Neither I nor Ravage were in much mood to continue after that, and I quickly excused myself with the task of showing Ravage to her new berth.
Somehow that instead ended up with a pair of Minicons wrapped up in my pillow fort den, while thin streaks of coolant dripped down from her optics.
"... Primus, I'm pathetic, aren't I? Breaking down on my first Orn here…" Ravage scoffed self-deprecatingly. "Before I've properly joined the team, even!"
"No, you're not." I told her firmly, "And I can guarantee no one here thinks you're weak, or pathetic, or anything else. You've been keeping this in for a long time, you just finally had a chance to relax enough to actually say what you mean. Because I doubt you ever told any Decepticons about that, did you?"
Her silence was answer enough.
Because Ravage wasn't a dishonest femme by nature. Like a lot of other things about her, it was a defence mechanism. Professing loyalty and displaying perfect obedience even while seething with rage or near paralysed by fear was a requirement for having survived as long as she did after all, both as a Recordicon and as a Decepticon. The level of patience and self control required was likely one of the reasons she took so well to spy work.
And… Well, that was why I was so sure she was telling the truth. Because if she was still running those protocols she wouldn't be displaying any of this. It was ingrained not to display signs of weakness. A distant part of my processor noted that I was doing the same thing, but I shoved it back down. Right now this was more important.
Frankly, I was just happy she'd felt safe enough to let her defences down just a little.
"... What were they like?" I asked quietly. "HurricaneHawk and the other Recordicons."
Ravage just turned to look at me in disbelief. "... Why?" She asked. As if the idea of someone being interested in her old friends and colleagues was strange. Primus, I felt bad about not asking more about them back on Cybertron now...
"Because they were important to you. And because they deserve to be remembered as the bots they were, rather than as names on a list somewhere. Or as broken equipment. So… Let me remember them too."
"...You're right. Okay." Ravage said softly, "... HurricaneHawk loved playing pranks on bots, he was always careful to not get caught, but there was this one time where..."
--------------------------------
The Nemesis
Megatron snarled at the silent mech, "What is the meaning of this, Soundwave!?" He shouted, jabbing a clawed digit towards the recovered security footage of the Energon mine showing Ravage joining the battle against the Vehicon reinforcements and leaving with the Autobots.
+Analysis of Unit: Ravage's loyalty protocols: In error.+ Soundwave replied simply over the private comm channel. +Situation: Recoverable.+
Instead of explaining further, the taciturn mech displayed a set of updated schematics on his display visor, of a ring shaped device that looked to be intended to fit around a Minicon's neck struts.
Megatron looked at it for a moment, before developing a small smirk and standing back slightly, resting a digit over his chin thoughtfully, "Hahh… Yes… Recovering them now would not only reinforce our strength… But undoubtedly grant us access to the Autobot's secrets. Very well. Alert me when you have a working example. But do not let it distract you from decoding the locations of the remaining Iacon Relics, they are to remain our top priority."
Soundwave nodded and turned back to his console, both digits and extended data-cables immediately returning to its controls.
Megatron turned to leave, only to stop and turn back midway there, "And Soundwave… Do not give me any additional reasons to doubt your judgement." He said, pointing at Soundwave's chest, and the Minicon docked there.
-----------------------------
Autobot Outpost Omega-1, The following morning
When Ravage and I padded into the central room, the humans were of course nowhere to be found – based on my chrono, they were probably at school already – but Optimus and the rest of the bots were seemingly waiting for us.
"Ravage, Spitfire." Optimus nodded to us, "Good Orn to you both. Ravage, I wished to speak to you about something we did not have the chance to before, regarding your options for the future."
She eyed him carefully before nodding, "I see. I'm assuming that one of these options is for me to remove my weapons and live under your 'protection'?" She asked, in a tone that indicated she was under no particular inclination to follow that option.
"That is a possibility." Ratchet stressed, "Used only in cases where we have reason to believe they would place themselves or other bots at risk."
"Or in other words when they're dangerously unstable or considered likely to stab you in the back." Ravage translated, "Makes sense," She admitted, "The other options?"
