#thelastpathfinder

[nonocere]

Once again, the pale mech appears out of seemingly nowhere. "What do you know about Pathfinder frames?"

⟫ "Primus!" Ratchet startles, the datapad that was in his hand clatters to the floor. "Don't do that— could give a mech a spark attack that way."

He bends to pick it back up and sets it on the nearest table. "I know they were defunct by the time I finished medical school. I also know they were used to enact cruel and unusual punishment by the functionists. The practice was not only incredibly barbaric, but the results often lead to a the mind and spark completely rejecting the body due to intense frame dysphoria."

"Most Pathfinders became drones due to the trauma and rejection. Which is why I'm so surprised you're still..." Ratchet makes a vague gesture with his hands at Wayfarer.

[autobotmedic]

@thelastpathfinder continued:

"You have a kind look about you. Then again, I wasn't here for the War, so I can't speak to the psychological damage of a veteran..."

He is... vaguely surprised. Typically, his often default state of frowning does not inspire that observation.

"Hm. An uncommon opinion to hear from someone I do not know well."

[rifleseye]

@thelastpathfinder asked.

You stand in the doorway, still caked in dust and energon, half of your face-plate torn open. "Can I use your washrack?"

— Shock horror crosses your face first and foremost when your eyes land on Wayfarer. It looks a mess, and its— the right side of his face is torn. Shredded. You feel dizzy, a memory of a mirror like an electric shock to the body. Old wounds ache with empathy. Empathy.

You bring a hand to his torn open face-plate, grimacing as you feel the ragged edges, all too similar. " What happened? " Your usually patient and pleasant lilt gone, replaced with a more sombre tone as your gaze hardens.

" Who did this? "

[pharmanic]

@thelastpathfinder asked: “I can hear your sparkpulse from here.” That... is certainly an ominous voice coming from a ceiling vent directly above Pharma.

The jet pauses in his tracks a moment, blinking. It wasn't uncommon for Pharma to hear things, voices included. So he's not necessarily in immediate panic— but definitely cautious.

"What the hell is the point of taking my meds it I'm just gonna keep hearin shit anyways??" It's grumbled under his breath as he continues to look around, just in case.

[transformiing]

@thelastpathfinder

“I mean, all mechanic work is risky on some level. That’s why you take precautions and wear gloves. No risk, no reward, right?”

[mastermegatron]

Leans in and sniffs him. Hm.

...Grabs it by the neck. "Dare I ask what you are doing?"

[rifleseye]

— Perceptor's gaze sharpens as he turns it back to Wayfarer. His lips thin upon the assertions the Pathfinder gives him, and he shakes his head. He would never wish for what experienced on Luna 1 to befall anyone else. Overworking one's body to the point of metal sloughing off... It wasn't right, it wasn't fair.

"No," there's an edge to his voice he doesn't intend, "you won't go through what I did, I assure you. In a controlled environment, with sterile tools and proper pain management it is painless."

Once he's made that clear, he folds his fingers into each other. "You will be online through it, to ensure nothing goes wrong with your sensory input and motor controls. Your pain sensors will be disabled, however. First begins with the extraction of your t-cog, which is altered to meet the new specs. Once that is done, we will need only to either add or remove parts of your frame to properly accommodate the new shape... I must emphasize, I have never done a full reformat on anyone But... I do know those who have experience with t-cog alteration."

A laser pointer to a jet. Surely going from an ornithopter, and only partially reformatted at that, back to a Windrider wouldn't require the same level of work? You still have most of your constituent parts. Your legs barely changed, and they didn't remove your wings, only stripped the membranes and turned them into a larger pair of arms.

"I can handle any pain. I want it to work for me," you say, desperately. "I want to feel like my frame matches who I am. Like you do."

You shutter your optic and lean back, stretching your primary arms out to their fullest extent either side of you until you can touch the walls with your fingertips. My wings, you think, dreamily. "How does it work?"

[trogoautoegocrat]

"Tarantulas? I brought you another preserved specimen. This one is a hexapodal mammal of some kind."

"A hexapodal mammal?" Tarantulas takes it from you, passing the specimen between numerous different hands -- like it'd somehow make him observe it better. "What planet did you say this was from?"

[nonocere]

Appears in his doorway.

"You could at least announce your presence with a knock first. Especially when I have things in my hands."

[rifleseye]

@thelastpathfinder said.

"Perceptor! Perceptor, are you there? I need—someone just... someone just tried to kill me. I'm hurt. I'm five minutes out—"

Long unused seams open as soon as Wayfairer's first panicked message reaches his comm. Pistols left as decoration find their home again, and he doesn't take the time to prepare his rifle. He doubts range will be necessary. Perceptor does not hesitate as he leaves his office.

Two fingers on the side of his head to open the channel on his end: "I'm on my way. Find cover." No questions as to who would try to hurt it. Cold calculus and composure settles on his face as he moves at speeds he hasn't had to in a long time.

"Which direction? North, east, west, south?"

[lacedwithstatic]

"Thank you for offering to share your drugs with me, the other day," a voice suddenly rasps behind them; should Cosmos turn, they'd see the Pathfinder crouched gargoyle-like in a nearby window, arms slung over his knees. "It was kind of you. Are you always like that with strangers?"

Had Cosmos been forged with the capability to blink, they would have done so in a manner almost comical to the situation they currently find themself in.

That is to say, they look at the stranger by their window in utter silence and zero sense of self preservation. He remembers its face, of course, but they do not remember ever giving it an address.

