literature

Culture Shock ch 4

Deviation Actions

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When the young femme woke up next there was another face occupying her vision. White faced with red optics and tri-crested helm, it was none other than the strangers' medic. Knockout if she had managed to learn their names correctly. She glowered at him, was it going to be like this every time she woke up in this place? "Get out my face or I'll make sure the next scratch won't buff out." She stated tersely at the doctor. She might not have been able to understand what he was saying, but his body language screamed "vain".

The bigger mech stood up straight and sneered back at her. "I didn't understand a single word of that but I suggest you watch what you say next time." A threat was a threat no matter the language it was in. He turned to his lanky partner still working at the computer. "Soundwave, it didn't work. She's still talking in…" He groped around for a word. "Alien…"

Their guest couldn't see but she could hear him, in a way. Soundwave spouted off a series of sound clips that when added together equaled, "She must consciously attempt to speak Cybertronian." Knockout asked if she could at least understand them and the comms officer nodded. He turned back to the sparkling, "Well you heard him, say something." The sparkling simply crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh come on!" If this hadn't been a sparkling he would have forced her to say something by now.

As Knockout continued to try to coax the small mech into speaking Cybertronian a pair of vehicons came into the med bay. One was slightly smaller and walking with an obvious limp. The other was a few shades darker and was helping their comrade walk. Knockout looked up at the pair. "What happened to you?" He inquired and motioned for the injured vehicon to sit on another exam table.

"Commander Starscream is in a bad mood." The injured vehicon answered. Knockout rolled his optics and gathered his tools to begin his work as the sparkling looked on curiously. As she did that the darker vehicon took the time to examine the sparkling. He hadn't seen one before having come online comparatively late in the war.

"What where you doing out and about anyway you're supposed to be resting after that incident down at the energon mine." Knockout stated to the vehicon he was working.
"That was designation H4L3Y, I am H4RR1." The 'con answered. The visiting femme raised an optic ridge at the comment curiously. Knockout mumbled something in reply and kept working.
"You there, I33N, you're scheduled for a maintenance scan today." The doctor stated to the slightly dark vehicon as he completed the repairs on H4RR1. Said vehicon looked slightly annoyed at the comment but Knockout had no idea.

"Sir, 133N was deactivated during the last confrontation with the Autobots. My maintenance scan was three solar cycles ago and H4RR1's was last solar cycle." The vehicon stated adding in his comrade's scan as well. He knew that the doctor would ask about it next.
"I knew that." Knockout stated grudgingly as he started to go clean his tool to put away. However a new voice entered the mix and stopped him.

"You've got to be slagging kidding me!" Everyone in the med bay turned to look at the sparkling. "You're their repair technician and you can't even tell them apart!? What sort of tech are you? I'm not even from this planet and even I can tell them apart."

The doctor narrowed his optics at her and a sneer came to his lip plates. "You refuse to speak this whole time and when you do it's to chastise me because I'm too distracted to pay attention to them? You take care of a ship full of drones and see how well you can keep their names straight after a few thousand vorns."

The smaller mech had no idea what a "vorn" was but she wasn't going to let that stop her. "If I had that long then I'm fairly certain that I'd be able to tell my patients apart just by their footsteps! You just don't care enough to actually bother trying."

The latter statement seemed to set something off in Knockout, his optics glowed menacingly. "You have only been here a few solar cycles how dare you question my knowledge of my patients! You don't know anything about me, them or the war we're fighting! I have saved thousands of decepticons both on and off the battlefield and seen thousands more perish. You have no right to speak to me in such a condescending manner!"

"Then you tell me which one is the femme!" The sparkling declared leaving the medic speechless. All optics were on her, even Soundwave had turned around to watch. Knockout just gaped at her before answering.

"All right, you got me there." He stated before turning to the two vehicons. "That's a thing?"

"It is a rare occurrence but it does happen." The undesignated vehicon stated.

