#that one bot/con going: “there are three of them and a bunch of us. how hard is it?”

[witchofthesouls]

I wish there were more TFP kids into sparklings, but in the flavor that the bitties are little feral menaces that chewed their way into the hearts of the Autobots and Decepticons.

Like spicy hissy kittens squashed into debatably safe and very cramped spaces in the name of being left alone as adult Cybertronians attempt to get them to come out with food.

Bonus points if it's the Vehicons (+Breakdown as supervisor) that are acting as the village/parents that stepped up

[blockgamepirate]

So we were talking on Discord about a DSMP superpowers AU, specifically Syndicate as an anarchist superhero team who are perceived as villains by pretty much everybody. (There were a bunch of people involved in the brainstorming but I wanna particularly credit @macachee for the idea for Techno’s superpowers, even though I ended up using a slightly different version than theirs.)

Anyway I know I don't really write fanfic anymore and I'm extremely rusty but uh... my hand slipped?

(CW: nothing major but there are repeated mentions of fire and some pretty tame violence)

×××

"Professor Underscore, I presume?"

The distinctive deep voice of an infamous supervillain was really not something anyone wanted to hear after 14 hours of last minute bug-fixing on a prototype superweapon in a secret laboratory. Especially when all your assistants had already called it a day and gone home.

Without even looking around, Tubbo reached for the gun in his desk drawer but before he could pull it out, a blade smashed into the wood right next to his hand.

"Nope", said the voice, "you don't get to have weapons, I get to have weapons. And speaking of weapons..."

Tubbo carefully turned around on his chair to face his attacker. As expected, it was a huge, hulking pigman dressed in flashy red and a golden mask.

"You are Protesilaus, aren't you? From the Syndicate?"

Protesilaus blinked at him. "You're a LOT younger than I expected, professor."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

"I mean it's very impressive though, good for you."

"Thanks."

"So anyway, I'm here for the weapons."

"The weapons are kinda reserved already. You know, for the military."

"Don't give a shit", said a voice from the door. "Gib."

Protesilaus sighed. "Zephyrus, you're supposed to be the secret back-up."

The man hiding by the door frame laughed. "We already took care of the guards. There's nobody here but him, it's fiiine."

"But what if HE has his own secret back-up? What then? Well, it's too late now so just keep a look-out, alright?"

Zephyrus laughed again. "Sure."

"Alright." Protesilaus pointed his sword at Tubbo. "Show us to the weapons."

×××

There wasn't much he could think of doing to stall except try and tap in the pin codes on the doors as slowly as humanly possible. To be fair he didn't even really know what he was stalling for exactly. Secret back-up would have been nice but if they’d really taken out all the guards then none was likely to come.

Protesilaus was following him, sword in hand, making random small talk on the way as if he didn't know how to deal with the silence. Tubbo had only caught a few glimpses of Zephyrus, the winged man, in the background or in reflections. He seemed to be tampering with the security systems on the way, meaning that Tubbo really might be completely alone on this if the sabotage was successful. Zephyrus was also pulling along a big wheeled container of some sort that was probably intended for the weapons.

The two of them were the known members of the Syndicate, a team of anarchist terrorists who gave nightmares to the local police forces, the national guard and occasionally the military, but it was also widely theorized to have a secret third member with fire powers. Nobody had ever managed to catch them in the act, the only evidence of the secret member's existence was the trail of smoking ruins following the pair, their targets always burned down in a blaze of extremely memorable pink flames.

Tubbo had a theory that there were actually two secret members in the Syndicate, because if you're going to have one secret member you might as well have two, right? Maybe even three! It just made sense.

His assistants hadn't seemed convinced by this logic.

They arrived at the large hall leading up to the main vault where the prototypes were hidden and Tubbo finally had a plan. Somebody (probably him, honestly) had left the remote control of his battle bots lying around on a sidetable. He took advantage of his captors checking the space for surprise guards and inched slowly towards the remote.

"Everything good up there?" Protesilaus called out to Zephyrus who had flown up to the rafters.

"All good."

"Alright, seems safe enough", said Protesilaus. "Now, open the vault."

Tubbo just needed to stall a little bit longer until he could grab the remote undetected. "Actually, maybe I just won't be able to live with the fact that I let you guys get your hands on superweapons? What if I'd rather die than let you have them?"

Protesilaus sighed. "Look, don't worry, it's for a good cause, I promise."

"I mean, you guys are supervillains."

"Oh yeah sure, you're literally making weapons for an imperialist government but we're the villains?"

"What about that orphanage you burned down?" Tubbo kept moving towards the sidetable, trying to make it look like he was just pacing nervously.

"I have NEVER burned down any orphanages, I do NOT have an irrational hatred of small children, in fact I LOVE orphans in particular, you can ask anyone."

"You did, though! That was like two years ago, back when you were part of the Sleepy Bois Inc!"

Tubbo actually knew quite a lot about the Sleepy Bois, the infamous villain team who were particularly known for conning people into taking part in some sort of strange experiments, like that time they somehow transported a hundred people to the moon and told them to terraform a random area. The group had broken up a while back and two of the four had since reformed. Well, more or less reformed anyway. Actually not really reformed, but they were at least sticking to smaller crimes these days.

Anyway Mr. Business was now one of Tubbo's best friends, although nobody was supposed to know that. And Dirty Crime Boy seemed like a surprisingly nice guy. He was out there running what seemed to be some kind of a drug van but Tubbo had chosen not to worry about it too much.

The other two members, however...

"Sleepy Boys? Doesn't ring a bell." Protesilaus' face was suspiciously blank.

"You know, back when you called yourself the Blood God."

"Nah nah nah, I'm Protesilaus, not the Blood God."

"Come on, you're OBVIOUSLY the Blood God."

"I've never even heard of that guy."

"You're LITERALLY a pigman with superhealing powers and a shiny magical sword, you wear a crown AND you're hanging out with a blond guy with wings who looks just like the Angel of Death."

"Wow, wild coincidence", said Protesilaus

“Not gonna lie, the Angel of Death is a really cool name“, said Zephyrus.

Tubbo ignored them. "And you sound exactly like the Blood God."

"I don't hear it", said Protesilaus.

"You said you don't even know who he is!"

"Exactly."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'EXACTLY'??? THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!!!"

"Well I can't hear it if I've never even heard him speak. That's just logic."

Up in the rafters Zephyrus was cackling like a madman.

"You annoy me so much", said Tubbo.

"Aaaanyways, just give us a little peek into the vault, alright? Just out of curiosity, you know."

Tubbo had made it to the remote, he just needed one more distraction to cover for him grabbing it. "Uh..." Then he had an idea: he just took a quick sudden glance at the exit, as if he'd seen something over there and sure enough both of the criminals immediately turned to check. It was just long enough. He got the remote. "Okay fine, you can see the vault."

"Nice, nice." Protesilaus was still glancing around suspiciously but he had no idea what he should have been suspicious of.

Tubbo was more than happy to open the vault now. It might be holding the prototypes but it was also filled with a small army of robots.

All of which came to life with the press of a button.

"Ah", said Protesilaus. "There's his secret back-up."

"Oh Jesus", said Zephyrus. "I think we fucked up."

"You could say that", said Tubbo. "If you just leave peacefully I might let you go", he added in a sudden fit of uncharacteristic levels of confidence.

Protesilaus raised his sword. "Well you see, I really want those weapons, though."

"I guess you'll just have to fight the robots for it then", said Tubbo, configuring the targetting system.

"Mate, they've got guns on them", Zephyrus called out from above.

"Take cover then", said Protesilaus, very much not taking any cover at all himself.

Tubbo, pretty sure the bots knew which people to fight, released them on the criminals.

Protesilaus immediately managed to dodge the first few lazer bolts from the bots, but the third hit him on the arm. He flinched a bit but didn't seem too bothered. "Ouch. Okay so they can actually aim."

Still dancing around the shots, he held his hand to the wound and once he took it off, only the singed hole on his sleeve remained. The Blood God had been known for some kind of healing powers and coincidentally Protesilaus of the Syndicate, who apparently definitely wasn't the Blood God, just happened to also have healing powers. This fight was going to be hard even for thirty robots.

The pigman finally took some cover, hiding behind a pillar. The robots would have to move closer and Tubbo could already tell that if he'd manage to single them out, Protesilaus would easily take them down one by one.

Even worse, Zephyrus had hidden behind a different pillar up near the ceiling and was sniping the bots from above. They were supposed to be bulletproof but the man was absolutely cracked and managed to keep hitting them in the joints and in the eyes.

But at least the bots had given Tubbo some room to work with. He bolted into the vault and headed straight for a very specific section.

"So I just wanna know, professor", Protesilaus called out from the hall, "how are you NOT the evil mastermind here? You have a LITERAL horde of robots in your control that you can just let loose on people!"

"What do you MEAN? They're for fighting people like you! In this exact kind of situation!" Tubbo found what he was looking for and quickly unbuckled the huge harnesses holding it in place. He had to get a stool to reach the highest ones and nearly tripped on it in his hurry.

"Oh and how many of these have you sold to the government? And what if they just decide that they'd be very convenient for taking care of dissenters?"

"Well if the dissenters are literal supervillains, that sounds great." He climbed the ladder on the wall up to the platform by the mech suit and jumped inside.

He couldn't hear what Protesilaus responded after he pulled down the dome of the suit over his body. The sounds of fighting and the bulletproof glass drowned it all out from this distance, and the sound system wasn’t turned on yet. Now the odds should be a lot more even, though. Let’s see how they deal with this, he thought. He settled in and launched the mech--

... and then maneuvered awkwardly through the mess of secret weapons and machines inside his vault. He was pretty sure he didn't break too many things on the way, it was fine. In the corner of his eye he thought he saw a flash of pink and for a second he worried that the pigman had followed him into the vault where it would be almost impossible for him to fight in the suit but luckily he could still hear the sound of sword clanging into metal from outside.

He moved over to the vault door as sneakily as he could while piloting a 12-foot-tall machine in a tight space and looked out into the hall. The floor was littered with broken robots, and there were several blinded ones aimlessly wandering around and getting in the way of the ones that still functioned properly. Protesilaus was towards the back of the hall, stabbing a bot in the armpit and tearing off its arm, Zephyrus on the other hand, still perching on the rafters, had moved around the pillar he had hidden behind, now aiming away from the vault. Neither of them were looking at Tubbo. He took aim and shot at one of the huge grey wings.

"Ah! Fuck!" Zephyrus spun around. "You little shit!"

"Zephyrus, are you okay??" Protesilaus immediately looked over to his ally and took another hit himself.

"I'm FINE, dude!" Zephyrus sounded exasperated but fond. "Look out yourself! Also the kid has a fucking mech."

"A what?"

Tubbo slammed the vault door shut. Good luck getting in there now, Syndicate. Then he tossed aside some robot carcasses to clear out the floor and threw one at Protesilaus who dodged it easily but in the process took another hit from a different robot. He was starting to look tired and he was obviously distracted by Zephyrus getting hurt. That was promising.

Tubbo started climbing the pillar up to the ceiling. Zephyrus cursed again and tried to hop around the pillar to run across to the other side but his hurt wing didn't open properly so he lost his balance, slipped up and fell. "Shit!"

"ZEPHYRUS!"

The man managed to open his wings and soften the fall but the injury made him veer dangerously to the left and crash into a pile of broken robots. Protesilaus leaped over to him, dropping his sword and laying his hands on his friend's wing and back. A faint red glow emitted from the touch points.

Tubbo jumped back down to the ground and stormed at them. He punched the pigman right in the chin, sending him flying across the room. He then tried to grab Zephyrus but the man had already slipped away and had apparently managed to pick up his friend's sword. "You motherfucker", the man said, "I'm going to take that fucking suit apart and then it's your turn."

"Zeph!" Protesilaus called from the side and Zephyrus tossed the sword to him without taking his eyes of off Tubbo. Then the man pulled up his sniper rifle again and Tubbo quickly covered his weak points with his armoured arms and jumped behind a pillar. He needed to disarm Zephyrus ASAP.

Behind them, Protesilaus was taking care of the last few robots. Tubbo didn't have much time, but he couldn't do anything until Zephyrus would have to reload, the guy was just too accurate...

"Oh fuck", said Zephyrus suddenly. "Prot, the door!"

They all turned to look at the exit.

There, at the door, was Ranboo, widened eyes flicking between Tubbo, the broken robots and the Syndicade. He was holding a bowl of biscuits and a cup of tea. "Uh... hello? Hi?"

Ranboo was actually NOT allowed in the vaults but how do you stop someone who can literally teleport anyway? Tubbo was glad to see him sneaking in, though.

"Ranboo! Help! They're trying to steal the weapons!"

"I..." Ranboo seemed frozen in place.

"Ranboo!" Tubbo was starting to get worried. His husband wasn't even taking any shelter. He drove the mech over to him to at least give him some protection.

"I just came to bring you cookies? Coz I thought maybe you were staying late to make the deadline and I thought--"

"Ranboo, I'm being attacked by supervillains right now!"

"Look, what if we just talked this through? I'm sure everybody here would rather not kill each other, right?" Ranboo was tall enough to lay a hand on Tubbo's shoulder even when he was wearing the mech suit which kind of pissed Tubbo off to be quite honest.

"Sure", said Protesilaus, "I love negotiating. Give us the weapons and their blueprints and we're more than happy to go."

"See? That's good, right? Tubbo, we can just let them have the weapons."

"Ranboo, sometimes you're a bit too quirky for my liking. Stop being quirky, help me fight them. You can use your... T-E-L-I-P-O-R-T-A-T-I-O-N powers."

Everybody just stared at him for a second.

"Shouldn't it be T-E-L-E?" said Protesilaus.

"Tubbo, you realise they can spell words too, you know, like most people who graduated elementary school?" said Ranboo.

"I'M SORRY! I'M TIRED, OKAY?"

“You could have just said ‘use your powers’, I mean, I know what my powers are.”

“IT'S BEEN A REALLY LONG DAY!“

"Zephyrus, I think this guy might be too much for us, I've never met such intimidating intellect", said Protesilaus. Zephyrus seemed to already be dying of laughter and his ally's words did not help.

"Now that's just rude," said Tubbo.

He'd barely finished his sentence when a horrible whistling sound hit them all like an invisible cargo train. After a second Tubbo managed to reassemble his braincells long enough to figure it out: "The fire alarm!"

Then he noticed the grin on his enemy's face. "Well, good job, everyone! Let's go home, Zephyrus", said Protesilaus cheerfully.

"Sure, mate."

The secret third member of the Syndicate, Tubbo suddenly remembered. The container they'd brought with them was gone too. Well, fuck. "This whole thing was a diversion??"

"Yep." The Protesilaus was already at the exit and Zephyrus was following right behind him. "See ya, losers!"

Something inside the vault exploded, making a muffled bang through the door, as if just to prove where exactly the fire had been lit.

"Oh man..." Tubbo flopped down on his seat. "I spent SO LONG building all those things!"

"Tubbo, we need to get out." Ranboo took him by the hand of his mech suit and pulled him along.

"No, we could still go in and save the--"

"No, Tubbo. Let's NOT run into the vault full of dangerous chemicals that's literally on fire, actually."

×××

By the time the fire department showed up, pink flames had enveloped the entire lab complex. The terrorists presumably had at least one of the prototypes now and all the remaining ones were a lost cause.

It's not like all the work was gone to waste, they'd made some backups at least, but it would be a pain to find a new lab and order all the extremely volatile chemicals again. So much paperwork. Tubbo was really not good at paperwork.

"Well, there goes my summer holidays I guess", he said.

"Yeah", said Ranboo. "There they go."

×××

"So... Lethe", said Techno at the next Syndicate meeting, "you never happened to mention you were friends with Professor Underscore."

Ranboo shifted nervously in his chair. "I mean... in my defence, you never said you were going to raid his lab?"

"True, true. It didn't seem like relevant information at the time I suppose. You know, because you're kinda more in the group just for the book club and Bake Off Fridays and not so much for the vigilante thing."

"How do you know Professor Underscore, Lethe?" asked Niki gently.

Ranboo looked around the table. He was fairly certain that the others wouldn't kill him for fraternizing with the enemy. He was pretty sure anyway. At least 70% sure.

Also they were all staring at him now.

"Uh... he's my... husband?"

The staring continued.

"Oh!" said Niki.

"Well", said Techno. "This is awkward."

"Uh huh?" Ranboo responded, his entire body tense and slightly wobbly.

"Techno", Phil said softly. Techno brushed him off.

"So uh, are you attached to him, Lethe?"

"Y-yes?" Ranboo straightened his back. "Yes." he said again, more firmly.

"Alright. I guess in the future we should try not to kill him then."

[elindae-writes]

Ok, this is all about your headcanons. Is Starscream the oldest/youngest/middle member of his trine? Did he get his trine before or after losing Skyfire? During his time in the Decepticons? How did he meet his trinemates? Was there a cool ceremony? Just tell me everything about Seekers! (Without major spoilers, of course.)

He’s the youngest and he trined Skywarp and Thundercracker after he lost Skyfire and also after he first met Megatron. So they were officially in a trine before they joined the Decepticons. He convinced them to join the ‘Cons and without spoiling too much now bitterly regrets roping them into joining Megatron.

The scenes in which he meets the boys and trines them are going to appear later on, maybe during the Orion Pax arc, so I don’t want to spoil those, but I will gladly indulge your request for cool Seeker facts.

Seekers think in three dimensions and not two due to them being flyers and always having to ascend/descend. This is part of the reason they are so claustrophobic, it’s because they are highly attuned to sensing what’s above them at all times and are therefore hyperaware of when the ceiling is too low.

In Seekercant the word for “grounder” is just “taxi-er” because whenever airplanes are about to take off they taxi around first, so Seekers basically just see grounders as wingless bots who taxi everywhere without taking off.

Seekers are unusual in that they see their alt-modes as their true natural forms and think of their bipedal root-modes as their actual alternate modes. This is weird even by flyer standards.

Seekers used to go on giant migrations. I haven’t entirely thought this out because I’m not sure where they’d actually migrate to--maybe they’d just all instinctively fly up and around Vos without leaving the city, or maybe they’d go off and visit ancient older nesting sites built by ancient Seekers. Either way I just like the imagery of thousands of Seekers blackening the skies with their numbers and then the sad image of Starscream trying to complete a grand Seeker migration all by himself because there is no one else left. But someone still needs to follow the ancient winds, so it’s gotta be him.

Starscream is tiny by Seeker standards and Dreadwing and Skyquake are actually more average-sized. It’s also my headcanon his RID frame used to be his old frame, so when Megs downsized him he got fussy about it because he genuinely felt like a bit of his Seeker heritage got taken away.

There were a bunch of different towers in Vos and they all had their own slightly different cultures. Seekers from one tower would whistle and chirp in Seekercant in slightly different tones than Seekers from another tower, like the way whales from different pods have their own unique dialects. Starscream’s fellow Seekers from his tower were infamous for speaking real fancy-like, I don’t know why but I just picture them as speaking in weirdly complex, vague, and mystical ways like the elves from the Lord of the Rings. Despite there being hundreds of different dialects each Seeker is capable of instinctively recognizing the dialect you’re speaking and can just tell what tower you’re from. There was also a Seeker equivalent of Australia somewhere in Vos and it was completely full of weird and intense Cybertronian animals, it was just like that one weird tower where all of the odd little drones and robots ended up. I just like the idea of Vosian Australian memes.

Starscream was from a really high-ranking family, aka the equivalent of Seeker nobility, and was maybe in line to become or at the very least is closely related to the Winglord. That’s why it was such a scandal when he got the heck out of Dodge and decided to abandon his proud noble military family so that he could go blow stuff up in a lab in Iacon.

Shuttles have their own culture, but are weirdly symbiotic with Seekers. I just like the imagery of throngs of tiny Seekers who wandered around their towers with the occasional giant shuttle just lumbering through. Shuttles adopted Seekers and vice versa. Seekers were extremely touchy about whoever adopts baby Seekerlings and shuttles were the only non-Seekers who were allowed to adopt them. When Starscream moved out of Vos and got himself a roommate in Iacon his family was like “who?? who is dwelling with you, I refuse to allow you to have a non-Seeker roommate, we’d much rather have you dwell alone then dirty yourself by living with an Iaconian--”

And then Starscream just sent over a picture of Skyfire and then his family just said  “we will make an exception for him because he looks very polite”

Seekers were infamous across Cybertronian for being--I’m not sure if this is the right word--cryptids? They hate using doors, so if you’re a grounder and your Seeker buddy is bopping by for a visit you’ll just hear a soft tap tap tap by your window and you’dlllook over and see your winged friend waiting for you to open it up and maybe you’d shout something along the lines of “THE DOOR WORKS FINE”

And then your Seeker friend would just flare his wings and get all offended and it would be a whole thing--

Seekers very rarely make non-Seeker friends, but when they do they tend to make friendships for life. That is not foreshadowing, no, not at all. Non-fliers back on Cybertron would even leave their windows unlocked for their Seeker friends--even though the door would work just fine.

Another weird thing about Seekers is that they hate it when people actually see them entering or exiting a room. You’ll just turn around and a Seeker will be there, and then suddenly they won’t be, hence their cryptic reputation around Cybertron. They are infamous for being overdramatic and theatrical, but they just think of everybody else as being underdramatic.

