Yaatree was in a foul mood
Shockwave’s latest experimental implants were still settling, the durasteel pinging as it shifted. An assortment of scavenged metal hunks and fibers was spread alongside him, and he sourly picked through the meager scraps. He wasn’t supposed to ingest anything for several more hours, but his tanks pinged insistently, low fuel warning warnings flashing as the integrations ate up his reserves.
Even small movements hurt, the coils of serrated blading scraping harshly against the floor. Yaatree tried to still, but his patience was wearing thin. Shockwave would know if he left the room, he always did… but he hadn’t forbidden Yaatree from exploring, only from disturbing the implants.
Yaatree flinched inwardly, remembering how his fussing had inadvertently pulled out some delicate circuitry, and the many welds he’d had to replace it. But really, who would put that many optical sensors on a driller? Yaatree was hardly a stealthy mecha, totally unsuited for surveillance.
If Shockwave wanted to court Soundwave, Yaatree was a poor choice. Even if he was not much bigger than the typical Autobot now, (and therefore the perfect size and age to ping Soundwave’s carrier instincts) he would grow, quickly.
Yaatree was hardly one for cuddling, anyways, despite what Shockwave insisted to himself when he thought he was alone in the lab.
Peering around the doorway, Yaatree slithered through the cross-corridor and into a smaller lab room he hadn’t been in before. He squirmed under a table, and plucked open a cabinet to rifle through the contents.
Yaatree froze, suddenly aware he wasn’t alone.
Yaatree turned slowly, blenders chirring as his blades spun uneasily. Faint red optics peered up over the edge of the table.
Spinflask was not having a good day.
He’d just wanted a bit of privacy. Duo were lovely, but they were… they were a lot. Energetic, to say the least. He’d wanted some time alone, and had apparently picked entirely the wrong spot for it. Namely, a spot Shockwave frequented.
And Shockwave was strong enough that, even with Spinflask’s adrenaline spiking enough to have him trying to drive claws through the other’s plating, he could grab Spinflask by the scruff and hold him easily in one servo. All of Spinflask’s adrenaline had only gotten him deemed “interesting” and strapped to a table with a crown of sensors on until he wore himself out.
Once he’d woken up, he’d found himself on top of a table entirely suited for his alt mode, fastened to the table by a leash around his ankle. There was an IV dripping energon into his systems, another cube nearby, and a short list of tasks and supplies in front of him. It was probably not wise to upset his captor, so he did as was implied-slash-ordered, loading up his internal rack and spinning everything as was specified.
He could do this. It wasn’t exactly fun, working for an unknown purpose, but he could do it. Wasn’t difficult or particularly distressing. He could just… do this. Hopefully Duo would come to rescue him, but… that wasn’t really a reasonable expectation, was it? He… probably wasn’t worth the trouble of getting into Shockwave’s lab, after all, even if they knew where he was. Which they didn’t.
So… he could work with this. Could be worse, after all.
And then a thing came into the room, and it was worse. Spinflask hunched himself into the smallest ball possible on top of the table, optics nervously locked on… whatever that was, and waited to see if it would leave.
It did not leave.
It noticed him.
Slag.
Not knowing what else to do, Spinflask offered the thing a tiny wave, then tucked his servos up with the rest of himself and tried to look uninteresting. And not edible.
Yaatree slid closer, caution fading to curiosity as he saw Spinflask’s restraints.
Whirring, he pulled himself closer, blades biting chunks out of the table as he hauled himself up. One cable bumped curiously at the IV line, inner sawblades kneading together as another fuel alert pinged on his HUD.
Weaving his torso around Spinkflask, Yaatree twitched with hunger when he saw the energon cube. It was just… sitting there. So easily within reach.
But Shockwave would know. Shockwave always knew.
Hissing, Yaatree drew back and studied the mech strapped down. A petty urge to smack the notepad onto the floor surged inside him, to shred the notes and shatter carefully arranged vials where this one would not be able to reach, to fix and continue his task.
