Mitigation, Pt 1 - Smut of the Month
“Ya really outta get away from out o’ the wind,” the Polihexian said. To be fair, he had claimed the best corner of the cavern, an alcove of sorts in the back of the cave, safe from the vicious wind. He had no intention of surrendering it to the Autobot, regardless as to whether or not he might have owed the mech his life, but he was willing to considering sharing it. If the mech said please.
The Autobots’ prized tactician did not answer, and for a moment, Meister bristled. It only took a klik or two for the saboteur to realize that the Praxian was not ignoring him, but rather focused on the boulders blocking the cave’s entrance. Giving up on any conversation, and the mech’s capacity for common sense, Meister sat back, and observed. He liked to watch mechanisms, liked to study them, to figure out what made them tick, and all their strengths and weaknesses. His ‘genitor had taught him to watch, and his origin had taught him how to take advantage. The Polihexian thought he had been an excellent student. Absorbed by whatever he was looking at, the Autobot tactician’s back was plainly exposed. It could have been naivety or carelessness. Prowl, as the Praxian was known, though this could have been an alias, was a desk jockey.
There were stories, amongst the Decepticons, that he was known to spent joors, even mega-cycles at his desk, oblivious to the world around him. They suggested that the mech would be easy to capture, if he was ever unguarded. But the Decepticons and their hired guns had never yet managed to get a digit on the mech, and Meister knew they had tried. Members of the Fellowship had been hired to catch him, just as he himself had been, so far all had failed. Maybe the Decepticons talent might have been fool enough to go for the tactician through his guards, Fellowship assassins were considerably better trained, and yet none had laid a digit on the Praxian, neither had they returned to Polihex to explain their failure. That was why Meister had been given the assignment, because he watched, and he learned and if he could not get close, he would slip off into the darkness, he would not be captured. He had never been captured.
Curiosity peeked, and just maybe thinking two moves a head, the saboteur inched a little beyond his alcove, and just a little to the left. The Praxian’s doorwings shifted ever so slightly. Meister moved again, this time to the right, and again those pretty doorwings followed him. So the tactician was not oblivious, and maybe not so defenceless as Decepticon stories suggested. Sure, any Praxian could have watched him with their doorwings, but it was the way the Autobot moved them that made the Polihexian question those stories. Those movements were smooth, and so precisely, Meister was absolutely certain that this mech was trained.
It then begged the question as to whether or not the mech had been tested, or if he had only ever practised his moves on the training mat. Maybe the Polihexian would find out, maybe he would not. As of right now, all plans for capturing and delivering the tactician were on hold. Rescue was not going to come in the form of Decepticons, it would come in the form of Autobots. Surely they would come for their tactician. One thing was certain, neither the Decepticons nor the Fellowship would come for Meister. So far as the Cons were concerned, the Polihexian was completely indispensable, just hired help, not one of them. And so far as the Fellowship was concerned, if you were captured you were left to your fate, rescues were absolutely forbidden. Which was why Ric was rusting away in some Autobot prison, and why their procreators had lifted no digit to go after him, they knew the code. They would not come for Meister either, though he had no intention of falling into Autobot servos. The nanoklik they blasted open the cave, he would be gone. Maybe he would go home to Polihex, the mission a failure, or maybe he would slip into Iacon and wait for another chance to get his digits on the Praxian.
Those doorwings were scraped up, Meister observed, and he felt a twinge, not of remorse, or guilt but respect. When Prowl had shoved him into the cave when the rocks had begun to rain down, he had risked his life. Why? There had been no mistaking why the saboteur had been there, no mistaking what he was, and yet when the rockslide had begun, rather than push him into it, or simply leaving him to save his own plating, Prowl had pushed him to safety. Why? Meister refused to feel indebted to this mech, refused to feel anything but ambivalence. It was not working. Prowl had intrigued him prior to the Polihexian ever laying optics on the Autobot. Now that he had actually consciously made the decision to rescue him, well now Meister was very intrigued. He wanted to figure out just what was going on in this mech’s infamous processor.
Meister stood, and watched the Praxian’s doorwings shift in response. They were high on the mech’s back, and spread wide, watching the saboteur realized, his every move. He smiled, optics glowing bright behind his opaque visor. Meister did not know why this pleased him so much, but it did. Prowl was worthy, of what the Polihexian would decide later. The smiling never leaving his mouth, Meister strolled over to the Praxian, and the cave’s blocked opening. Those same boulders that had trapped them in the cavern, also blocked out the worst of the wind. There was no question, the cave was painfully cold, but it was not so unbearable out of the wind. While he was reputed to be brilliant, Prowl was not off to the side gap in the boulders, but right in front of it, right in front of the clawing wind.