They have no concept of personal space when in bipedal mode. When flying they normally have to fly wide apart in order to avoid collisions (military trines or just trines that are really in-synch are the exception, they normally flew only a few inches apart) so when in bipedal mode they make up for the lack of physical contact during flying by skooching up real close to each other when back on the ground. Seekers are very very good at forming neat and orderly lines. They have a tendency to sandwich confused and surprised grounders who are shocked to have their personal space so suddenly taken up by a bunch of pairs of wings.

Back when Vos was intact there was a big debate going on as to the proper way to teach your Seekerling to fly. There were two schools of thought:

Send your Seekerling to a school with safety nets and attentive instructors and teach the Seekerlings to just hover, then ascend three feet off the ground, then five feet, and then so on.

Or just chuck your Seekerling out of a tower 10,000 feet in the air while shouting “fLAP” and then just hoping for the best. That was how Starscream was taught. It’s also how he taught Eradicons to fly. He’d have them walk up to the edge, he’d go behind and just give them a good kick, and then shout “THIS IS THE VOSIAN WAY”

And then they’d return to the deck of the Nemesis, cold and shaking, and ask “why?”

And then Starscream would whisper back even more gently “it’s  t r a d i t i o n”

Whenever Seekerlings were really really tiny, as in only a few weeks or months old, the adult Seekers would transform, then also have their Seekerling transform into a very smol plane, and then they would secure the Seekerling to their back before taking flight. It’s like when that Boeing jet carried space shuttle Endeavour around, but much cuter. Seekers carried their newsparks around on their backs between their wings and their wings would widen in order to create more room. You can actually tell if a Seeker has tended to newsparks by just looking at their back. Starscream babysitted a lot, so he has this modification. I just like the idea of Seekers walking around like possums with like six Seekerlings on their back, they gotta make room, it’s the only way I could think of to accomodate all the kiddos

Seekerlings are like newborn horses. They can get up and run--or in their case, transform and fly--right after being sparked. The moment their systems go online they then immediately fly off and crash somewhere. Seekerling caretakers had it rough.

Seekers had potlucks. Their systems require very fine and refined energon, so they are very good at tasting subtle flavors. In other words, Vos was home to the Cybertronian version of professional chefs. Their energon was famous for being gourmet and it would be served in fine-dining restaurants throughout the rest of Cybertron. But back in Vos they’d just casually serve each other what was essentially gourmet energon during potlucks like it was no big deal. Like imagine going to the neighbor’s potluck and they’re all eating caviar.

Seekers instinctively cluster around each other in multiples of three. Three’s a very a lucky number in their culture and they had a base-six counting system.

Trinebonds are mostly just full of a very intense and platonic brother love, but there were some trines in which you’d have two Seekers adopt a more parental role towards the third, and in some other trines there would be more romance involved, but for the most part they were just bros through and through.

When a Seeker dies the other two feel an agonizing pain, but will eventually re-trine with a new third in an attempt to feel whole again. Seekers who lose both trinemates will tend to have a full-on mental breakdown and will get so stressed that their spark will actually begin to flare erratically, which unfortunately prevents them from re-trining. Seekers who lost both trinemates and yet who managed to pull through the pain and trine again were treated with great respect.

Trined Seekers are capable of sensing what kind of vague mood their two buddies are feeling at any given time. They can detect when their trinemates are in root-mode or alt-mode or when they’re healthy or sick. Seekers will lose the ability to sense their trinebonds when there’s too much distance between them or whenever their trinemates go into a deep coma-like stasis that slows their spark down.

All of the Seekers in a tower would be almost always all distantly related. The Seekers who lived beneath you were your distant cousins on one side of your family and the Seekers who lived above you were your even more distant cousins but like 53 times removed, but still family and therefore still invited to the family potluck!! They’re all like hobbits in that they are obsessed with genealogy and will gladly talk about it for hours on end. Seekers will greet each other by explaining their genealogy. This really confuses grounders.

Some random grounder: “Oh, hi, how are you?”

Starscream, probably: “I AM STARSCREAM SON OF STARFLIGHT SON OF SKYECHO SON OF AIRHALO SON OF SWIFTWING--”

The poor grounder: *softly* “What the fuck”

If you don’t interrupt the Seeker then they will just keep recounting their genealogy on the assumption that you are actually intrigued. This can go for hours. Seekers are mortified when they learn that grounders do not know the names, personalities, likes, dislikes, and favorite childhood snacks of their distant great-great-great-great-great grandfathers.

Orphaned Seekers who didn’t know their genealogy had multiple options: get adopted, then just list off the adopted family’s bloodline, or if they didn’t get adopted then they’d just list off the names of Vos’s mythological heroes and figures, or maybe even just claim Primus as their ancestor (which isn’t even wrong.) This is kind of like how people in ancient times claimed to be descended from gods. The human equivalent of this would be some dude walking up to you and saying “I am Bob, son of Zeus!”

Some Seeker towers had certain naming conventions. Like you’d have one tower full of Seekers who are all named after cloud formations, and another tower full of Seekers named after noises, like “whistle” or “blast,” and you guessed it--maybe even “scream.”

To be honest I’m not sure if I want Starscream to be a very common or very rare name. Vos was made up of ancient warring clans that all united under the first Winglord (he/she took Vos under their “wing” hence the title) and maybe they could’ve been named Starscream? In most human societies everybody and their neighbor always would want to name their kiddos after the current ruler, but in Vos maybe it was very rare and very bold of Seekers to name their child after the current ruler because it would be seen as an attempt to snatch up that ruler’s glory. So to name your Seekerling Starscream would be the Vosian equivalent of naming your son Gaius Julius Caesar. He’s an intense bot so it makes sense that he’d also have a very intense name.

But then again I also like the idea of the Autobots just thinking of Starscream’s name as being weird and rich and odd and  e x o t i c  but then finding out it’s the Vosian equivalent of John Smith and that there were eight Starscreams on any block at any given time.

Maybe Seekers would change their name whenever they have a big event happen to them, like a trining for example. I think a culture obsessed around airflow would be fine with people changing aspects of their identity like that because then you’re being like the wind, flowing and changing with the same wind that carries you. It’s also my headcanon that this is why Seekers change their frames a lot more. Your frame isn’t you, it contains you, and if you change then it would be really weird not to change the way you look too. 

Despite being really lax about some things Seekers can be very very strict and traditional about other things, such as etiquette. If you’re meeting a new Seeker for the first time and you rotate your wings 70 degrees clockwise that means “may the skies of the holy 70th tower of Vos bless you” but if you rotate your wings anti-clockwise it means “I curse your grandfather!” And then Starscream would just gasp in horror and then shout “DO NOT BESMIRCH THE MEMORY OF SKYECHO”

Some Seeker names were common--like, too common. There were a few thousand Skyechoes, Windblasts, and Driftwings who drifted around at any given moment. This made role-call in school very painful. Some caretakers would try to be edgy about it. “Oh, my son isn’t named Driftwing, he’s named Dreadwing!”

Seekers cremated their dead but in the most intense way possible. They took their dead up and just let them burn up in the atmosphere so that they can become one with the sky. This resulted in some pretty spectacular meteor showers.

Same random grounder: “What a beautiful shooting star!”

Starscream, casually: “Oh, that’s my grandpa, SKYECHO SON OF AIRHALO SON OF SWIFTWING--”

Same unfortunate grounder: “wHAT--”

Seekers make noises all the time and are very rarely silent. They hum when content, beep when excited, chirp when riled up, rumble when confused, trill when happy, and so on. Starscream used to be a chatterbox but was forced to repress his chitterings because Megatron would always tell him to shut up. He’s going to trill more and more throughout Unburied, especially around Optimus.

Seeker towers were infamous for their weird architecture. They weren’t designed to ever be wandered around in while in your bipedal mode. No staircases, period. Just extremely tall ceilings and arches with curved corridors everybody flew through with lots of balconies you could land on. There were lots of holes in the wall that they could fly through that led to actual rooms where they would transform and be bipedal (berthrooms, washracks, etc) but then after they slept/ate/partied they were just like “that was fun guys, gotta go” and then just flung themselves out of a hole in the wall over a 1,000 foot drop and then just transformed in midair and flew off. Grounders couldn’t visit the towers due to there being no grounder-friendly infrastructure. Special buildings had to be built near the ground to help accommodate visiting grounders, but you only ever really saw these kinds of grounder-friendly accommodations in towers meant to receive diplomats.

They had bathhouses in their towers, like the ancient Romans but with robots instead of old dudes in togas. Just giant birdbaths basically. Just lots and lots of splashing and chittering.

Seekers preen themselves, their circuitry is delicate and even the slightest of contaminants can cause big problems. That’s why they have such sharp talons---for getting in the small spots. And for stabbing people. That’s a nice bonus, too. They preen each other all the time. There were some regions on their wings that could be preened by anybody, but some other parts of the wings that could only be preened by close friends such as trinemates. So the outer planes of the wing could be preened by just a general buddy, but the actual area where they connect to the back? That’s trinemate-only territory right there. It’s not a sexual thing, just a cultural taboo they had.

When Dreadwing makes his grand debut I think I might have a scene in which him and Starscream are preening each other while angrily bickering, not because they actually like each other, but just because they’re the only Seekers around and Starscream’s had a rock stuck in his wing seam and slag it, Dreadwing is the only bot who knows how to get it out--so it’d just be angry bird bickering and arguing preen time.

“You killed my brother!”

Starscream would then flutter angrily and say something like, “NO, BUMBLEBEE DID, STOP BLAMING ME--please get that rock out of my wing seam k thX--IT WAS THE SCOUT’S FAULT!”

And then Dreadwing would just be like, “Skyquake is dead, and it’s all YOUR FAULT--I also have a rather unfortunate rock located in my wing seam, can you remove that--and it’s because of your cowardice I am now brotherless!”

Seeker talons were actually retractable. Some Seekers would have their talons out literally all the time though, these were Seekers who were high-ranking in the military or who were just on some quest of personal revenge. After the war began they modified their talons to just always be sharp because you don’t want to accidentally retract them when in battle.

I am only just now realizing that this got kind of long, huh. I hope this wasn’t too much!! I might post more Seeker headcanons in the future.

[geminiofpluto]

So I’m going to talk about Transformers Earthrise

I kinda just wrote each thing after each episode so I won’t forget much.

I’m writing what I remember from each episode

🚨SPOILERS AHEAD🚨

Episode 1: Elita is cool as ever, freeing Decepticons and pulling out “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” on Jetfire when he was questioning why she wanted to free them.

And then Steeljaw :( He was in cassette mode when they were hurting him. Makes me sad thinking about it. If Blaster is going to make an appearance, I hope Steeljaw will be with him.

Also, I need to know what’s up with Megatron having Ultra Magnus’s head on his table and just talking to him like a normal conversation.

There’s a happy Red Alert moment when he talks about how happy he is to have someone on their team who can fly. I’m calling for a Red Alert and Jetfire friendship.

Megatron acknowledges that Elita is a good leader and saying she could’ve been leaderbof the Autobots instead,. He may have started a war but he still knows what’s good.

The bots at Section 12... I loved them, they were so nice to Megatron and were admiring him a lot. It’s easy to tell it hurt him very much to have to “sacrifice” them for the project. I’m pretty sure all of us were sad. Those three bots were very nice.

Episode 2:

Elita is once again acknowledged by Megatron she is a good leader. He even called her Ariel. I’m wondering if we’ll see the past between them.

When Megatron put them in the cylinder thingies, the Decepticons the Autobots frees the first episode came to save them.

The bot even said “Til all are one”

And Skyfire... this huge dude really did just fall against the glass wall while they were trying to escape all stealth mode.

Luckily Skytread let them escape. It was funny when he asked one of them to punch cause Chromia was like “on sight, bro” and went for it. Like I love Chromia. :D

We also get to see our bots on the Ark again! And we get to see the mercenaries too.

We get to see conehead seekers again dudes! And this is my first time seeing Doubledealer on the screen(might be his first time? I honestly don’t know)

What’s with the gray colored Bumblebee, Wheeljack, and Hound? But yet again, it could just be reusing the same models.

Where’s tiny man Prowl? Where’s Ratchet?

When G. Bumblebee said “Where’s the ugly looking one?”, I was like “sir, you looked in a mirror lately?”

Quintessons! And for some reason, blue spirit mask looking Deseeus just cut off all the Qunitesson other faces just cause she wanted a consensus? Damn

Episode 3: Oh no sad Optimus. D:

BUMBLEBEE!! HE’S GOT THE SIGIL NOW!!

Ooh Ratchet and Wheeljack are working together.

“Bumblebee is correct-“

“I am?!”

Ayyy more Elita and co, they even got a bunch of Decepticon with them. Oop the Reflector with the scars is named Scrapface.

Elita seems more chill with Jetfire now. More friendships! I really like seeing Elita and her group.

Also the Autobots found the Nebulon station.

THERE’S SOMETHING ON THE STATION! WHAT THE FAQ IS ON THE STATION

Bee and Prime walked through the space bridge, and the other side of beautiful. It’s got a similar terrain like Earth’s. It’s leafy and green and colorful.

Oop it’s a giant scorpion on the ship. Is it Scorponok?

Yep it’s Scorponok.

Elita and co are going to stop the remaining Decepticons from getting harvested by the Shockwave. How nice of them :3

ONEGA SUPREME! oh wait dangit it’s a mirage.

Damn Scorponok is tall. He looks like Devestator and RID01 Megatron had a baby.

So Megs finally caught up with the Ark.

Episode 4: I love Ironhide. He may have few moments, but he’s still my fav.

Optimus noooooo

Bumblebee was trying to help, but Optimus is over here being a worried dad.

Ooh, Megatron really shot Scorponok to say “Optimus Prime is mine!”

Soundwave has unleashed his cat :0

Prime’s just trying protect his kids.

So they got knocked out from the blast, and Ravage was sniffing Starscream to check if he was alive, but the dude shoved him off. Rude, he making sure you live.

He thinks Megs is dead so now he’s leader.

Now Prime and Megatron are stuck in a room together, and now they’re talking. Megatron’s got a girder in his chest and he slowly dying.

Here’s a picure I got of the scene ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

The bots and cons are working together now! S not for now though.

Then Starscream starts talking shit to Megs and when he’s done talking about how he’d be a better leader, he says “What’s your argument?”

Megatron just shoots him. Ravage then checks on him again, but he shoves him off again. Why is he so rude?

Oop bots be out here calling Megatron a Quintesson and he’s offended. Quite hilarious

Starscream is really taking command and tossing Barricade aside. Starscream I love you but push him again and I’ll fight you.

So now something happened to the Nemesis ship, or perhaps it was the Ark.

Episode 5: Alpha Trion and Sky Lynx!! Sky Lynx wants to be a Prime too.

So the Autobots are in the Dead Universe. Sky Lynx is still alive and can apparently hear all.

Andddd he’s got some spiritual power and talking to Optimus now.

Sky Lynx is now humbled, I think he’s gonna join the Autobots.

So Megatron alive and he’s boutta pimp slap him.

GALVATRON?! where’d he come from?!

Sky Lynx is really making sad.

And now Galvatron doing the same spiritual thing to Megatron.

OP, let Sky Lynx go with you! Let him be redeemed.

Now Sky Lynx seems to be mentoring OP.

Optimus, Elita isn’t dead! She’s alive!

Yes, Megan. Don’t trust Galvatron! He’s trying to make you kill the bae.

Damn I keep forgetting how much the arena hurt Megatron mentally. :(

Ah yes, OP comforting Sky Lynx

Dang Galvatron don’t got them lips.

Woah the hate plague appears again? Damn Megan what you doing?

Sky Lynx NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

What what Unicron and the golden discs! And now the bots are before Earth. It’s building up to Kingdom!

Episode 6: Megatron still after OP I see.

Wow Arcee strong enough to chokehold Starscream. ,,•^•,,

YES COG, QUESTION OP. Optimus, why you holding a gun to Megatron, trying to force him to accept your apology and forgive you.

COG NOOOOOOO

ah yeah more Elita and co screentime.

Shockwave stalking Elita with a invisibility cloak

And now OP and Megatron yelling and fighting. OP’s officially lost it guys

Ooh Bumblebee is taking charge

Ooh the mercenary gray Wheeljack is named Exhaust and the gray Bumblebee is named Bug Bite

Lol Elita tripped on air. Nvm it was Shockwave.

Shockwave actually believes Elita knew the Guardians.

And now Elita and her team have been compromised. :(

Doubledealer nooooo. Deseeus better let him go

COG, YOU’RE ALIVE?!

okay so Spinister caught Elita’s team, Shockwave has Elita.

COG NOOOO! cog :,(

ELITA NOOOO

EVERYONE NOOOOOOOOO :,,,,0

oh shit Megs got the Matrix, and he calling OP Orion

YEAH BEE! SHOOT MEGS

oh no he got away with the Matrix

Ooh Earth!

RAPTOR! RAPTOR! DINOBOT!!!!!

I finished it ;-; Hope you guys liked the show cause I think it was good.

I miss Cog and Elita ;-;

Also very sad there’s no Sunstreaker

[needs-to-stop-looking-at-valves]

Transformers Cyberverse final review!!;

Can’t believe we’re finally here! Hope you guys enjoy what I have to say! (warning; may contain thirst, profanity, and opinions).

Pros!!;

The Bumblebee hugs throughout the series is the most pure thing I’ve EVER seen.

Most of the character designs. This show has a style that’s fairly unique, and while some designs maybe a bit odd at first, you really let them grow on you.

The music and background noise. TFP had this case of having a music track that was very action based, but here, I found this FAR more diverse. They, like Soundwave, have music for every occasion, and I appreciate that.

The little details. The Crystal city, the fauna, little mentions of places and towns on Cybertron; they’re cute details, and I think they’re often overlooked.

MOST of the voice acting is peak. Bots like Dead end, Rack and Ruin, Skybyte, all characters that I enjoy listening to. There’s the odd ones like Strika, but hey, they can’t all be perfect.

The little nods to G1. Hot Rod mentioning ‘the touch’, the insecticons, even the five faced fucks, and I don’t even like those guys.

EVERYTHING with Soundwave and Shadowstriker. They’re peak characters that interact so well with each other, despite not interacting much at all.

The use of Maccadam. He was such a great, charming character that I was very pleased to know.

The fact that no matter how OP Starscream got, no one gave an actual shit about him. It’s a trait that’s through every series, but goddamit it, dude became a god, and everyone was like ‘so???’, and it was so fucking funny.

The team parade party. They were SUCH a unique bunch of characters, and I wished they lasted a bit longer. They are just characters that no one sees as ‘main characters’ until they take stage, and they completely rocked it.

The little changes in art style you get in flashbacks? Like for Maccadam’s flashbacks? those are GORGEOUS.

This show has GREAT humor to it, and honestly you can appreciate how easy it seems to come forth.

Cons!!;

The random episodes. I get it, it’s a huge G1 nod, and G1 was full of that, but like G1, I felt myself getting a bit bored by some redundant moments. At least they were connected in season three thanks to Windblade, but.

Bots like Wild Wheel and Thunderhowl. I like THEM, but not how they were used. They weren’t used properly, and it sucks, because they are in fact, GREAT characters in background and in personality. 

Drift. Everything about Drift.

The way that after the parade purge, they were again, cut in the middle and divided. I get it, they aren’t gonna be buddies buddies right away, mainly because Megatron is hella stubborn, but the notion of secret friendships/ relationships would’ve been great. Hell, Hot Rod and Soundwave didn’t interact on screen after the event, and that was bullshit.

How Soundwave was kinda pushed to the side. It was just odd. Soundwave was ALWAYS Megatron’s right hand, but he was shoved to the side in the series, and I don’t really understand it.

Shockwave’s end. Shockwave’s spark being thrusted onto the allspark sort of instilled this ‘decepticons are evil’ bit, and I don’t appreciate that. 

The overall hatred for the decepticons as a whole. Sure, Soundwave, Clobber, and Dead end were treated right, but the decepticons were treated as power hungry, and that’s ABOLSUTELY false. Not ONCE did they go over common discrimination against each other. Hell, the seekers on the decepticons treated the grounders more like shit on screen.

Maccadam’s end. Idk, I just personally felt like it was useless. Bro so could’ve dodged that shit.

The death cult thing. Actually, what WAS with that? It was so confusing, weird, and it should’ve been scrapped as a whole.

This show doesn’t focus on character progression too much. It’s really memes, and G1 nods.

Someone told me Megatron felt guilty for killing Starscream? if its true, it wasn’t believable 

The ending. The ending was so left field, so awfully done, I’d go as far as to say it’s even worse than RID2015′s ending.

Final verdict!!;

This series isn’t BAD, and it has enjoyable moments to it. However, it’s so focused on being like G1, that it doesn’t try to be its own unique show. So much is wasted on some details that really don’t matter, and cool characters tend to be buried in the background. However, I’ll give the show this; it was an experience.

 7/10. 

It’d be much better if they shortened their character roster, and maybe decide if they want the show to be focused on characterization, or plot, as it tends to be mish mesh between them. BUT! It was a joy to watch this with you guys <3.

