re_alignment_logs | Wake to find the pain is real [Narrative and OPEN]

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Wake to find the pain is real [Narrative and OPEN]

WHO: Thundercracker and OPEN
WHERE: ALL. OVER. HAVEN.
WHEN: This afternoon shortly after this post and well into tonight...or whenever either he runs out of energy or someone talks him down. 9,9
WHAT: BLOWIN'. SHIT. UP. ...aka grieving Decepticon coping the only way he knows how...which is to say, not at all. orz
WARNINGS: Uh...well, besides RAEGY Seeker? Probably a lot of cursing, Cybertronian-style . . . property damage (but not to anything anyone owns [unless you WANT him to hit it by accident??]) . . . angst in general?
NOTES: He'll be airborne for the most part, but if someone radios him or just flags him down, especially someone he knows in the latter case, he'll respond and land.

No . . . NO! That wasn't real! That HADN'T BEEN REAL!

So why had it happened anyway!?

. . .

It was like waking from a nightmare only to find it had been a premonition of sorts. A premonition that came true, at least in part. The most important part.

The nightmare had been of everything being ripped from him - from his home through his freedom and all the way down to his very dignity. Even now he remembered the abuses and the tortures, the degradations, the humiliation of the auction blocks and the agony of electro-whips across his wings. But there'd always been one constant - his surviving wingmate, Skywarp. And then he too had been taken, and Thundercracker had been left alone. That had been - or at least felt like - the last straw in his sanity.

Reality was that . . . well, he supposed he could see it as a slavery of sorts. He'd served someone he didn't want to but in some ways at least felt he had no choice. He did, of course, but . . . lesser of evils and all that. Vos had still been destroyed forever ago, but at least not in the same way, and both of his wingmates had survived, alive and as free as any Decepticon who served closely under Megatron. And then he'd come here . . . and he'd been alone. But he'd been free in ways he'd not known for so long that it took him months to figure out what to do with himself. Slowly, he'd managed to make friends, and joined the police force, and . . . and life had been good. But there'd always been something missing. His trine. There was a Starscream here, but they'd never really managed to bond - the other Seeker was busy with other people and things and it had just not really happened. And Skywarp wasn't here.

Until suddenly he was.

Thundercracker had been ecstatic. Even after realizing the mech wasn't "his" Skywarp but one from another reality, the similarities had been enough. He had his wingmate back. Thundercracker had flown with Wing a few times, and had appreciated and enjoyed it, but nothing replaced having another Seeker at his wingtip . . . and no other Seeker - Pit, not even Starscream - could replace Skywarp.

Thundercracker had been here for over a year now. Well over. And Skywarp had been here for most of that time. Though he'd never admit to it, Thundercracker was a somewhat dependent mech. He needed purpose and validation in his life, and found those in the things he did and the people he did them with. It was one of the biggest reasons he'd finally applied to the police force. But people had a greater influence on him in validating his existence, and no one moreso than Skywarp.

Then that . . . that utter nightmare had hit, and arguably nothing - nothing at all - in Thundercracker's entire life had ever left him so shaken, feeling vulnerable and violated and just plain terrified - of what could have been . . . of what, in a sense, had been. As soon as he'd been himself again - his real self, thank you very much! - he'd gone looking for Skywarp. For so many reasons. To assure himself that his wingmate really was all right - was alive, whole, unbeaten, unbroken. To validate himself. To . . . fraggit, to have someone to talk to about what had happened! To try to work through his own reactions and feelings. To tell him he was being stupid for letting it upset him so badly.

But Skywarp wasn't there.

Thundercracker had posted to the Link once he was himself. Skywarp never answered. Thundercracker went looking . . . looked everywhere, checked all his haunts, continued to ping him, checked the bar at the Hub and every medbay in Haven. Checked his room in Megatronus's temple.

Nothing. Nowhere. No sign, no reply, no Seeker.

Skywarp was gone. As suddenly as he had been in the nightmare.

For Thundercracker, fear manifested as anger . . . uncertainty manifested as anger . . . depression manifested as anger . . . grief manifested as anger . . . feelings of abandonment, of betrayal, of...pretty much anything, manifested as anger. Any two of those could send him into a rage, though always before he'd had to bottle it up, to hide and deny it until it passed, for fear of crossing Megatron.