[ It should be noted that Cosmos should have expected this. Working for Prowl, even during the war, had brought about series of weird events to happen to them-- including assassination attempts and espionage. The satellite drafts a resignation letter, the third this month, and places it neatly on a folder, with a warm blanket over it and the false promise of uncovering it any time soon. ]

Cosmos takes approximately 1.58 minutes to put down his groceries on the table in their kitchen and address the stranger who has yet to fully commit to breaking into his apartment. "You're welcome?" Stated as more of a question, though they attempt to fix it by saying it again. "Uh, You're welcome, I mean. You sort of just looked like you needed it?"

Getting their keys, they go back to their door and unlock it. If they were to be attacked, it would have happened already, but they are also not very fond of the idea of being a victim in a cop drama show for being too close to the main officer. "I try to be nice to people, yeah. It's just common decency. I bought packed energon gummies, do you want some?"

[autobotmedic]

From a technical perspective, Ratchet has always found optics with visible dilations to be especially intriguing. But the distraction is momentary before he refocuses on listening.

Slowly, his audials angle down. Ratchet is the blunt one about his observations more often than not in a conversation, so hearing such in-depth and correct conclusions from someone he did not know well is... Different. He is not accustomed to having his personal baggage summarized and read so easily.

"... Mh." His arms fold, silently contemplating how to respond. There is little point in denying any of it- he wouldn't, anyway, because to do so would be ignoring the value he placed on so many lives lost, and his very occupation.

"That is quite a lot of information to draw from someone's optics, and it is not inaccurate."

You look at him closer, now, the stars that fleck your own optic whirling in a focal pattern. They disperse when you blink, your worn old shutters briefly eclipsing that cosmic mirror.

"Yes," you say, carefully; you don't want to cause offense. "And sadness, too, I think. It's the same sort of sadness I see in everyone who was swept up in the War; though it differs from mech to mech, of course. The loss of a comrade, or a loved one, or the place you came from. Sometimes it's even the principles you once held that couldn't survive the inherent immorality of war, forcing you to become a different person entirely."

You flatten your audials, averting your gaze politely. "Sometimes it's all of them. Those individuals are always the saddest."

[trogoautoegocrat]

"We could be friends. If you'd like." The little ghost's former confidence seems to have fled; now he stands hunched, like a kicked mechanimal, anxiously wringing his hands like he expects his offer of friendship to be received as a grave insult.

The offer is a strange one.

Very few creatures are foolish or blindsided enough to willingly pursue a relationship of any kind with him, let alone a friendship. A useful ally, perhaps, but he's never been seen as anything more. He's aware of it -- he does little to prove himself to be anything else.

Maybe his prolonged silence is what portrays it. Maybe it's the fact that, for the first time you have known him, he is completely stilled. Frozen. Hung on a web; joints full of silk.

"Friends," Tarantulas tries the word, and it feels unfamiliar and heavy in his mouth. He could choke on it. He thinks that, maybe, he wants to.

The silk melts, and he stoops closer. Invasion is a habit more than anything intentional.

"Friends. I don't know you, spectre. Introductions are only polite."

[pontiffv]

⩥ Kakyoin doesn't understand much about Wayfarer's civilization, so much of it is either lost in translation or difficult to convey for human understanding. Initially, he thought they were like... that mecha cartoon he used to watch. But there's no pilot, so that comparison was a moot point.

Subconsciously, he smooths his bang between his index and thumb at the comment on his hair. A smile at his lips and a nasal laugh, "Hair," he corrects, "it's called hair. Animals have fur, we have hair." Though, technically, it's not wrong. Most of it is just semantics.

He looks at the downpour, pulling his knees up to his chest to make himself as small as possible beneath the giant robot shielding him from the rain. It's a small moment, but nice. "Red hair's not actually that common in this region," a complicated look crosses his face at the admission. "But- maybe you can... paint yourself? Kind of like how some people dye their hair."

"You remind me of a macaw. They're indigenous to South American regions. They're incredibly intelligent birds that can exert 113 kilograms of weight against their beaks which are specialized for opening nuts or breaking the skin of fruits. They have a lot of different colors, too."

"I used to be colorful." Your voice has a trill to it, a sort of accent; you're not very good at speaking the human languages, though you try. You can't simply download a language packet like other mechs. "I was copper and a few different shades of blue; blue like the deep ocean, like the sky and summer ice. I was yellow, too, and my wings were striped with green."

All Windriders tended towards being far more varied in their natural color palettes than other changeforms. Maybe you were a macaw, you think. The Cybertronian equivalent of a parrot.

"Now I'm just white." You turn your gaze away from Kakyoin, watching the rain. You may be small, but humans are smaller still, and you have no trouble sheltering your companion from the downpour. "I'll never be colorful again. Not like you, with your red..." You pause, searching for the right word. "... fur? Your very red fur."

[nonocere]

"I'm entering the room," you announce, loudly and clearly, as you walk in with your primary hands raised. "I'm here, and I'm not sneaking. You can see me, yes?"

⟫ Well... it's a step up from just about getting a spark attack from Wayfarer's appearance. Ratchet raises a brow ridge, honestly he's surprised to see it so soon after the last time they saw each other. (Though, maybe not, considering he's only been moving between the hospital and Perceptor's place.)

"Yes. I can see you. What do you need?"

[rifleseye]

@thelastpathfinder said.

"Per—ceptor." You hover over his shoulder. "I want... to learn more. From your books."

You smile, careful and gentle as you turn to look at Wayfarer. You were in the middle of some paperwork, but that can wait. " Certainly. What do you want to read? "