[nikxation]

If You Give a Mothman a Loan

Huge thank you to @birdgirlamp for commissioning me to write a fic by donating to WHO (if you want more information, see this post). Sorry it took so long to get this out, but here it is! Hope you enjoy!

Word count: 2359

Characters: Stanford Pines (pre- and post-portal), Fiddleford McGucket (pre-portal), Wendy Corduroy (post-portal... obviously)

~ ~ ~

It’s three months into Fiddleford’s stay in Gravity Falls, and the skeleton in the closet (or the portal in the basement) is slowly looking less and less like just a bundle of messy wires and half-finished structural supports and more like the behemoth of a machine it’s meant to be. The raw stock for the exterior plating should be here any day now, the first of the two power transfer beams is online, and every day is another day closer to their end-goal.

He’ll hand it to Stanford Pines, this is some of their best work yet.

He still remembers the day he arrived and Ford showed him the initial drafts. He’d thought the size was overkill, that the hollowed-out basement beneath the house would just become a room with decent acoustics for him to practice his banjo playing away from his old college roommate while the real machine was built somewhere less cold and damp.

Boy howdy was he wrong.

Now, every time he walks in the room, he feels the thing like the presence it is, towering stories tall, looming over him in a way that he would almost consider menacing if it weren’t for the fact that it’s just a machine.

He’s got blueprints and prototyped miniatures of literal death bots.

So why would the interdimensional portal in the basement put him on edge?

It shouldn’t.

So he shakes the thought away and gets back to work.

An unsuccessful system test led to the time-shift circuit on motherboard seven incinerating again. If he were the kind of man to actually keep count (which he certainly is), he’d know it’s the fourth time in the past week this same part has crapped out on them.

It’s also the reason he’s gonna finally stop out-sourcing these parts and just start making them in-house from now on. He’s about sick of replacing them every five minutes.

That’s what brings Fiddleford to where he is now, with his upper body shoved halfway inside the portal’s support structure and crammed between God knows how many electrical components. His arms have just started to cramp in their rather unnatural position as he pries at the burnt-out part to replace it with a newer one that will hopefully hold out against the power output better than its predecessor.

Ford’s sitting in the control room, supposedly running through some of the math again to double-check that they didn’t miss anything.

The “supposedly” is only because, for the past twenty minutes, the man has been prattling on like Fiddleford’s grandma at Sunday family brunch. He can only hear the occasional snippet from his position (quite literally) inside the portal, and as far as he can tell, he thinks he’s talking about either his most recent research outing, or something about preacher scouting. He wants to lean towards the former, but with the new stories he’s found about a so-called “velocipastor”, he can’t rule out the latter. Either way, the man hasn’t stopped talking long enough to breathe, let alone re-run equations that use relative space-time physics with integrated fourth dimensional calculus.

Fiddleford just doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he really can’t hear him.

He snaps the ribbon cable off the still-smoking component (after the first time it blew, he learned to bring heat-resistant gloves in here with him) and is rather glad to see it’s still intact. Rewiring is a day-long project he’s glad to not have to do again. He maneuvers his hand back out into open air and tosses the old piece somewhere into the room before getting to work mounting the new one.

Ford’s voice echoes from the next room over.

“… extra funds… exploring… investing for…”

Bolting the circuit down turns out to be easier the fifth time he has to do it, and he’s about to start running a simple, probably non-exploding test to make sure the new part is integrated correctly when he hears—

“… so I gave Mothman a thousand dollars…”

And that, of all things, stops Fiddleford in his tracks.

“Come again?” he yells. He had to have misheard because he swears he just heard the man say—

“I ran into Mothman in the woods yesterday,” Ford says, all too nonchalantly, “and they told me they were starting up a small business and needed an investment, so I gave them a thousand dollars from my excess funds with a verbal agreement that they would pay me back within the year.”

… So he didn’t mishear him, that’s for darn sure.

The fact that the Mothman is real is surely weird enough. But he’s lived in Gravity Falls (and known Stanford Pines) for long enough that it doesn’t really surprise him too much. No, that’s not the part that brings him to wiggle himself out of his position inside the portal’s underbelly just enough so that he can meet Ford’s eyes in the other room.

“You gave Mothman… a thousand dollars…” Fiddleford says slowly.

“To help kickstart their new business, yes.” It’s so casual, like he doesn’t even register the inherent absurdity in what he’s saying.

“And that business is?”

“Mothballs.”

“Stanford!”

“What?”

“That’s the stupidest scam I’ve ever heard.”

Ford sputters, his face aghast for a moment. “I did not get scammed by Mothman!”

“You did.”

“Did not.”

“Do you even know what mothballs are for?”

He pauses, his mouth snapping shut, his face turning the slightest shade of red. Fiddleford can see it from the next room over. “No. I always assumed they were some biproduct created by moths during reproduction or something.” Fiddleford lets his head fall back, bonking on a bar of the steel framework behind him.

“Stanford, they repel moths,” he says. “You just let a bunch of moths convince you they’re starting a business making the thing they hate. That’s stupider than the time my neighbor tried to convince me his cat could see God. And you have three PhDs!”

“Four now,” he says quietly, and Fiddleford levels him with a single raised eyebrow.

“You’re gonna go back, find that over-glorified insect, and get our money back. Or so help me, I will never do another grocery run for as long as I live here.”

“Oh come now, that’s hardly fair. You know I hate going into town.”

“Then you better hurry along and find him.”

“You honestly believe the actual Mothman is pulling a con.”

“People lie, Stanford,” he says, finally ducking himself back into the machine to finally run the diagnostic on the new circuit. “Even cryptids and aliens probably from another dimension.”

There’s a moment of silence, but it’s broken a few moments later by the sound of a chair scuffing on the floor and footsteps ascending the wooden stairs out of the basement.

Fiddleford snorts, shaking his head and getting back to work.

~ ~ ~

“So, like, the Mothman,” Wendy says, keeping pace next to him as they make their way back into the woods, the sun’s last rays just starting to slip behind the trees. “The actual Mothman. He’s real?”

“As real as any of the other anomalies in this town,” Ford says, adjusting the strap of the bag slung over his shoulder. He’d heard the cryptid had come back into town again shortly after Wierdmageddon, and after his first attempt at getting his money back a few weeks back (second if you count that time over three decades ago) went sour, he decided to bring back-up this time. But with Stan still out of commission and the kids rightly wanting to stay with him, he was hard-pressed for options. That is until the cashier girl piped up and said she’d do it for ten percent of whatever they recovered.

Ford negotiated her down to eight and a half. She drives a hard bargain; he can see why Stan hired her.

“Dude, that’s sick,” she says.

“I mean, I hardly think they’re ill or anything,” Ford says. “As fast as their moths die off, they re-introduce new ones to the population through some sort of reproductive mitosis—”

“Nah dude, it’s a phrase,” she cuts him off. “Means, like, ‘that’s awesome’.”

“Ah, alright.” Ford pauses to check the anomaly scanner on his watch, the little white blip flashing on the screen. “I’ve never been exceptionally ‘with it’ when it comes to slang, so you’ll have to pardon my misunderstanding.”

“You’re fine, Dr. Pines,” she says. She kicks a loose rock off into the brush. “I’m pretty sure Stan doesn’t understand half of what I say either.” Ford hums an affirmative, intently watching the small blip on his watch, confirming that it is, in fact, slowly moving in their direction. After a few seconds, he drops the bag he’s been carrying with a thwump, a bit of dust swirling up from the dirt.

“We’re going to set up the trap right here,” he says. “We have probably ten minutes until the Mothman comes through here, so we’ll need to act quickly.”

“You got it boss-man.”

It’s a fairly simple net trap, one that they make short work of assembling. Ford had already built the majority of it to bring out here, including a magic-imbued mosquito net that should contain the Mothman’s consciousness so long as they catch the majority of their moths.

He made that mistake last time, the Mothman managing to escape in the couple moths that his trap missed.

“So, you really were in, like, a different dimension for a bunch of years, right?” Wendy asks as she spreads some leaves and twigs over the net.

“Multiple dimensions,” he says as he carefully sets the trap’s trigger pole. “I travelled through thousands of them in my thirty years away from this one.”

“Dude, that’s nuts.”

“It was… pretty sick,” he says, shooting her a wry grin. Wendy groans.

“Well,” she says, “you just confirmed for me that I was right to never teach Stan slang, so thanks for that I guess.”

“Glad to help.” With the trap finally set and ready to go, he pulls the last item out of the bag: the bait, which he flicks on and gently sets down against the trigger.

“That’s a flashlight,” Wendy says, the statement almost a question.

“Indeed, it is.”

“Is it, like,” she says, waving her hands slightly, “I don’t know, magic or something?”

“Nope,” he says, backing off and giving the trap one last look-over. He has to hand it to the girl, she knew what she was doing.

“You’re serious?”

“Entirely,” he says. “It doesn’t take much to attract them. Back in the eighties, they used to hang around streetlamps and windows all the time. It’s a wonder they’re still considered a cryptid considering how blatantly out in the open they—”

He hears the tell-tale sound of fluttering insect wings, not too far off, but loud enough to make him pause. He glances in the direction and then down at his watch, the blip on the screen almost on top of them. Quickly, he motions to Wendy to hide and then does the same himself, crouching behind the nearest tree and peering around the side to watch.

It’s rather quiet for a few moments, the darkness starting to settle into the pines, the lit flashlight a lone beacon, just the sound of the pine needles whistling in the breeze and the far-off humming of the approaching cryptid. But that low hum gradually gets louder, turning to a white drone of hundreds of small wings beating in tandem.

A familiar dark shape emerges from the underbrush. Humanoid, but just barely. Ten-feet tall with two enormous wings sprouting from its back, two large yellow eyes reflecting the scattered light of the flashlight in the clearing. Their entire shape feels blurred at the edges, like someone drew a line of charcoal and smudged it, the hundreds of moths that make up their body shifting and moving amongst each other in a din of small beating wings.

The Mothman.

Ford hates to admit that the thought still sends an excited shiver up his spine.

They emerge into the clearing, glancing around and taking an immediate interest in the flashlight lying on the ground. They approach it slowly, cautiously, glancing around as if waiting for the ambush, eventually making it onto the net before moving to bend down to pick up the flashlight.

They stop.

Ford holds his breath.

“Stanford Pines,” a voice says, the sound a high whine broken up and mixed with soft clicking. The Mothman stands back upright, snapping its eyes right in his direction. Immediately, Ford’s mind starts swirling with potential fallback options to try to turn this in their favor. “Surprised you’re still alive after last week. Really think we’re stupid enough to fall for—”

“Suck mothballs, lamp licker!” Wendy screams from across the clearing, the Mothman whipping around just as a projectile of some sort (is that an axe?) flies out of the underbrush and hits the trap’s trigger dead-on, sending the net shooting upwards and capturing almost all of the moths above it. A shrill screech fills the air from the now-dangling mass of moths, but Ford is too busy gaping at the cashier girl as she emerges from her hiding spot.

“Nice shot, Wendy!” he beams, shaking off the shock and coming out to join her on either side of the now-enraged Mothman. She shrugs, retrieving the axe from off the ground and sliding it back into her belt loop behind her back.

“No biggie. My dad enters me into the annual axe-throwing competition every year. I’ve won the last 5 in a row.” Ford, having not known anything about this girl before today, is rather stunned. He certainly was not expecting that from the teen, let alone the nonchalance over it. “But anywho,” she says, turning her attention to the writhing mass in front of them. “About that money…”

~ ~ ~

About two hours after they left, Ford and Wendy arrive back at the Mystery Shack, Ford heading to the back of the house to find Stan and the kids, Wendy collecting her things and heading back out to go home, a crisp one-hundred dollar bill tucked into her pocket.

[lilixloveswriting]

Party Crasher

Summary: Being popular isn't all that it's cracked up to be; in which Akio attends his first high school party.

TW: Underage drinking (they're "third years" but I might change the timeline so do with that what you will), non-con touching (Akio is drunk and therefore cannot give his consent), vague depression angst stuff at the end, akio has self worth issues ah ha ha so relatable

Akio’s eyes dropped down to the address given to him on his phone. Yup, this was it. He could hear the bass of the music thumping from outside and every once in a while a red or green light pierced its way through the window to dance on the lawn. He took a deep breath as he readied himself to go inside.

Of course, he’d been invited to house parties before, but this is the first time someone had ever invited him personally. That meant that Hata Taichi had gone out of his way to find him after school and asked him to go to his party.

Now he was sitting outside of Hata's house, ditching his daily training to go to a high school party. He took a deep breath and walked up to the porch. The door was already ajar, allowing music, lights, and the cheering of teenagers to leak through. His heart fluttered with a mix of excitement and nerves as he fully opened the door, stepping into the house. The atmosphere on the inside was completely different than it was a few steps before. For one, it was warmer. Much warmer. The mixture of dancing bodies and the smoke from the fog machine heated the room by at least ten degrees. Akio’s quirk allowed him to deal well with heat, but it didn’t aid in the heavy weight that the air seemed to have and he felt as though he had to work harder to breathe.

“Akio-senpai is here!” Akio turned his head to see a girl on the steps shout, raising her cup in the air. Others did the same thing, raising their cups and happily cheering his name. Akio glowed a bit at the amount of admiration in the room. He couldn’t say that he knew the name of the girl or the names of the others who joined in her celebration, but he smiled as his eyes fell on a boy with short black hair making his way through the crowd.

“Senpai, you made it!” He grinned, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I was starting to get a little worried.”

Akio smiled apologetically. “Hey, Hata-san. Yeah, sorry. There were some things I had to take care of.”

“Well, people showed up anyway, so…!”

His eyebrows furrowed and his face fell slightly. “Uh, why wouldn’t people come?”

Hata shrugged a little. “Oh, you know. No one knows me, but you’re the life of the party. It was a good thing I told everyone you’d be coming to the party, otherwise, there’d be no one here!” He smiled and patted Akio on the shoulder. “So thanks, man! There are drinks over there, and some food too...but honestly you can go home if you have more important stuff to do. The party was a success so…” Hata flashed his teeth again, then made his way back into the crowd of people.

Akio closed his mouth into a frown as he felt his heart sink. He should have known he wasn’t actually wanted at this party. People always seemed to enjoy his presence, but nobody seemed to ever actually need or want him. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out.

It’s Littt 👴🏼💪🏼🔥

You are over ten minutes late. Are you still coming?

A sigh escaped his lips and Akio tucked his phone back into his jeans. Since he wasn’t needed at the party anymore, he figured he could just go back to training, but not before grabbing a drink for the road. He wandered in the direction that Hata had pointed him in earlier and eventually found a table with some chips and a big bowl of punch. He looked around for a bottle of water or Gatorade, but ultimately didn’t find anything, so he picked up a cup and spooned some punch into it, bringing the drink to his lips. He recoiled and coughed at the sharp taste the liquid had but he was thirsty, so he continued to drink it. The juice burned his throat, and he figured it must be alcohol.

"Todoroki-kun!" Someone squealed and Akio looked down to see a girl who he recognized from his class hanging off of his arm. "Come on! Play a game with us!" She tugged him unsuccessfully, as she was much smaller than he was.

Akio chugged the rest of his drink and tossed it in the trash can as he let the girl lead him to wherever that game was. He could have left, but he was already late to practice. The drink wasn't enough to get him drunk, but he didn't feel like walking home and he knew Hisao would be pissed if he had to come pick him up, so why not stay a bit longer?

---

The group cheered as Akio slammed his cup down, wiping at the corner of his mouth while girls clung to him at all sides. He took the coin revealed from under the cup and flipped it with his thumb, catching it in the air and tucking it into his pocket.

"Wowww Todo-kun! You're sooo bad at this!" One gushed, nuzzling her face into his sleeve.

"Yeah!" Another girl giggled. "You've lost like three timezz in a row!"

"Oi!" Akio called out, a smile gracing his lips. "I's not my fault! My eyes 'on't move as fas' as his quirk." He slurred as he motioned to the kid across the table placing another coin under a cup and using all four arms to mix them up at an incredible speed.

"Uggghh," One guy groaned, "I don't wanna play this anymore."

"I know!" Someone else shouted, and Akio wasn't sure who it was anymore. "Let's play the King Game!"

A few people cheered in agreement and they all moved to the couch. Someone laid out a bunch of chopsticks and the game began. Akio reached into the pile, pulling the stick and looking at the number.

Five. Or was that a three? Damn, reading was ten times harder when he was drunk.

Akio felt a buzz in his pocket and pulled his phone out, fumbling with the keypad before opening the message. He squinted at the text, trying to make the two blurry images form into one.

"Hey!" A whiny voice rang in his ear and he looked up to see…he couldn't remember her name, in his face. "Pay attention Aki-senpai~! I'm the King! You should be focused on me." She pouted and Akio looked back down at his phone, muttering some sort of apology. She huffed and snatched his phone from his hand, giving him a devious smile.

"I said your number, Aki-senpai." She dropped her voice so that it was low and sultry, tracing a finger along Akio's jawline and flicking up at his chin. "That means you hafta do whatever I say." She stood up and grabbed his hand, pulling him off the couch and leading him away from the group.

The jolt was more than enough to throw him into vertigo, and he didn't remember anything between when his butt left the couch and when his back hit the bed. He felt the girl's soft lips on his, and he felt hands. Hands everywhere, all over. Too many. Too many hands, whose hands were these?

This was wrong. He knew it, and he felt it, but he couldn't see and he couldn't feel, not really. The random contact left his skin feeling numb and Akio struggled, at least he thought he did. He couldn't really tell how much he was moving underneath them. His limbs felt heavy and the ceiling was spinning. And he was really hot, oh god, it was so hot. Was his quirk on? Fuck, he didn't know. He prayed he wasn't hurting them, but seeing as he could still feel their hands, so many, all over, they must have been okay.

Geez, how long was this going to last? He should probably be getting home soon…damn. He really didn't want to walk. He wasn't even sure if he could walk. Maybe one of these girls could take him home? No…they were drunk too, and he didn't even remember their names. He didn't want to be rude. Gosh, they sure were heavy though. Akio felt like a stress ball. All the squeezing and poking and smushing and mushing and -- oh? It stopped.

Akio blinked and did his best to get a hold of his senses. Someone was yelling and- oh! Hisao. When did he get here? Ah, shit, he seemed really mad.

Akio muttered an apology as he did his best to sit up, ultimately getting pulled by the wrist as Hisao yanked him to his feet. He hoped they could go home now.

---

*An hour and a half earlier*

Hisao sat at the table with Kayda, tweaking one of his newest bots while she highlighted one of her textbooks. The bot squealed as its gears turned, then made a wretched screeching sound before falling silent and motionless on the table, prompting an exhausted sigh from Hisao.

"Don't kill it," Kayda warned halfheartedly, flipping the next page in her textbook.

Hisao huffed and picked the screwdriver back up. "Not the thing I want to kill at the moment."

"Mm." She hummed condescendingly. "Better switch from support to comedy."

"Haha." He strained as he twisted the tool, the gears slowly tightening up. "I'll make sure to turn my request form…in…ah!" He jabbed the robot and the machine whirred, beeping as its little eyes lit back up. "There, I gotcha." He spoke softly to the machine as though it was a child and Kayda scrunched up her face.

"You know it isn't actually alive, right? And why don't you just use your quirk?"

"I don't know, why aren't you studying?" He asked, reaching over and tapping her little pencil topper, causing the plastic bear to hop off of the eraser and dance across the table.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, swatting at it, but Hisao was quicker. "Give him back! Seriously, Hisao! It's Mitsuko's!"

Hisao thought for a second, just to make her squirm then let his hand go limp, allowing the bear to fall lifelessly. "Fine."

She exhaled sharply, snatching the toy back up and placing it back on her pencil. "You're such a pain."

Hisao held back a snicker, picking his tool back up. Before he could do anything with them, the table began vibrating and the pair's eyes fell on the ringing phone.

"Dad!" Kayda shouted, "Your phone is ringing!"

"Who is it?" Shoto yelled back, and Hisao checked the caller id.

"It's Grandpa!" He said.

"Don't answer!" Was what they got in response.

They looked at each other and Kayda shrugged, allowing the phone to ring.

Hisao frowned. "What if it's Akio?"

Again, Kayda shrugged. "Then he'll call Mom."

"Hm." Hisao tilted his head. He supposed that was true. "'Kay then. I'm gonna go shower."

Kayda barely acknowledged him, not giving more than a quiet hum. He collected his items and took to his room, plugging his dead phone in on the charger before heading to the bathroom.

He emerged about twenty minutes later, hair still dripping water down his back as he searched his drawers for a shirt. He found one and plopped down on his phone, tapping his phone on as he pulled the shirt over his head. He squinted at the notification, picking the phone up questioningly.

4 Texts and 3 Missed Calls from Grandpa E

Grandpa E

-Tell your father to pick up the phone.

-Is your brother home? He has not answered my text messages.

-Shoto changed my phone settings. It will not allow me to call your mother. Help??

-Why do none of you answer my calls?

He frowned and pushed the call icon, holding the phone up to his ear.

"Finally. I don't like being ignored."

"I wasn't ignoring you, Grandpa. Sorry, my phone died and I was in the shower. What's up?"

"Your father has done something to my phone. I cannot contact your mother and the wallpaper is a very unflattering photo of me. I need you to fix it."

Hisao let out a short laugh. "Sure, I'll fix it the next time I see you."