"We have had many Decepticon defectors that no longer wish to fight us, but do not wish to fight their friends either. For those cases, either they can become a Neutral, or join in a non-combat role. However, if you wish to aid us more directly by becoming an Autobot in full…" Optimus
"As strange as it may sound, that is probably the best option." Ravage nodded, "Besides the fact you frankly need every combat ready bot or femme you can get? I'd go stir crazy if I was just loafing around under your protection. Besides, my speciality is field ops and… well, I don't have many friends among the Decepticons anymore. Until recently I'd have said Soundwave, but something tells me that Megatron's Number One Fan isn't going to be a fan of me defecting."
"Then it is a good thing I had Ratchet fabricate some new badges for you." The Prime nodded, sounding pleased that Team Prime had actually noticeably grown in the last month or so. Sure, still vastly outnumbered, but… Gaining three new members was probably a welcome change from the cold reality of their numbers dwindling one by one.
It was kind of surreal to see Ravage of all femmes recite the Autobot oath... Perhaps more surprising to the others being the fact that she recited it perfectly without any coaching or even being told what it was.
I smiled even as the others watched with somewhat disbelieving expressions, remaining silent until she arose again before walking over to her with a grin, "… You did read it, didn't you?"
Ravage turned to me and smirked slightly, "Cover to cover. We might have disagreed, but I was hardly about to just throw it away. Not… when you were the one that gave it to me. Speaking of… This is probably historically significant to someone now." She mused, pulling out a truly ancient Datapad from her subspace.
"This is… the original Autobot manifesto." Optimus said softly, after she offered it to him, the big mech taking it with surprising gentleness. "The ones that were disseminated shortly before the outbreak of the war…"
Ravage nodded, "Spitfire… Gave it to me on the day of our argument. The one that led to him being captured and brought to Megatron. I could never bring myself to throw it away, so… I ended up reading it a few times." She said, glancing towards me apologetically.
Given the sheer number of light claw marks, it was probably a lot more than just 'a few'… And someone outright reading an Autobot document like that would probably have been seen as treason if she'd been caught. So much for the 'perfect Decepticon' image she'd been careful to maintain in public.
Ravage chuffed slightly in amusement as her Decepticon badges were carefully removed, "And there goes all of Knockout's hard work. Oh well."
Ratchet eyed her, "Needed new insignia lately?"
"That satellite control station. I wanted to get some more information after finding out Spitfire was around, needed to make it look like a fight." She glanced over at me, "Apparently my Decepticon badge was a perfect target."
"What can I say? It's a very clawable faceplate." I nodded sagely, "Not that it seemed to work for long."
"Eh, it worked long enough for me to get in and out again." She shrugged, causing Ratchet to hiss and grumble at her to stay still, "I usually call that a success. If a bit messier than I prefer."
"And unless you want your insignia misaligned, you'll sit still!" Ratchet jabbed a digit at her, "Primus, it's like herding cybercats in here."
----------------------------------------
"And here's the training room. There's also a gun range a bit further down the way which is where I've spent more of my time."
"Well, that won't do." She snorted, "You're a great gun Spitfire, but you could be a much better warrior than you are right now. So, that's some sparring lessons as well as your stealth training… I'll have to see when some of the others will be willing to be your sparring partners too. Knowing how to fight, or at least hold off, a larger bot is important."
"I know, I know. For the stealth ops, I can probably ask Fowler for a few more exercises too. It's pretty different sneaking around humans. And probably just as important given whose planet we're on."
"I have worked around organics before you know. But yes, it would be helpful to practice somewhere other than our own base." She chided lightly, "Speaking of, a holoform like yours would be useful."
"I know, but I don't think there's any animals on this planet the right size and shape for you." I admitted, "All the 'big cats' are… not your size." By Minicon standards, Ravage was… big. Bigger than any Earth Lion, Tiger or Panther.
"Better than nothing." She countered, "From my understanding, human eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. Provided I'm not captured on video, they'd probably say any Panther or Lion they saw was 'massive'."
"That's true…" I admitted. It would still cause a panic if she was spotted, but not in such as way as to blow our cover. "Hmm… Hang on, I can bring up a few for you to try." I said, connecting up to my new phone again and from there to the internet, bringing up various pictures of Big Cats and sharing them with her. It was so useful to not need to try to mess with a human designed keyboard just to search things online.
Rather predictably, she'd settled on a Black Panther pretty quickly.