Here and now? Here he didn't have to hide it, bottle it, deny it. And now, all of the above were coming into play. Alone, they'd have been bad enough, but on the heels of the nightmare he'd just endured? Intolerable! And what did it all mix and boil into to manifest?

Pure . . . unadulterated . . . blinding . . . fury. A fury with no target, no enemy, no outlet. Not one he could reach, anyway.

So he's creating them.

Thundercracker is out and about, racing and strafing all over Haven, making as much noise and spreading as much random (mostly random) destruction as he can. The sonic BOOMS that are his namesake can be heard for tens of miles. His turbines rattle windows as he flies too close - far too close - to buildings of all shapes and sizes. His rifles tear into mountainsides, random boulders, the surface of the lake in Alpha Trion's quadrant, and across long tracts of land. He's not doing damage to anything that belongs to anyone (that he's aware of) - he's retaining enough presence of mind for that at least - but that's about it.

Everything else is fair game.

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Megatron saw the destruction, and who exactly was doing it. He had no doubt that Thundercracker had his reasons, but he did not like, nor accept what the flyer was doing.

With some calculations he brought himself up straight into Thundercracker's flightpath, not so close that they were sure to collide but more than enough that the flyer couldn't deny his presence there.

"Thundercracker, land, now."

Thundercracker snarled as he twisted to avoid the other craft. It took him a moment, working through the haze of grief-induced rage, to even recognize who it was. When he did, his flight wavered, wings wobbling a little. Another brief hesitation, another choked snarl . . . and he banked sharply, diving groundward.

He shouldn't have been doing what he was doing. Even at his worst, he knew that. But until that moment of recognition, he'd Just. Not. Cared. But then, suddenly -

Megatron.

And not just any Megatron. That Megatron. The negative polarity one. The one he not only got along with, respected, but actively wanted proud of him.

He transformed mere meters from the ground, landing on his feet . . . and collapsing instantly to his knees, curled over into a submissive pose, but stiff - body rigid, wings high, fingers digging into the rocky earth under his hands. His optics were bright, his body trembling, and his fans rattled loudly with the stress of running too hard, far too hard to be healthy.

Megatron followed him down, glad that the flyer had listen to him, and transformed as he landed, making the action seem soft. He stepped closer to the flyer before sinking down himself and placing a hand on the other's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, my friend. I noticed your message but did not consider that you might need a friendly audio to let out your pain to. Or at least I think I am right in thinking that it is pain that prompted these actions." He kept his voice soft and gentle as he spoke, trying to let the flyer know he wasn't upset at him.

The touch gets a flinch, as if Thundercracker was expecting the hand to hurt him. his subconscious was, wound up and braced for it. The softness, the understanding . . . they're too much for the grieving Seeker to take. In a sense, he would have preferred if Megatron had been angry - it would have given him something to fight against. The gentleness is almost cruel. The wall between the last of his control and the maelstrom is as thin as soap film, and his lord's words shatter it. With a staticky keen, he collapses the rest of the way, curling into a winged ball.

"He's gone. He's gone! They tortured and broke him and he was broken and it was my fault and then they took him away and he was gone and my fault too, only it was all just a nightmare, but now it's over, but now he's gone again."

The words spilled out in a confused jumble. He didn't want to think about it, but it's all he can think about, and he just wanted the pain to stop but he didn't know how.

He reached out and pulled the flyer towards him, trying to offer him some comfort. "I'm sorry Thundercracker.

This world may seem like a paradise in some ways, away from the wars... but it's not as nice as it seems. I know it's hard, and I'm sorry, but I'm here for you." He could remember Soundwave and what the mech had been through, and nothing seemed right about how it had happened and then later he had left. He did his best to be soothing towards the flyer, without trying to quiet him, let the mech talk or rage, or rail against a comforting force, something that he can wear out the unhappiness against. That was what Megatron wanted to be for him at this moment.

Thundercracker resisted at first, but . . . before he knew what he was doing, he found himself shifting to CLING to Megatron, tucking into the other mech. He wants to growl at the words, argue them, but all that will come out is broken keening.

