#I always meant to draw more art that leans into a more gritty territory such as this but often ended up unsatisfied with the end result

[commandertartarsmoocher]

This is not an AC/DC reference

Two versions because I think both are neat!

[soundwavereporting]

spoilers for chapter 1 of war for cybertron: siege!

title: Battle Suit

characters: Minimus Ambus, Soundblaster, background Buzzsaw

warnings: canon typical violence, s1 spoilers, planned corpse desecration, elements of IDW transformers, brief mentions of cannibalism, post-canon

summary: Minimus Ambus tries to sell a dead mech.

ao3 link in the notes!

Minimus arrived at the compound late enough that Soundblaster had finished his posturing and moved on to his seemingly favorite pastime: learning.

Minimus tapped the controls on his maglev-cart, directing it to remain in place as he waited for Soundblaster to finish whatever datapad had caught his attention. He hadn’t been around to see his reaction to another scavenger calling his thirst for knowledge typical Soundwave, but he had arrived quickly enough to siphon the last dregs of the unfortunate ‘bot’s innermost energon. There wasn’t even a stain on the floor to mark the spot where the bot had died.

He wondered when things like that had stopped bothering him.

He tapped his foot, scanning the number of guards and hangers-on milling about the compound. Considering the lateness of the hour, there were far more than usual—but taking into account Soundblaster’s domain had quickly become the only place on this side of Cybertron with a semi-functional communications network, Minimus supposed he understood. Bots had to get their reruns of old shows somewhere.

Besides. It was getting harder and harder to slip into Decepticon territory—each and every time he made the trek, Minimus was grateful for both his small stature and red optics. Despite that, Minimus suspected that with their recent victory, it would slowly become near-impossible to slip in and out undetected as the Decepticons began to establish greater control over Cybertron. He hoped what he had brought today would be enough to delay another trip for a few cycles—at a minimum.

“Minimus Ambus,” Soundblaster said, peering over his datapad, and Minimus nearly winced—no one had referred to him as Ambus since before the beginning of the war. Apparently, whatever Soundblaster had been reading mentioned his full name. Minimus wondered if it was an old copy of the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy.  “And Ultra Magnus.”

Minimus didn’t bother looking at the broken armor piled in his cart.

“Twelve-point-five tons of scrap metal,” Minimus said. “Plus half a kilo of salvageable protometal.”

“Interesting.” Soundblaster set the datapad aside and leaned forward. Minimus had to fight the urge to take a step back—at this distance, Soundblaster was downright unnerving. “Where did you find him?”

“Decepticon territory.” Minimus neatly clipped out the fact that the frame had been found right outside Shockwave’s main laboratory.

Soundblaster hummed noncommittally. Buzzsaw chirped. Minimus found his gaze drawn towards the avian cassette—he had heard rumors about Buzzsaw’s particular brand of art. The mech had been commissioned to paint the fabled portraits in the Decepticon stronghold, but Buzzsaw’s passion—his true passion—was what he referred to as ‘mixed media’.

Maybe if Soundblaster wasn’t interested in the body, Buzzsaw would be.

“Not interested.” Soundblaster picked up a new datapad and handed it to Minimus, who tore his gaze away from Buzzsaw to take in the list of the week’s top-paying salvage. It was mostly long-range weaponry, paying the regular rate of a cube per ten kilos plus an extra half cube for every intact heavy-duty blaster. “With the Decepticon’s victory over the Autobots, we’ll be needing all the heavy artillery you can find.”

“Surely the Decepticons won’t be moving in on your territory so soon.” Minimus said it before he could help himself—breaking his first self-imposed rule of dealing with Soundblaster: don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself. “They have the rest of the planet to conquer before bothering themselves with you.”

“They are leaving.”

Minimus looked up. Soundblaster’s face was unreadable as always, but Minimus thought he sensed the faintest hint of…discomfort? Disgust?

The not-Decepticon settled back into his seat and picked up another datapad. “Megatron will be seeking the Allspark,” Soundblaster said. “He will be leaving the minimum amount of soldiers needed to secure the planet—and that is when we will make our move.”

“‘Our’?”

Soundblaster didn’t seem to notice. Minimus refrained from questioning the sense—or logistics—of trying to sieze control of the planet at this time. It wasn’t his place, and he had already said his piece.

Besides, he doubted Soundblaster would actually listen.

“I would see about finding yourself some armor upgrades,” Soundblaster said. “Or a bodyguard, if you can afford one.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Minimus didn’t ask how Soundblaster knew the Decepticon’s plans. If he had to guess, he would theorize that the mech had a better understanding of Soundwave and Shockwave—and by extension, the Decepticons as a whole—than he would ever admit.

It was also possible that Soundblaster simply had his fingers in as many datastreams as his template. And with the sudden destruction of the interplanetary comms network, it was very likely the mech knew more than Soundwave.

Either way, Minimus would trust Soundblaster’s intuition—as much as a mech could trust Soundblaster, at least.

Soundblaster nodded in the corpse’s direction. “Did you know him?”

“By reputation only.” As a military commander, Ultra Magnus had been so far above him in the striata of prewar Cybertron Minimus had never dreamt of meeting the mech—much less hauling his corpse around in hopes of getting some energon for the next cycle. “Why?”

“Hm.” Soundblaster looked back at Minimus. “Curiosity.”

Suddenly uncomfortable, Minimus shifted in place and resisted the urge to make his way towards the exit. He had no desire to embroil himself in Soundblaster’s quest for self-idealization as the mech tried to catch up on a few million years of Cybertronian history and culture.

But Soundblaster didn’t pry further, and Minimus vented a sigh of relief as he made his excuses and directed the cart to follow. It gave out a single, mournful wail, then complied. Its AI was rudimentary at best, but considering his size relative to the amount of salvage a bot was expected to wrangle to survive, it was worth it.

Minimus left the compound, trying not to look at a group of mechs clustered around a recently-offlined bot. He was hungry, but his tanks weren’t empty enough to give more than a passing thought to trying to butt his way in for a mere sip of energon.

His dwelling was on the outskirts of Soundblaster’s territory—far enough from the main bunker that overcharged or desperate mechs rarely bothered him, close enough that there hadn’t been an Autobot-Decepticon skirmish on his street for a century or two. The entrance was more than wide enough to accommodate the cart, but the mech—Ultra Magnus—’s corpse very nearly scraped the top of the doorframe.

Minimus made his way to the makeshift energon dispenser. His rations wouldn’t last much longer—he would need to either dump this body or find some way to repurpose it quickly. Buzzsaw hadn’t followed him either, which meant he definitely wan’t interested.

He sipped the tasteless, gritty energon. Soundblaster’s advice drifted to the front of his processor. He didn’t have nearly enough energon or shanix to afford a bodyguard. That left upgrades.

His gaze was drawn to the armor. His plating crawled at the idea of it, but the damage was easily fixable. With some reinforcement to the chassis, plus a few gyroscopic modifications allowing him to manipulate it from the inside…

It was doable, easily within his abilities. If he started on it immediately, he would be able to finish it before the cycle was finished. More than that, it would be safe.

Safety was in rare supply these days.

Minimus just wasn’t sure he wanted to do it. But it wasn’t like he had much of a choice, was it? If Soundblaster didn’t make his move, the Decepticons remaining on the planet would. And if Soundblaster was wrong, the might of the Decepticon army would be showing up in this neighborhood sooner rather than later. 

Minimus swallowed his disgust along with the last of the energon and tossed the cube into the disposal.

Then he grabbed his tools and got to work.