Fate's Hand - Two

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Beta(s) :

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Requested By : Gib

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Lazerbeak soared high, high above the farthest eastern edges of the continent of Mantle, his optics tuned and focused far, far below. Out here, on the fringes of the continent, was the longest beach of the continent. Rocky and ice-laden, it stretched for kilometers along the curve of the landmass, with little spires of rock spearing up out of the ocean intermittently as the land dipped away. In spite of the clime, the snow here was thin and light, most of the weather kept at by by a range of mountains that started at the edge of the sea to the North and curved around and toward the South, sheltering it from much of the arctic winds and leaving more tundra and rolling, alpine woodlands than any of Mantle's snowfields.

But, his scanners told him, lacking the latent Dust lodes of the region around Mantle, which explained why the city had been built there instead of here.

That didn't mean the stretch of land was vacant, though. Over time, tiny little villages, walled up in concrete or surrounded by palisades, had cropped up. Most of them along the rivers that snaked away from the mountains and out to the sea, which they used to send felled timber down to the coast-line where almost all of the rivers converged into a wide, deep inlet. There was a larger settlement, maybe a quarter Mantle's own size, built up around dozens of large lumber mill complexes. All of it was relatively new, built after the Fall of Atlas at least as part of the rebuilding efforts.

And, after, part of the militarization efforts, thanks to the large drydock that sprawled along the coast to the North of the inlet. Where, even now, Lazerbeak could discern half a dozen warship sized vessels nearing completion. Beyond it, stretching for two and some acres inland, was an airdock where as many airships were also nearing completion.

"An impressive build-up…" He rumbled, compiling photos of the evidence and sending it over for his partner's perusal.

"Indeed." Soundwave answered, "Most of this is new- Built within the last six months."

"Indeed…"

"What is already present was not constructed to use. It was retrofitted." Lazerbeak pointed out, zooming in on unused pulleys and galleys set aside, or in the midst, of other construction assets being applied. "Civilian purpose is the likely origin for much of it. It has since been modified for construction. And the warehouses are not sturdily built. Instead they appear to be-"

"Thrown together." Rumble added shortly, "Improvised?"

"A likely answer." Soundwave agreed, "Which implies that something has changed recently. A motivator must have been introduced…"

"But what?" Lazerbeak asked simply, arcing around in a lazy circle as a few targets registers, high above him and a few kilometers North. Grimm, by his sensors, cross-checked with the lunar base's own long-range scanners. They were moving vaguely towards him, but he was circling over a far likelier target - the lumbering settlement below.

And so, he ignored them.

"What could motivate this sort of reaction?" Soundwave answered, "Mantle's leaders know what they could face. Why risk it so soon after the end of the Revolution?"

"Unknown." Rumble answered quietly, "Unknowable?"

"Nothing is for us." Lazerbeak pointed out simply, "There is a communications hub four point two kilometers West. I can get close and tap the signal, giving you access to-"

"Attack!" Rumble cut him off, "From above!"

He turned instantly, flipping onto his back and spraying fire at the radar contact diving for him from above. The Giant Nevermore spasmed and bucked as the light fire cut into its flesh, bone and through it, into the air above. Another slammed through it, wings tucked against its sides so it shot down like a bullet, claws spread out in front of it like a hawk diving for prey, and his shots didn't end it before it slammed into him. Its claws latched onto his wings and its beak came down, slamming into the side of his head while it went for his eyes and jerked to the side, spinning them over as he continued firing into its chest.

The third contact, then, slammed down into his back, claws digging into his plating as his chest mounted auto-blaster finally killed the first.

"Soundwave!" He barked as its beak came down, digging into a joint in an attempt to disable one of his wings while he fought to recover and stay high enough to avoid attention from below. "Space Bridge! Now!"

"Acknowledged." His partner answers, with zero hesitation for the energy intensive nature of his demand, or the chance someone below could see the flash - which was non-zero, even with the clouds and bright sun backlighting him.

The warp in space and time appeared below and ahead of him in a swirl of color and light, sucking clouds in from nearby like tendrils of vapor, and he yanked them towards it.