I'd also found a few extra holoforms for next time I had a stealth exercise, and to practice for a few extra ideas I'd had. Namely, a German Shepherd guard dog including the military vest and collar. My end goal was to see if I could stretch things far enough to project a human next to me so I could go for solo 'walks', but even if I could just manage a convincing leash that should be enough for a lot of situations. I knew I at least would be a lot more comfortable with the humans having to go into dangerous situations if there was a Cybertronian that could stay with them.
We looked at eachother in our Holoforms for a moment, one larger than usual attack dog and a giant Panther.
"You know, I think Panther suits you." I said lightly.
"You don't look bad yourself!" She grinned back at me, "Hm… Though your vest is clipping a bit."
"It is?" I frowned as she linked me a picture from her short term cache. Argh, damnit, it doesn't flex like my body should and when I bend it clips through my 'skin'. That's what I get for designing with a static model.
"Scrap, yeah, I see it. Thanks for letting me know, I'll get that fixed. And I'll give Agent Fowler a call, see if he's got any more newbies that need their Bot introduction."
"Which will also give you an excuse to get out of the base?" She grinned at me.
"Oh, trust me, the sunsets here are great. The sun in general actually, it's way different to being on Cybertron." I grinned, wagging my tail happily as I didn't bother to deny it, "Photovoltaics actually work better here, and its so relaxing to just bask in it sometimes… Oh, yeah…" I trailed off as I remembered she didn't have those anymore.
She looked down slightly, "… Yeah, everyone that's been able to try it said they loved it. But they were niche, so when I needed more space it was one of the first things to go…"
"You know… I'm sure Ratchet could rig something up if you wanted. If nothing else it can reduce our Energon consumption a bit, if you need another reason." I suggested. It would be nice to just sit out under sunsets together sometime… I mean, we could do that anyway, but you were missing something without dedicated photovoltaic hardware I think.
She smiled a little, "You do that, Little Wolf. In the meantime, let's get some of that training done… Rushing someone is all well and good, but you have a blaster, if a low powered one. So, if you're alone? Think about whether you want to close the range, or use it to cover your retreat. Sometimes, your victory comes through escaping rather than defeating your opponent…"
-------------------------------
A few Orns later, Ravage and I had requested to be dropped off a short walk away from the base after a training session with Fowler – and some tests his superiors had wanted to do in terms of how I could interact with human technology. The answer? As long as his helicopter's gun mount had a physical mounting point for me, I could sync up with its data links just fine.
And apparently a giant Black Panther and GShep walking in was enough to have even experienced military people startle a bit. Especially when Agent Fowler saluted and introduced us.
Hehe. It was worth it just for that. And apparently talking giant animals made the alien robots deal go past a lot easier, since it was seen as the more 'reasonable' option. Plus, I liked having human contact where I didn't have to pretend to be a robot or regular pet.
And Fowler liked not having to spend days dealing with disbelief whenever they had someone transfer in to Unit E. As well as, I think, liking having bots he was more even with size wise.
And now we were just loping along through the Nevada desert, enjoying a leisurely run after all of that.
"You know, I think that went quite well." I chuckled slightly.
"I will admit, the looks on their faces were… amusing." Ravage giggled slightly, "And they were surprisingly competent, for organics. A few more Stellar Cycles and I think they'll go far."
"They have the potential to at least, yeah-" I started, only to cut myself off as we both detected the emergency recall signal. Glancing at eachother, we both sped up to a full sprint.
Paws pounded over metal plating as Ravage and I ran back inside the base as quickly as possible, arriving in the main chamber just in time for the GroundBridge to shut down, leaving only Ratchet behind.
"Ratchet, we got the recall signal, what's happening?" I asked quickly as soon as we were close enough that I wasn't shouting at him.
"We picked up one of the Iacon locator beacons. Optimus decided the risks of allowing the Decepticons to recover it were too great to wait for you to return." Ratchet answered, looking over his shoulder panel at us, "If he requests backup, I'll send you through too."
"Understood." Ravage nodded and simply settled in to wait.
I had a feeling what was going on though, borne out when Ratchet went to contact Optimus to let him know we were available, "Optimus, Spitfire and Ravage just got back. Shall I send them through?" Only to be answered by long silence.
"Optimus, respond!" He said more insistently, as a second beacon signal popped up on the displays, "Optimus, I just picked up a second Iacon locator beacon! Optimus, do you read me?"
