For a Few Upgrades More - Chapter 6
Title: For a Few Upgrades More - Chapter Six
Warnings/content advice: threats, lots of mentions of past mod extraction, removal of armor, surgery preparation.
Rating: Pg-13
Continuity: Transformers Animated
Characters: Soundwave, Slipstream, Lockdown, Laserbeak and Ratbat
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro et al, not to me
Prompt: tf_speedwriting Prompt #5 20 Oct Gravity (with continuing inspiration from last chapter's The Bates - Independent Love Song and further inspiration from Radiohead - Creep.)
The door between internal corridor and bridge opened and Lockdown stood looking toward them. Something in the way his optics came to focus on her made Slipstream feel he was disappointed. Slipstream had some small epiphany, as her own personal experience, corresponded with her knowledge of her template's experience: A disharmonious relationship between a Leader and one who served at that time as Second-in-Command and the not-quite-concealed dissatisfaction of onlookers. There should be challenge and counterpoint between faction officers; that was logical. It kept the leadership sharp. But, there was a point at which that level of conflict was a detriment to the faction as a whole. If their goals were truly as important as they claimed - Cybertron and the AllSpark - and it was not all megalomania, then both leaders had been ineffective. Starscream should have submitted, or just started his own faction - without falling back into the same failed strategies and leading his army against Megatron. Slipstream did not want to be that!
Whether or not there was any more attraction to Soundwave's amused, logical and revolutionary thinking, than her aversion to repeating her template's glaring mistakes, she had her course set, now. It felt sometimes she was guided more by what she did not want than by what she wanted, as if avoiding a conflict or obstacle resulted in her happening to move closer to something else. Yet, externally, there was no difference; she shifted position or allegiance.
"You two need another moment, or are you ready to do this?" Lockdown asked.
Or, maybe that perceived disappointment actually indicated Lockdown was aware of certain rumors regarding her template and assumed she must now be some embodiment of 'being easily swayed'. Regardless, the epiphany was had, and Slipstream replied with customary bitterness, "Oh, I'm all yours, Coattails."
"Ya sure about that?" Lockdown asked, looking past her.
Slipstream spoke without looking at either Lockdown or Soundwave. "A jet needs to know how to read changes in the air and push through turbulence when it cannot be avoided...right, Ratbat?"
As she hoped - and feared - Soundwave answered for his minion. "Affirmative. Slipstream is capable of choosing the most logical course."
"If either one a you had seen more than two stellar cycles, combined, you'd know it takes more than logic to get ya through," Lockdown said, then turned and went to the bridge.
"Your experience is an asset," Soundwave said. He followed closely after Lockdown, Laserbeak still stowed on his back.
Slipstream waited another moment. She reached up to pet Ratbat, then went through the open doors. Soundwave was looking toward her as she entered, but looked away to continue his conversation with Lockdown. Slipstream was certain then, Soundwave had an active connection to his minions, though she did not fully understand it's nature. And, she did not wonder, as she completed her first visual scan of Lockdown's domain. There were tall shelves full of parts. Not replacement parts matching his own current piecemeal construction, but many different parts, clearly from other bots. She knew, because Starscream had known, that Lockdown had a taste for mods and upgrades, but here was evidence of the depth of his obsession...maybe addiction. Near the shelves was a pair of operating tables with visible restraints systems.
Lockdown and Soundwave were standing near a work table, with collection of tools. There were a lot of tools for cutting and splicing...various torches to heat and work metal plating. Lockdown touched his hook to the panel that guarded Soundwave's extended arm. "That ain't nothing but a modified Mini-Con connector; nice work though. You got some kind of connection with the pets?"
Slipstream listened to their conversation as she went slowly to the shelves, Ratbat squeaking at her audio receptor, to have a closer look.
"My minions amplify my abilities. The connectors I designed allow a physical or wireless networking between our sensors, processors and sonic equipment," Soundwave said, leaning-in toward Lockdown.
"Not drones, though?" Lockdown asked.
Ratbat's left wing struck the nearest shelf and a part fell heavily, down to the floor. Slipstream bent to lift it: a missile launcher with blue finish and shoulder-mount hardware.
"No. My machines have individual life separate from my own, but also combine their abilities with mine." Soundwave looked past Lockdown and tipped his head curiously at the missile launcher.
Lockdown turned around, spotted the part in Slipstream's talons and then moved quickly toward her. "Claws off, or...claws off," he threatened.
Slipstream was prepared to an appropriate response, but Ratbat squeaked at her shoulder and flapped his wings at Lockdown.
"Thing's taken a real shine to ya."
"Wingthing was a failed prototype; the one attracted to Slipstream is Ratbat."
There was a brief silence in which Lockdown and Soundwave seemed to realize their miscommuncation. Slipstream didn't interrupt, occupied with her own thoughts on who was attracted to whom, or if they were all simply drawn toward each other's assets. She set the missile launcher back on the shelf.
Lockdown broke the silence. "There are more minions?"