“Ya really should get outta the wind,” he repeated. “Or are ya already frozen?”
“I believe this vein is dextrodium helite,” the Praxian said, voice soft and rough from the cold. At the naming of the crystal, the saboteur straightened, and without thinking, put himself between the rock and the Autobot. Ignoring the sudden cutting cold as the wind lashed through the narrow opening, and without touching it, he examined the vein of dark blue and gold crystals. He knelt, and looked carefully at the seam.
“I think yer right,” Meister agreed, and he stood and turned to face the Autobot. “Which makes me wonder how the frag we’re still alive. Frag, makes me wonder how this mountain is still standing.”
“I was considering the same question,” Prowl replied. The saboteur shifted his visor’s settings, and took another look at the Praxian, this time in infrared.
“Consider it outta the wind,” the Polihexian declared.
Rather than wait for the other mech to move, he took the tactician by the arm and strong-armed him into the alcove. Though Prowl was not in imminent danger of locking up from his coolant and energon solidifying, he was not far off. One this Meister was certain of, his escape from the Autobots that would come to dig them out once the storm passed depended on having this mech alive and mobile as a shield. Prowl went along with him with out any real resistance. Either the mech had some basic survival programming, or the cold had winded him. It might have been a bit of both. It was odd, but Meister got the impression that the Autobot was choosing to trust him, and he really did not know how to feel about this idea.
“Can ya move yer digits?” He asked. Prowl opened and closed his servos and gave Meister and even look.
“I am fine,” the Praxian said, voice still quiet, and still rough from the cold.
But when the saboteur thought back to the skirmish between the Cons and Bots. He had been laying in wait, intent on bouncing on the tactician when his compatriots had been caught up in the battle. His voice has never taken an excited or panicked tone. When the avalanche had begun Prowl had ordered his troops to run, or find cover, the voice had been commanding, and firm, and without inflection. Now the Polihexian was considerably more than intrigued, and maybe a bit more wary. Decepticon intel had said this was supposed to be the Autobot’s tactician’s first actual deployment. The mech Meister had been watching had not been a rookie officer, and it had not been the first time he had seen a firefight, the Polihexian was willing to bet his life on it.
“If ya say so,” Meister said.
He lowered himself onto the floor. Rescue would be joors, maybe mega-cycles away, and while he had rations in his subspace, there was no point wasting energy. Beside, curling up conserved heat, and with that in processor he pulled a warming blanket from his subspace, and wrapped it around himself. The Autobot watched him for a klik before following his lead. Meister watched the roughed up but still rather attractive doorwings dip so the tactician could toss his own warming blanket over his back. For a while, neither spoke. For his part, the saboteur was debating if owing this mech his life meant Meister should actually just walk away from his assignment, and his best chance of bringing Ric home, or if love and loyalty for his brother was enough to abandon his personal code. It was not a pleasant debate.
“Hold up,” he said at last, and he took a small kit from his subspace. “Looks like yer doors could use some gel.”
“It is only cosmetic damage,” Prowl replied.
Still, he freed his doorwings free of the blanket, and pulled away from the wall. The mech was not wrong, the damage was cosmetic, but the scrapes were deep in spots, and covered a decent chunk of the upper edges of the Praxians doorwings. There were also a few dents that would probably make the Autobot’s fearsome medic annoyed. Meister had neither the experience nor the tools to deal with the dents, but he had a full pot of nanite gel. In silence he applied the gel to the scrapes, applying the thickest layer to the deepest scrapes. At no point did Prowl flinch or tense. Either the rumours of their sensitivity were inflated, or the mech had good self control. It could very well be a bit of both.
“Thanks for savin’ my platin’,” Meister said, and he put the kit back in his subspace. “Why the frag did ya?”
“I have been waiting for you,” the tactician explained. He left the blanket off his doorwings, and let the gel set. “Having you crushed by rockfall would have disrupted my plans.”
“Waitin’ for me,” the Polihexian echoed. “Now just what makes ya think ya know me.”
“I know precisely what you are, Meister,” Prowl stated, deadpan. “Ricochet spoke at length about you.”
“Ya been talkin’ to my brother?” Meister forced himself to keep his tone light, but he was flipping back and forth between a white hot rage, and outright panic. If Ricochet had told the Autobots his designation, it had to have been under duress. He knew the supposedly morally superior Autobots would stooped to torture quick enough, you did not have to look far back in history to see what ugly practices they were capable of. If they had used mnemosurgery on Meister’s brother helms would roll. The Prime’s helm would roll.