I moved over towards Ratchet as he started running down the team in order, attempting to contact each of them individually, "Comms trouble?" I asked carefully.
"I am unsure…" He frowned, "All diagnostics are coming back green, and I can see their life signals, but all transmissions seem to be blocked. And now a second locator signal has popped up and the entire team is out of contact!"
"Not the entire team." I corrected him lightly. "You can still send us."
The medic turned to Ravage and I, "… If you are certain… Very well. But if you get overwhelmed…"
"If it doesn't look like we can get in and out safely, we just won't engage." Ravage said simply, "Call it a recon mission. Best case, we can sneak in, grab the relic and sneak out before they even realise we're there. Worst case, at least we know what to look out for next time Megatron shows up."
Ratchet nodded slowly, "… Very well. Go, I will continue my attempts to contact Optimus." He sighed, opening a Groundbridge behind a ridgeline near the signal location, to hopefully avoid the bridge being instantly spotted.
"Spitfire, if I tell you to run, run. I've got experience with this kind of op, you don't." Ravage said to me quietly.
I snorted, "Don't worry 'teach'. It'll be just like old times. You say jump, I say how high."
"Heh. Alright, let's do this. Stealth mode to full." She butted her helm against my flank as the vortex stabilised and we ran through, emerging into a dry riverbed, littered with rock formations.
+Ratchet, we're at the location. Going radio silent until we have something to report.+ Ravage commed back to base, then tossed her helm in the direction of one of the larger boulders, "After you."
We ran between the rock formations a couple times, keeping low and in silent mode until we reached the ridge overlooking the Decepticon excavation work.
"That's a lot of Decepticons for a single relic…" I mused softly.
"More in reserve. Energy signature behind the mountain. The Nemesis is here." Ravage added, "Think the bonus objective is a bust. No way are we getting close enough to grab a relic in broad daylight."
"Probably… Frag, there's Lord Buckethead himself." I couldn't resist the name even as I marked Megatron's position. Damn, how I wanted to put a shot right between his Optics right now…
"Scrap." Ravage hissed, flattening her chassis even further, "Yeah, definitely a bust."
"Wait, I think I see it." I said, sending an optic link to Ravage. My optics were barely able to zoom in far enough to pick it out at this range, but… Yes. The hilt and handle of a sword, sticking out from the rock.
"I see it too." She confirmed, "Hmm… Odd design…"
"I… I think it's the Star Saber." I said quietly, "I can feel… something about it."
Ravage glanced at me, "Like a Weaponizer?"
I shook my helm, "No, but… More than any mundane weapon I've ever seen. And the design matches the records of the Star Saber…"
"That's an artifact of the Primes if there ever was one…" Ravage said quietly, "… Scrud. We don't have a choice, do we? If Megatron ever figures out how to use it…"
"Bye-Bye Autobots." I agreed. "We have to call this in. But uh… My comms won't reach the base from here." I admitted sheepishly, "I normally just relay through one of the others…"
"You really need to get those upgraded at some point." The Cougaraider pointed out, "But no problem."
+Ratchet, the Nemesis are Megatron are here!+ She sent to Ratchet, +He's attempting to recover the Star Saber. Will continue to observe and rep-gah!+ A trio of red blaster bolts impacted the feline Minicon and flung her away, and the sound of a humming hover engine drew my audials to the form of Laserbeak, already turning to make another run.
And now every Vehicon and Insecticon here, as well as Megatron himself, knew where we were. Scrap.
+Ravage!? Ravage, respond!+ I barely picked up Ratchet's signal on my own comms, and boosted them as far as I could, hopefully enough to reach the base.
+Ratchet, if you can hear me, we've been spotted and Ravage's hit! We need some help!+
Hopefully he got that, because it was all I had time to do before returning fire back up at Laserbeak, forcing the Minicon to break off long enough for Ravage to get up.
She nodded to me once in thanks, wincing slightly from a set of blackened burn marks on her flank as Vehicons rushed in to surround us, Ravage and I standing back to back against them.
Scrap. Optimus, you'd better come quickly…
-----------------------
This chapter was not what I intended to work on this week, but it was what got made, so here we go.
Probably going to have an interlude with Fowler's POV of Ravage and Spitfire's training trip soonish.