"Prototypes are inferior. I dismissed them. My loyal minions report on the Murder's activities; they have flocked together."
Slipstream interrupted, "Where's the Seeker leg?"
Lockdown pulled the leg from a center shelf; Slipstream did not miss the pair of red guns that had lain alongside it: Sunstorm's guns. "What bounty head did you skim this part from?" she asked, but she already knew the answer.
"Don't ask." That was her line, usually. The right leg in question was silver with red detailing and from the shape of the tail planes from a bot in a Cybertronian alt-mode.
She was confident it would take to her shell. Her self-repair nanomachines would eventually convert it to her alt-mode and deco, denying Lockdown forever a trophy from the infamous Starscream. He'd have her damaged leg to show for it. To her thinking, she was superior to Starscream, but she did not assume others believed the clones were possibly superior to the original. Though...Soundwave hadn't had a problem determining which of his creations were failed protoypes and which improvements.
Slipstream smiled smugly.
"Hop up on the table there," Lockdown instructed.
Slipstream glanced first to Soundwave, wondering if he would possibly be her back-up if Lockdown decided to just harvest her best parts, or if Soundwave might in some way side with Lockdown. "Bet you say that to all the bots," she said to Lockdown.
"Might if they were online," he gestured again toward the nearby operating table, with his hook.
Slipstream understood the weighty importance of her decision. She lifted herself up onto the table. Ratbat dropped from her shoulder and perched on the edge of the table's well-used metal surface. These scrapes in the metal represented past struggles. She was willingly allowing the mod-extracting upgrade addict to perform surgery on her leg. And she was going to allow him to leave with a piece of her.
All this to be able to get to Soundwave's equipment, while the Autobots were still distracted. To attain Soundwave, and his minions as her allies. It was logical. But it wasn't an easy choice to go in this direction.
Lockdown set the silver leg on the table, near her right side. His hook slid under her right knee and lifted her leg. Slipstream's shell trembled.
Across the interior space, in Slipstream's view, Soundwave drew Laserbeak from his back and manually transformed his minion into his guitar alt-mode.
Lockdown's left-hand digits glided along the seam in Slipstream's boot. She knew he'd found the latch to remove the section of her armored shell. A nanocycle and the armor fell down with a loud clatter and Soundwave began strumming. Slipstream's lower right leg was bare to its protoform layer. Lockdown tapped at her exposed shin. It hurt. It was absolutely humiliating...terrifying to be seen without armor; to be touched. "Bent strut. I'll hafta open ya up and patch in a new strut."
Slipstream knew she should have resisted this, would have, but instead she resisted everything but this course. "Do it."
Warnings/content advice: threats, lots of mentions of past mod extraction, removal of armor, surgery preparation.
Rating: Pg-13
Continuity: Transformers Animated
Characters: Soundwave, Slipstream, Lockdown, Laserbeak and Ratbat
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro et al, not to me
Prompt: tf_speedwriting Prompt #5 20 Oct Gravity (with continuing inspiration from last chapter's The Bates - Independent Love Song and further inspiration from Radiohead - Creep.)
The door between internal corridor and bridge opened and Lockdown stood looking toward them. Something in the way his optics came to focus on her made Slipstream feel he was disappointed. Slipstream had some small epiphany, as her own personal experience, corresponded with her knowledge of her template's experience: A disharmonious relationship between a Leader and one who served at that time as Second-in-Command and the not-quite-concealed dissatisfaction of onlookers. There should be challenge and counterpoint between faction officers; that was logical. It kept the leadership sharp. But, there was a point at which that level of conflict was a detriment to the faction as a whole. If their goals were truly as important as they claimed - Cybertron and the AllSpark - and it was not all megalomania, then both leaders had been ineffective. Starscream should have submitted, or just started his own faction - without falling back into the same failed strategies and leading his army against Megatron. Slipstream did not want to be that!
Whether or not there was any more attraction to Soundwave's amused, logical and revolutionary thinking, than her aversion to repeating her template's glaring mistakes, she had her course set, now. It felt sometimes she was guided more by what she did not want than by what she wanted, as if avoiding a conflict or obstacle resulted in her happening to move closer to something else. Yet, externally, there was no difference; she shifted position or allegiance.
"You two need another moment, or are you ready to do this?" Lockdown asked.
Or, maybe that perceived disappointment actually indicated Lockdown was aware of certain rumors regarding her template and assumed she must now be some embodiment of 'being easily swayed'. Regardless, the epiphany was had, and Slipstream replied with customary bitterness, "Oh, I'm all yours, Coattails."
"Ya sure about that?" Lockdown asked, looking past her.
Slipstream spoke without looking at either Lockdown or Soundwave. "A jet needs to know how to read changes in the air and push through turbulence when it cannot be avoided...right, Ratbat?"
As she hoped - and feared - Soundwave answered for his minion. "Affirmative. Slipstream is capable of choosing the most logical course."
"If either one a you had seen more than two stellar cycles, combined, you'd know it takes more than logic to get ya through," Lockdown said, then turned and went to the bridge.
