Last and Alone - Secret Part 3
Title: Last and Alone - Secret
Rating: K+
Characters: Jazz, Ratchet
Warnings: None
Universe: G1-ish/Last and Alone/Monolith
Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Any OC’s to my knowledge are solely mine.
Summary: Perceptor was once part of a gestalt, but the others were destroyed. Since he should never have survived the deaths of his teammates, it’s a secret he has kept for thousands of vorns. Now Jazz is tracking it down. An unexpected continuation of a prompt I took on. It only pretends to have a plot.
Part 2 - Secret
Part 3
Ratchet was waiting as soon as Jazz excited the CMO’s office. “Well, did you find, as the humans say; the earth shattering clue that solves the mystery?”
“And what mystery is that?
“I’m not sure what mystery your processor has cooked up, but I doubt you failed to notice Perceptor’s odd behavior this past month or more specifically his behavior during the battle two days ago? Knowing you as I do, something about Perceptor has perked your processors interest.”
Jazz smiled. “Not much gets past you Ratchet. Though I’d be interested in the ‘odd behavior’ you mentioned.”
“You mean to say you actually didn’t notice it?” Ratchet feigned shock.
“Hey, I’m a Saboteur. Mirage or Hound are your mechs if you want observations. And it’s not like I spend a lot of social time with the recluse.”
“Right.”
“Ratchet?” Jazz cocked an optic ridge, even though Ratchet couldn’t see it
“Hmmm. Not sure if it classifies as odd really. Just unusual. Perceptor’s been even more quite and withdrawn than normal. Though he has gone thru such periods before, it’s not typical for it to last this long. As I said, this time it’s been going on about a month; which would be around two orns. Longest Jack and I can remember him avoiding us is one orn. He may not talk much unless it’s science related, but he does enjoy being in the presence of others. It’s almost like he’s making sure he’s not the only one left on the base. Neither Jack or I can figure what we’ve done to earn his avoidance, so something else must be bugging him.”
“Do you remember exactly when this started?” Jazz asked interested.
“It was right about the time of that battle in the Texas oil fields. The one where we almost lost Groove and Streetwise. I remember because First Aid was pretty much a useless wreck with two of his team mates so badly damaged. I called Perceptor to fill in for him. Then I came real close to kicking Perceptor out because he seemed almost as distracted, but he settled down after a couple threats.” Ratchet shrugged.
“Ratchet, anything I should know about Perceptor that’s not in his personnel file or his medical records that you or Wheeljack happen to know about?”
“Doubt it. Even in casual conversation, he rarely offers up personal revelations. Mostly he listens. Or if he is talking then its medical and scientific topics as you well know.” Ratchet paused here, his optics dimming in thought. “What are you thinking here Jazz? What happened during that battle that I missed?”
“You didn’t find it strange…Percy making the first strike in the fight with Dirge? I mean I know I was a long ways off, but it was pretty obvious he started the fight.”
“Jazz, it’s pretty obvious Dirge started the fight by landing with his weapons armed.” Ratchet offered dryly.
“Yeah,” Jazz waved the response away, “but Percy initiated the physical fight. And he seemed to be…”Jazz paused to think carefully over how to phrase his observation, “…holding his own quite nicely.”
“Yes he was, till Dirge took aim at me and Hound.”
“And you don’t see anything unusual in Perceptor doing this?”
Ratchet paused confused, “Jazz, without Perceptor, Hound and I would have been a lot closer to scrap. You were the nearest to our position, and you still didn’t arrive till after Dirge broke free.”
“That’s exactly what I mean!” Jazz exclaimed throwing his hands and arms wide before pointing a finger at Ratchet. “Dirge had to break free of the fight. Percy wasn’t letting him go. And how was he able to function so well with Dirge playing those blasted subsonic vibrations?”
“You know we’re all affected at different levels by Dirge’s tune, granted it’s very negative for the majority. But you yourself can actually function pretty well with them at times, playing your own tunes internally to counter. It is possible that Perceptor has devised a method of countering Dirge as well. And just because he sees little enough of battle here on Earth, he saw it regularly on Cybertron. Slag, we all saw it regularly. So again, what’s got you all worked up about Perceptor during that battle?”
Jazz huffed with a cycling of his vents holding silent otherwise. Ratchet glared. “I’m waiting. Just because I let you have access to my files before hearing your story, does not mean you’re off the hook for groveling for access.”
“Fine! But I’m not even sure what’s got me worked up about this! It’s just…when he on-lined from the emergency re-boot, he called me another bots designation. When I questioned who that was, he said it was his one of his gestalt mates.”
“A quirk from being off lined in the middle of battle and the emergency re-boot protocols activating. It happens.” was Ratchet’s immediate response.
“No. I thought so at first when I started looking at this, but right after he answered he gave me a look that… the best way to describe it would be that he was horrified. Like he had just killed his best friend by friendly fire, or… I don’t know. But the look was real.”
