Hijack is a small and rather alarming-looking mech, with almost no plating other than the absolute necessary along their front, but normal-to-thick plating on their back. Their front is also quite flat, you can put them on a wall and they’ll cling almost flat to it. Their servos are equipped with electromagnets, and their wrists and ankles feature suction cups. They have a series of tiny panels scattered over their front, like wrist connection panels but in all sorts of places.They walk a bit oddly because their legs and pedes are better for clinging than for walking, almost like a bat’s, and they much prefer to hang off of someone than to walk on their own.
They’re a strange little being akin to a mnemosurgeon, but much more sinister and with no potential positive use of their ability.
When allowed to latch onto someone’s back, they cling tightly and unsheath a series of connection cables from various points along their front. Two larger, thicker cables from just under their throat, probably about six cables per arm, and at least 10 more arrayed along the front of their torso. The cables have clamps on the end with a core of delicate wires, and can slide under plating or, for some of the sharper cables, punch straight through it, in order to latch around the wires that send movement impulses.The cables draw away the movement impulses of the captive so Hijack can replace them, controlling the captive with minimal difficulty once they get used to the new frame. It causes no lasting harm aside from scraped nerve cables and the minor damage to plating, but is, to say the least, very alarming.
Hijack clings until their host is killed, forcing them to move, or until they decide to let go. They can project their own EM field around their host’s and attempt to block the panicked host’s EM field from being felt by others, and they can shut off their host’s ability to speak, but they can’t quite stop facial expressions. It’s usually relatively obvious that the host is being controlled, especially at first when Hijack is still adjusting to the new proportions. They’d be very difficult to extricate without serious damage to the host, and they can even animate a processor-dead frame for as long as it has a power supply. It’s freaky as Pit.They aren’t terribly fast, but can be thrown at a target by someone faster.
Left to their own devices, they wouldn’t do this. Having an awareness of the host’s distress is distinctly unpleasant and tugs at one’s morals. They don’t really have much of a choice, though, because they were outfitted with what is colloquially known as slave coding. They cannot disobey an order from the code’s target, and, if they go long enough with no interaction from their ‘boss’, they shut down and would eventually starve. It’s not the strongest grade, they can function to a decent extent without constant orders, but they were deemed too politically and physically dangerous to go unhindered, while too useful to dispose of.
They’ve been ‘adopted’ by Acus as the code’s new target while the medics work on a way to get the code unraveled a bit further and give them more freedom. Acus pointed out that constantly dealing with this situation would upset Patches far too much, and it probably wouldn’t respond well to being attached to Scalpel and how pissed she regularly gets, so he was the best option in the medbay.
Hijack is not exactly pleased with this whole situation, but it’s about the best they can hope for, thanks to that coding.
Fortunately, the coding follows wording of orders rather than intent. Tell them to hijack someone so that someone can’t press the alarm button? They’ll do it, but they won’t stop said person from yelling if they think it suits them.Gotta be very specific and fill the loopholes when trying to make them do things.
That’s unfortunately made them rather prone to double-speak and finding loopholes even with people who aren’t up to anything.Oh, and they look a bit nightmarish with all their cables extended. Tends to provoke a kind of instinctive disgust/fear response from people. Nothing else on Cybertron (aside from some parasites with a similar method) has that many twisting, prehensile, mobile cables. It’s not an irrational response, either, Hijack is potentially very dangerous. If they get ahold of someone, they could manipulate that person to kill themself, kill others, or do highly incriminating things on film. I think they might also have some kind of camouflage ability to let them blend in with their target and have a half-chance of not being seen.
They like to hang on a larger mech’s frame for support and a good way to get around, which is Alarming for all nearby until they’ve confirmed that the larger mech isn’t acting controlled. It’s usually obvious when someone’s being controlled, they Do Not Act Right.
Not having orders was making them suspicious of Acus’ motives, so Acus started trying to come up with things, and he was chilly enough at the time that “come over here and hug me” came to mind. He’s made it very clear that Hijack can vocalize any discomfort, can say “I don’t want to do this” even as they have to obey what might not even be an intentionally given order, but Hijack was all for the hug thing. Acus isn’t alarmed by them, he knows they can’t attack him and wouldn’t have any reason to, and the certainty that they 100% cannot do anything he doesn’t want helps him stay comfortable.And the hugs are warm and snug and some part of Hijack very much likes that they can hug Acus /with/ their cables and not freak him out.
(medics are hard to freak out)
It does look a little like some vaguely eldritch monster halfway disguised as a small mech has decided to grab Acus, but he’s fine and comfortable.
Hijack also has sort of these membrane-things that flying squirrels have, with tiny jets tucked low on their flanks. They can glide a long distance with those if thrown. So please imagine large, slightly drunk mechs playing a variant of darts with Hijack.Literally /with/ Hijack, taking turns throwing them at a target. All involved are having fun. Hijack goes flying across the room, sticks onto a target on the wall (or somewhere near it), drops off, gallops back over (on fours for a few steps), and jumps into the next person’s servos. They like the positive attention and are having a good deal of fun using their gliding-thing in a way other than to attack people.
Also, Hijack is a tad drunk. Part of the game isn’t just seeing who can still aim right when they get drunker, but trying to work with Hijack /also/ getting drunker.
After awhile, Hijack yells “HARD MODE” and sets their gliding membranes askew so they spiral when thrown fast enough.
Someone probably throws them very badly at one point and they land on Optimus’ chassis instead of the wall. Just *smack* “hello”
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