"Your experience is an asset," Soundwave said. He followed closely after Lockdown, Laserbeak still stowed on his back.
Slipstream waited another moment. She reached up to pet Ratbat, then went through the open doors. Soundwave was looking toward her as she entered, but looked away to continue his conversation with Lockdown. Slipstream was certain then, Soundwave had an active connection to his minions, though she did not fully understand it's nature. And, she did not wonder, as she completed her first visual scan of Lockdown's domain. There were tall shelves full of parts. Not replacement parts matching his own current piecemeal construction, but many different parts, clearly from other bots. She knew, because Starscream had known, that Lockdown had a taste for mods and upgrades, but here was evidence of the depth of his obsession...maybe addiction. Near the shelves was a pair of operating tables with visible restraints systems.
Lockdown and Soundwave were standing near a work table, with collection of tools. There were a lot of tools for cutting and splicing...various torches to heat and work metal plating. Lockdown touched his hook to the panel that guarded Soundwave's extended arm. "That ain't nothing but a modified Mini-Con connector; nice work though. You got some kind of connection with the pets?"
Slipstream listened to their conversation as she went slowly to the shelves, Ratbat squeaking at her audio receptor, to have a closer look.
"My minions amplify my abilities. The connectors I designed allow a physical or wireless networking between our sensors, processors and sonic equipment," Soundwave said, leaning-in toward Lockdown.
"Not drones, though?" Lockdown asked.
Ratbat's left wing struck the nearest shelf and a part fell heavily, down to the floor. Slipstream bent to lift it: a missile launcher with blue finish and shoulder-mount hardware.
"No. My machines have individual life separate from my own, but also combine their abilities with mine." Soundwave looked past Lockdown and tipped his head curiously at the missile launcher.
Lockdown turned around, spotted the part in Slipstream's talons and then moved quickly toward her. "Claws off, or...claws off," he threatened.
Slipstream was prepared to an appropriate response, but Ratbat squeaked at her shoulder and flapped his wings at Lockdown.
"Thing's taken a real shine to ya."
"Wingthing was a failed prototype; the one attracted to Slipstream is Ratbat."
There was a brief silence in which Lockdown and Soundwave seemed to realize their miscommuncation. Slipstream didn't interrupt, occupied with her own thoughts on who was attracted to whom, or if they were all simply drawn toward each other's assets. She set the missile launcher back on the shelf.
Lockdown broke the silence. "There are more minions?"
"Prototypes are inferior. I dismissed them. My loyal minions report on the Murder's activities; they have flocked together."
Slipstream interrupted, "Where's the Seeker leg?"
Lockdown pulled the leg from a center shelf; Slipstream did not miss the pair of red guns that had lain alongside it: Sunstorm's guns. "What bounty head did you skim this part from?" she asked, but she already knew the answer.
"Don't ask." That was her line, usually. The right leg in question was silver with red detailing and from the shape of the tail planes from a bot in a Cybertronian alt-mode.
She was confident it would take to her shell. Her self-repair nanomachines would eventually convert it to her alt-mode and deco, denying Lockdown forever a trophy from the infamous Starscream. He'd have her damaged leg to show for it. To her thinking, she was superior to Starscream, but she did not assume others believed the clones were possibly superior to the original. Though...Soundwave hadn't had a problem determining which of his creations were failed protoypes and which improvements.
Slipstream smiled smugly.
"Hop up on the table there," Lockdown instructed.
Slipstream glanced first to Soundwave, wondering if he would possibly be her back-up if Lockdown decided to just harvest her best parts, or if Soundwave might in some way side with Lockdown. "Bet you say that to all the bots," she said to Lockdown.
"Might if they were online," he gestured again toward the nearby operating table, with his hook.
Slipstream understood the weighty importance of her decision. She lifted herself up onto the table. Ratbat dropped from her shoulder and perched on the edge of the table's well-used metal surface. These scrapes in the metal represented past struggles. She was willingly allowing the mod-extracting upgrade addict to perform surgery on her leg. And she was going to allow him to leave with a piece of her.
All this to be able to get to Soundwave's equipment, while the Autobots were still distracted. To attain Soundwave, and his minions as her allies. It was logical. But it wasn't an easy choice to go in this direction.
Lockdown set the silver leg on the table, near her right side. His hook slid under her right knee and lifted her leg. Slipstream's shell trembled.
Across the interior space, in Slipstream's view, Soundwave drew Laserbeak from his back and manually transformed his minion into his guitar alt-mode.
Lockdown's left-hand digits glided along the seam in Slipstream's boot. She knew he'd found the latch to remove the section of her armored shell. A nanocycle and the armor fell down with a loud clatter and Soundwave began strumming. Slipstream's lower right leg was bare to its protoform layer. Lockdown tapped at her exposed shin. It hurt. It was absolutely humiliating...terrifying to be seen without armor; to be touched. "Bent strut. I'll hafta open ya up and patch in a new strut."
Slipstream knew she should have resisted this, would have, but instead she resisted everything but this course. "Do it."