Instead, Yaatree withdrew to the other end of the table, coiling in on himself. Destructive driller coding urges aside, Yaatree well remembered Shockwave’s cold displeasure at his tantrums, and the inevitable punishments. How that precise, calculating mech would enjoy what he put Yaatree through, even though he rarely vocalised it.
It was a learning process, and a harsh one. Everything was a test, and failure… failure was unacceptable.
Loopholes can be found… or made.
Optics muted to a hazy maroon glow, Yaatree stretched a cable out and chewed through one strap, eating each link with a lazy, smug satisfaction.
He wasn’t really eating it, that was still against the rules. Shockwave’s bizare obsession that he be handtrained as part of the appeal for Soundwave ensured that he knew he would not eat except from his hand.
No, the chain would never end up in his tanks. Such a small amount of foreign metal would be ground up and implemented in his cables long before it came anywhere near his processing plant.
In the meantime, the new mech might turn out to be a fun playmate. Or at least have some information from outside the labs. His EM field radiating curiosity, Yaatree waved the cable mouth in front of Spinflask’s face before withdrawing again.
Alarming as it had been to be scooped up by Shockwave, his unceremonious method of capture turned out to be helpful to Spinflask in that moment. He’d spent all his energy and all his adrenaline on trying to escape, which meant that, instead of his new-normal hyperaggressive response, his reaction to the attention was just a quiet whine in the back of his throat. Fortunate, since trying to murder the whatever-this-was would probably have resulted in it tearing him apart with no effort whatsoever.
Instead, Spinflask managed to stay still and almost silent, even as it curled around him. His frame shook, his engine made a quiet shiver-rattling noise, and his vents cycled hard enough that something clicked rather loudly, but he didn’t move, and he bit back the whine of terror that wanted to escape. This creature didn’t seem aggressive, but it looked predatory, and it could probably smell fear. Which Spinflask couldn’t do much about.
But… it had chewed through one chain, and, at least for the moment, it didn’t seem to be… doing anything. Spinflask hunched into himself, looking down at the remaining strap, then lifted his helm to eye the nearby security camera. The straps around his ankles, though they didn’t stop him from transforming, were clearly meant to keep him here. But he didn’t like them, and… surely Shockwave couldn’t object to him removing the straps but remaining on the table? He didn’t intend to run away, he just… didn’t like the restraints.
So, hesitantly, Spinflask lifted the remaining strap and offered it to the creature. “…come on, then. Here… creature, creature. Whatever you are. Come. You… may as well… chew through this one as well, yes?”
Chew on whatever you want other than me. as long as it isn’t me. I cannot reasonably be expected to defend anything against you, and Shockwave, whatever else he may be, is a logical enough mech to realize that. I hope.
Yaatree wound his way closer to curl over the strapping. Annoying as he was being treated as non-sentient and incapable of speaking, he had grown used to it.
Yaatree stretched to his full length, trying to appear as self-assured and distantly interested as Soundwave.
With a lightning quick slash, Yaatree unlatched him, cables rearing back in an unconscious display.
He meant to demand Spinflask entertain him, but what came out was a hoarse, “Why are you here?”
Yaatree glanced up at the camera, then looked away, suddenly shy. Blades shunked and reordered themself in a flustered embarrassment.
It -they- could talk.
Well then.
Spine straightening considerably, Spinflask looked the being over more closely, trying to figure out what in the Pit this was. It looked something like a Driller, or at least like the images of Drillers he’d half-glanced at in the past, but those… didn’t talk.
Right?
Goodness.
Servos clenching nervously on his plating, Spinflask rebooted his vocalizer to chase the last scraps of terrified noises out of it, hoping to speak coherently. It worked. Mostly. His voice was still a bit higher-pitched than normal.
“I-I looked useful, evidently, and did not manage to escape being carried back. And now I am-” a glance at the camera “-not attempting to escape, because I am not equipped to escape, so I am staying here and behaving myself.”
And he was. That was his plan- just behave himself. It wasn’t like he could escape. Better to just avoid upsetting his captor. He’d probably be treated better that way.
Right?
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