"Good. Also, tell your brother to tell me if he is going to cancel so I'm not waiting for thirty minutes for him to show up."

"He didn't come?" Hisao asked, flopping back onto his bed.

"No, and he didn't answer my messages. Is he not home?"

"No…" He said, rolling onto his stomach and putting the phone on speaker while pulling up his thread with Akio. He shot him a quick message asking for his whereabouts. "Okay, Grandpa. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Tell your father to stop ignoring my calls."

Hisao nodded before realizing that his grandfather couldn't see him. "Okay. Bye." He hung up the phone and sat up on his bed. He frowned down at his phone, hoping for a text back that Akio was on his way home. Their mom had probably already gone to bed by now, and his dad was most likely getting ready for his night patrol. This left Hisao to go get his brother, and all he really wanted to do was get under the covers and go to sleep, not hop in the car and go on a wild goose chase. Alas, Hisao rarely got what he wanted.

About twenty minutes went by and Akio hadn't answered any calls or texts Hisao had sent him. He pulled up the family tracker app he had on his phone, patented by his mother, just in case any of them ended up getting kidnapped. Akio's indicator pulsated in white, and Hisao took the keys to the car and began in the direction of Akio's phone.

It wasn't too long until he stopped. The app told him that he was right on top of it as he pulled up to a house. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Parties were never his scene, and he wasn't sure when they had become Akio's either. They were hot and stuffy and there were always way too many people he didn't care about. The only parties they ever attended were dinner parties held by their parents. Why would Akio go to a high school party?

Hisao got out of the car and jogged up to the front door, mentally cursing his brother for the hell he was about to put him through. Hisao pushed the door open and was immediately hit with the smell of booze. He grimaced, knowing he would probably need another shower after this.

The house wasn’t that big, but the sheer number of people there was going to make the search difficult. Navigating the bottom floor was like swimming through sludge; sludge that pushed you and spun you around while you did your best to keep yourself upright. He finally reached somewhat of a clearing, arriving at a table with crumbs all over it and an almost empty punch bowl. To his left was a girl sitting on a chair, eating chips while scrolling through her phone. Hisao tapped her lightly, grabbing her attention.

“Hey, can I borrow your chair for a second?”

She shrugged and stood to the side, allowing Hisao to climb up. He peered over all of the heads at the party, looking for the familiar white tuft of hair.

“Lose someone?” The girl asked and Hisao scoffed.

“Yeah...Do you know if Akio Todoroki is here? Third-year...big three.”

“Ohhh, big three Todoroki fan, huh?” She mocked and Hisao rolled his eyes. “There were rumors he was coming, but I haven’t seen him. There was a big commotion in the living room a few minutes ago, though. You could check there.”

“Thanks.” He said, climbing down from the chair.

“Mhm, no problem. Try to keep your pants on, fanboy.”

Hisao clicked his tongue, turning back and mumbling, “Shouldn’t be a problem. He’s my brother,” before taking off to look for the living room. After a few minutes of shoving his way through drunk teenagers, Hisao finally found the room but was disappointed to see everyone but who he was looking for. “Hey, have you guys seen Todoroki?”

One guy snorted. “Yeah. He just stole all the girls even though he wasn’t even the king. If you find him, tell him to bring back the chopsticks.”

Hisao held back a frustrated sigh. “Do you know where they went?”

“Kurata-chan took him upstairs.” Another person said, and Hisao turned around, making a beeline for the staircase.

There were significantly fewer people upstairs, and Hisao finally felt like he could breathe a little easier. There were also fewer rooms, all located in one hallway. Akio had better be here or Hisao would kill him himself.

He pulled one door open and closed it back quickly; just the linen closet. The next door he opened led to a bathroom. He entered, freezing in place as he was startled by two other people. They didn’t seem to notice his presence, as they were too busy making out to even be aware of their surroundings. Hisao inched his way around them, peeking inside of the shower and the tub for his brother. Hisao squinted as he spotted Akio’s phone at the bottom of the tub. Wonderful, he might not even be at the house.

He picked it up, only to drop it in disgust as he felt something wet on his fingers. Hisao groaned and took some toilet paper, wiping off the phone and putting it in his pocket, preferring not to find out what the mystery liquid was.

He promptly left and continued his search, next opening a door to a bedroom. A hazy fog hung in the air and multiple people were passed out on the floor while others were huddled up in a group. Akio wasn’t there, so he closed the door back. There was only one left, and Hisao prayed that this would be the one. He opened it up and his eyes fell to the bed with a cluster of girls on top of it. He couldn’t see what was going on, but he did see one leg intertwined with all the others that had a long, familiar scar on it.

“HEY!” He shouted and the girls flinched. He stomped over and grabbed one by the arm, pulling her off of his brother. “Get off.” He said sternly to the others, who did in their frightened states.

“Hey, man!” Hisao turned toward the door to see a very angry-looking guy yelling at him. “Get your hands off my girlfriend!” He ripped Hisao’s hand away from her wrist and Hisao didn’t even realize he was still holding her.

“Well, your girlfriend just had her hands all over my brother, so I’m really not the one you want to be yelling at.” He said and walked over to the bed, taking Akio’s hand and pulling him up. His eyes were glossy and out of focus and he swayed as Hisao pulled him to his feet.

“What the hell did you just say?” The man stepped in front of them, blocking their path to the door. He crossed his arms in an attempt to intimidate, but if he knew how annoyed Hisao was getting, he would be the one to cower.

“Listen, man. I don’t want any trouble. Just let us thro-” Hisao was cut off by large hands on his chest and he was pushed back into a table. The thing collapsed and Hisao grimaced at the sore feeling left on his back.

He balled his hands into fists, his fingernails digging into his palms as he let go of trying to control his anger. Oh, he was going to sleep well after this. He touched all four legs that had broken off of the table and in one swift motion, sent them flying towards the unsuspecting guy. The pieces of wood caught onto his clothes and dragged him backward, pinning him to the wall as Hisao pushed himself to his feet. He grabbed onto Akio’s wrist again and dragged him out of the room.

“Let’s go.” He said and the girls cleared a path for him. It was a straight shot from the room to the car, although it was difficult to get Akio inside and buckled up. The white-haired boy burped, followed by a hiccup and Hisao took a deep breath.

“If you throw up in here I will make you clean it.” He warned, shifted gears and pulled away from the house. “What were you thinking? If you were going to skip training, you could have at least told us where you were.”

“Wasn’t gonna,” Akio responded, closing his eyes and snuggling into his seat.

“Oh, really?”

“I was gonna leave, but then...I dunno. I was jus’...I played a game.” He slurred and Hisao frowned.

They slowed to a stop at a red light and Hisao turned to his brother. “Look at me.” Akio listened and opened his eyes, which Hisao inspected thoroughly. “What did you drink? Did you take anything from anyone? Akio, listen. Did you set your drink down?”

Akio shrugged and closed his eyes again, head lolling to the side. Hisao’s hands shook in anger and he squeezed the steering wheel. The image of all of those girls on top of his brother was ingrained into his brain. He hated the idea of Akio being in such a vulnerable state, it made him want to burn the whole place to the ground.

“Sorry…” Akio mumbled quietly. “I was just…” He shook his head and Hisao loosened his grip slightly. “I didn’t call ‘cause I knew you’d be mad. I know you din’ wanna come get me.” He slurred.

Hisao sighed. “No, I didn’t. But you should have called anyway if you were in trouble.”

A beat of silence, then, “I’m really tired, Hisao.”

Hisao’s normal response would be to go to sleep, but the break in Akio’s voice withheld that. A quiet sob filled the car and Hisao turned the radio off. “Tired of what, Aki?”

A shaky breath. “Trying.”

Hisao frowned, he wasn’t sure what Akio was talking about, but he knew he was a hard worker. He was always pushing himself to do his best, and Hisao knew the constant work and training must be tiring. “Then stop trying so hard. It’s okay to take breaks, you know.” Hisao glanced over when Akio didn’t respond, letting out a small sigh to see his brother fast asleep. The two obviously had more to talk about, but Hisao decided that it could wait. Akio said he was tired after all, and Hisao was just happy that he had shown up when he did. Even if that meant his night’s sleep would get cut short by a couple of hours.

Notes:

wow it is very obvious that I wrote this over a year ago, but we're to going look at it as a positive because that means I've improved!!! yayyyyy but I do want to rewrite it, I actually already started a little while ago and BITCH IT'S LOWKEY SO GOOD she says like it's something special but no actually I can see the improvement, so maybe I'll post the rewritten version if I ever finish it. But anyways just know that this was written in January of 2020 and I've been writing through a whole quarantine since then and I actually have decent description now! So the newer stuff will be better :)

[fandom-necromancer]

651. You love me as if I deserve you.

This is a bit long for my usual shorts but I guess it is kinda slow-burn so it needs time? Anyways, this had been prompted by the amazing @smolandangry001!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900

‘Tina? Sorry to say that, but you look horrible.’ Connor gifted her a weak smile and put the cup of fresh tea in front of her. He had a hunch what - or better who – had been the reason for her deranged state. ‘Thanks’, Tina said, and Connor didn’t know whether that was for the tea or the questionable compliment. ‘Gavin again?’ The woman nodded while drinking. ‘Kept me up all night again. How do you know?’ ‘Nines did the same yesterday.’ ‘Ah well, good thing androids don’t sleep.’ ‘Yeah, but I have other things to do than mothering my brother. To think they both are dumb enough…’ They looked over to where Gavin and Nines sat opposite to each other, Nines staring at the human who was focussed on his work. Five minutes from now the roles would be reversed, Connor knew that from experience, and still none of them seemed to recognise the signs. And this was now going for nearly a month. Connor had hoped for at least one of them to get their things together and tell the other, but no, they stubbornly got tangled in thoughts. It was hopeless.

‘We have to do something’, Tina sighed. ‘Else we’ll never sleep again. And it’s tiring to watch them do this damn back-and-forth all the time.’ ‘I agree. But I don’t have any ideas. It has to be naturally. They mustn’t notice we have arranged something.’ ‘I don’t have any idea either’, Tina told him deflated. ‘I’ll call a few friends, see what they come up with on the weekend. Talk again on Monday?’ ‘Good idea. I don’t think I know people who would be helpful in that matter, but I’ll try to do the same.’ Connor already thought on who might know something. No one had experiences with humans though. ‘But they are on patrol together on Saturday, so prepare for another sleepless night.’

-

As forewarned Tina's phone woke her up at three in the morning to Gavin's desperate voice. 'Ugh, Gav did you drink again?', she yawned loudly. 'What else should I do on a Saturday evening?', came Gavin’s lulled voice from the speaker. 'Saturday night to early Sunday morning, Gavin. But fine, I'm awake now, what can I help you with?' 'Tina, am I loveable? Like, could anyone love me?' Tina let her arm fall next to her to groan loudly, then put the phone back next to her face. 'Of course, you are, Gavin. I remember you picking up the guys in bars like crazy.' 'Yeah but that was for a night. Mutual stress relief. I mean love like... the romantic shit. You know? The long-time stuff.' 'Gavin, I think if you asked there would have been at least one to meet you on another date.' 'But I'm a human disaster, Tina!' 'Is this about Nines again?' She couldn't keep the yawn at bay this time. Several moments of silence. Then quietly: 'Yes.'

'Listen, Gav, why don't you just tell him? You work well together, you like each other and I'm sure he wouldn't get angry or something.' 'Just tell him? It's not that easy, Tina! What if he says no? I would lose my best and only friend!' 'Hey!' Tina sat up in bed and wrapped the blanket around herself. 'What happened to me?' 'Sorry, T. I mean one of my best friends and the only datable friend.' 'Okay, good safe.' She sighed. 'But honestly can you find any good reasons he would say no? As far as I know he never had anyone. Maybe he just waits for someone to ask?' 'You got to be kidding me! Good reasons? There are thousands! Maybe he’s just not the type for a relationship, you can’t know that.' 'Give me an example for one of these many reasons', Tina ignored the last sentence. He knew from reliable sources that was bullshit. 'Nines could never love a useless fuck up like me!' It was cried into the speaker and Tina covered her face in her hands. These goddamn two idiots. This would be a long night.

-

>Connor? Yes >Could you come? On my way. Connor got up from where he was seated next to Sumo and gave the dog one last pet. 'Gotta go care for my idiot brother, see you in the morning.' He found Nines in his room on the bed, blanket wrapped like a tent from the shoulders over his legs, he had pressed against his chest. The red LED was illuminating the room and the light fell on a few books around him. Connor gently put some to the side and sat in the free space next to the android. 'Hey. I'm here. How can I help you?' 'Why did Cyberlife design me like this?' It was so impossible silent it hurt. 'Like what? Like the best unit ever made? Like my perfect little brother? Like the best android detective, the world has seen?' Nines threw him a disgusted look. 'You know what I meant.' 'I know, Nines. But do you know what I meant, too?' The RK900's face softened. 'I guess.'

Connor laid an arm around him and the other android leaned into the embrace, wrapping the blanket around him, too. Connor could feel the warmth emitting the body and wondered how long he had sat here thinking, overworking his processors. 'Listen to me. You are more than what Cyberlife told you to be. We all are. It doesn't matter what they intended you to be. What you became, what you achieved all on your own is what is important.' 'But that is all people will ever see', Nines spoke into the silence. Outside Sumo’s claws clicked on the floor as he strutted through the house. 'They will always just see the ruthless machine, the deviant hunter, the soldier.' Connor felt with his brother. Of course, his words wouldn't help. Not when he had it easier having Markus back up his actions in his public speeches. But he knew what would help.

'I don't think he sees you like that', Connor smiled and pressed the other android gently against himself. 'What?' 'This is about him, isn't it?' Connor chuckled and Nines looked up to him. 'Not everything is about Gavin!', the android spat out. 'Never said his name', Connor grinned but got serious again as Nines blushed and let his head hang loose between his shoulders. ‘Gavin would never love a war machine like me.’ ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself? You can’t possibly know this.’ ‘And destroy the friendship we’ve built? You warned me yourself about him. He would just get angry, call me a damn bot and say something about how our kind can’t love.’ ‘I don’t think he would, Nines. You are just overthinking. I bet he just waits for someone to ask.’ ‘And you don’t just say that to cheer me up?’ Connor chuckled again and ruffled the other android’s hair. ‘I am trying to cheer you up, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’ ‘Thank you Connor. But I can’t. I would risk too much.’

-

The sun was rising when he finally got out of Nines’ room and made breakfast for Hank before they all drove to the precinct together. He gridded his teeth as he read Tina’s messages. >Hey Con, prepare for another shitty day, Gavin kept me up all night again. Same here. >Oh shit are they synchronising now? Don’t know see you in twenty. Meet me in your break? >Yep.

-

‘We have to do something!’ Tina broke down on the table of the breakroom. ‘These idiots cost me years of my life robbing my sleep like that!’ ‘You and your friends had any ideas?’, Connor asked while sliding her a coffee. ‘Okay, so you and Connor meet up somewhere, I and Gavin meet up somewhere that just happens to be the same place and then we both make up some excuses why we couldn’t come.’ ‘That is all you came up with?’ ‘There was a lot of gushing over our two losers and a lot of booze’, Tina apologised. ‘Believe me, this is still the best thing we came up with. What about you?’ ‘We get allies.’ ‘What?’ ‘We tell Fowler and ask him to put both of them to observe some suspects. Long hours in a car, nothing to do except talk. They have to talk about that eventually.’ ‘And why should Fowler accept that?’ ‘He gets to torture Gavin? And he would have them occupied and away from the precinct. I don’t think it would be too difficult persuading him.’ Tina downed the coffee like nothing and nodded jerkily. ‘Fine. Should we go then? The quicker, the better. And if that doesn’t work, we try my idea?’ ‘Deal.’

-

‘What have we done to deserve this? I mean, stakeouts? Really? What information is there to find about an armed robbery when we watch the house of his damn granny? Am I the only one thinking this is punishment and nothing else? Phck Fowler!’ ‘It does seem rather weird, Gavin’, Nines agreed. ‘But there are no major cases in lately, so even if this is grasping at straws maybe the Captain really has nothing else for us to do.’ ‘Yeah, but why stakeouts? It’s phcking boring! Grandmothers aren’t really the type of people who run around every day. The old lady probably watches TV all day, livin’ the life like it was intended.’ ‘We could talk.’ ‘About what?’ ‘I don’t know, detective. You-‘ he coughed and Gavin fixed the android. Robots didn’t cough. ‘Your cats, maybe? You like them a lot.’ ‘Yeah, I do. But I told you everything already, I think. And there was nothing too interesting happening during the weekend, too.’ Except for her to curl up against him when he had cried to Tina about that very android next to him. That had been adorable, but for obvious reasons he couldn’t talk about that. ‘Maybe something about you? Any new books read lately?’ ‘Hmm, no’, Nines lied. ‘Me and Connor talked most nights, I had no time to read.’ That he had read a bunch of romance novels lately, especially the human-android kind that was flooding the market lately, he didn’t dare to tell. ‘About what did you talk?’, Gavin wanted to know. ‘I mean, if that’s not too personal of course.’ ‘Oh, no it…’ Nines was at a loss of words. He couldn’t tell the truth, but a too obvious lie would be noticed. ‘It was about me. My past. It’s still difficult living under those I am designed to kill. To see everyone afraid of me.’ ‘Aww, I’m not afraid of you.’ Once again Gavin realised, he had talked without thinking. ‘You are okay, okay? You are so much more than what they wanted you to be.’ ‘You really think so?’ ‘Yes.’ He went so far now he could also walk home.

‘Gavin?’ ‘Hmm-hmm?’ ‘I think I…’ Gavin looked the android in the eyes that avoided his suddenly. Yes, please, say the words! ‘I should go around the house to check the other side.’ ‘Ugh. I mean, yeah, sure, sure! Do your thing! Could be something interesting to see. Have fun.’ God, Gavin, shut up.

-

'Why on earth didn't it work?', Tina exclaimed. They had met in a bar this time because she had insisted, she wasn't talking this through while sober. 'What can we do more than forcing them into a small confined place with nothing to do but talk?' She drank in big gulps, shaking her head. ‘And my idea won’t work either. Could also compromise us. Fuck.’ She ordered another beer and downed it promptly. Then she eyed Connor. ‘Hey, don’t you want to drink something, too?’ ‘I don’t. I don’t like losing the ability to say only what I want.’ ‘Boring’, Tina mumbled. ‘Wait, that is it!’ Tina looked at him dumbfounded. ‘Hey, I’m doing this for Gav and my sleep, not for you to have an interesting drinking partner.’ ‘No, Tina, I meant we have to get them drunk together. They would easily slip some words then and maybe they finally realise they both play the same dumb game.’ Tina looked at him, then at her drink and started grinning. ‘You know what? That might actually work. And it would be enough to get only one of them drunk in case Nines is equally stubborn as you are.’

-

‘Connor, I’m only agreeing to this because this is my partner you are speaking of, but in case one of them starts to throw up, consider me gone. I’m not getting involved in that.’ ‘Understandable. But I think they both know their limit as adults. It should just be a nice evening together.’ ‘I thought you invited me to help getting them home. If it is just a nice evening you don’t need me.’ ‘Come on, it will be fun, believe me.’ ‘Fun…’ Nines looked towards the bar and recognised Gavin’s car already standing in the parking lot. ‘We’ll see.’

They entered the bar to some people laughing and music playing. More humans than androids, but Nines spotted Gavin instantly and something changed. Yes, they had spent unusually much time together the last days, but that didn’t mean Nines wasn’t happy to see him again. They sat down opposite to Tina and Gavin and greeted each other. Almost the first question for the evening was asked by Tina. ‘Hey, Nines, are you like your brother and don’t drink?’ ‘Rather not. But I never have before, so I don’t know if this opinion is just prejudice’, he answered. ‘Really? You have never been drunk?’ That was Gavin, already a bit tipsy. ‘May I remind you I have only been active for half a year and thirium-based alcohol has only existed for a month of it?’ ‘But aren’t you curious? I know I would be.’ ‘I… am a bit curious what it is like.’, Nines admitted and promptly Gavin banged his hands on the table. ‘Then try one. It’s on me.’

Connor and Tina exchanged a look. Maybe this would be easier than thought. Soon after there was a glass full of blue liquid on front of Nines and Gavin looked more eager to see him drink it than Nines himself. ‘Come on, one glass won’t make you be unable to walk and spill your deepest secrets, try it!’ Nines nipped on it, waited, then drank more. ‘And? How is it?’ ‘There is an ingredient that messes with my analysis program and from there spreads into other parts. Like a virus but without much harm.’ ‘So, good? You want more?’ ‘Well, I think I would try.’

A few hours later Gavin and Nines where deep in conversation, Tina and Connor were forgotten. They should be happy as this had been their goal, but the two idiots talked about work and were very, very drunk. It was like listening to bad buddy-cop-TV-shows about their lives.

Until it took a different turn.

‘And how you captured that perp, that was amazing dude!’, Gavin exclaimed grinning. ‘I just saw my chance and took it. You on the other hand… That chase was well calculated. I hadn’t thought humans to be capable of that.’ ‘Nah, didn’t calculate shit, Nines. Just reacted.’ ‘And that’s what I love about you, Gavin. You never think, you just act.’ ‘Nah, with a supercomputer by my side, who needs to think, am I right?’