As soon as he emerged through it he rolled over and came down, bringing his weight down on the Nevermore to break its claws with the solid surface the wall offered. It squawked and he rolled over, spreading his wings and snarling as it recovered and did the same, quills flicking, ready for lethal launch-

Before a blast of violet fury slammed into its side, ripping it in half and sending the smoking remains tumbling away.

Soundwave lowered his blaster and set it aside as Lazerbeak lowered his wings and the larger 'Bot came over, kneeling over him and asking, quietly, "Are you damaged?"

"Nothing serious." He reassured the other 'Bot, letting him run his hands and optics over the scratches, dents and scrapes regardless. He had always been the worrying type. But, more importantly, he said, "The Grimm did not aim to kill me."

"They did not?" He rumbled, "Could have fooled me. Your plating is damaged. And one of your servos-"

"I am fine, Soundwave." He chuckled, shaking his head and turning as he registered motion at the entrance - and small motion, at that. As the woman stepped around the corner he sighed and bowed his head gently, "Ruby Rose."

"It's just Ruby, you doof." She sighed, pacing into the room with Crescent Rose's rifle form slung across her chest. Watching the Grimm fade away, she turned to them and asked, "You alright, LB?"

"LB…?"

"She-"

"Lazerbeak is such a long naaaaame!" The girl cut in, grinning when Lazerbeak just sighed sufferingly. As she reached them, stepping carefully widely around Soundwave's kneeling form to stand where both could see her, she pursed her lips and asked. "Are you… Okay?"

"I am undamaged."

"He is most definitely not." Soundwave grunted agitatedly, tapping a finger at the base of his neck chidingly. He scoffed and Soundwave sighed and stood, rumbling quietly, "I will repair what I am able to and replace what I am not."

"It is not necessary…"

"I disagree." Soundwave rumbled, pausing and asking, quietly, "Will you permit me?"

"Of course." He nodded, turning and fluttering up, over Ruby, and in a wide circle to land on Soundwave's shoulder. Settling down, he held fast as Soundwave knelt and offered his small, squishier friend a spot in her hand and then stood, holding her in his palm in front of his chest as they left the room.

As they made their way through the halls, Ruby asked, quietly, "You, uh… Take good care of each other. Right?"

"Of course."

"We are partners." Soundwave answered as well, "I am larger than any of them and, as such, it falls to me to protect them. They in turn aid me as well. And we all care for each other."

"Sounds like a family…"

"The word may be used to refer to us." Lazerbeak nodded, once he'd conferred with them and taken their answers. Looking down to meet Ruby's gaze, he explained with a shrug of his small shoulders, "We are not related, but…"

"Family isn't just blood." She chuckled and shook her head, explaining when he cocked his own. "Sorry, I just thought 'wait they don't have blood' and it made me giggle."

"I see." Lazerbeak shook his head, "Ever the odd one, you are."

"I am who I am. S'how I'm built, ya know?" She shrugged, falling quiet, suddenly, and staring off into space for a long time. A habit she had fallen into a lot, of late. Worryingly so, and not just in his opinion. This time, though, she actually spoke instead of brushing it off with a laugh and a joke. "Soundwave… You're a spy, right?"

"Intelligence. Officer." He rumbled wearily, "But go on."

"If I… If I wanted to get in touch with someone in Mantle… Could you do it?"

"Who?" Soundwave asked, coming to a stop and lifting her up to he and Lazerbeak's level. "Why?"

"Because…" She sighed and shrunk in on herself, just a bit, before she finally, embarrassed somehow, said. "Penny."

"The traitor-"

"S-She's not a traitor!" Ruby suddenly shouted, cutting off Soundwave so sharply, and glaring up at him so hotly, that he and Lazerbeak both flinched as surprise echoed back and forth across their psychic link. Pursing her lips, she said, "Someone made her do that! I could tell! And she said she was trying to save me!"

"Ruby…" Lazerbeak murmured, "She brought Grimm to attack you. As well as enemies intent on destroying Beacon itself."

"I… I know." She sighed, shaking her head and looking away. "But she… I mean, we…" Finally, she turned back to him, face firm and hard, almost commanding, even, and said, "What we had was real, Soundwave. And I trust her when she said this wasn't what she wanted, and she was trying to protect me."

