Terror of the skies? NOT TODAY APPARENTLY

[notyourblueangel]

WHO: Thundercracker and whoever decides to visit
WHERE: One of the medbays
WHEN: Backdated to during and just after the Air Show
WHAT: Convalescing.  And complaining.  Mostly in silence.  ...mostly.
WARNINGS: Irritable Seeker being irritable?
NOTES: It's too late in my mind to get into the air show log (hiatuses suck like that sometimes 9,9), but TC would have been there.  If he could.  So here's why he wasn't.  Anyone wanna come try to cheer up Mr. Cranky McJetpants?  8D



As the humans would say, this sucked.  This sucked filthy, Empty tailpipe!  He knew he should have had that rotor in his left compressor looked at.  He'd been putting it off, believing his auto-repair system would heal it.  Not that there weren't enough medics around - not that he felt there weren't ones he could trust - but there weren't that many materials around.  He was not about to get groused out of a medbay for wasting someone's time complaining about something that would correct itself.  So he'd been biding his time.

Then it came time to practice for the air show.  He'd had his routine down.  He'd even been compensating for the intermittent rotor.  Then came the last practice the day before the show.  A series of complex loops and barrel rolls.  And the rotor seized on him!  At exactly the wrong moment for him to be able to compensate in any way.  Because of his angle, speed, and altitude (or lack of) at that exact instant, he didn't just fall out of the sky.

He'd plowed himself into the ground.  With extreme prejudice.

His wings had both been rent and twisted, his nosecone collapsed nearly into his canopy and his upright tailfin mangled and laying over almost parallel with the ground.  He'd been unable to transform back to root-mode until medics had carted him off to a medbay to hammer out and unbind his compacted components.

Much of the damage had been repaired.  The rest, his ARS would have to deal with.  He had no idea how long that would take.  It'd already been too long!

Why did he feel like he could hear Skywarp and Starscream - both Starscreams - laughing at him from here?  And Frenzy.  Pit, he'd never hear the end of this.  Maybe he could just beat the little slagger into scraps, remind him why he should fear a Seeker.  Except . . . then he'd have Megatronus on his tailfin.

Pit, this sucked.

Comments

[notyourblueangel]

If Thundercracker had been about to comment to any of that, it was lost at least for a moment in the shock of fizzy sweet. He choked a bit - more out of surprise than anything - and gave the can a sideways glance before turning that dubious look on Skywarp.

"What is this? Where'd you get it?" The tone is less accusation and more simple BZUH!?

[warp]

"Huh? This?" He held up the can in question as if there was something else Thundercracker could've asked about and then shrugged. "The junk pile. Those little glowing bugs led me to a whole pallet of it. It's kinda similar to somethin' from home, though I didn't get the chance to taste it much."

Skywarp huffed and took a swallow, annoyed mostly because the ride in Sky-Lynx before they'd gotten him under control hadn't been pleasant and Starscream was seldom excellent company. At least the glitch had been able to entertain himself by being the leader of their little group, and while he was obnoxious, he wasn't bad at it.

[notyourblueangel]

"Glow bugs again, huh?  Yeah, Ravage was by earlier and said he'd followed bugs to something too."  Thundercracker nodded at the basket of bulbs on the table by the bed.

  He looked at the can again before taking another drink, this time enjoying the unusual taste and texture.  "Like something from home, huh?  Hm.  Tell me about it?"

[warp]

"Uh-huh." Skywarp agreed with a muffed hum as he drank and then looked to the basket, eyeing it for a second before reaching out and snatching one - though he didn't break it. Yet, at least, rather just turned it around in his hands.

"What, 'bout Cybertron? Or stuff that happened?" Skywarp glanced up from examining the bulb and shrugged, continuing before Thundercracker could get a word in to perhaps explain what he meant. "That'd be a lot, but I guess... Apparently after we left and crashed on Earth, Cybertron finally ran outta energon. The whole planet shut down and everything, even everybody who was on it!"

There was an honest, open grimace that briefly fluttered over Skywarp's faceplates before he turned it into a sneer and shrugged, wings flicking.

"Kinda glad we weren't there for that, 'cause y'know, stasis from bein' knocked unconcious is really different from no energy. Anyway, somehow Shockwave woke up on Cybertron a while before we were woken up on Earth and I guess that stasis and bein' alone until he started to wake other people up got to him 'cause he thought he could actually win against Megatron." There was a pause, and Skywarp shrugged.

"I mean, he did. Walloped him but good, but he came back, y'know? And apparently Cybertron shuttin' down was this natural process or some slag, 'cause now there's energon everywhere again." And the Autobots had Cybertron, typically.

[notyourblueangel]

Thundercracker had meant the drink and the circumstances around it that had made Skywarp grimace like he had, but he didn't try to correct the mech, listening intently. The parts about Shockwave got raised browridges.

"Shockwave? Tried to overthrow Megatron? Pit . . . " He was having a hard time getting his processor to accept that. "Things were hard back on Cybertron between us crashing and waking back up again, and I'm sure there are those who shut down, but it wasn't planet-wide for my Timestream. Shockwave was conscious for all of it, Grand Steward of Cybertron or some slag . . . but he's still Megatron's loyal-to-a-sickening-fault Shockwave."

