still floating concrete dust and the hundreds of other humans that had passed through the area.
It was... at once familiar to her, yet entirely different. Tracking her targets through the war torn streets of Cybertron had involved no less climbing through wreckage and picking out their scents from the myriad of others in the area, but the purpose behind it couldn't be more different.
Finding somebody to save them, rather than in order to assassinate them or call in a strike on them.
The Decepticons had little interest in the after-battle Search-and-Rescue that would have been the other main use of those particular abilities. And she wasn't sure how much the Autobots made use of Beastformers for that either. Not like there were any other Beastformers around she could ask right now.
Ravage meandered around the site somewhat as the trail was covered by collapsed sections or still present concrete dust only to reappear somewhere else, ending up working her way inwards from the outside to help localize it. After a few anxious minutes she realised the strongest signature was right near the elevator shaft and stairwell, the lower sections of which seemed to still be largely intact.
+Chief Burns, this is Ravage. I believe the missing civilians are in the building's stairwell area. It appears to be mostly intact, though I cannot see a way inside.+ She reported quietly, and followed up by setting up a feed of her sensors to Boulder so he could show the others what she was seeing and cross reference with the building's blueprints, a heatmap of the scents she had detected superimposed over the image.
+We're seeing it Ravage, Boulder and Graham agree and are asking if you can clear an entrance to confirm. Carefully.+ Charlie added the last part quickly.
+Copy. Will drill an exploratory hole to investigate.+ She sent back, climbing onto the top if the remaining structure and flicking her tail out behind her as the tip started to spin rapidly.
Much like Soundwave's own data cables – or tentacles as Miko insisted on calling them – among its many functions was being able to make her own small holes with it. She had generally used it as a remote camera through gaps or holes too small for most Cybertronians to notice, or to physically jack in to security systems to either turn them against their owners or briefly loop footage where she couldn't avoid them entirely, but it had all the functions Soundwave built into himself in the time they had been separated.
The drilling threw up a cloud of concrete dust, but Ravage noted the metal reinforcements she had expected seemed to be almost entirely lacking… Which made it easier to drill through, but likely also explained just why this building in particular had failed so completely.
Finally she felt the resistance sharply reduce as the spinning tip pieced down into the next level and quickly pulled her tail back out of the new small hole.
"I-I see light! Hello!? Is anyone there!? We're down here!" A man's voice shouted out of the tiny gap.
+Chief Burns, Ravage. Confirmed human presence, I am putting you on loudspeaker now. Tap your transmit button twice if you don't want me to relay what you say next.+ She reported as she linked her comms up to her external speakers and audial inputs, shortly to be treated to the still slightly odd feeling of being a communications proxy, with both parties talking through her rather than to her.
It was something she had done a few times for both Megatron and Soundwave in the early days of the Decepticons, when they were still very much an underground movement and it was far easier for her to travel undetected than either larger mech, or before then for some of the Senators… In that case because when you were arranging corruption on a grand scale, it was a lot easier when all the evidence of your misdeeds was stored only in the data banks of a Minicon that could easily be 'lost' when convenient.
It was a day for using old talents for new reasons, it seemed.
"Hugh, this is Chief Burns, we can hear you and we're coming to get you, are you injured? Is anyone else in there with you?" Chief Charlie Burns' voice sounded out from Ravage's speakers.
"No, just – just me and Mary. We're okay I think just -cough- all this dust! Where's our son? Is Levi okay?"
"Levi's fine, just worried about you two. Try to cover your noses with something and stay put, we'll get you out soon!" Chief Burns shouted back, before two sharp blats of static had Ravage switch back to internal comms.
+Ravage, Boulder is concerned about clearing enough space to get into the structure or drill a bigger hole, he's worried his weight would cause too much damage and collapse it. Can you confirm what it was like to drill through?+
+Concerningly easy. There was almost no internal reinforcement, and I believe the same applies to the pillars.+ The Cougaraider sent back, +I would agree. Any significant shift in mass is likely to cause another collapse.+
She forwarded the engineering bot the readings from her drilling as she spoke for his calculations too.