"T-that . . . other Seeker . . . t-that other . . . m-me . . . he . . . " He shook his head, unable to quite bring himself to put to words all that the other mech had been through in his life, everything he had put Thundercracker through in memories too fresh and raw and horrific. And Skywarp... "T-they took him . . . fraggers took him from me! A-and they killed him . . . tortured and k-killed him . . . " Shudders wrack him from remembered horrors - memories that weren't his, but forever now might as well be. The last came out soft, questionable if he were even aware of speaking the words aloud.

"I-I...I don't...know what to do. I don't know what to do anymore..."

Surprised as he was by the sudden switch Megatron held the flyer closer, one arm curled around him to keep him close and the other giving soft, soothing strokes down the area of the flyer's wings that overlapped his back.

He waited as Thundercracker spoke, listening and taking it in. He had been so deeply entrenched in his own things that he had missed a large portion of what had happened around haven of late, but he wasn't about to point that out to Thundercracker at a time like this. It only resolved his intention to stay more aware of things in the future.

"What do you want to do?" He asked, looking concerned as he shifted to try to look the flyer in the face. "What does your em... spark, tell you will make things hurt less?"

Thundercracker would be mortified, angry at himself for his weakness, if he let himself think about what he's doing, clinging to someone like a frightened sparkling. Which was . . . why he wasn't letting himself think about it. Right now, he just . . . he needed the comfort of an embrace stronger than his, for someone to tell him he wasn't broken, wasn't going insane, someone to give him focus and guidance since on his own he'd spiraled so far out of control.

He shifted back a bit, glancing briefly to meet the optics trying to catch his before his head ducked in shame. At least he was quieter as he answered. "I-I don't know, my lord. I'm . . . I'm sorry." For his behavior, for his rage, for his . . . his failure to cope and handle this on his own.

"It is alright not to know, Thundercracker." He answered, realizing he had something he needed to make sure the flyer understood first and foremost. "It's alright to be lost amid the things that are happening. It's aright to feel rage and sadness when things become confusing beyond order. You don't need to have the answers right now, but think on them, and give yourself time."

He kept a hold of the flyer, not yet ready himself to let him go, wanting to offer as much comfort as he possibly could.

     He'd seen the notice belatedly on the Link, and even though he didn't know who Skywarp was, Ventus knew what it was like when the friends you made here suddenly just weren't there anymore. He didn't know what to say, or what he could say, but regardless he was saved the trouble of deciding due to the thundering sound that seemed to vibrate down to his core. Having been by the lakeside as he often was, the sudden spatter of water as shots from the Seeker shattered its surface had Ventus ducking out of reflex.

     "That was..." He lifted his head, staring after the form of the jet as it quickly shrunk into the distance. Wrong, something was wrong. The boy got to his feet, his keyblade summoning into his free hand as he started towards the lake's edge. He flung Wayward Wind into the air, leaping as though he'd jump into the water itself, his feet firmly planting upon the glider as it formed in a glow of light. Leaning forward, he urged it to speed up.

     He wouldn't catch up, he knew he couldn't with how fast Thundercracker was going, much less how much of a head start he'd gotten, but with how erratic his flight was, Ventus didn't think he should be left unchecked.

     "Thundercracker-!" he shouted into his communicator, even as he tried to keep a visual on the Seeker's position. "Thundercracker, stop! What is it? What's wrong?"

As he passed over the lake, Thundercracker had vaguely noted Ventus's presence - noted...and dismissed. The boy wasn't in danger, that was all he'd been capable of processing at the time, otherwise ignoring him for the time being and moving on.

A few minutes later, and he heard the boy's voice break through his consciousness over the comm. It took him a moment to reply, to even manage to formulate any kind of answer, and even once he did, his voice was broken with static.

"He's gone. Ventus, he's gone! They tortured and broke him and he was broken and it was my fault and then they took him away and he was gone and my fault too, only it was all just a nightmare, but now it's over, but now he's gone again."

The words spilled out in a confused jumble. He didn't want to think about it, but it's all he can think about, and he just wanted the pain to stop but he didn't know how.

     Thundercracker didn't need to mention any names- he already had earlier. The voice Ventus heard now and the one that had earlier announced Skywarp's disappearance were completely different, but how Thundercracker was acting now, everything he said, it was enough for the boy to realize just how badly the sudden absence of the other Seeker had affected him.

     Ventus kept on course, gripping his Link tightly as he listened to Thundercracker speak. While it was a relief that he'd answered at all, the obvious pain from his tone tore at the young keyblade wielder.