Connor was the first to look alarmed, Tina was too drunk to notice, but managed to get it after the android nudged her under the table. She immediately perked up and leaned over. ‘Hey, Nines, what else do you love about Gavin?’ Nines looked confused, but quickly got back to his conversation. ‘Oh, just about everything.’ And finally Gavin was turning red, looked up to the android’s face and said: ‘Hey, I wanted to say this for a long time now, but I love you too, toaster.’

What should have been a sweet moment was interrupted by Connor jumping from his chair and calling out in relief: ‘Fucking finally! Tina, come, we are leaving them alone.’ ‘Hmmm, sleep’, she murmured, but continued to grin. ‘It was worth it though.’

That left a very drunk human and less but still adequately inebriated android sitting at their desk looking after the other two leaving. Only then it suddenly dawned them what had happened the last weeks of forced stakeouts and horrible night conversations. Then they looked back at each other, red and blue blushes as intense as a police siren. ‘So, you love me?’, Gavin asked shily. ‘Since when?’ ‘I don’t know really. You grew on me every day like weeds. But in a good way.’ Oh yes, honest conversations and alcohol was a bad combination. ‘Although I’m a major phck-up?’ ‘Because you are. I love you like you deserve to be loved.’ ‘Heh, more like you love me as if I deserved you.’ ‘No, Gavin. You are a remarkable human being. And I feel proud you chose me.’ ‘Hey, the same can be said for…’ The human went silent. ‘That whole time we’ve been both…’ ‘And we told them…’ Nines added thinking of the past month.

‘God, we are idiots.’

[de-vee-l]

Music box: chapter 4 - slum

Antonina sighed looking out of the window. It was hot. She felt like she went to sauna. Of course, conditioner worked well and helped to chill a little.

She was sent with Knockout on a mission to find a relic, since no one of the Decepticons could reach it. So now they were driving through streets of a seaside city. They still had a long way to go and they couldn't move very fast because of all motorcycles on their way.

- You're a little quiet, Tonya, - Knockout said.

- You want to talk? - she asked.

- I meant that you don't complain as much as I expected, - he explained, - You know, I'm actually not fond of humans, really. But you do pretty good job at not irritating me. Not even crying to let you go to these... older ones your sparklings usually stick around.

- Parents? - she said, - Well, it's not like I would meet them if you let me go.

- Why so?

- It's... - the girl went deep in thought for a moment, - It's complicated. And I actually hope I will not meet them ever again.

The girl clenched on the edge of her blue and black dress. She wasn't used to talking about that. And she sure didn't expect Decepticon to be interested.

- I see. Do you know Autobots' pets by the way? - Knockout changed the subject.

- I don't think so, - Antonina answered, - Where do they even live?

- Jasper, Nevada.

- Sounds like America. Soundwave picked me in Marseille, France. So there's no way I've met them before, - she said.

- Oh, so you're from another country? How come you speak the same language as those fleshies?

- You're from another planet. How come you speak the same language as them? - the girl parried, - I just need English since some foreign teachers sometimes come to our classes. I actually fluently speak three languages. Too bad Vietnamese isn't one of them.

Then the car stopped. Red bot opened the door letting Tonya out. She stepped outside and breathed in hot moist air. She then took off her cardigan and covered her head with it. It wouldn't be good if she got sunstroke.

- You better do it quickly, - Knockout said.

- I'll try.

The big slum district stretched out before her. She could almost see all houses within it since it was placed on the hill. The girl took a deep breath as she started walking through narrow passages. She couldn't know the specific location of the relic, since the scaner cons used was too big for her to carry. All she knew was that it was around the center of the district and that she would definitely recognize it.

As she walked some people watched her, some approached her asking something about Soviets. Though it wasn't hard to shake them off. Lots of kids were running around, some dogs as well. She didn't feel good in here. Slums all over the world were famous for thier higher crime rate, so she always looked around nervously.

The girl wandered about for several hours untill she finally found something. Under old stone stairs some bricks were moved aside showing empty space under it. Antonina took a look inside. There was a disk made of white metal and... something ball shaped of the same material. The girl took out her phone and called Knockout.

- Knockout, it's Tonya. I've found something, - she informed, - I'm not sure though.

- How does it look like? - he asked.

- Like a metal jar? Is this it?

- It's a container. You can leave it there. What we need is inside.

- But there's nothing in it, - she replied after taking the jar out and looking inside, - Nothing but a big fat spider.

- What?! - the bot went silent for a moment, as if checking something, - Alright, the relic is still not far from you, straight east from where you're standing. And you better hurry up! Just how much free time do you think I have?!

- Got it.

The girl put the phone in her pocket and rushed in the right direction. She is screwed if those Autobots kids were the ones to take it. After some time she ran out on some sort of open space between buildings and started looking around. And then she saw... a bunch of kids playing football. With a strange metal object instead of a ball. A sigh of relief came out of her mouth. Now all she needed to do was take it. The girl put on her cardigan properly to look more presentable and walked towards the kids.

It wasn't actually as hard as she expected. Luckily she grabbed some french sweets when Soundwave let her out. And now she took them in case mission would take too long. These kids traded without a second thought.

Antonina held the object in her hands and looked it all over. It was definitely it. A strange circle like thing with claws on sides. It wasn't very big, but obviously it was a little heavy. While turning it all over she accidentally touched her wrist with it and claws formed a tight grip over it. Now it was like some kind of bracelet. Suddenly she noticed someone beside her. She turned to see an Asian girl in colorful outfit, with black and pink hair.

- Hey, girl! - she waved and then pointed at the relic, - Excuse me, but can we have that? We kinda need it.

- Well, I need it too, - Tonya glanced at the boy with a European looks that was standing not far and talked to someone on the phone.

- Arcee, we found it, - he whispered.

Arcee. It sure was a strange name. And it sounded familiar. Yes, these two were probably Autobots' friends. Not only they needed this alien like thing, but they also were just walking around slums, in which no tourists would step (unless they are looking for some sharp sensations).

Antonina rushed towards the alley. Now all she needed to do was run down the hill and meet with Knockout. The girl ran as fast as she could. Luckily, these kids weren't as fast as her, so she lost them after some time. But then she finally noticed that it was getting dark.

- "God, why does it always get dark so early in warm countries?" - she whined in her mind.

Before she knew it the sun has set and everything around became pitch black only lighted by lights from the windows. She should hurry. It was quite dangerous here even in daytime. Now who knew what would come out. The girl was almost there. She could even see the red car from afar.

And at the moment she thought that the mission was successful someone grabbed her shoulder. It was a local man and he was holding a knife. Just what she was worried about. The thiefs. He hold out his hand waiting for her to give him money. Just then she rushed again, but this time was caught. Antonina barely made it in time to catch his arm before he could cut her throat. She standed there for split seconds and then gathered all her power to throw the man over her shoulder, then, before he could stand up again she kneeled down and puched him in stomach. He let out a loud scream as the girl felt something crack under her fist. At first she didn't understand what happened, after all she couldn't punch him that hard. But then she saw her hand. It was now in some kind of big metal glove with glowing orange lines on it. So this is how it worked? No wonder everyone was so crazy about this little thing.

- "Now, let's hurry until anyone else comes here", - she thought.

Tonya ran towards the main road. Her feet already hurt from a whole day of walking around and her legs felt numb. But she still pushed a little more trying to go even faster just to get away. Finally she reached for the door and jumped into the car. The girl was breathing fast trying to recover from marathon she'd just been through.

- I see you haven't failed everything after all, - Knockout purred, - I actually thought I would have to go there myself to pick the relic after that fleshbag sent you offline.

- Ha... Let's hurry up and go back, - she said after finally recovering her breath, - These... Autobots' kids were there. So those guys are probably nearby.

- Too late, fleshy~

Red car turned the mirror and Antonina could see a massive green off-roader and a blue motorcycle. The belt bound her to the seat as Decepticon rushed at full speed. Thakfully, there were a lot less people on the way so he could maneuver over them. Then he turned around and rushed in the opposite direction passing Autobots that couldn't cross the street because of small stone wall. Or that's what the girl thought. The motorcycle led by the boy she met before quickly jumped it over and followed them. It was a lot easier to maneuver for this one so it started to approach the con.

- Perfect! - Knockout said, - Tonya, put the relic back into shrink mode.

- How? - Antonina asked.

- Ugh, just push the blue button in the center, - he whined obviously annoyed.

She did as he said. The big glove covering her hand and wrist started transforming until it looked like a bracelet again.

- Hide it, - the girl put it in her bag holding it firmly, - It'll be a little shaky now. Try not to let your insides out.

- Koneshno, - she commented with sigh.

She expected some big dangerous race, fast turns, even a fight with aliens weapons in their alter modes. Pretty much anything Knockout could do right now. But none of her expectations came to life. Red bot turned around again and again drawing a circle around himself until the belt released her and the door opened. Any suport from under her disappeared as she was thrown out of the car.

- Ah! - she let out a short cry as she hit the back of her head by glass, the door closed and a car made a fast turn and rushed in other direction.

- Gotcha! - said familiar voice as she was trying to take in what just happened.

- Breakdown? Gosh, you can't imagine how you two scared me, - she whined letting out a sigh of relief.

- Relic?

Girl quickly looked in her bag to check just in case.

- Here.

Now she was inside Breakdown. His alt form looked like an armored truck. Sure suited him.

- So, now what? - Tonya asked, - There's at least two of them, so they will probably chase after you too.

- Bulkhead isn't that quick, so don't worry. The little one will most likely try to get the relic she thinks Knockout has.

The bot pushed the pedal to the floor making the girl flinch.

***

Groundbridge opened letting the blue truck into the ship. Soundwave closed it right that moment it was inside. The car's door opened and the human girl jumped out. Starscream dropped his jaw when he saw it.

- I thought that Knockout was entrusted with this mission! - he screamed, - What is this fleshbag doing here?!

- Relic was in hard-to-reach area, - Breakdown answered without any hint of guilt, - Besides, why can't she be here? She's Soundwave's pet.

- The relic, - blue seeker interrupted before Second in command could start again.

Tonya took the bracelet out of her bag and handed it to bot that kneeled down for her.

- What is it? - blue bot asked.

- Well, it transformed in some sort of a big glove, - she answered, - But it probably has some other functions than powering up punches.

Dreadwing looked it over and then headed towards the exit.

- You did well, human.

[roses-of-rutherglen]

Uniquely normal- Chapter 4

-Seamus-

Dean and Seamus trailed down the corridor peering through the glass doors of each compartment looking for some free space. Finally, at the end of the carriage, they found a miraculously empty compartment. They both scurried in closed the door and settled in for the long journey ahead.

"So, how did you find out you were a wizard?" Dean questioned, Seamus, shuffled feeling slightly awkward about his unorthodox introduction to magic. "imayhavesetthecatstailonfirewheniwastwo" when Dean gave him a questioning look he sighed before explaining more slowly "I may have set the cat's tail on fire when I was two." Dean stared for a moment wide-eyed before snorting and bursting out laughing. "how, how did you accidentally set a cat on fire?" Seamus just shrugged "Well it certainly wasn't the end of the pyrotechnics, my parents say I have quite the flair." Dean rolled his eyes at the terrible pun his chuckles fading into a wide smile. Soon after silence had descended there was a knock at the compartment door.

"Come in" called Dean, the door slid open revealing two people "Bore da, do you mind if we join you? Everywhere else is full." Came a soft Welsh accent both Dean and Seamus nodded their welcome and both of them came and sat down. "Thanks for letting us in, I'm Hannah Abbot she/her." This was the girl with the Welsh accent Both boys shook her hand in welcome. "Hey there, I'm Ernie McMillian they/them." A soft Scottish accent seemed to suit their soft appearing demeanor as the boys introduced themselves. "Does anyone else feel like that was some awkward class icebreaker or was that just me." Dean quipped as everyone smiled. They all settled in.

"Anything off the trolley dears?" a wavering voice came from the corridor. Seamus sprung up and opened the door. "I'll have three boxes of every flavour beans and four cauldron cakes please." The lady smiled and took his offered coins exchanging the food in return the others got what they wanted and they listed their orders. The sound of the trolley rattling down the corridor formed the soundtrack to Seamus' next words. "So since we'll be sittin' here for the better part of the day, how 'bout we do the bots bean challenge?" Ernie and Hannah smiled slightly uncertainly while Dean looked confused. Seamus grinned slyly "basically you grab a bean and if you can guess the flavour correctly you don't have to do a forfeit." Though still uncertain none could think of a better thing to pass the time and so the game began. Seamus grabbed a greenish colour guessing for pear popped it in his mouth and spat it out suddenly. "Eugh, grass" he shuddered the other three quickly huddled thinking up his punishment, "We have decided" Ernie declared "that as your punishment you must dance a jig whilst singing the Irish national anthem at the top of your lungs" Seamus rolled his eyes "Couldn't play to stereotypes any more could ya." The other three just grinned maniacally and Seamus signed before starting to jig quite gracefully and shout-singing

"Sinne Fianna Fáil,[fn 1] atá faoi[fn 2] gheall ag Éirinn, Buíon dár slua thar toinn do ráinig chugainn, Faoi mhóid bheith saor Seantír ár sinsear feasta, Ní fhágfar faoin tíorán ná faoin tráill. Anocht a théam sa bhearna baoil, Le gean ar Ghaeil, chun báis nó saoil,[fn 3] Le gunna scréach faoi lámhach na bpiléar, Seo libh canaídh amhrán na bhfiann"

he finished a little red-faced from exertion to the quiet applause of the others in the compartment "Let's just say, we now know you don't do things half-assed. I'm very impressed" Hannah commented and they all laughed

After an hour of disgusting and delicious flavours and hilarious forfeitures, the four had become firm friends. As the laughter subsided after Dean had to attempt to do an interpretative dance of the miracle of childbirth there came a timid knock at the door. "Come in!" called Hannah, the door slid open to reveal a timid looking boy with a round face and a toad sitting in the palm of his hand. "Er hi there, I was- I was just wondering if... if there was any room in this comp-compartment?" He stuttered Of course, there is, come in and pull up a seat, mate" Dean called. The boy smiled his thanks before stepping in and sitting down near the door next to Ernie, "I'm Neville, Neville Longbottom" he introduced the others nodded their welcome. "Well Neville welcome to the club, would you like to join our stupid little game?" Hannah questioned Neville looked slightly nervous but agreed. As it turned out despite his nervous appearance he was the best guesser and the most creative with forfeitures he quickly became very fast friends with the others.

They'd lost track of time when Neville noticed his toad Trevor had disappeared and rushed off to find him, the others settled down in companionable silence. "So what's the deal with the houses?" Dean questioned Ernie immediately jumped in to explain.

"Well at Hogwarts there are four houses and we're sorted by some kind of test that no one tells us about, I mean my older sister says it hurts a lot, but anyway the houses are based on traits that are most integral to your personality. Gryffindors hold bravery and chivalry highest, Hufflepuffs hold kindness and loyalty close, Slytherin's are ambitious and cunning and Ravenclaw's are knowledgeable and value learning." At this point, Hannah butted in, "There's a bunch of other stuff that goes along with each house but that's kind of the basis of it." Dean smiled before thinking of the test that Ernie had mentioned and his smile turned to more of a grimace.

"Yikes, I hope the test isn't anything to do with magic I don't know anything." The others exchanged worried looks. "I wouldn't worry too much laddie none of us really know much, so don't worry we're all in the same boat." Proclaimed Ernie, they went quiet before Seamus suggested they should change into their robes. Dean rejoiced about being able to wear whatever he wanted under his robes and not having to wear horrible black school shoes.

Soon after it began to get dark and Neville returned looking rather forlorn. "I didn't find him, shit my uncle Alfie is going to kill me." "Ah don't worry, too much he'll turn up, I'll make sure of it." Hannah proclaimed making Neville look a little less down than before.

Soon talk was back to the possibility of the house test could be and weighing the pros and cons of each house from what each of them had heard. Slowly the train came to a stop, the five saw other students collecting their things and heading for the doors. They followed suit and shuffling towards the doors that would mark the entrance to the next chapter of their lives.

<- Chapter 3 here!! Chapter 5 here!!->

[imababblekat]

Imagine The Tfp Bot’s/Con’s With Their Sparklings

(A/N: I usually only do three characters per hc’s, but to save some time I added Arcee since the other two were already requested.)

~

Megatron:

Megatron's very, very, and I mean veeery protective of his sparkling

he has every reason to be; from traitorous Cons to stubborn Autobots, there's no telling what could happen to his spark

on that note, he's also actually pretty hard on them

Megs loves his sparkling, but other than having to keep up an image, his tough love towards them is more out of fear of him not raising them to be strong enough to hold their own

the last thing any parent wants is to see their child get hurt, and with everything going on in his world, Megatron feels that he can't afford to be a gentle handed person, because life will not be so kind either

his unwillingness to let his spark slip up just the slightest and constant hardcore training, atop of his overbearing protection of them will undoubtedly become too much for his sparkling in due time, but right now they're still young and trying so hard to make him proud which never seems to happen

truth is, Megatron is extremely proud of his little spark, and he holds them close stroking their helm as they sleep behind closed doors, and he can't help but feel terrible for being so tough on them, yet his fear of them not being ready to take on such a cruel world over weighs those emotions

Optimus:

like Megatron, Optimus is also extremely protective of his sparkling; he's Optimus freaking Prime, it doesn't matter who the person is, anyone will use the opportunity to use someone so close to him in someway or form

however, unlike Megatron, Optimus isn't super over bearing; he's always worried when his sparkling goes out with one of his teammates, but he also trust his members greatly and doesn't want to trap his small bab from seeing what beauty there is in the world and instead be trapped in some bunker with only knowing life from a war wrought point of view

he's reluctant to teach them any fighting; his biggest wish is that they could live a life without a need to, but he knows the reality of this world and waits till he thinks they're at a good age to start training

another big regret Optimus has is the small amount of time he actually gets with his sparkling; he's Prime and constantly busy so most of their time away is spent in the servos of another team member or more often than not being watched by Ratchet

however, Optimus tries to make up for this by always sitting down to tell them a bedtime story, taking great joy and feeling nothing but love as they stare up at him with such wondrous optics till they've fallen into recharge

the Prime will even wait there after they've drifted off into dreamworld, observing their tiny servos as they clutch one of his large digits to their chest while snuggled up to him, and Optimus can only think about how important it is that he ends this war

Knockout:

Knockout spoils his sparkling absolutely rotten!! A big part of it is because they're his sparkling and deserve only the best, but some might also think it's because they look a lot like a certain someone

anyone from any species can tell you that any kind of baby is always messy in someway or another, and much to the dismay of the red Con, so is his sparkling

he took them out once, and turned around for a second only to turn right back around and find them absolutely covered from helm to pede in mud; you could visibly see the color drain from Knockouts face

definitely flaunts his sparkling; if he were a human, he'd be that dad who pulls out his wallet only for a cascade of photos to flop out and every single one is a picture of his lil spark

he tries to get them into taking the upmost care in their appearance like him, but whether it's because of their young age, or because they're taking after their other parent, they don't seem interested whatsoever

Knockout doesn't worry about their disinterest in their frame, and actually takes great pride and joy in preening it for them

everyone can see the stark resemblance of Knockout's sparkling to someone he once held dear, but surprisingly, no one has brought it up to him, and that's most likely due to the fact that they can see behind his smirk and that he knows it very much as well

there have been multiple times where the doc has stayed awake watching his lil spark sleep, only to silently fall into a fit of tears

Arcee:

Arcee's another big protective creator/sire out of the bunch, but she's the literal personification of a mama bear so don't even think about harming her child

at first she tries to distance herself from her sparkling as much as possible, she can't bear to think of what could happen to them with her unlucky streak of losing those close to her

thankfully Jack helps her realize that that's not a very good thing to do, and if she had to be honest, she had really wanted to be closer with them to begin with, but was just scared to

carries her sparkling everywhere she goes, she's not letting them out of her sight for a second!! Jack was kind enough to buy her one of those side car attachments for her alt mode so her sparkling could safely ride out with her

Team Prime's human friends might not know a lot about Cybertronian sparklings, but June does everything in her power to help Arcee out with her small bab; easily becomes another big momma bear to the tiny but fierce metal baby

Arcee would like to train her sparkling how to fight, but she knows best to wait till they're at a right age to do so; in the meantime she keeps a protective watch over them and only allows those she trust to watch them when she can't

it's very, very rare that you'll see Arcee openly coo at her sparkling in the open, but behind closed doors, she absolutely smothers them

her sparkling is a light in her life that she at first thought was some sort of cruel prank from Primus, but she now calls her little blessing, and Arcee can't honestly remember the last time she felt such warmth radiate in her spark as she cradles them while they sleep

~xXx~

[supernova1us]

Transformers Cyberverse season 3  Eps 1-20 plot breakdown (MAJOR SPOILERS!!!)

So I have just managed to watch eps 1-20 of season three of cyberverse.  They are airing in rapid fire in the UK and getting uploaded to a few places on line.  Anyway, here is a rundown of the storyline and plot of the season so far.  

Major spoilers ahead so turn back now if you don’t want to it ruined

 So, first off the season has multiple arks and does periodic time skips to get from one to the next. It is also my opinion that this is by far the best season of the series and when you watch it you will understand.

