-treat me like a pet, an ornament, how dare they- chain me up and take my voice and use me as a status symbol- 

Well, hmh- no more status for them to have, any of them. 

Serves them right, let them rot, let them bleed for this, for everything before this, for everything they did- rot them, burn them all, frag them- slag them into nothing– 

What would have been a truly impressive tirade went unheard for two reasons. One, there was no one to hear. Two, part of Tempo’s ire was focused on the elaborate structure wrapped around his helm and neck. It looked decorative at first glance, or it had before he’d ripped quite a few gaudy bits off of it, but it had a dual purpose. It kept his voice shut off, and it kept him from hearing anything. 

Infuriatingly, he couldn’t do anything about it. They’d figured out early on that any sort of electronic interference would fail thanks to his abilities, so they’d settled for something diabolically simple. A collar around his neck that kept a prong of metal locked in his throat where it interfered with his vocal wiring, fastened to something along the back of his helm, then the rest of the structure wrapped up around his helm, keeping a set of unplugged wires detached. 

A familiar punishment. One piece for hearing too much, one for saying too much. Usually temporary, but he hadn’t been able to find the Pit-slagged keys, they’d probably ended up underwater somewhere, and the damned things wouldn’t come off. Mouth opening in a silenced cry of rage, Tempo clawed at the harness one last time, then went still and slumped into the pilot’s seat of his stolen ship. 

He took a few moments to strongly contemplate his cane, newly stolen back, but decided against trying to use the blade to cut this off. He would… probably slice his own face off. 

Maybe if he got desperate enough. 

But he wasn’t at that point yet. He was free, he had a ship, and he was going back to Cybertron. In addition, the empire of his captors had fallen, and he was leaving them in ruins. 

It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.