"Ruby…" He turned, meeting his partner's gaze, and a lot was communicated between them in the look. Psychically and otherwise - they had known each other long enough to read even the gentle waves of emotion and thought radiating off each other.

Finally, Soundwave turned to her and asked, "What will you do after?"

"I… Dunno." The young woman admitted simply, "But… Depending on what she says, I want to help her. Save her."

"A war is coming." Soundwave warned her, after a micro-cycle of bouncing the idea of telling her about it between the lot of them.

"A…" He saw her eyes widen, just a bit, before they narrowed again. And hardened. Nodding, she said, "Even more important to do this now, then. Before… Before that happens. Who knows, maybe we can… Maybe we can even stop it, somehow?"

"That…"

"Is a thin hope, Ruby Rose." Soundwave finished for him, ignoring the way she pouted, just a bit, at the words. Turning, he gestured at Lazerbeak with a nod and a look, and said, "However, you accepted our companions without hesitation. Their nature, their reasoning- Who they, we, are. As such, I will agree to attempt this."

"You will?" Ruby smiled, bright and wide, bouncing where she stood. "Thank you!"

"Just do not pin all of your hopes on us to prevent this war." Soundwave warned her, "We do not know its cause and, as such, can not hope to truly attempt to forestall it."

"All we can do is try." Ruby shrugged, "That's what heroes do, right?"

"We are not heroes." Lazerbeak said, shaking his head and sighing. "We are soldiers."

"Does that mean any different?" Ruby asked, raising an eyebrow and cocking her head, "I mean… You can still only try your hardest to do what you think is right, right? And that's what this is. What's right."

For a long moment, Soundwave stood, silent as the grave. And Lazerbeak felt… Things rolling off of him. A touch of amusement, and a touch of deep, buried pain - and anger - dredged up by the woman's words. But, after a moment, he relaxed, dismissed the emotions and the thoughts they pulled up from the depths of his mind, and nodded.

"Indeed." He answered quietly, "All we can do is what we believe to be right."

"Yeah…" Ruby nodded slowly, astute enough to have noticed even the slight pause, and how still he had gone.

"We must speak to Shockwave." He rumbled, turning sharply and heading around another turn.

He found him in his laboratory, the very same one he had nursed Summer Rose's health in for so long. One wall was still fully stocked by the rotary micro-greenhouses, albeit with new modules. Each of these were twice as long as the average Human, and most of them were stocked with edible fungi and various crops. But some, almost half, were stocked with an altered strain of fern, which had been tailor made to provide the base with ample fresh oxygen. Deep violet, they were bioluminescent, sourced, in part, from a series of deep-sea plants who over-produced oxygen as part of a symbiotic cycle to sustain small sub-ecosystems of life, fueled by the excess oxygen it bled off.

Through the same wall, bridged by a dozen doors throughout the greenhouse structures and one at the floor level, he and Shockwave had built a thin layer of hab-units. Which housed-

"Come on, Shockwave!" Sienna called from where she was standing, leaning on a railing under the violet plants and watching the Cybetronian work at a large, disassembled sort of rifle. "Take a break already!"

"Breaks are unnecessary, and a detriment to my work."

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!"

"I am not a-" Shockwave stilled as Soundwave stepped into the room, his spines flicking as his sensors attenuated to him. And to Ruby. Finally, he turned, resting his cannon on the table as he met Soundwave's gaze. "Soundwave. What do you require?"

"I require nothing." He answered, lifting Ruby up and paying her a nod as she waved nervously. "However, Ruby requires a powerful communications suite which can extend my psychic connection and allow me to connect into Mantle's internal communications network."

Shockwave paused for a moment, considering it, and flicked Ruby a look before rumbling, understandingly, "The gynoid."

"Indeed." Soundwave nodded, lowering her once more, "Lazerbeak and Rumble can infiltrate to place a broadcaster-relay to facilitate contact."

"A dangerous proposal…"

"Indeed." Soundwave nodded, "But-"

"We have to!" Ruby cut in, leaning on the tip of one of Soundwave's fingers when he raised it warily to keep her from falling. Shaking her head, she said, "She… Needs me! And I need your help, so… Please."