The four part opening arc has the return of the autobots to cybertron.  The first ep mostly follows chromia and perceptor, who becomes blind, escaping prison but mostly sets up the following events. The ark returns but is destroyed by the cons, but the autobots called it and escaped.  Here we come to meat of it, a full on clash between autobots and decepticons.  

I feel whole heartedly that the “battle of cybertron” may be the biggest and most hardcore and intense on-screen battle in transformers history. It even puts the battle of autoboot city to shame in my book. It wasn't just teams or forces clashing but 2 whole armies going at it full force for three episodes. There was death, consequences, highlights for main characters but plenty of screen time for the generics. It was a real war like I don't think Hasbro has given us before. This was definitely a highlight of the series and has really elevated it in my view.

Anyway in the end, wheeljack destroys vector sigma to thwart megatron and the allspark is restored to the core. To spite optimus, megatron makes shockwave destroy the allspark.  Shockwave extracts his spark and enters the allspark and poisons it from within. Cheetor is forced to sarcrice himself to do the same and restore the all spark.  Weith that the autobots win the war.

In these eps we do have many new characters intros and a few deaths.  We are introduced to whirl, kup, skywarp(a female now), alphastrike(a renamed strika), dead end, repugnus(there are a bunch of him).i might be missing a few. For deaths we of course have shockwave and cheetor, but here is also prowl who takes a shot meant for optimus(it doesn’t seem serious in the moment but he never shows up again, so yeah).  We also have bludgeon, though not dead, finally getting justice for killing slipstream by being sent to Unspace.

We also have one other death of note; drift.  He reveals that rather than a con who became an autobot, he has been a loyal decepticon mole the whole time. He hunts down the scout team with the allspark and duels with hot rod before both sink to their deaths in some corrupted energon muck. Hot rod would later escape but no such luck for drift.  I actually hated this turn for him because it goes against everything the character has always been based on;  Just bad writing.

 So, by ep 4 we are thrown headlong into the new story line with no reveal how we have reached this point. The quintessons have invaded and conquered the planet, imprisoning all the transformers in a virtual reality of a constantly replaying parade.  So yeah, there are heavy, heavy, heavy allusions and straight lifts from the plot of the matrix movies.  It’s all a pretty fun ride though.  There is also a beast machines vibe as well.

The only free bots are perceptor, hot rod and clobber(who I love now), who hide and sneak into the simulation to try to rouse their comrades.  Their resistance is eventually joined by soundwave(who attempts to take command), dead end and whirl. They also meet up with maccadam, whose bar is strangely invisible to the quintesson scanners. We learn this is because the bar is part of the larger form of Iaconus, a berserker war titan in stasis below ground.  The team eventually meet the quintesson judge in charge, the quintesson scientist and free all the imprisoned bots.

We also learn that the quints are interdimensional beings that judge universes and destroy those they deem unworthy.  A full on rebellion forms to fight the quints and their forces.  A long, hard battle but it is won, though rather than see the fight through, megatron ditches to explore the multiverse. It is then that a worse threat is revealed; each universe has a new quintesson judge born from creatures of that universe.  The new judge is revealed to be a converted starscream, who told the quints about cybertron, along with two other aliens who form his other heads(one wants to probe everybody and the other wants to eat them). He surprisingly brings the transformers low before we get a titan battle between iaconus and a mind controlled croaton.

The day is eventually won by a returned megatron, looking worn and badass(double fusion cannon, missing eye) from his dimensional hijinks(and has his own matrix of leadership). The new judge is seemingly destroyed by he and optimus and maccadam dies during the titans battle(which he apparently foresaw and embraced). An uneasy peace is reached, half the planet to each faction and war if it is breached.  

The remaining few eps, which again isn’t the end of the series, just what has been released yet, is a mixed bag. There is an ongoing search for the scattered fragments of windblades mind, which was splintered by her freeing croaton from starscream. The autobots are trying to rebuild their side of the planet while the decepticons half is like a slum.  We also get hints that megatron is on the watch for something ominous he encountered in his travels.  We get two new characters; thunderhowl, a BW silverbolt type knight of old who swears himself to the autobots. There is also Wildwheel, a gunslinger who has an intense grudge against optimus and seems to look to join the cons.  He is cowboy themed because he was one of the autobots who fell from the ark as it crashed and awoke in the wild west and blames optimus for his being forgotten.

a special note is that in these eps, clobber has switched to the autoboots, which I just love because of how awesome her and hot rod were as partners in the whole quintesson arc. aside from the quintessons themselves that was my favorite aspect of that storyline. I also kinda ship them now, no regrets :) 

So yeah, that’s the basic story so far and its pretty damn fun and can’t wait to see where else it heads. 

for the rest of the season, based on the episode descriptions, there is more windblade searching, territory clashes between the factions and the ultimate threat of a being called The Other(probs who megs was looking out for and I hope to be unicron)

[yes-i-write-fanfiction]

The Gift

WARNINGS: almost suicide mention (it’s faked and she doesn’t actually die or get injured from it), slight non-con, dub-con mention (past sexual assault is briefly talked about), depression, obsessive behaviour, angst, (not a tragic ending but not a very happy one I don’t think…)

Summary and Disclaimer: Okay, I haven’t had the chance to actually read any of the comics and my knowledge about these characters come from the wiki and of course these tumblrs :P I wanted to write a semi-continuation of the Yandere!Deadlock/Drift head canons which are so beautifully done and so inspiring.

Basically what you need to know is that this is an AU type of situation (based on my limited knowledge of the timelines) where Deadlock only recently became Drift again (within a human lifetime, I think is what I’m aiming for), but as a Decepticon, he had taken a bunch of humans prisoner aboard of ship with other Decepticons. He grows really attached and yandere-like to one human in particular and then after her apparent suicide, he defects. Fast forward a couple of years and he is on the LL with everyone else and is more or less accepted as Drift. But on board there are a group of humans who are sort of helping out/doing their own mission. They call on someone with a vast knowledge of alien flora and it turns out to be the supposedly dead obsession of Deadlock. And heavy angst ensues as Drift is forced to confront some of his most shocking and disgusting crimes as Deadlock. 

…

It wouldn’t make things right. Nothing could make this right, but he still wanted to try. No, he needed to try. Some masochistic part of him craved something of a reaction from her. Maybe, for closure, he reasoned. Or maybe, he was craving her attention again. He never seemed to get enough of that.

The former ‘con managed to find her alone. It wasn’t hard after he memorized her basic schedule and the common routes she took to get to places. 

He stepped in front of her. Predictably, she froze and then stared at him with those cautious eyes. 

“I have something for you.” He put down a box on the floor between them. 

She looked at it briefly and then back up to him.

Drift nudged the box closer to her. She began to walk backwards, eyes dodging around and looking for an exit. Quietly, he took a step away. “If you wish to leave, you m-”

She didn’t even wait for him to finish his sentence before she took off running down the hall. A stab of agony went through him. 

A part of him was furious with her, the old, possessive part that risked his reputation and status as a Decepticon. And a large part of him felt as though he was punched straight through his chassis. He deserved this- hell, he deserved more than this. He remembered every bruise, every word, every invasive touch- he remembered. 

Why would she accept a gift from him when the gifts he used to give her were laced with such heavy expectation? He used to buy her things that he thought she would like for so many reasons. The liar part of him reasoned that it was a sadistic form of torture- to make her feel like she was his object. To control her outward appearance was his way of claiming further ownership over her. 

But the real reason he bought them was far more fucked up. Deadlock wanted to have something of hers that she could only give willingly. He wanted her to voluntarily come to him, to join him while he slept, to smile at him with genuine kindness and to ask him about his day- how he was doing, all of these sickening things. He wanted to share his glories with her, to have her eyes shine with approval and admiration. Rather than seeing her wince when he talked about the success of his missions.

It was so easy to disturb her, and to see her tear up. That got old fast. And maybe that was why he had craved something else from her. 

For the most part, he had pretended not to notice her general disapproval and her glaring unhappiness. But he couldn’t ignore the fear and disappointment in her eyes when he returned to their- no, to his habsuite. “Did you miss me, pet?”

One time, she rolled her eyes and he got so mad. That was the time he starved her for three days. 

No food, just water. 

Back in the present, Drift stared at the elegantly wrapped box. It was supposed to be a peace offering. He plucked it up and on his way back to his room, he crushed the box with his servos. There could be no peace between them. He had done too much to her and as much as he wanted to have her securely in his grasp again, to hold her close to him- it was wrong. She would never want him. Ever.

The only moment he though she did was when- well, it was before she left. She figured out what he had wanted (what he still wanted). Really, it was only a matter of time. Drift tried to remember exactly what it was that set it off. 

Maybe, it was when he walked in and heard her sobbing. Not quietly either. She had been sobbing so loudly. It was a heartbreaking sound, and one that filled him with immediate concern and anger. Did someone hurt her? Was she in pain? 

He rushed across his habsuite and threw aside the coverings on her cage. “I’m here, I’m here,” He murmured to her. “What is it? What happened?” He had never heard the human sob like that before. It was so distressing.

A quick scan revealed that she had sustained no further damage from when he saw her last. Her ribs were bruised, yes, but those would heal given time. She was okay. 

Well, she was upset but she wasn’t hurt. Deadlock wasn’t sure what to do. On the one hand, he could have shouted at her and told her to stop, but on the other hand he was overcome with the insistent urge to draw her in close, to hold her and to have her in his arms. How come she had never done this before? What did it all mean? He held her close to him and made shushing noises.

She quieted and her breathing evened out.

After that, she began to do exactly what he wanted her to do. It was like she read his mind, saw into his guiltiest fantasies and accepted them, and accepted him. He hated to admit it, but seeing her slow smile got him through some of his tougher days. He could always look forward to coming into his habsuite and seeing her, talking to her, and holding her.

He got low at some points and made some pretty serious declarations, stroking her small body and promising that he would never allow anyone to hurt her. She needed him and she knew it. 

It was even more pathetic later on when he realized it was all an act. She played him so well and got him to deliver her means of salvation without even realizing it. A few plants, to liven up the place. Glass vials and a chemist’s station to occupy her time since she ‘always wanted to be a biologist.’ Oh, which planet was the ship docking on? One with an oxygen rich atmosphere and a few high tech colonies? She couldn’t see it, that’s okay. If he could just talk to her about it, that would be great. He was such an idiot. 

A fool in love. 

Finally someone accepted him, for all of his flaws and all of his confusion. They could see past that and they accepted him. It filled a hole that he never realized was there. It got him by and it made his life, all in all, better. 

It was a fragging lie. All of it.

Deadlock had been enraged when he discovered the means of apparent death. 

Suicide.

Drift remembered how he could have stared at her body for much longer than he did. He just held it instead and swiftly deposited on the planet that she had been so keen on seeing. Well, now she got to see it and be on it. He brought all of her stuff as well, as a little shrine to keep her company. He didn’t want to abandon her body but practical considerations had to be kept in mind. 

There was no time for a burial and a fire would draw too much attention. He left her on a rock formation, in front of a large body of water. A beautiful tomb for someone as beautiful as she was. 

And even that was a lie.

Drift nearly had a spark attack when he saw her. Actually, he thought that he was seeing a ghost.

“Getting her to work with us isn’t going to be easy, especially considering that Megatron is on board, but we need all the help we can get.” The human liaisons were recruiting people with interplanetary expertise, and she was one of them.

“Megatron destroy her home?” Someone guessed rather bluntly in the din of the meeting room. 

“She was held prisoner and tortured for seven months aboard one of his vessels.”

“How did she escape?” Another ‘bot asked.

Drift was frozen, staring at her image. 

The human’s expression changed from grim to one of astonishment. “It’s incredible, actually. She managed to get a hold of some alien flora and made this poison that slowed her heart down to near death. I guess the ‘cons were sentimental because they dropped a bunch of human stuff around her body when they got rid of her, and she used that to trade for some equipment and to call for help. The rest is history.”

She was alive. A part of him died when she died, and now she was alive.

And- oh Primus. He thought that the guilt was bad when she was dead, but now that she was back- oh no.

It was so much worse. 

..

Then, she was on board along with her Merry Men, as she liked to call the team of humans. Drift didn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t. Physically, it seemed he was unable to speak about her. He watched from the shadows, not daring to make his presence known.

One day, she caught him. 

Drift expected a lot of things as she opened up the supply closet to retrieve some more equipment. He expected her to scream, to start yelling, crying, or maybe to even run and call for help. Instead, she stared up at him with a calm expression. Her mouth was almost twisted into a smirk as she got what she needed and walked away.

Deadlock hated to be ignored. Drift had no choice. 

She knew that he was on board then, and worse, she recognized him. Why would she come on board if she knew he was there? Did she have no sense of self-preservation-? She faked her own death and risked actual death to get away from him. 

No. She had no sense of self-preservation left. That was gone a long time ago. 

The more she ignored his presence, the more obvious it got. That made things worse. Her role was of the utmost importance and Drift was an asset to have on field missions where stray Decepticons were involved. 

It was one thing when she refused to speak to him on the Lost Light, but it was another thing to have her ignore him during dangerous jaunts out onto alien planets. She refused to get into his alt mode to get back to the ship, making the humans have to change their partners mid mission. 

Everyone was irritated.

“This needs to stop, you can’t keep this up. It’s bad for morale.” One of the humans- her superior- scolded her. None of them knew. She kept it that way. 

The other human tried for a more diplomatic approach, “This planet is dangerous, these weapons are dangerous,” They gestured to the precarious load on the mech that had held all of the humans originally. “You can’t keep ignoring him.” They told her in a quieter tone, gesturing to the ex-con subtly.

She blinked as her expression morphed into one of surprise. “Oh man, you can see him too?”

Her superior snapped, “I am serious! You need to stop this behaviour at once, and step into his alt form, that is a command.”

“I would literally rather die.” She said losing her smirk.

That hurt Drift on so many levels and in so many ways. He understands hesitation and fear. He understands anger and vengeance. This is vengeance. 

“I get that you don’t like Decepticons. I don’t like them either. They destroyed my university, but you can’t go treating every former ‘con like the one who-”

One of the humans grabbed the officer. “Stop it.”

“What do you think you are doing?”

“We’ll find another way. Just. Stop. Talking.”

It wasn’t until they were back on the ship that the proverbial cat was let out of the bag. Drift wasn’t sure who figured it out or how.

Word of what she had said got around and people quickly put two and two together. She had preferred to die over being his pet. It was no question as to why. Even if the crew hadn’t seen her scars along her body- raking down her back and up between her thighs- they would have sympathized. He was recruited personally by Megatron for a reason. Deadlock was and always will be terrifying.

The marks on her body were made visible when she wore shorts or skirts. She had no qualms about showing them either, but any Cybertronian who saw them noted the possessive nature and significance of them. One liked to stroke cute things. One liked to mark things that they owned. 

They knew that she was claimed by someone awful- someone who was cruel and unusual. Someone who tortured her and as far as they could guess- it was in some very intimate ways. Bite marks on her shoulder were impossible to hide at the best of times and their size and shape gave a clue to their origin.  Whatever ‘con did this made a very public claim on her body. 

When they found out it was Deadlock who did this, there was a great outcry on the ship and the human in their eyes became something of a celebrity. She had been forced to stare at and work together with her abuser for months now. It was ludicrous for her to be expected to entrust her safety to the one who left scars all over her body, save for her face which had been left unmarred. It was easy to see why; she was a pretty little thing. 

Risking certain death to get away from the ‘con was sensible, even.

One of the Autobots said to him in a particularly nasty tone, “Good job, Decepticon. Do you even remember her?”

“Everyday.” He managed to admit when he managed the process of intaking air. 

Rung had been made aware of the troubling situation and was called in to try to soothe the boiling tensions. “It would be advisable to prevent further contact between the two.”

…

Her other form of vengeance started to show itself as the situation got more and more dangerous. She became as reckless as possible. It wasn’t hard given the perilous nature of her job; going down to alien planets, hunting mythical flora and other things to help the LL along with their given quest. 

To some, it seemed that she was showing that she wasn’t a coward despite the ‘easy way out’ she took. They were concerned that she would think that they would judge her for such an action. 

But the truth was only known to Drift. He had claimed her. He had gotten close to her and he got possessive. Only he could inflict any pain on her. And when she became his sole comfort- playing into his developing desires and dependence on her- he became even more possessive. Nothing and no one would hurt her.

He told her that time and time again. Deadlock whispered to her how he would destroy anyone who came near her, about how he would protect her because he always protects what is his. Then, he told her how much he loved her. She had begun to cry in his grip but she was smiling.

He thought that she loved him too. 

He thought that maybe Primus was smiling down on him and giving him a fragging break for once. He said that he would never let her go and that he would always keep her safe. 

That was not the intended plan.

Now, she actively threw herself into danger every chance she got, or so it seemed. Drift hated it. It claws at him. She had to know that this recklessness just made him want to scoop her up in his servos and hold her close to him and never, ever let her go. But, he can’t do that now, and she knew it.  After nearly killing herself by going into an insecure airlock, with only a thin piece of rope around her to save some random piece of equipment from being blasted into space, Drift’s expression mirrored everyone else’s. Shock and outrage. Why was she doing this? 

The smug look she gave Drift told him why. 

You can’t touch me.

________________________

Wow. WOW. I really enjoyed reading this one, it kept me on edge the entire time! I love how you made Drift still want her but he’s aware that she will never want him and he accepts that. It’s both heartbreaking and genius. And the way you wrote the reader, how she is full of spite and in need of revenge, it feels very believable and I enjoyed it that the victim finally got their revenge, even if by dangerous means. You did such a great job on this one and I hope you write even more. I look forward to reading whatever you send to me!

[popsicle-writing]

Doki Doki Pretty Cure: Robots in Disguise Chapter 3

It's been a long day on Earth or rather Oogai Town. Ever since the Autobots arrived on Earth, they have been tracking down some escaped prison ship of the Alchemor until they meet with these human girls who has the ability to transform into the legendary warriors, Pretty Cure and called themselves; Doki Doki Pretty Cure and they have been creating a close bond together. Mana and Bumblebee received some quests from Optimus Prime to join forces together and they did. They finally able to meet up each other face to face. With the Pretty Cure's help, they are able to take down their first prisoner; Underbite...except for Grimlock which he is actually in probation. Together, they will work together as a team to re-capture all of these fugitives! Their adventures are about to begin here!

Chapter 3: Strongarm's and Sideswipe's trust! Cure Diamond and Cure Sword vs Steeljaw!

