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Scorponok fluttered a little in the port he was ensconced in as something pinged on his sensors to the side of the alley they were in. Blaster slowed some, aware it was not the safest place to be, but also curious. He initiated a full link between himself and his symbiont, so that he could process the data directly, just as Soundwave had taught him to.
::Earth metals. Primitively processed fuels.::
::Which would have to be the Autobot,:: Blaster extrapolated. ::Is he plotting against us?:: Even as Blaster asked it, he knew he had a responsibility here. If the Autobot was here to cripple the High Command, Blaster needed to take him into custody. If he was not… then the Autobot might be in trouble and Blaster would need to rescue him, as Megatron himself had vouched for Ratchet's safety to the Prime on Mars.
::Allies?:: Scorponok suggested, knowing his partner was still young and not fully upgraded.
Blaster's recklessly happy emotions in the link squashed that notion, and the symbiont readied himself to protect this partner at any and all costs.
`~`~`~`~`
Ratchet re-purposed a lot of his energies into systems he had already sharpened over the course of the war. His audial processing was keen, able to hear the least frequency of energy humming in a mech's system. So it was that he could barely make out sounds of the two constructor-mechs grumbling and talking out in the passageways. Snippets of words like 'explosives' and 'temple' made Ratchet's energon freeze in his tubes. He had caught on fast that Megatron's obsessive nature had fixated on the temple he had built over the location of the AllSpark's former location. If an Autobot attack happened there, Megatron would declare the truce over, without a doubt, and right now he had the numbers in his favor.
He had to figure out how to get free, how to warn Megatron. His communication array was out; the back-up system was far too short-range for him to reach the Slag-maker, or the rust-bit. On top of that, he felt like he had to personally stop this, to not only represent Optimus's commitment to peace, but to try and shield his fellow Autobots from the fall out of any attempted attack.
He'd never be able to face Ironhide if he didn't manage to keep Chromia from being destroyed. The entire situation with the femmes had always been a sticky mess of diplomacy and alliance. When Elita One had offered, as leader of her class, to bond with Optimus Prime, none of his cohort could have guessed that the political liaison would become something more, something deeper. And not a one of them had ever expected the crusty old mech that Ironhide was to turn into a new-sparked mech in his first relationship over Elita's lieutenant.
Like Seekers, the femmes had unusual abilities and complex cultural structures that left them outside the main society. And, like the Seekers, they were far more suited to warfare than many on the Autobot side of things. Ratchet had helped Ironhide secure the bond he sought with Chromia both out of love for his partner, and out of the sheer pragmatic need to insure the femmes were fully on their side of the war.
The sounds outside his prison died away, and Ratchet quickly started working on getting out of the prison. No sooner had he managed to cut an access panel to the controls for the door than that pits-taken portal slid right open, and he found himself staring at a Decepticon mechling backed up by the arachnid symbiont. For a brief instant, Ratchet resented the mechling, as its designation came to mind, and he remembered the original Blaster he had known. That was pushed aside, as Ratchet let the full designation glyph roll in over the top of the emotion, distinguishing this one from the lost Autobot commander. In fact, it helped Ratchet focus on peace more, as Blaster's glyph signified that he had been named for Soundwave's honored enemy.
"Do you want to extinguish Megatron?" Blaster asked the medic, his weaponry visible and charged, same as Scorponok's.
"Frequently," Ratchet snarled. "But not when peace hinges on him staying functional!" The flick of intrusion was fended off easily enough, before Ratchet just cocked his helm at the young mech. "Soundie never told you that medics are harder to hack than any other mech? Well, get used to it." He flipped into his alt form, glad that the terrain favored wheels over hover cushions. "Keep up with me, rust-bit! We've got to stop the war from exploding open again!"
Blaster's faceplates split into a wide grin at the thought of getting involved in something bigger than minding command's communications.
`~`~`~`~`
"He's in there," Grimlock growled softly. "Finally…" His optics pulsed with a tinge of red, remembering his lost mates, destroyed because of Megatron's war. Chromia laid a hand on his arm, warning him to keep his control.
"Pipes and Swerve are in position. It took a little more time to blind the drones on surveillance, but the explosives are ready." She felt her spark cycle, tumbling over Ratchet's revelations, his questions, and she had to force herself to remember Elita's broken frame, had to remember the nightmare of existence she had faced when the Junkions had salvaged that base.
They had remade her out of their own desires, but she had escaped them, had found Grimlock, and come to Cybertron. Both of them had been on a moon when the Space Bridge had firmly destroyed all hope for Cybertron, or so they thought. Evading the Decepticons was second nature, and they had made it to the surface with unformed plans of revenge. Meeting up with Pipes and Swerve, two of the few constructors who had never gone over, had helped them begin planning. Their covert operation was about to pay off, and then there would be justice.
"Megatron gets slagged today," she told her partner, herself, and pushed the whispers of Ratchet's words away.