The line was silent for about a minute as the others talked among themselves before Graham came on the line this time. +Alright, Boulder and I have had a look at the designs along with the data you sent us Ravage. You're right, this was definitely not built to code and any of the larger bots could cause enough of a shift to collapse it on top of them. If you can drill a set of small holes and weaken the connection points we should be able to pass through a set of cables to attach to Blades and he can just lift the top off. I'm sending you the drilling pattern and estimated depths now.+
+Confirmed, standing by to begin.+ Ravage agreed quickly.
+Ok. Ravage, put me back on again.+ Chief Burns added.
"Alright, Hugh, Mary, we can't risk digging you out fully without collapsing the pocket you're in. The bot I'm speaking to you through is going to drill holes in the upper sections of the walls and feed in lift cables. You'll have to grab them and push them back through the holes on the opposite side, so we can lift that section off. There's going to be a lot of dust when they start so I'd suggest getting behind anything available and covering your noses with something."
Once they shouted back that they were ready, Ravage started drilling again, this time into the top sides of the surviving walls.
Even as poor as this cement was, this was still a lot more prolonged use than the drilling mode had ever been designed for – Ravage hissed slightly as it started overheating and had to slow down further, but even so the simple abrasiveness of the concrete dust was starting to get itchy and she just knew it would be sore later.
But Ravage wasn't about to quit. Even if this was going to take forever…
Fortunately for her patience, a certain Miniature Cyberwolf had finally managed to run over from the other side of the island and get a modified set of instructions for cutting through the larger sections.
With Ravage drilling the holes for the makeshift lifting harness and me cutting through the supports, pretty soon the top was almost fully loose, just waiting for Blades to take the weight before I made the final few cuts.
Both Ravage and I had yet another reason to be thankful for our protective outer optic covers when the helicopter arrived and started hovering overhead, as all the dust and debris still laying around was kicked up by the downdraft from his rotors and started flying everywhere.
The cable spool was finally dropped down to us. Ravage fed them in one end while I waited at the opposite hole to grab the cable as it was pushed back through again, and when it was all done all of the steel cables were secured to Blades' winch and quickly pulled taut.
+Cables are taut!+ Ravage transmitted as I got into position, +Spitfire's making the final cuts… Now!+
I 'fired' an extremely low power shot at each remaining bit of the supports, the concrete slab shuddering slightly before I heard Blades' engine straining and it started to lift away to reveal the pair of humans hiding under the partially collapsed stairwell once more.
Poking our heads over the edge had them jump slightly in surprise but, well, they'd lived on an island full of robots for years, and the Rescue Bots were well known as well as Servo, so that only lasted a second or two in combination with seeing Blades moving away overhead to set the broken piece of concrete somewhere safe before they relaxed and started shouting and hugging eachother in relief.
"Yes! You did it, you did it!" Hugh and Mary shouted happily as the dust settled, though this led to another problem.
"So… How do we get out now?"
…
…
…
+I am so getting an oil bath after this.+ Ravage grumbled as she was used as an impromptu stepping stool for the two humans to climb up high enough to grab Kade's hand so he could pull them out fully.
It's not like it hurt, her replaced plating was still a Titanium alloy and a couple humans standing on it wasn't going to do any harm, but it was kind of annoying. At least she hadn't had to let them climb up using her helm.
Like some mechs she knew.
I grumbled as I rubbed at the shoeprint on my snout where one of them had stumbled and almost fallen back in. To be fair, I had put myself there on purpose, but still.
Once they were both out we each simply stood up and leapt out of the hole to pad back to the cleared road again covered in concrete dust and exhausted, but… Proud. Neither of us had fought anything today, but it was nice to know that people were alive and free because something we'd each done.
And I couldn't be more proud of Ravage for just jumping in to help where she was needed.
Even if it did hurt a little watching the Burnses get congratulated on another rescue while we sat out of the way with her Holoform so as to not scare people. But that was just how it was on Earth for now.