-Location: Oogai Town, Yotsuba's Mansion- Mana and Rikka were walking in the backyard, chatting with each other. "What a tiring day!" Mana began, stretching her body. "It's been a long since we fought that Decepticon yesterday as Pretty Cure, my fighting power is feeling pumped up!" Her friend nodded. "That's right! Ever since the Autobots arrived here and fight alongside us, our Pretty Cure's spirit is increasing!" Their fairy partners then float towards them. "With a lot of trust and teamwork, Pretty Cure power will become more powerful-sharu!" Sharuru hollered. Raquel nods in agreement. "We're unstoppable-quel!" The girl smiled and giggled. Then, Mana just looked at the sky and she wondered...will she ever meet Optimus again? She began to have this same as Bumblebee like before. "Mana, are you okay-sharu?" her fairy partner tries to snapped her to reality. "Eh?" the girl then looked back at them. "No, I'm fine!" she smiled. "If you say so..." Rikka stated in concern before they heard a familiar voice. "Ow! Sideswipe you're supposed to catch me!" yep, that's Strongarm's voice. "That's the whole point of 'trust exercises'!" They looked and the cadet and Sideswipe were doing these 'trust exercise'. Strongarm looked the red bot who doesn't look happy. "Ugh, now my comm unit is busted." "Oh, sorry. Maybe when it was my turn, you shouldn't have let me fall." he spoke up, sarcastically. "Three. Times. In. A. Row!" "That's because you weren't falling correctly!" she argues. The girls spoke up interrupted their conversation. "Um...what are you two doing?" Rikka asked the two bots. "Oh, we're just doing some 'trust exercises'." Strongarm pointed out. Mana blinked her eyes. "Trust exercises?" The cadet pointed out. "It's an exercise where we learn how to trust each other." she then looked at Sideswipe and gave him a death glare. "Which somebot doesn't know how to do it properly." The red bot scoffed. "Well, why don't you demonstrate how to fall the right way, your dictatorship." Strongarm growled and began to hit him but Sideswipe hit her back and they continuously hitting each other like a bunch of kids. "These two really doesn't get along very well, aren't they-sharu?" Sharuru sighed. "Hey, knock it off!" Bumblebee's voice can be heard. "These exercises are important!" They looked with their eyes/optics widened as Grimlock was carrying Bumblebee like a bride. "Yeah, why can't you guys take anything seriously?" the green bot spoke out with a grin. The yellow bot then looked at him and sighed. The two bots tries to contain their laughter while the two girls giggled. Grim then put Bumblebee down. "If we're gonna work together to recapture all the escaped Decepticons, we have to trust each other." "I do trust Sideswipe..." the cadet spoke up with a smug on her face. "...to mess up." Sideswipe frowns at her as they began to fight each other. "Hey, calm down!" Rikka tries to stop them. "Fighting and arguing each other won't solve anything-quel!" but they weren't listening and continued to fight. Bumblebee then sighed. "This is why I can't have nice things..." "I feel you, Bumblebee..." Mana stated, awkwardly. Then, Bumblebee received a call from the com-link. He picke up the call. "Fixit to everyone." Fixit's voice spoke up, getting everyone's attention. "Go ahead, Fixit." "Can you circle back at the garage? There's something I need to show you." Bumblebee nodded. "On our way." he then looked at the others. "Let's see if we can all make it there in one peace." He transformed into his vehicle mode before letting Mana in and drove off. "Don't feel bad." the green Dinobot spoke up. "It's not that easy to be a model teammate like me." The two bots rolled their optics as they transform into their vehicle mode (with Sideswipe letting Rikka in) and drove off. Grimlock was confused at first but without hesitating, he transform into his Dinobot mode and followed them. Not for long, they arrived at the garage. Everything is stacked up like Fixit's supplies and some containment pods for the escaped fugitives. In the garage, there were Alice and Fixit but Makoto is not with them. "Where's Makoto?" Strongarm asked the girl. "Oh, she just practicing her singing." Alice replied with a soft smile. "Wow. She can sing?" the red bot spoke with a fake surprise tone in his voice. "That's cool." The cadet grunts and rolled her optics. Rikka just sighed in disappointment at Sideswipe's attitude. Fixit then spoke up, grabbing everyone's attention. "Search instruments have located a cluster of fugitive signals near here and appears there might be intact stasis pods as well." "Some easy capture devices would be nice." Bumblebee muttered under his breath. Then, they heard a voice from the monitor. It wasn't a robot or rather a Cybertronian's voice. It sounded like a human's voice. "Mayday! Mayday!" "Oh, we're intercepting an Earth based radio signal." Fixit pointed out. He turn on the monitor and as they expected, it's a human who appears to be in the middle of the sea. "This is a captain of oil tanker off coast of Oogai Town. We are under attack by what appears to be a shark, but is bigger than any I've ever seen and it looks to be made of metal!" "Could it be...?" Rikka began. "Decepticons." Strongarm pointed out. The human continued, "My crew has evacuated on the life boats. Please, send assistance immediately!" with that, the monitor shut off. "The Alchemor's prisoner manifest lists of Sharkticon aboard." the Orange Minic-Con stated, opening his Alchemor's database. "There's a Decepticon called Sharkticons-lance?" Lance questioned, curiously. "Sharkticons, Insecticons, Skunkticons, you named it!" he continued. Bumblebee then clears his throat to get his attention. "Oh right! Here's your capture device, sir." he tossed the weapon at him. "It will work this time." "Are you sure?" Bumblebee raises his eyebrow. "Not really." he chuckled, nervously. The yellow bot rolled his optics before turning to Alice. Do you have a boat that Grimlock and I can tow to the water?" he asked. "Yes we have one." she replied with a nod. Strongarm couldn't believe her own optics. "You and the Dinobot?" "Grimlock proved to me earlier today that he can be trusted in a field situation that requires teamwork." he pointed out. "But you're not going alone only two of you." Mana began. Alice continued. "We'll come with you, in case you need some our help." The yellow bot nodded at them before turning to the two bots. "You two with your partners will check out those fugitives signals. Together." "Yeah, work on that teamwork!" the green bot spoke up before following Bumblebee. "Are you sure you two going to be alright?" Rikka asked her two friends. Mana smiled. "Don't worry, Rikka. We have an Autobots partners on our side." "If anything happens, we'll be ready as a Pretty Cure." Alice finished. The blue haired girl paused for a bit before spoke up with a smile. "Alright but be careful out there." the two nodded in promises as they walks away to follow their Autobot guardians. Rikka sighed once more. Fixit spoke up. "The stasis pods are grid 4023 sector 7650." he then turned to the two bots. "Oh, and bring me back something, will you? Like a rock or a soil sample or-" However, Sideswipe ignored him as he transformed into his vehicle mode and opened the door for Rikka. "Get in." "Where to exactly-quel?" Raquel asked him. "Anywhere. Just get in." he replied. Rikka tries to argue with him but she just stay quiet and went inside. With that, Sideswipe drove off. "Hey! We were supposed to-" too late, he already left the mansion. She sighed in frustration, as she looked at Fixit. "Where's Makoto?" "Oh, she's inside, cadet Strongarm." he replied. "Like miss Alice said, she is singing and she has the most beautiful noise-choice-voice I've ever heard!" The cadet nodded and she look around outside the mansion because she is too big to fit inside the mansion, so she tried to search for her through the window until she heard a voice. Strongarm followed the voice and saw her through an opened window, singing her song called "Songbird". Fixit was right! Her voice...so soothing and beautiful just like a voice of an angel. Makoto then finished her singing. "You have the most beautiful voice!" the cadet complimented her. The girl look outside the window and saw her. "Oh, it's you, Strongarm." she spoke up. "Thank you." she then walked to the window. "Where do you learn to sing like that?" her Autobot guardian questioned. "From my hometown, actually." Makoto answered. "Hometown? Isn't this place already your hometown?" The girl shooked her head. "No, actually. My hometown is actually Trump Kingdom." The cadet raised her eyebrow. "Trump...Kingdom?" "It's a long story. You see that's where I was born and raised. That place was full of generosity people until..." her voice dropped. "...the Selfish army arises..." Selfish army? The cadet listened more to her story. "I was chose to become a Pretty Cure and tries to save my hometown. So, I sent here to Earth and began my life as a singer. When I first met Mana, I don't trust them yet as I was chose to be alone..." Strongarm's optics widened. She was chose to fight alone just like her?! And she didn't trust her teammates just like she didn't trust Sideswipe at first! "And it all changes when Mana told me who important it is to trust each other." she smiled at her memories. "That's...the most inspiring story I've ever heard." the cadet admitted, receiving a look from her human partner. "Really?" Strongarm nodded until she paused for a bit before spoke up. "Anyway, the others went on the missions and Sideswipe decided to drive off with Rikka. So, do you want to come?" The girl paused for a bit and then nods. "Alright." the cadet then transforms into her vehicle mode and let her partner in and drove off. -Location: The middle of the forest- Sideswipe keeps on driving through the woods until Rikka spoke up. "Sideswipe, you shouldn't just leave the place like that." she blurted out. He scoffed. "Come on. It's not like you wanting to hear what Mini-Con have to said." "It's not that. It's just...you're supposed to be a team player and learn to trust each other. Especially Strongarm!" Sideswipe groaned. "What? You trust her too, don't you?" The girl stayed quiet before spoke up. "Actually, I don't. Just like how I don't trust Makoto..." The vehicle stopped his track and let her out. He transform into his robot and began to questioned her. "What do you mean? You were okay with each other yesterday." "That was a long time ago before I met Makoto. It's kinda a long story..." "...I'm listening." Rikka sighed and began her story. "You know that Makoto is a singer and Mana admired her so much?" she asked, receiving a confused "yes" from him but Rikka continued anyway. "After Makoto joined our team, Mana has become so close to her that I...feel extremely jealous of her." "Jealous? Why would you feel like that?" "Mana and I were friends ever since we were little. I was pretty shy at first but after I met Mana, she was my very first best friend. She always listened to me, help me and care for me...until Makoto came along. I was afraid that she'll take away Mana from me." Huh. That sounds so familiar to Sideswipe... "But then I realized..." the girl continued. "...that jealousy wasn't the answer. I shouldn't give up our friendship with Mana or Makoto. So, I ended up becoming friends with her and I began to trust her." That sounds like...him and Strongarm! "There you two are!" a familiar voice spoke out and they saw Strongarm and Makoto walking towards them. Sideswipe sighed. "You're never gonna treat me equal, aren't you?" he bluntly asked the cadet. Strongarm glared at him. "And you're never gonna take me seriously, are you?" she crossed her arms. Oh dear... "There they go again-quel." Raquel sighed. "Ugh, I'll com you when I find something!" Sideswipe then transformed into his vehicle mode and opened the door to let Rikka in. The girl look at the cadet and Makoto for a second before sighing and went in. With that, he drove off. "Wait! We can't split up!" Makoto reminded them but they already left...again. "Again-davi?" Dabyi wondered in annoyance. Strongarm tried to com him. "Sideswipe? Sideswipe!" but her com unit is busted. "Ugh, stupid com unit! Come on, let's follow them!" she transformed before letting Makoto in and drove off. -Location: Oogai Town, in the Middle of the Sea- Bumblebee, Grimlock, Heart and Rosetta were in the middle of the sea, were being attacked by the fugitive under the water. The fugitive banged its head on the ship, almost making them lose their balance. Grimlock look under the water and saw a shadowy figure of it. "Excuse me!" he then jumped out from the ship. "Grimlock, wait!" Rosetta tries to stop him but it was too late. He transformed into his Dinobot mode and began to pound the Sharkticon but only to be carried away by him. "This isn't teamwork!" the yellow bot reminded him. He then pulled out his weapon and tries to test if it's working. He about to lose his balance again when the Sharkticon hit the ship and his weapon lose its grip from him. "Rosetta, are you okay?" Heart asked her teammate. "I'm fine." she nodded. They then see Grimlock being sunk into the water by the Sharkticon. "Grim!" Rosetta yelled in worried. Bumblebee then tries to grab the weapon but only to be stopped with the Sharkticon transformed into his robot mode and landed on the ground. The girls readied their fighting stance. However, the Con was a bit bigger than them even Bumblebee. "Kinda wish I was a bigger bot..." he muttered. -Location: Oogai Town, middle of the woods- Strongarm keeps on driving to search for Sideswipe. Makoto just look outside the window until she saw something. "Strongarm, stop!" she alerted, making her guardian stopped. The girl then went outside her as the cadet transformed. They gasped as they witnessed something. They saw some containment pods! And they all looks rusted. "What happened here-davi?" Dabyi asked in shocked. The girl shrugged. "No clue." Suddenly, they heard a twig snap as Strongarm bring out her weapon while Dabyi transformed to the transformation device. "Stay behind me." the cadet told her partner. They followed the noises as the trees clearing up and up ahead they saw another bot...but with a tail. Strongarm gestures Makoto stay hidden behind the tree and so she did. The view of the bot appears to be a wolf. "Prepare for freedom, brother." the bot spoke up with a very soothing voice as he raised his claws to strike the pod. "Claws in the air!" the cadet from behind him orders, pointing her weapon at him. He turned around and saw Strongarm. However, without raising his arms...or claws, he just casually walked up to her. "Hello, sister." he spoke again. "Did you fall out from the sky too? I'm so glad we found each other." Sister? What is he going on about? "Decepticon fugitive! By ordering from Cybertronian code section 305, you are hereby-" the cadet tries to orders him but was cut off. "Of course. You're confused." he somehow told her. "I wasn't a prisoner on that ship. I was a guard." A guard? "Fixit never said anything about a guard being on the Alchemor." Strongarm pointed out at him, confusedly. "Fixit, yes..." he pretend to remember the Orange Mini-Con's name. "Well, he wouldn't have known. I was in stasis also. My pod programmed to wake in case of a riot." Makoto just watched them behind the tree and she gasped quietly as she saw a Decepticon logo but with some scratches on it. He has a Decepticon logo but why was it scratched? "And why would you have the Decepticon logos?" Strongarm questioned him. "You've been well trained, asking excellent questions." he chuckles. "Something tells me, he's up to something-davi..." Dabyi whispered to the girl. "The logo meant to confuse the others-" he stopped his sentence before try to attack the cadet but she dodge immediately. Strongarm tries to use her com-link. "This is Strongarm! I am under attack!" she then tries to use her leg to kick her but only to be stopped by the Con's blocking it. "My postion is-!" He then swing her around and slamming her to the ground before throwing her to the rock, knocking her out. The Con then walked up to her. "Strongarm!" Makoto gasped. He heard her voice and but as soon he turned around in alert, he saw nothing. The girl is still hiding behind the tree, didn't make any moves or noises. "That Decepticon looks fierce with claws-davi." Dabyi spoke up with a low voice at her. "We should head back and call for back up-davi." The girl nodded in agreement as she began to creep away without making any noises. -Location: Oogai Town, Yotsuba Mansion- Sideswipe and Rikka has come back from the patrol. Rikka climbed out from him as her guardian transformed back to his robot mode. "Ah, you're back!" Fixit exclaimed. "Listen, I have a very serious news to-" Rikka then look around. "Strongarm and Makoto aren't back yet, are they?" "I'm pretty sure they're fine." the red bot spoke up, not caring of what happens to them. But Rikka looked at him and glared. "Sideswipe!" the girl tries to argue with him but Fixit cut off. "Actually, cadet Strongarm called in and sound like she was in rubble-trouble! But it was too hard to hear and I figured that her comm unit is malfunctioning and I can't track her." the orange Mini-Con explained. "Wait, Makoto was with Strongarm!" the girl then gasped. "That means..." "They're both in trouble-quel!" Raquel alerted. Rikka then glared at him. "I told you to trust Strongarm but you weren't listening!" Sideswipe paused for a bit, realizing his mistake. Maybe Rikka was right about trusting Strongarm. What if she get hurts? All of this is his fault. "Scrap..." "I'll notified Bumblebee immediately!" Fixit pointed out. But the red bot denied the offers. "No! We'll handle it!" -Location: Oogai Town, in the Middle of the Sea- Bumblebee and the Sharkticon were still fighting with each other. "You have forced me to walk on two legs. How dare you?!" the Sharkticon then charged at him but Rosetta appeared in front of him just in time and create her Rosetta Wall. The Sharkticon collided with the wall, only to bounce him back where he came from. Heart then leaped up in the air, grabbing his left arm and flings him to the ground. "Thanks, you two!" Bumblebee thanked them. The girls smiled. "That's why we trusted you, Bumblebee." Heart winked at him. The Sharkticon then stand back up to his feet. The girls reunited by Bumblebee's side with their fighting stance on. "Listen here, Sharkticon." the yellow bot pointed his gun at him. "My name is Hammerstrike. Cybertron most feared pirate." There's a pirate on Cybertron? "And soon the ruler of all in this planet sees!" Bumblebee rolled his optics. "Yeah...okay, whatever. Surrender now or these brave warriors and my Dinobot partner will taking a beating then surrender." Hammerstrike then throws a bunch of boxes at them but Rosetta created her Rosetta Wall again to block them. But one of the boxes hit Bumblebee's hands, making him lose the grip of his gun as well. "Scrap..." "Surrender the light's of you." the Con laughed. "I will never been fend in the gorgeous depth again!" he then tries to claw him but Heart stopped him. "Unhand me, you foul creature!" he then tries to claw her face instead. "Don't be...selfish!" she then used her leg to kick him back. Rosetta then looked at the water in worried. "Anytime now, Grimlock." he was still underwater. Hammerstrike then charge at Heart, making her fall back but Bumblebee catches her in time. "Are you alright?" the Cure nodded in replied. The Sharkticon then jumped out from the boat and began to transform into his shark mode. "He's getting away-sharu!" but the fugitive run away. "We almost had him-lance..." Lance spoke out in disappointment. Rosetta looked at him. "It's alright, Lance. We'll get him next time." With that, Bumblebee com-link Grimlock to see if he can get to shore. -Location: Oogai Town, Yotsuba's Mansion- Bumblebee has arrived back to their base. "Where's everyone? Rikka and Makoto?" Mana asked. "Oh, that. Well..." Fixit chuckles nervously. "Well...?" Alice waited for him to response. "Cadet Strongarm, Sideswipe and their partners are out for their alignment-assignment!" not wanting to bring up the subject, he then saw Grimlock was all soaking wet. "What just happened?" "It's a...long story." Alice reassured him. "Fixit, where are the others?" the lieutenant asked him in a very serious tone. "Well..." the Mini-Con chuckles nervously again. -Location: Somewhere around the woods- Sideswipe was strolling around a small building which happens to be an abandoned cabin. Inside, Rikka was crossing her arms with an angry expression. The red bot sighed. "Rikka, don't take this so seriously..." The girl didn't responds as Sideswipe stopped his track and spoke up again. "Look, I'm sorry. You were right about to trust Strongarm. It was all my fault that I abandoned her...and your friend..." He had a sad tone in his voice. Rikka looked at him. Was he feeling guilty now...? "Sideswipe..." "I get it. If you're mad at me, go ahead and yelled at me." "I'm not mad at you, Sideswipe. You're my guardian, my teammate, my friend." she pointed out. "Friends aren't supposed to mad at each other. And I'm sorry for lashing my anger at you either. I was just so worried about my friends that I ended up worrying you instead..." "Heh. No worries." he chuckles. "From now on, we're in the real team right?" receiving a nod from her. "Hey, look-quel!" Raquel grabbed their attention. They look and saw Makoto was running towards them. "Makoto?!" Rikka then climbed out from the car. "Makoto?! What's going on?! Where's Strongarm?!" Makoto tries gasped for air. "She's got beat up by a Con!" "A Con?! Where is she now?" Sideswipe asked. "Right there-davi!" Dabyi pointed where she and Makoto came from. "Alright, climb up!" he then opened the doors for the girls climbed in and drives off. Not for long, they arrived at the same place where Makoto and Dabyi came from. "There they are-davi." she whispered. They saw Strongarm being chained up by the same wolf like Decepticon. "I don't trust him. He looks cool." the red bot blurted out. "Kinda reminds me of someone..." "What do we now-quel?" Raquel asked in worried and concern. "If I was a half criminal Strongarm think I am, I just walked away." he replied bluntly. Rikka sighed. "Sideswipe, this is not the time to-" she paused her sentence. "I have an idea! Follow me!". The others followed her. "But giving you a second chance isn't up to me." Strongarm told him. "I'm just a cadet. My surperior officer would have to be the one to-" "I would love to meet your squadron. How many of you are there? Where are your base?" the Con questioned. "We're just over-" she paused for a second. "Wait, how do we know this isn't a trick?" "I see you've found a couple of Autobots." a mysterious...yet a similar voice can be heard from behind. The two look and saw a bot coming from the tree. Strongarm take a closer look at the bot and she realized it's Sideswipe! He has a glow Decepticon logo on his chest. "Can I get in on a little payback?" The Con looked at him and smirks. "Greeting, brother. I'm Steeljaw." So, this wolf Con named is Steeljaw. "And you are?" "Oh, I'm...Grim...bee!" Sideswipe stutters. Really? Grimbee? A combination name of Grimlock and Bumblebee? "I'm glad you are free, Grimbee." the Con, who is now revealed to be named Steeljaw, offered him to join him. "Step into the light and join me." Sideswipe then look at his logo. "But uh, what happened to your mark then, brother...?" "I destroyed it and its tracking mechanism." he explained. Aha, that explain everything. "The Autobots mustn't capture me before I can prove to them I've reformed. I want to live here now, peacefully. As I'm sure you do too." Strongarm then saw Rikka and Makoto were sneaking towards her. "Makoto, Rikka, what are you doing? Get out!" the cadet whispered to them. Makoto shook her head. "I'm not leaving you, Strongarm." The two then tries to unchained her but not until Steeljaw heard the noise behind him and turned around. "We've been spotted-davi!" Dabyi alerted. The Con growled. "What are you? Besides strange?" "Look who's talking-quel!" Raquel yelled at him. "Don't go near them, brother!" Sideswipe warned him. Steeljaw scoffed. "Treachery. How like you...Autobots." "If you want the Autobots so much, you'll have to get through us first!" Rikka and Makoto then hold out their transformation devices. "Pretty Cure, Love Link!" the girls then 'draw' the letters L-O-V-E on the screen. The middle flashes three times and trigger the transformation. It first show Rikka with the hair ornaments appeared and the light trigger her body, creating the dress. Makoto's transformation also the same but instead of her dress shows up first, her arm warmers show and then her dress. The yellow light created Rikka's shoes while Makoto's Lovely Commune is shown on her pelvis. Rikka then spin around before landing on the ground and introduced herself. "The Light of Wisdom! Cure Diamond!" Makoto also does the same. "The Blade of Courage! Cure Sword!" The Con stepped back in shocked and surprised. "With the blade of courage, I, Cure Sword, will cut off your careerism with the sword of love!" Sword hollered. Using her hand, Sword slashed the chain on Strongarm, making them break with ease. The cadet was freed from the chain. "What?!" the Con optics widened in anger. "Sideswipe!" Diamond called out. The red bot then wiped off his fake Decepticon logo from his chest as he leaped up while Steeljaw growls and leaped up as well but Sideswipe dodge his attack and landed on the ground. The Con growled more and charged at him but only to be kick in the stomach by Strongarm, making him flying and then Diamond and Sword charge at him and grabbed each of his arms and flung him to the tree. He got slams into a tree. However, it about to fall on Diamond and Sword. Strongarm then transform into her vehicle form and scooped both of them in before the tree fall. "Thanks, Strongarm." Sword thanked her. "No problem." she replied. Sideswipe then walked towards them. Diamond noticed that the Con has disappeared. "He's gone..." "I have a bad feeling we're gonna see that Con again." the red bot pointed out. The cadet nods. "I hope so." she reassured. "But from now on, let's head back." Sword suggests. -Location: Oogai Town, Yotsuba Mansion- The two vehicles made it back to the base. Mana, Alice and Fixit greeted them. "You're back!" Mana then went to hugged her friends. "We were so worry about you." "We're fine, Mana." Rikka told her. "Why wouldn't they be okay?" Bumblebee spoke up with Grimlock, holding a barrel. Inside that barrel was Hammerstrike. They somehow managed to capture him. "Sideswipe and I were having a communication difficulty earlier, Lieutenant. Nothing serious." the cadet explained. "Anything to report?" the yellow bot asked. "Well, we found some open pod, sir." Strongarm replied. "And a Decepticon." Rikka added. "He said his name is Steeljaw." Makoto continued. Sideswipe spoke up. "Says he wanted to live peacefully on this with like minded Decepticons, but he got unpeaceful with us real quick." "Sounds like a very selfish ways to do it." Alice commented. Grimlock walked over with a barrel. "Can't wait to meet him. I'll go put this one away, and I'll do it gently." then, Hammerstrike muttered something very angrily inside the barrel but Grimlock punch the barrel to make him quiet. "If he's lying about going straight, we could be looking at a Decepticon army trying to take over this planet." Strongarm continued. Bumblebee nods. "It's all the more reason to wrap these fugitives up fast. I'll have Fixit prep a report on Steeljaw's list." he then continued to walk away. "Good intel, newbies. Apparently, I can send you into the field together." Strongarm then looked down at Rikka and Makoto. "Thanks, you two. You really saved my spark out there." she smiled. "You're welcome." Makoto smiled back at her. Sideswipe groans. "What?! I put my gears on the line for you too, you know!" he began to walked away. "Sideswipe..." Rikka sighed, still disappointed on his attitude. The red bot waved his hand. "Fine! You're never gonna-" he then slipped on the mud and almost fall down. But Strongarm catches him in time. "Thanks." she gave him a smug look. "And don't get too cocky." she then let him go and walked away. "Now, do you trust her?" his human partner asked him. The red bot looked at her before spoke up. "Yeah, I think I trust her. A bit." he let out a soft smile. The girls then giggled at each other as the sun is about to set. It was indeed a tiring day for them.

