[Open!] - Memoirs of a Cassette...
WHO: Magnum and !you!
WHAT: Megatron attempts to get used to being a cassetibird, even while vehemently denying his attempts to get used to anything impermanent.
WHERE: Zones 3-6. Flight patterns vary, and he's still crashing into things a lot.
WHEN: Now-ish
WARNINGS/NOTES: In waiting for his new body to be finished, Soundwave offered Megatron a ( Read more... )
WHAT: Megatron attempts to get used to being a cassetibird, even while vehemently denying his attempts to get used to anything impermanent.
WHERE: Zones 3-6. Flight patterns vary, and he's still crashing into things a lot.
WHEN: Now-ish
WARNINGS/NOTES: In waiting for his new body to be finished, Soundwave offered Megatron a ( Read more... )
...this one was definitely simplistic, and looked more like a rocket-pack with wings, or a brick with a bird head. It didn't look particularly designed for maneuverability--but it should have been capable of flying straight.
Magnum was absolutely certain of this, considering he was running diagnostic scans on his form almost constantly to see if there were any clues to what he was doing wrong.
Both engines needed to be activated simultaneously, and with similar power output, or he crashed. His wings needed to be positioned for lift, or he crashed. They ALSO needed to be even, or he crashed. There wasn't enough runway to just floor it, so he couldn't put out too much power, or he crashed.
...it was a wonder there were any flight-capables alive in this city, at all.
But it didn't stop him from trying again...this time lifting off, hovering successfully a few moments....spinning three times, and shooting straight towards what had to be a Tyran. A damaged Tyran. A terribly familiar, damaged Tyran.
Frag his life.
...he crashed.
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Pitiable.
He did consent to sidestep slightly when it flew at him, watching with detachment as it crashed once again. Only then did he approach it, towering over the creature, his head tilted, sensory fins fluttering idly.
He reached down to pick it up.
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Even after 50 similar instances, it still hurt.
He could remember Dirge mentioning his wings were sensitive, and though he was fairly certain it was different in jets than in cassettes he was starting to get the picture. The wings were what he needed to stay airborne, and his were getting pretty beat up.
...it was a bad idea to stay down, though, especially if the wrong Soundwave was nearby...and so he hobbled to his feat, wings spread awkwardly as if trying to grab hold of the wall to steady himself and being unable to....
He wasn't fast enough. A hand was closing in around him, and all that was left to do...
Was bite.
So he bit.
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Cabling unfolded at a thought, coiling down around his arm, and reaching for the creature, seemingly of its own volition. He hadn't wanted to take the information by force... but if it was going to be like this...
"STATE DESIGNATION," he ordered, halting the cabling a few inches from the small thing.
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...alright, now that was terrifying, and he actually stilled to a complete stop, balancing carefully and pressed up against the wall as much as he could be. Soundwave was not the type to fall for the usual tricks, new, old, or otherwise. He was too damned serious, and, though slow, was probably faster than Magnum could hope to fly.
He...really was not used to being scared, and did not like the feeling one iota. Giving an answer would provide more time to plan, however.
...what...had...Soundwave's bird been called?
"...Laserbeak." He replied....trying very, very hard to sound not like Magnum. "...you should not do that. I belong to Soundwave." He looked up past the cable, cocking his head. "...it would be difficult to crack his code."
He'd just have to hope to Primus that was actually true.
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But they did not attach. Not yet.
Soundwave tilted his head, absorbing the information. This being his alternate's toy made sense--at least in its build, and its vague resemblance to one of his creations. If what it said was true, it was likely as heavily coded as Ravage. And, by the same token, a valuable tool. His optic narrowed.
"ACKNOWLEDGED."
There were other ways, he'd recently discovered, to crack a processor than his preferred method. All he had to do was pick it up. Touch it. Read its thoughts. Hoping its attention was focused on the cables wound around his arm, he reached his other hand for the bird.
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The first time he'd met Soundwave he'd been angry--so angry, to find their conversation overheard. As if it hadn't been enough that a stranger knew how to find him and was offering equipment with no strings attached that could only leave his processor racing...but then to find there had been spies? It infuriated him. He would have killed them, then, without even thinking...if Soundwave hadn't interfered. Instead he'd watched in a disbelieving daze as Soundwave read the intruder's mind and extracted every bit of information, effortlessly.
He still remembered the look on the guy's face.
He'd known, back then, that Soundwave could ultimately gain control over everything he'd done--his work, his organization, his men, his self...
...and had relented, anyway, because it still had been a better future than he'd came from, and if it was a future he knew he was going towards, then he'd not have to worry when it came.
But still he'd worried what it felt like to have one's mind--thoughts, plans, feelings, intimacies--exposed. He'd never forgotten the look on that mech's face.
It was...very likely...the only thing he'd ever allowed himself to fear.
And there it was.
He was, completely and entirely, focused on the cables.
"What do you want?"
And then there was a hand around him, and all that he could do was panic. He wasn't used to panic...wasn't used to not being able to think, or reason, and it was overwhelming to not be able to so easily calm down.
He pecked. He clawed. He beat his wings against spiky appendages in terror. He found out he had lasers, and he used those, too. Anything he could to get away, not even knowing that the hand itself was harmless--thrusters on full, to burn his way out if nothing else. He was not going to be read.
[[..though...uh...it is your talent, so feel free to read anything you think you can get from him...? Have fun with the panic.]]
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Soundwave knew he had become something of a mystery since his disappearance with the Nemesis. A figure of myth--lurking in the shadows, controlling the strings. Other Decepticons treated him with deference. With suspicion.
With fear.
He was accustomed to it, he used it, often to his advantage. Ravage appearing from nowhere, Soundwave's grating monotone cutting into secure comm channels, and always, always, the threat of Megatron looming over his every order.
That had changed here. He was given insolence, disobedience. His loyalty scorned, mocked... His orders questioned. His body taken and exploited.
But now he saw the fear in the creature's expression. And he relished it. His fins flared, mantling over his broad shoulders. Glorious.
His hand clamped tight around the creature, while his frame went still, optics shutting down while the data streamed like a drug through his processor, sorted and slotted into files, locked, encrypted and stored. His head rolled back on his neck, panels across his body shivering. It was new, it was unfocused, but it was pouring through him with no effort other than the pressure of a clawed hand.
There was terror. Helplessness. Wrong-body-not-right-trapped. Panic laced through everything, a deep set virus clogging the true information. His alternate's coding--everywhere. Flashes, glimpses of another time. More fear. Wrongness. The flee response.
... A name.
Soundwave's optics suddenly booted up, pain receptors finally registering the damage being done to his hand. He wrenched his digits free of the creature, pulling back for a few, precious inches.
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He barely even registered them, rocketing out of the grasp and into the sky in his most successful launch of all time--one he probably would not even remember, in his desperate need to get away. Those cables couldn't touch him--shouldn't touch him--and the further behind Soundwave fell the more secure he became in the fact that they wouldn't touch him.
He fled, and he did not look back, fleeing higher and higher upwards until he could get lost in the draping girders, gaps, and drooping foliage of the level above.
Only then, did he allow himself to think.
Only then, did he thank his luck.
Only then....did he realize he had no clue how to get back down.
Oh, well.
One problem at a time...
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