“Ok, so..,” Ratchet paused to collect his own thoughts. If he’s a member of a gestalt, as you’re suggesting, and I think, as the humans say, you’re out in left field here, then he’s managed to hide it all the vorns that we’ve known him. Do you realize that he would somehow have to be able to fool all our medical machines? And that’s not just routine maintenance. That includes when he’s been off line and, or, severely wounded. I don’t see how that’s possible. Maybe once or twice, but not as many vorns as we’re suggesting. If he was a gestalt, then any scan of him, from basic surface to full should reveal that. The gestalts aren’t just bonded. There spark bonded. They each carry a piece of each members spark. If you were to crack any of their casings, you’d see five different streams of energy all laced together in a big glowing knot. In fact, team members sparks while identical under scan do offer far different readings than an individual mechs. They’re a bit more similar to a bonded pair or a bonded trine. And even closer to the spark readings a pair of spark split twins would have, such as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. However, Perceptor’s spark scans like a normal individuals.”
“You’ve never visually looked at it though?”
“I can’t think of very many reasons to crack open a sealed spark casing. It’s highly risky. During repairs, as long as the casing is intact, we leave it be. Now, we know that gestalts are spark bonded from stolen records on the Constructicons as well as exams of our own two teams. The Constructicons were surgically spark bonded during the gestalt process. The Aerialbots and Stunticons were created by Vector Sigma already spark bonded. Same for the Protectobots. Now being created spark bonded, is similar to, but not the same as spark split twins. Twins share a single spark. Spark bonded gestalt teams have their own individual sparks, but then they also have a pieces of each team members individuals sparks. Records also showed that Starscream surgically bonded the Combaticons.”
“My instinct keeps saying I’ve stumbled onto something.”
“Fine, then there’s the question of where’s the rest of his team? Gestalts live and die together. And in case you haven’t noticed, they tend to have, to use another human phrase, ‘hissy fits’ when you attempt to separate them for any length of time. I cannot picture a gestalt member tolerating being separated from his teammates for as long a time period as we are considering. Teams have to periodically form the Gestalt, to maintain their anchor to the world. The Gestalt personality anchors the individuals, who in turn anchor each other and the Gestalt itself. The time span were talking, this mystery team of yours should all be insane by now. And that’s saying they exist at all. And Perceptor has never shown any indication that he’s insane. Which brings me back to the point of live together, die together.”
Jazz didn’t respond right away as he though further on Ratchets words. The CMO was turning out to be a decent sounding board. “The hard facts say one thing Ratchet, but …Maybe a new kind of gestalt? One not so dependent on the bond?”
“Your still reaching here Jazz.”
“Am I? Everything that I am is screamin’ that I’m not.”
“When would Perceptor have become a member of a gestalt team? He has a continuous, traceable record since joining the Autobots.”
“Ok, so before us. There are no records on him prior to his being found in that collapsed building. And you have to admit, the circumstances surrounding his condition are mysterious. What was so important about him to keep him in life support stasis? How was that even possible? Keeping a bot on support for as long as he claimed requires a steady energy source.”
“I can answer the how for you. Wheeljack was most fascinated with the machine and got a quick look at it before the area finished collapsing. He was most disappointed that he did not get longer with it actually. But he did say the machine was a marvel of engineering work. It was tapped into an old power line deep within Cybertron. The line itself was so small and deep, it was virtually undetectable. Of course, at that time, neither side was exactly desperate for energy, just continuously short so we had not yet exploited those types of lines like we did later on. In fact, it was still somewhat early enough in the war that we occasionally came across the odd group of neutrals trying to survive off such deep tap lines. We initially assumed we’d found the base of another one of those groups when we found Perceptor.”
The conversation had proven useful in some ways, but the end result mirrored his earlier thought. He needed to talk to Perceptor. Ratchet was going to have a field day with this at Jazz’s expense if it did indeed turn out to be a quirk. Come to think of it, so would Prowl. But Jazz was convinced he was on to something. He just wasn’t sure exactly why or what “So, as helpful as this conversation has been, have I paid my dues for the use of your files, useless though they were?” Jazz asked.
Ratchet arched and optic “Yes I suppose, though I suggest you talk to Perceptor. As interesting as your speculations are, you’re probably working your processor into knots over a quirk. I certainly hope you haven’t mentioned this to Prowl.”
“I know better than that. Can’t have Prowler crashing over a quirk and I plan to talk to Perceptor. I just can’t find him. It’s like he’s disappeared. I think I’m going to enlist Red Alert and his security room to the cause.”
“Don’t bother. Jack and I have experience with this. If Perceptor has really disappeared on you, nothing Red Alert can do will locate him. It frustrates Red Alert to no end, causes his paranoia to kick in and eventually causes him to crash after stewing over the situation for a few days. And I don’t want to deal with that. Understood?” Ratchet waved the tool he’d been holding in his hand at Jazz.
Jazz was interested though. He’d never heard this. “How’s he able to avoid all of Red’s cameras and sensors? I thought me, my team, Prime, Prowl, Red Alert and Sideswipe were the only ones who could drop totally off the grid?”
“Hmpf. Ask him when you find him.”
“Yeah I will. That and a lot more I think.”
“Jazz.” Ratchet called just as Jazz reached the doors.
Jazz turned, “yeah.”
Ratchet didn’t speak, but Jazz could see several thoughts of various sorts racing across his face. A few more moments of this and Jazz spoke up. “Ratchet?”
Ratchet cycled his air system in a huge sigh and looked at Jazz directly, speaking slow, almost reluctantly. “The… majority of the information we have on gestalts… and by majority I mean probably around 70 percent of it, comes from Perceptor…. Wheeljack and I have always assumed he had at some point made a study of them after Devastator’s appearance.”
Jazz nodded, “Thanks Ratch, I’ll catch ya later.” And with that Jazz headed out.
Part 4