"Very well." Shockwave answered, turning and ignoring Ruby's surprised squeak as Soundwave moved over, and he reassembled the weapon to set it aside. Quietly, he rumbled, "We begin…"

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Penny sat in her maintenance berth, watching the video playing on the wall-mounted terminal while she recharged. It was a simple video - simply going through the layers of the eye, how it functioned, and how it connected into the brain. But, owing to the reason why she was studying the material, it was so much harder to watch. So much harder to process and internalize into her databanks…

So painful.

Suddenly, from nowhere, she felt a distant… Pain, sort of, in her head and shot up, pressing a hand against the side of her pseudo-skull. Before she could react further, though, a simple message produced itself, appearing in her vision like a systems update or a message from her father.

'Hey. Are you okay? ~ Ruby.'

She blinked, slowly, and sent a return message, 'Ruby is in Vale, and cannot access any communications network capable of facilitating contact with me. Who is this? What do you want?'

A couple minutes passed and a new message came through, just as she was about to reach out to her father about the breach. Rather than text, she received an image - of Ruby sitting in a metal chair of some sort, smiling nervously and forelit by the screen, holding up a data-display of some soft that was as large as her chest that read. 'It's me, you dork. Are you okay?'

Penny blinked…

And would have cried, if she'd been built properly to do so. After a second, she managed to collect herself and sent back, 'I am fine. How are you possibly managing to connect to my internal network?'

'I asked Shockwave for help.' She sent back, 'No biggie. He and my mom are friends.'

And now Penny paused for a wholly different reason, and then asked, 'How could your mom possibly be friend with one of, if not the, most dangerous being on the planet, Ruby?'

'Long story. Doesn't matter.' Ruby answered, 'You haven't answered my question. Are you okay?'

And Penny paused one, final time, as she weighed her options. It was still feasible this was some trick or trap, some test laid by her Mistress to check her loyalty… But her heart told her it wasn't. And she missed Ruby enough to risk it. So…

She explained everything she knew.

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"I will tell you nothing!" The battered, vaguely beetle-like, form of the exhausted Cybertronian snarled from where he lay, at the foot of her keep where the Grimm pools bubbled. Her magic flared, tendrils of rock and dust warping out to twine around his body, binding his arms and legs and strangling around his throat as he was hoisted up. Snarling, he said, "Do your worst, witch!"

"As you wish." She smiled, more than merely bored by now of the obdurate automaton. Lifting herself up, she leaned into his face, eyes narrowing, and said, "But recall… You chose this."

"What-" Before he could finish, she turned and flicked her hand, hurling him away.

And into one of the inky black pools of ruinous ichor, where he bellowed in agony for the shortest moment before, like anything else would have been, he was dragged under. She sighed, displeased by the waste that her prisoner had ended up being, and turned for home. But stopped when she heard a gently, sloshing sound.

Turning, she watched a hand, warped and ruined by the pool, inky black crawling across it and trailing rust, emerged from the pool. Watching, she saw the Cybertronian halt itself out, shuddering and twitching as it stood, listless, beside the pool. Inky black slithered under its plates, trailing rust and a tell-tale white and once-blue eyes glowed a dull red as they turned to her, blinking lazily. On a bemused whim, she reached out with her power of compulsion and…

Nothing.

Growling, she bellowed, "Kneel to me!"

And, after a moment, she felt the connection. A new pressure on the back of her mind, pressing in and making her hiss as she was forced to admit the intrusive feeling. But, after another moment, the pain receded. And the creature knelt, dropping onto a knee so hard that it sent tremors through the ground around her, head bowed in front of her.

Smiling, she purred, "Perfect…"

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Random Guy :

There's always one… One thing auto-correct and grammar check SOMEHOW MISS.

Rohan Vos :

Glad you enjoy it so much! Hope you've liked his arc.

Poofy Ohio :

I mean… If you consider her backstory, here AND in canon, you can probably guess her reasoning. But if I go into her Cyberising (if it happens *eyebrow wiggle*) I will establish her why.

Lea Rosenwulf :

What could possibly prevent another war, though? Against the forces arrayed? An army defeats the point of prevention, and short of oblideration they only have one thing… And that's to Trust Love.

Sorry, corny.

I may be implying some White Knight without realising lol.