Knockout crossed his arms and pouted. "I hate you." While he wasn't addressing any one mechanism in particular it was safe to assume that he was talking to the sparkling. After a moment of silence he glared at the mechanisms still staring at him. "What are you gawking at? Don't you have anything better to do?" With a huff he turned to go busy himself with… something.

The two vehicons hurried out without another word, though the darker one gave the stranger a glance as they left. Not long after that Soundwave picked the femme up and carried her from the med bay. She tried to remember the path they were taking but all the halls were exactly the same and pretty soon she was lost. It was only the fact that she was firmly in Soundwave's hands that she was able to have any direction at all.

"Where are you taking me?" The sparkling demanded only to receive a voice clip of Megatron demanding to see her in reply.

The tyrant in question was standing to one side of the bridge as Soundwave and the sparkling entered. He was reading something on one of the consoles thoroughly ignoring whatever it was Starscream was babbling about this time. He turned when he sensed the communications officer approaching and smiled.

"Ah, so you were successful after all. Set her down Soundwave, I don't want our dear sparkling to feel like she's a prisoner." He gestured to the console. Once Soundwave set her down he smiled warmly at the sparkling, it made Starscream shiver. "Now my dear, what is your name?"

The little femme drew herself up to her full height, all nine feet of it. "I am VPG-Twenty-six-MI-P4."

Starscream scowled, "That doesn't sound very Cybertronian to me."

"Of course not you fool." Megatron snapped, secretly realizing that Starscream was probably right after all. "We're in the middle of a war, sparklings are rare. Would you really want yours to be easily recognized by the enemy?" Starscream pouted and mumbled something too low to hear. Megatron glared at him before turning back to the task at hand. "Where are you from?"

"I am from the planet Chromus. I was minding my own business when a rift opened up and I fell through it." The story was technically true, it was her business to attack Boriella and she was by definition falling once the magus had thrown her into it.

For the shortest of seconds Megatron looked confused but then he understood. "You must mean the anomaly that Soundwave detected right before your sudden appearance on the battlefield. My apologies, by the way, for any undue force used during that time period, our enemies were trying to capture you and in the chaos, poor choices were made." The dictator had nearly slagged Knockout when he inevitably found out that the medic had used his staff on the sparkling but his services were needed at the time so he just barely managed to escape Megatron's wrath.

"If he does it again I will make sure that he will be the one in need of repairs." Twenty-six threatened which made Starscream scoff.

"And just what exactly would you be able to do against someone at least three times your size?"

"Need I remind you of the incident in the repair bay Starscream? For being so much smaller I seemed to be able to damage your shoulder well enough." She declared, narrowing her optics at the air commander.

"What!" He gave a start and Twenty-six had to wonder what his role here was exactly. "How do you know my name already?"

"I'm not stupid it doesn't take a genius to observe that when someone answers to the same word multiple times, it can be assumed that that is their name."

"I knew that! I just didn't realize I had been in Knockout's lab that often." He had been there as often as he could be to ridicule and criticize the good doctor and Soundwave. Whatever was about to be sad next was cut off at Megatron stepped between the two.

"For someone so young you are quite a brave and skilled warrior." Megatron stated smoothly. A flash of realization came to Twenty-six's face and she sneered at the warlord.

"I may be young but I am no child!" She cried in outrage. "Just because yours is a world of giants does not mean that all mechanized life you encounter will be the same size. I am not the tallest of my people but I am not the smallest either. I am a capable adult soldier and you will do well to remember that."

There was a moment of silence as anger smoldered in Megatron's optics, how dare someone speak to him in such a manner. The quiet was broken however by a soft chuckling from Starscream quickly grew into full blown laughter as the second in command realized that he was right all along! Megatron would never hear the end of it now. He back handed Starscream anyway and the seeker slid to a stop a few feet away. "Take her back until I figure out what to do with her." Megatron snarled stepping over Starscream's unconscious body to return to the center of the bridge.
Was hoping to get this up before the end of April but at crunch time there was a crimp in my vacation plans and then a death in the family. Both of which sucked out my muse. It's here now though and I've got a few paragraphs of the next chapter. :3
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