At least until Ravage suddenly felt a pair of little arms hugging one of her forelimbs tightly, and opened her optics to see Levi holding onto her tightly, "Thank you, thank you, thankyouthankyouthankyou!" He squeezed out before running off to hug both of his parents too, laughing in relief and happiness.
The Cougaraider remained still for a long moment as she processed that. It had been... how long since someone had been grateful to her for something?
Even most of the humans had an undercurrent of fear or at least wariness to them – she was big by their standards, and was well aware her frame could be... intimidating. But here was a Sparkling who just knew that Ravage had helped him find his parents.
"... You're welcome, Levi." She whispered from her real mouth, not her Holoform, watching him run back to his parents again. I smiled a little as I watched. This… This, was why I knew Ravage was truly good under everything. All she'd ever really needed was a chance to actually show it.
+Come on, let's head back to the lab and see if the Doctor got that Oil Bath going yet.+ I suggested as the other humans started crowding in to congratulate the heroes of the hour. I'd never particularly liked crowds and given the relieved look in her optics as we quickly got up and started walking away I doubted Ravage was much different.
"Good idea, I really don't want to have to self groom all this." Ravage agreed, looking down at her dust-covered plating, "Sand or dust. It all just clumps together and... Ugh."
"Better than it gunking up all your joints." I shrugged a little, "But yeah. Primus gave us oil and solvents for a reason."
Well. That was basically what made up our 'saliva' and the reason we even could clean ourselves... But, she had a point. My tastes were very different now from human norms – but trying to lick concrete dust out of panel seams was... Not my idea of a good time.
Mutual grooming was soothing and pleasant, coughing up dustballs significantly less so, especially when there was a warm tub of oil with our names on it.
---------------------
I sighed happily, venting out a few bubbles as I let myself sink fully into the container full of warm oil. Ahh, yes… The temperature was perfect. It wasn't really as thick as a human might think given the name 'oil bath' – it was only slightly thicker than water, intended more to carry the solvents used to help clean the occupants than to lubricate anything by itself – though it was popular with older bots with worn out joints for the reason that the thin oil could get into almost everywhere and at least temporarily relieve the symptoms. And a proper oil bath was actually ingestible-grade oil, so having some extra in your system was never a bad thing.
The main reason for using oil of course being that this was there was no risk of rusting from sitting in it for a while, and the fact that it was even safe to run through your ventilation ducts – both cleaning them and allowing for proper cooling despite the warm liquid surrounding us.
Not to an unlimited degree, the surface was scorching by human standards and if you tried to run at combat power levels you'd overheat pretty quickly. But at lower power levels it just held your systems at a comfortable temperature with your own temperature regulation systems barely having to work at all. It was extremely comfortable and I'd heard of some bots that almost exclusively recharged in private oil baths.
My new underwater sensors were somewhat confused by the new substance too, and I detected a faint vibration that I soon realised was from Ravage purring softly from where she was stretched out on the floor of the converted oil cistern. It was too small for the larger bots still, and there was none of the built in seating and snack deliveries that the nicer establishments back on Cybertron had boasted, but… It was an oil bath. On Earth.
I smiled and lay down next to her, rippling my plating softly to let the warm oil in deeper, and opened my muzzle to drink a little too. Med-Grade included the right additives for my systems to synthesize fresh oil for my internal systems, but this tasted way better. And was technically less of a strain on my systems to simply cycle lubricant out rather than needing to synthesize it.
"Enjoying it? I know it's not exactly a thousand Shanix reservation, but…"
The Cougaraider stretched out next to me smiled and I felt her tail wrap around my side and pull me down.
"It's perfect." Ravage grinned at me, "Thank you."
Lulled by the warm oil, we both ended up slipping into recharge early.
-----------------
Did you Know:
Rather than small birds, people Ravage likes randomly find blackmail letters or ironclad legal evidence on their opponents on their doorsteps.
This has been Ravage Facts
Chapter Edited 21/10/24: Spelling and Grammar Changes, corrected some descriptions of Ravage's altmode