He frowned. "My Cybertron hasn't recovered, though. I'm . . . not sure it ever will." The last came out quiet and morose.

[warp]

"Yup. Never thought I'd see that 'cause he's usually more careful than Starscream, but he technically had a whole planet behind him and said it was all 'logical' that he take over." Snorting, Skywarp used actual air quotes around 'logical', one of the things he had picked up during their not-insignificant stay on Earth.

It was a useful thing, okay.

"Didn't run outta energon completely, then?" He might have continued, but the 'title' Thundercracker gave Shockwave made him burst out in laughter, shaking his helm before he straightened up again. "Don't say never, I mean, if ya can just get it goin' again... or, I suppose get the converted stuff in enough quantity?"

He paused, rubbing the side of his helm with a shrug. The details of what did or did not make Cybertron run, or how it worked in general, was of course not something anyone really knew, and even if they did, Skywarp wouldn't be one among them.

"Maybe it just ain't gotten bad enough for it to go through whatever natural regeneration cycle it has." Optimism!

[notyourblueangel]

Thundercracker raised a browridge at the use of the very human gesture, but he didn't say anything. Much as he might not want to admit it, he knew he'd picked up a few "bad habits" himself.

"Nnn, maybe. I know the Autobots managed to dredge up a handful of power rods from Primus-only-knows-where shortly before the ships launched. So I guess there's a still a store of energon somewhere." He huffed in general irritation. "We keep trying to gather enough converted energon to take back to Cybertron, but the Autobots keep managing to run us off more times than not. If we don't wind up being sabotaged from the inside out that is, between Megatron's blinding arrogance and frequent shortsightedness and Starscream's impulsive ambitions."

He flinched faintly, glancing around on habit. He was speaking too freely, at least about Megatron. Not to Skywarp – it was because it was Skywarp that he was speaking freely in the first place – but the fact they were in an unsecure room in the medbay. Anyone could overhear him. But there was no one in the vicinity, not that he could see or hear. And Soundwave wasn't even on the planet. The Seeker allowed himself to relax again.

"Anyway, we'll manage sooner or later, I'm sure. It's just a matter of time, like it's been with everything." That seemed the best he could hope for, anyway.

[warp]

"'Course they are, it's not like we're reliving the humans of the energy in ways that're particularly nice or respectful is it?" Skywarp said with a laugh and an easy shrug.

It wasn't like he cared that they weren't being "respectful" or what the slag ever.

"Y'know, though, half the time Megatron was more concerned with wallopin' Prime, I think. Not that that was much of an issue unless we were raiding for supplies other than energy, really." Because energy after the first year or so hadn't been an issue.

[notyourblueangel]

Thundercracker nodded.  If the fleshlings would just get out of the way, no one would be hurt, and not like they couldn't produce more – they seemed to have limitless methods for creating energy, after all (something he'd long thought they should have just duplicated to produce their own . . . but of course Starscream would never listen to him, and he didn't dare take the thought directly to Megatron).

  He snorted at the last.  "Yeah, I think he would have shorted himself out from shock if he ever actually managed to take out Prime, and then he'd have been lost because he no longer had his dearest goal to keep looking forward to."  Not so much perhaps the other Megatrons like those who were here, but sometimes – now that he could sit back and really look at things – his own warlord at least seemed just . . . ridiculously petty and shortsighted.  He shook his head with a sigh.  "Sometimes I'm just really glad to be here, you know?  Instead of still fragging with . . ." He waved a vague hand.  "All of that."

[warp]

If they could do that, that'd be for the best, but it wasn't as if they hadn't worked around the squishy things so far.

"I'd rather be home," Skywarp said with a grimace, turning the can in his hands over a few times and then, with a shrug, tossed it behind him and looked back up at Thundercracker. "Yours was really... like that? I think Megatron would rather Prime see things his way, but if he had to kill him dead to get what he wanted, he'd do that too."

Leaning back in his seat, thrusters resting on the edge of Thundercracker's berth, arms crossed and looking up at the ceiling, Skywarp snorted. Megatron had gotten way too obsessed yeah, but Earth hadn't helped.

So small, so limited, even if it had interesting weather and nice skies.

"Might not matter now though, since he's probably dead." Skywarp wasn't sure he was, with the amount of times he'd come back, but maybe this time would actually be the one.

[notyourblueangel]

"Home" for Thundercracker didn't really hold much appeal these days, not like it would have in the past.  For so, so many reasons.

  Thundercracker hid a faint grin at the tossed can, thinking of a good half-dozen medics who'd fuss about it.  Not that he cared, himself.  He shrugged.  "Unfortunately . . . yes, he's really like that."  The last got a quirked browridge in question.  "Yeah?  What happened?"

[warp]

Not that Skywarp would've cared if they were present to fuss, but since no one was... even less reason to care!

"Oh, Shockwave appeared on Earth, beat the slag outta him and then when we were on the way back to Cybertron Starscream took advantage and shot him out into space or something." Shrugging, Skywarp sniggered. "Apparently Rumble and Frenzy almost got lost in space as well. Wouldn't that have ticked off Soundwave!"

Starscream ought to have been more careful, because if the squirts had been dragged out, well. He'd deserved whatever he got.