     "...I'm sorry, Thundercracker. I'm sorry he's gone. I wish I knew why, but I don't...and... I know that it's hard, but doing this won't make him come back...!"

     Had he ever felt like that? So upset that he didn't care what he did, or where he went? He couldn't remember, but at the very least he knew that he didn't want his friend hurting himself from his recklessness.

Thundercracker had been arcing around a mountain peek, but at that, he banked even more sharply, heading straight for the rocky slope. At last minute, he pulled up his nosecone, ailerons flaring, and transformed. He half-landed, half-crashed feet first against the slope, collapsing into a crouch as he looked up at Ventus. He looked like a wounded and cornered animal, face twisted in a grief-induced snarl.

"THEN WHAT WILL!?"

His optics brightened at his own outburst, and he shuddered, collapsing in on himself.

The answer was 'nothing' and he knew it.

     Ventus made way immediately for where the Seeker had landed. It was an odd reverse of situation, considering he was usually the one looking up at Thundercracker. He hovered above, brows knitting as he looked helplessly down at him.

     "I..."

     Slowly, Ventus descended, hopping off of his glider to the ground in front of the Decepticon. He stepped closer towards Thundercracker, hand reaching out towards him.

     "...I wish I could give you an answer... I wish I could explain why anyone vanished, or knew for sure where they've gone but I can't!"

Thundercracker listened to the soft, familiar hum of the Keyblade-glider, heard the boy's feet hit the ground. He looked up at the feel of . . . of his friend's hand on his shin armor.

He needed to remind himself that he had more friends now than the one he'd just lost.

The Seeker's optics are dark with emotion, a maelstrom of reactions spinning through his mind and spark. "Poeple leave . . . I get that . . . I get that . . . but why Skywarp? And why now?"

He's not really looking for answers - he knows there aren't any, not really. He just . . . he needs to vent, needs to rant.

He needs to be heard.

     Often Ventus wondered that the large robots could feel things like that. He let his hand rest flat against the cool metal, and he looked up at Thundercracker's face, flinching at the questions as he lowered his head.

     They were difficult questions to hear, let alone answer. The boy didn't have the answers, even though he wished he did. They were questions he could have asked, but he never did. He knew that sometimes others left, but he always hoped that they'd gone home. It was easier to accept that way, if only by a little.

     But it was also denying the pain he felt in knowing that some of those he'd drawn close to in this place were people he might never see again. Slowly, Ventus stepped closer beside Thundercracker, leaning against him.

Thundercracker fairly vibrated with the pain-induced rage spinning through him. He wanted to lash out, to destroy, to hurt, to kill . . . !

No . . . no, he didn't. Not that last. Not even the second to last. Not really. I've been a Decepticon for too long. I've let myself… lose myself for too long. He'd long grown sick of seeing innocents hurt and killed, and coming here, he'd vowed he would never do it again.

Ventus leaned against his shin armor, and he remembered the Badlands, and trying to protect the boy, take care of him when he'd been wounded . . . wounded because he had failed.

Just like he'd failed now.

If asked, he couldn't have said exactly what or how he'd failed, but without that focusing question, he just "knew" that he had. With a burst of static from his vocalizer, the energy suddenly drained from him and he curled in on himself, wings sagged low and slack behind his shoulders. He tucked his face to his raised knee, pressed into one hand, the other curling around the young human pressed to his leg, "hugging" him in a sense. With a shudder, a long, low keening, staticky and sparkbroken, sounded from him.

     Ventus would never blame Thundercracker for failure. What had happened out there in the Badlands had been beyond their control, and while things could have been much worse, they had been spared such. He was glad that they had made it back at all, even if not in the best of shape.

     He hadn't expected the gesture to be reciprocated. It didn't seem like robots were very familiar with hugs, but then someone his size would probably be crushed if it was. While it might have been a daunting thing to find a large metal hand moving so close towards you, Ventus felt at ease, and even safe where he was. He couldn't hug a robot very well, but he did the best he could where he was.

     The sound that Thundercracker emitted was the saddest sound he'd ever heard. It echoed with the sadness that he still felt from those he knew who had disappeared from the Haven.

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Wake to find the pain is real [Narrative and OPEN]

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Placeholder tag till you're back from hiatus. <3

<333

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