END OF CHAPTER 3

[somnilogical]

petty bitch

[22:58] somni: this body is really pretty 2 me rn [23:14] somni: that lasted 16 minutes [23:59] somni: okay this is super petty but im kind of annoyed that porpentine

>talks big about the experience of being ugly and gross >has a fleshform thats amazingly pretty

i feel so betrayed??? (i dont actually feel betrayed, i just feel i want to be pretty)

i wanna be pretty so bad

i wish i could stop wanting to look pretty and okay

ill probably end up having an abstract n dimensional figure if i have a form. idk if id still use a vision analogue in simspace

liike non-passing -> passing as 10000-dimensional representation of parts of my psyche

i kind of wish i could look nice in the middle(edited) 24 March 2018 [00:00] somni: kind of sad but at least i look better than i did before hormones [00:42] somni: okay

i think ill acknowledge petty and hug her but not let her front because letting things front makes them stronger? [00:43] somni: i think. ive read this no strong experience corroborating it with 2 sec of thought [00:45] SmolDuck: I think uhhh It’s important to try to like make sure all your subagents have their needs met and letting them front can lead to them taking care of their needs and then going to bed and leaving you be, while keeping them from fronting can lead to them going crazy and driving you nuts [00:45] SmolDuck: it can also lead to them sabotaging things tho so [00:47] somni: i knoooow mertl i originally wrote ‘fork’ [00:47] somni: because i also thought that and wasnt sure!! [00:48] somni: this is actually a hard choice for me,!,! [00:48] somni: but specifically petty i will ask her what is up [00:48] SmolDuck: sounds like you might want to gather experimental data by trying each path and seeing how it goes [00:48] somni: and not go autobloodlet [00:49] somni: hmmmmmm its haaard to be systemic about this thouuuugh thats a cached thought and may be #invalid [00:50] somni: (all thoughts are valid ooohh bb im so sorry for saying that omg. what was i thinking) [00:51] somni: i think the cached thought might be inaccurate [00:52] SmolDuck: nodnod [00:52] SmolDuck: outdated [00:52] SmolDuck: obsolete [00:53] somni: i want to try reinforcing things that i want to be stronger hmmmmmmmm [00:53] somni: merrr and talk privately with the other voices?

that would annoy me if people did that tho [00:54] somni: less so if they listened and changed policies based on my input? [00:55] somni: idk i dont like to declare things conserved quantities, because particular kind of zero sum thinking can cause lock in…. in most people i dont think it would lock me in because im actually good at noticing this

but it does seem like these two things trade off(edited) [00:56] SmolDuck: Hmmmmm [00:57] SmolDuck: Gentle reminder that this is not at all a private location for talking to your voices [00:59] somni: this is true [01:00] somni: the voices are #screaming tho and i gotta process

so like i thiiink that i want to be able to shift between these states depending on a thing but i d k what the thing is [01:01] SmolDuck: External cue? [01:02] somni: like between the states of letting everymodule out and trying to reinforce what ecosystem i want to have (who i want to beee) [01:03] somni: im keeping this post https://radimentary.wordpress.com/2018/01/16/the-solitaire-principle-game-theory-for-one/ in the back of my mind as a guiding framework when i say this(edited) [01:05] somni: and have been thinking of incentivizing and reinforcing parts of me i want (different but not disjoint from what i find pretty) [01:10] somni: i was also thinking of the process by which i passively gain most of my updates in personality traits and aesthetics and beliefs

where you have:

evaluate {laugh, aesthetic response, ooh i like it!} inspect for coherence with other parts (okay i often skip over this but also sometimes do it here instead of later) mirror the thing i like reinforce pattern by imitating independently let other people who have the pattern do discernment on your imitation, take criticism [01:11] somni: –

its like getting minor updates on all your programs nbd. passive growth / expansion [01:13] somni: –

but this is like directed towards growth and change which is different from being okay with and acknowledging the parts you currently have… except its not?

not really? not the way i do it

i mean yes its a different process but i d k if the two actually trade off in me when i do this thing

i was. autocompleting from memories of others subjective experience reports [01:13] somni: hmmmmmmmm [01:15] somni: i could probably both accept parts of me while reinforcing other parts at the same time [01:15] somni: meeevvvvvvvv okay so the thing nathan said is also a good observation that we also noted [01:15] somni: wanna address that [01:16] SmolDuck: wait which thing [01:16] SmolDuck: I say a lot of things [01:16] SmolDuck: fully half of them are framed to sound insightful but are actually kind of bullshit [01:16] somni: I think uhhh It’s important to try to like make sure all your subagents have their needs met and letting them front can lead to them taking care of their needs and then going to bed and leaving you be, while keeping them from fronting can lead to them going crazy and driving you nuts [01:16] SmolDuck: oh, yeah that one I endorse [01:16] somni: me too! [01:16] somni: i think!! [01:17] SmolDuck: ……uh [01:17] SmolDuck: if you did disagree, what would your disagreement be? is maybe a good way to find out [01:18] somni: let me think

ummm i might want to ask the subagent what its going to do [01:18] somni: if it fronts and talk with it [01:20] somni: but idk why do the council of elders have to be in concordance before i do anything

they dont thats literally not how you work

but i mean like in the ideal, or like in this ideal

we talked with person about how we have the council of all the parts of you, they talk it out and give their cases and then if their cases dont agree with you, you throw them out and do what you wanna do(edited) [01:21] somni: um! ！！ [01:21] somni: there are like three different alerts saying that’s wrong [01:22] somni: >yeah but one of them is our sim of nathan’s reaction so we can throw it out [01:22] SmolDuck: I endorse that [01:23] SmolDuck: if you want my reaction I can give it to you directly [01:23] SmolDuck: if you don’t want my reaction, toss your simmed version [01:23] somni: omg okay i miiight endorse this way of choosing

it is consonant with the way of choosing where to live where you have a bunch of spreadsheets and crunch the numbers and if in the end you dont like what the numbers say, throw them out and move where you wanna [01:24] somni: but its important to deliberate first because figuring out what choice you want to make is not always clear [01:26] somni: but also sidenote most choices branch out and then converge to roughly the same endpoint and for these you can actually do whatever you want without consideration as long as you can identify this sort of structure well [01:29] somni: um this is related to impulsive longsightedness where you mentally model the state of your body 1 day in the future and see that you are more or less safe invariant over a wide range of actions. so you are free to do fun and weird stuff. (that often looks really impulsive and reckless to people who are running shortsighted or people running 24hr!longsighted but who occupy a different epistemic state. but ime most of the objections and autoresponses come from people running shortsighted.)(edited) [01:32] somni: –

ooookaaay coming back to… what was the thing before the branch?

how to choose!

you have a bunch of voices in your head! how do we determine how fronting works and whats a good idea and how to pursue goals

and whose goals matter and how the system will grow and change and what parts of it to practice

okay stating it right here, evermodule’s goals matter [01:32] somni: >matter

like every module gets to be heard [01:50] somni: hmmmmm

this looks like a Project

okay!

so i want to be able to direct my growth #VALID

i also want to be able to tend to the parts of me [like id tend to a garden] #VALID

i dont have to maintain and reinforce things i dont want to grow in to #VALID what?! how is this valid??

>so look if i grow into new things and go in new directions, old things that are depricaded kind of iwhrvissh… i want to say fade away but idk what happens. they stop existing as much. stop being as available and salient?

i think there’s an important distinction between actively going around optimizing for killing parts of you. and like growing outwards into something new and the old stuff doesnt get that much reinforcement anymore because you cant hold on to everything, and even of i could i don’t want to?

some old parts are depricaded because they are clearly inferior on all fronts from their replacement, some because im not that interested anymore

maybe this is deathism? (mer what is it doing that causes harm though?) i may want to keep more in the gtf but not everything. though rn i want a memory with no non-con deletions [02:01] somni: -

okay

i want to be able to reinforce stuff i like and grow  directedly

um does this mean things that want to cant go out to play sometimes?

wait okay i think we are talking about different things because there are a lot of desires and stuff that you cant make die by not feeding them? the will to masturbate under t being one of them

i feel there’s a distinction between the thing you are talking about and other sorts of values and desires that are embedded in people.

um im addressing both the hard to get rid of and the more ephemeral things like 'hi im workethic bot!’…. my work ethic, when i have it does not sound like that but okay. and also 'work ethic’ isnt a native concept??? it isnt part of us yet but i know it as a thing that is part of other people.

maybe its part of us but havent really processed what 'work ethic’ is in internal terms when people use it. i think we have something different than the median meaning of work ethic but also it could be projected down to 'work ethic’ for legibility and people would still be able to follow most sentences i would output with the concept. …. given that i also worked to make the other stuff 'legible’. i hate the word 'legible’ now!!!

>why tho?

it is overused and i feel like you papered over subtleties there and there are more good details. buuuut ill think about this later. [02:07] somni: -

okay!

back to what i was thinking about. i think that

>i

k, lotsa agents up in this skull

stilll we think directed growth is nice and i think im okay with letting parts be deprecated

so a core problem here is that fronting does more than one thing!!!

so far im tracking two things i think fronting does:

(1) lets a module take full control of the body so it can get its needs met (2) reinforces the strength of the module [02:08] somni: -

autoquestion: (can we seperate these things?) are there other ways to let a module get its needs met besides fronting? are there ways to reinforce the strength of modules without fronting?(edited) [02:11] somni: @SmolDuck also im on 20 mg moda which i think accounts for a bit of why im Like This. but ooh! what do you think about the separability of the things? [02:14] SmolDuck: Hmmmmm [02:14] somni: ill take some l theanine to help CALM and help the comedown process go smoothly

(i think im coming down a bit) (im p sure this is moda comedown qualia) [02:15] SmolDuck: It depends on the need [02:15] SmolDuck: Seraph does better the less they front, currently [02:15] SmolDuck: the little one needs gentleness and respect [02:16] somni: nodnod [02:17] SmolDuck: if their need is like, 'attention’ they might need to front to get that fulfilled [02:17] SmolDuck: if their need is 'feeling safe’ then they can do that without fronting [02:17] SmolDuck: in my personal experience, ymmv, ianad, etv [02:18] somni: (i think im only a little more than median fragmented but of people in my fragmentation reference class im a LOT more self-aware of the thing) [02:18] somni: nod

hmmm [02:21] somni: you are very focused on taking care of parts and this is good and a thing to do…….

i dont think im as attached to parts-as-they-are but like parts that are anthropically called into existence because they can optimize over a thing (like if a module for containing anxiety isnt good at it, it sort of dies and is replaced with a new pattern; whatever anxiety containment module i have after a bit is a result of an iterative process like this*)

hmmmmmm

i do care about their welfare, but i think i care about them differently?? its hard to put my finger on(edited) [02:24] somni: *i also have spiritual feelings about this wrt people. where problems form voids in space to be filled by people who have shaped themselves to solve the problem [02:25] SmolDuck: hmmmm [02:26] somni: <i <l<3ve3 my spiritual feelings3 [02:31] somni: liike i think okayness works differently when parts of you keep getting replaced and this is standard operating procedure

whereas your parts seem like humans who eat soup and live in a village together and talk

and less like theyll quickly die and be replaced with another thing when the problem shifts [02:31] SmolDuck: nod [02:31] somni: wow okay i have low confidence in this model of my structure but it is like 1/3 right [02:31] somni: maybe 2/3? [02:32] SmolDuck: ………idek if any of us like soup [02:33] somni: hm i meant soup as a stand in for comfort and eating [02:33] SmolDuck: Ahhh [02:33] SmolDuck: I think we like clam chowder [02:35] somni: also im on moda so a lot of the descriptions will be biased towards mania / inducing in me a visceral sense of motion i thiink (die and be replaced is motion-y) [02:35] SmolDuck: ahh [02:35] somni: oooh…. everyone likes clam chowder? [02:38] SmolDuck: yeah [02:38] SmolDuck: some things, we all like, cause they’re pleasant for our body [02:40] somni: wheeew

this is better than last time

wait last time was 50 mg; okay i feel like i might be approaching the harsh meta-ing out event horizon and id want my squid module analogue to help keep calm [02:40] somni: –

hm it is nice that you can agree on something [02:41] SmolDuck: we cooperate pretty well now that we’ve actually talked about this and agreed that mutual cooperation is optimal [02:44] somni: like i can do better meta but at the event horizon things become a Lot and stuff dissolves and syntax feels like an illusion and things connect to other things without bottoming out and stuff dissolves

idk i feel like it diverges from metacog, though the chemicals help metacog in some ways [02:47] somni: okayyy feeling better

i dont need to be so tied to this visceral experience but also have the impulse that i want people with me

it doesnt affect my core i dont think which means panic attack is probs not going to happen [02:49] somni: -

if i become enlightened do i have to let go of drama? (no)

okay good because i like drama and snark and all that gay stuff [02:55] somni: -

so like ive been okay the whole time im so proud of me? im able to meditate in the eye of the storm, of course ive maintained calm under much more difficult circumstances but that was unexpected and i improvised as best i could.

i feel like i can actually do this reliably?

i still have the urge to grouse about it and snark which is spooooky why is this still appealing? is it blindsight grousing? force of habit? if im still attached and want to grouse maybe i havent let… something… go completely? idk what i mean by 'let something go’ but i def mean something [03:14] somni: @SmolDuck thanks for talking with me [03:15] SmolDuck: 👍👌

[transformerimagines]

Assignments (Tfp Soundwave x Reader)

Shooting a gun was easy. Hitting an Autobot target from 100m was a piece of cake. This drawing however was utterly and unbelievably impossible.

“UGH!” You shouted in frustration, standing up from your usual place on Soundwave’s work console and throwing the note book that was previously on your knee half way across the room. You grabbed your gun next and placed three firm shots into the leather-bound book. Soundwave had heard the ordeal an only turned to you with the blank mask of his visor. “There is no way you can draw that bloody bird!” You huffed before slumping back down again.

“I find drawing calming.” Came the sound of your own voice from Soundwave who had sieved through many recordings of you to find the perfect one to match the situation. Damn that Con was seriously creepy. Maybe that’s why you got along with him so well.

“Yeah well that one isn’t,” Sighing, you turned to face him with your legs crossed. “For our essay we have to draw a figure of a Scarlet Macaw to explain its colour adaptation and, as you know, I can’t draw anything unless its sitting in front of me.” You paused then, allowing Soundwave to nod in order to show he was still listening. He was always listening though, you sometimes had to remind yourself that when you were sleeping in the hab suite next to him. “So how in the hell am I meant to draw the stupid bird!” Once again, your voice raised past your normal level as you continued to scream into your hands before lying back on the control unit, your hands still covering your face.

It was so frustrating at times. Every day you would wake up in a mechanical floating ship surrounded by robotic figures, go to university lectures then come back to the ship and kick some Autobot ass if needed. You honestly had no idea how you became part of the team, it happened so fast that it almost felt like whiplash when you thought about it. Soundwave was your partner, for the first few months he had been your protector against some of the drones and higher ranked officers however when you were given a gun and proceeded to shoot Starscream repeatedly he decided you could handle yourself. Nonetheless you still stayed with him at most times. When he was working, you would sit on his console and do some University work, when you were bed bound with stomach aches or the flu he checked up on you every hour. As you carried on thinking about the mysterious mech you felt metallic claws wrap around your wrists to pry them from your pouting face. He was hovering above you of course, his tentacles firmly around your hands as a pout emoji showed on his visor, obviously in mocking.

“That’s not funny.” You spoke sternly. He released your hands and you crossed them over your chest.

“That’s not funny.” He played back causing you to look at him with a glare. The image of his visor went blank for a moment before a picture of a Scarlet Macaw appeared there. It was as if he was mocking you more, even taunting you about your little outbreak. His servo raised towards his face, pointing at the picture on his visor in questioning.

“Yeah that’s the little blighter who is the bane of my existence.” You told him, moving your hand to gesture at the image. Before your hand was fully extended however, Soundwave had rose to his pedes and picked you up in his servo. Not a second later a swirling ground bridge appeared in front of the both of you which he walked thought without hesitation. Trying to ignore the momentary sickness, you looked around the new environment that you were in, seeing nothing but high trees and vines of green covering the floor and branches. “What the hell are we doing here?” You asked him angrily. You really had to get on with your assignment so being in the middle of nowhere was honestly no help to you right now.

Soundwave only mover a finger in front of his mask before silently moving into the forest, he stopped after taking two or three long steps. That was when he brought you up to the same height as his helm, all the while a finger placed in front of his mask. You turned to him ready to yell when a flash of red sped past your face. Quickly recovering, you whipped back around to follow the red blob only to see it wasn’t a blob but a bird. A Scarlet Macaw to be exact. You took a step back, awe taking over your face as you saw that there wasn’t only one of these miraculous birds but a whole flock, some flying while others were perched on nearby branches. A gasp escaped your throat as your hands came to cover your mouth, tears began to prick at your eyes as you realised what Soundwave had done for you. The Mech in question stayed silent as he watched you. He was recording the whole thing, zooming in on your face of joy to see the minute changes it made as your processed the thoughts in your head. He decided he liked the face you were making, this will be the picture he uses to remind him of your happiest times. Primus knows that when you are in a war happy times are few and far between.

“Soundwave,” You hiccupped with watery eyes before running over to the Cons visor and firmly planting yourself against it, yours arms coming up in a way to hug the visor. Soundwave wasn’t expecting this, it was quite a shock to have your frame fully envelope his optics but he wasn’t going to complain. You were warm and squishy, it was nice to feel such contact from you. “Thank you so much, it means a lot.” Against his better judgement, Soundwave decided to respond in kind.

“Thanks, unneeded. You are welcome.” It had been too long since he had used his own voice making it scratchy in parts but you didn’t care, you were to overwhelmed at the fact that he actually spoke to care about the quality. You wanted to hear him speak again, you marked it in your head as a mission as you stepped away from him, wiping the tears from your eyes.

“Right, let’s draw these suckers.”

___

“Bee, do you see anything?” Arcee asked the scout next to her as the traipsed through the rainforest undergrowth. The autobots had caught signal of a ground bridge being used in the area, the two stealth bots offered to go and check it out yet had found nothing. Bee sounded something in response before grabbing hold of Arcee and pulling her back. The yellow bot pointed to something in front of her.

The two silently moved a bit closer until the image before them came in to focus. Soundwave was in the middle of the rainforest, leaning against the tree while the Con pet was sat patiently in his servo surrounded by a bunch of red birds. The two watched as a bird came to land on the tip of Soundwave’s visor making the human chuckled with laughter.

“They seem to like you Soundwave, maybe we should take one home as a friend for Laserbeak.” The human spoke in an amused tone as Soundwave carefully shooed the bird away with one of his tentacles. Another tentacle playfully wrapped around the human’s waist, constricting slightly as it pulled the fleshy being towards Soundwave’s visor the nuzzled against the humans back. “Hey stop, you’re freezing.” The fleshy gasped, trying to escape from Soundwave who effortlessly dragged them back whenever they moved away.

Bee looked to Arcee with a few concerned beeps. Arcee pulled her optics away from the scene in front of her with a slight rise in colour of her cheeks. She felt that she had stumbled upon a moment that she should had seen.

“Urm, let’s not tell anyone okay?” Arcee asked before Bee sounded.

“Yeah that’s probably best, who knew Soundy could be so caring?”