“He suggested you would come for him,” the Autobot said, still not breaking optic contact. “Though other agents have come to capture me, all have come independent of each other. None have suggested any intent to rescue a comrade, or voiced any anticipated rescue.”
“Ric’s a bit o’ a chatterbox,” the Polihexian replied. he sat back against the rock wall, and accessed his subspace, and pulled out two cubes of energon. He placed both on the ground between them. Prowl broke optic contact to look at the cubes. As Meister watched, the Praxian reached into his own subspace and withdrew a box. After placing it next to the cubes, he removed the lid and revealed the contents to be copper coloured, braided energon goodies. For some reason they gave Meister a feeling of déjà vu. Cocking his helm, he asked: “Rust sticks?”
“They are my preferred fuel,” Prowl said. The idea that this dour mech had a sweet tooth amused the Polihexian. It reminded him of another mech, another Praxian. That mech would be dead, however. There had been no survivors in central Praxus.
“So ya been talkin’ wit my brother,” Meister said, putting all thoughts of Praxus to the side. The destruction of the city-state had rattled the Fellowship, rattled him. Genocide was something even the assassin cult he had emerged in would never touch. He waited for the tactician to picked whatever cube wanted, and he wondered. Where had Prowl been when Praxus had been wiped off the surface of Cybertron? Where had the Autobots been hiding him?
“He was not tortured,” the Praxian said. Had Prowl been an operative, he would have debated which cube to take at considerable length, knowing one might well be poison. He did not appear to debate the choice at all, and took the cube closest to him, without hesitation. Meister took the other. “Or exposed to any techniques of persuasion. He spoken to me of his own free will.”
“I suppose y’re gonna take credit for sparin’m?” The saboteur asked with a harsh chuckle.
“Hardly,” Prowl replied. “I informed those responsible for such matters that there would be no point. As a member of the Fellowship he would have been thoroughly trained to resist such techniques.”
“How charitable of ya... So what makes ya think we ain’t Cons in disguise?” Meister asked and he took a sip of his cube.
“It you were a Decepticon I would have pushed you into the rocks,” the tactician said, locking his optics on the Polihexian’s visor. “But I know who you are. Ricochet did not say he thought you would rescue him, or speak at all, until I mentioned you by designation.”
“’N just how did ya know my designation?” The Fellowship operative asked.
“You were a particular thorn in my side, for over a vorn,” Prowl replied. “You were successful in a number of thefts. You only failed in the last, an attempt to steal the very Core of Praxus.”
“Ya were an Enforcer,” Meister said. “Frag ya were the Enforcer! Made it too hot to do my job so I had to cancel the rest o’ my contracts... I figured ya were dead.”
“I was able to escape my captives,” the former Enforcer replied. “I reached the Core and the control for our self-defence grid nanokliks before the missiles struck.”
“Frag,” the Polihexian cursed. “Holy frag. They said no one survived in central Praxus. Just a single bitlet in border town.”
“The Core was built well,” Prowl said. “Nonetheless, I was severely damaged. The Autobot medics spent quartexes putting me back together. It was decided for my safety to keep my actually identity a secret.”
“Praefectus Vigilum,” Meister replied. “I didn’t recognize ya. To be fair ya kept yerself from the cameras... Ya kept a box of rust sticks in yer desk.”
“I did,” the Praxian confirmed. “I thought someone had gone through my office.”
“Was hopin’ ya had a code for the elevator layin’ ‘round,” the Fellowship agent explained. “Ya’d be surprised how many mechanisms right their codes down. Ya didn’t, of course. So I went down the shaft. Which ya had booby-trapped.”
“You did not make a second attempt,” Prowl said.
“Nope,” Meister replied, and he outright laughed. “Pay wasn’t good enough to risk it. Ya made Praxus to hot for me, so I cancelled the rest o’ my contracts ‘n moved on. Ya were a real pain in the aft.”
“I would hope you do not expect an apology,” the tactician said.
“Nah,” the Polihexian replied. “Ya did yer job. I did mine. Scales o’ the Gods would say ya were in the right. ‘M sorry for Praxus. Nothin’ like that should ever happened. I didn’t know it was comin’, don’t think my higher ups did either. It should never o’ happened.”
The mech had a good poker face but speaking of his murder city-state had affected him, Meister saw the tells. Prowl’s optics had dimmed slightly, his mandible, and every other cable and component in his frame was drawn taunt. It would have been for any mech to be the sole survivor of his home, it would have been tougher still for the Chief Enforcer of Praxus to survive all the millions he had been meant to safe guard. Meister reached and pulled the Praxian’s blanket over his doorwings, and over his shoulder. The gel must have set by now. He waited in silence for the heat of the warming blanket to permeate Prowl’s frame. After a klik, the former Enforcer lift the cube to his lips, and drank.
“How’d ya figure Ric was my brother,” Meister asked, after a protracted silence.
“You have similar features,” the Praxian explained. “Once you ignore his decals. That similarity could have been dismissed as a matter of framekin, but you have similar accents, similar manners, though . I made an educated guess. He is younger than you.”
“By nine kliks,” the saboteur said. “We’re twins.”
“He nearly had me, but he hesitated,” Prowl revealed. “And allowed me the opportunity to take control, and cuff him.”
“We all got a code o’ our own,” Meister said. “He didn’t like what happened to Praxus. ‘Spose when faced wit it, he wasn’t keen on handin’ the Cons a Praxian.”
“You are having the same internal debate,” the Autobot replied. “I have another option to offer you.”
“Do ya?” the Poliheixan asked. “Just what are ya offerin’?”
“A job,” the Praxian replied.
“’Bots hirin’ assassins now?” The saboteur asked, and he laughed. “That’s different. ‘Fraid we don’t pick our jobs, council hands’em out ‘n I don’t think their takin’ knew customers.”
“I have no desire to hire the Fellowship,” Prowl replied. “I am recruiting operatives for a new unit. Special Operations.”
“Ya want to recruit me into the Autobots,” Meister said. “Are ya outta your helm?”
“I can assure you my processor is in perfect working order,” the tactician replied. “You are particular about your missions, and have a preference towards sabotage rather than assassination. When guards or Enforcers came close, you either outmanoeuvred them, or you restrained them. You did not kill a single mech. I continued to monitor your... career... after you left Praxus. You have maintained the same course.”
“Ya offer Ric a job too?” the Polihexian asked.
“I did,” Prowl confirmed. “He has not made a decision. I believe he is waiting for you.”
“Why in the frag are are ya tryin’ to hire Fellowship mechansism?” Meister asked. He had heard and seen some strange things, but this was a new level of odd.
“The Autobots have historically lacked a skilled division of operatives,” the Praxian explained. He looked straight ahead when he spoke. “Why the Decepticons have been successful in infiltrating Autobot bases, and causing havok, the Autobots have had not adequate response. They have been blind.”
“They mighta saved Praxus if they had the right talent,” the Fellowship agent replied. “They might, ya might save the next city-state if ya can bring in the right mechanisms. Not as crazy as I was thinkin’.”
“At one point the Fellowship was largely independent from the Lord of Polihex,” Prowl said. “Straxus is all but their master now, they are all but Decepticon henchmech, with none of the protection the Decepticons might offer their enlisted.”
“Ya been playin’ a long game,” Meister said. “Does the Prime know ya been usin’ yerself as bait?”
“Prime knows only what he needs too,” the tactician replied. “Consider the offer. It will remain open, even should you choose to make your escape when rescue comes.”
Primes had subjugated Polihex from almost the beginning of recorded history. A mere principality instead of an independent state with full autonomy, it had been agents for passed primes and senates that had originally used the Dead End as a hunting ground. They had stalked the poorest quarter of the principality and had quietly removed any and all those that tried to organize even public protests. Some had been assassins, most had been from the Institute. The senate had been daring enough to take Senator Shockwave of Tarn from the quarter during a visit to Polihex. In private trial they had convicted him of treason and performed Empurata. No one ever had ever revealed what he had been convicted of, and he had been allowed to remain a member of the Senate, something criminals were generally not permitted to do. The mnemosurgery had backfired on Sentinel Prime. Shockwave had not been made agreeable under Empurata. All it had done was strip his morality, and restaint, leaving the rebel senator a cold sparked monster.
Zeta Prime had continued Sentinel Prime’s war on the oppressed, continued on with the New Institute. The mech who now wore the mantle had been one of his followers, though he had not been connected to the Institute, Meister was not charitable towards Optimus Prime. Surely he had inherited his predecessors operatives. Might he have conned Prowl into believing the Autobotos had not known of the Decepticons plans, could he really have done away with the agents of Sentinel, and Zeta. It seemed so unlikely. Being what he was, Meister could not claim much of a moral high ground but he had never kidnapped, mutilated or murder an entire class of mechanisms. Until the slaughter of Praxus, the saboteur had leaned more towards the Decepticons than true Neutral, but the genocide had flipped him on his helm, and he was still trying to find his bearings. He knew he could not turn Prowl over to Darkmount, he respected his former nemesis too much for that. But he could not imagine enlisting in the Autobots.
“’M no Bot,” he said. Neither was he a Decepticon. He was a member of the Fellowship, and he was determined that there was a distinction.
