| abstract
| - The North Central States encompass most of the Great Plains as well as the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. The Great Plains isn't just endless fields of grain in Nebraska and Iowa, it also includes the towering buttes of the Dakotas and the fertile river valleys that crisscross Missouri and Kansas as well. The Midwest is broad, clear horizons, a land of gently rolling landscape punctuated by rivers, woods, and trees. The Great Lakes states contain not only the huge metropolitan centers like Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis but big swatches of forest and lakeshore to the north, with gorgeous scenic drives along the Lakes and the tall bluffs of the Ohio river valleys. Arachnae Earthquake Generator Ohio Detroit Planet Junkion Restaraunt Obvious exits: North leads to Western Provinces - Canada. South leads to South Central States. Southeast leads to Southeastern States. Southwest leads to Southwestern States. East leads to Middle Atlantic States. West leads to Northwestern States. Fly Illinois Blades is in a hole, in the middle of New Madrid, Missouri. The local police have taped off the whole softball arena with crime scene tape. The EDC and the Autobots have been notified, but no one has come out to claim the Protectobot yet. It's been sometime since the air has been felt thick with humidity, rendolant with the fragrance of aerosolized concrete, the landscape seen filtered with the flash and pop of monochromatic lights signaling danger and distress. What was it that drew her here? Snippits of newscasts mentioning destruction couldn't have done it, the Earth is rife with destruction on a daily basis. Perhaps it was the style, the action, or.. the failure. Yes, the failure has drawn her out, scattered memories of other earthquakes warring with a lazy here-now flash. Inky, indigo wings cup the air, shifting and flexing, emerald optics touched with gold peer downwards, expresionlessly viewing the debris, the crater, the ebb and flow of humanity faced with. failure. Something niggling at the back of her slowly rebooting concious eggs her downwards, that slight glint of red, the dust covered white drawing her closer. She lands, wings snapping inwards, ignoring any localized life, attention focused on the crater-dwelling Blades like a hawk focuses on a rabbit Blades isn't actually unconscious. He's just very close to it. He tried to make it back to base and then... ended up falling back in the hole again, sprawled out, and staring up at the sky as the days change. Arachnae emits a thoughtful hmm, padding closer to the crater, drawng around her frame a torn, ragged length of canvas, sand drifing out of folds. Talons pull and tuck the material with practiced ease, the movements perchance obscuring any alliance emblems present before local populance notice. Thusly clad, fabric traiing like some desert dweller, she moves closer to Blades, optics glowing. Blades vaguely sees that something has moved into the area, and he slurrs, "'s dangerous here. You should stay... away." Arachnae crouches down now, reaching out to give the Protectabot a gentle poke with talons, expression now quizzical. Dusty, dry, crackling, she speaks haltingly, tone bereft of inflection, echoing slightly as if vocoder has suffered damage that has not repaired, hollow, "Have I broken you yet?" Pause, "Or are you one I do not break?" Puzzled frown, talons flashing as she moves to inspect Blades. "You.." Optics shimmer gold, "Are broken." Okay. So. A capey Sweep-thing that is very blurry is crouching over Blades and poking him. Blades is normally pretty fearless, but he is absolutely a wreck. he tries his radio, and... that's not working too well right now. "You didn't >krz< break me, but yeah, I'm broken. What's it >vriz<, to you?" Arachnae scoots closer, talons retracting as she moves to inspect Blades as he doesn't appear to be in any state to leave. A panel in her forearm opens, a readout igniting. "System engram re-coding paused. Initiating medical initiatives." populates the screen. Optics shift emerald and she frowns, "Primary directives are to repair the damaged." Brow raises, "You are familiar. And I.. need clarification. Therefor.. You will come with me." "Uh. Don't think I'm doing that, sweetheart," Blades blusters, but... can he actually stop her? Probably not. But never let a Decepticon take you to the second location! Hot Spot always teaches that to human children. Arachnae smiles crookedly yet gently. "Medics can overide a lot of authority, did you know that?" Delighted tone to her voice, "Now now, don't be that way. I'll take *good* care of you." Wings spanning outwards as she reaches to scoop Blades up, unwilling bride or no. "Do not fret, I'm an *excellent* medic." Blades is definitely going to fret. "Hng. First Aid is going to kill me..." He tries to climb away from Arachnae, but he's just too broken up. He cannot escape. It's the easy patients that end up causing the most trouble. But that rule will be remembered after more memories have been de-fragged. "I won't let him. My patient, my rules." Settles Blades in her arms, slowly standing with wings fully unfurling. TIghtening her grip, "DOn't make me sedate you." Pause, concern etching across her feeatures, "Oh! Do you need a sedative? Are you uncomfortable? I have quite the array of medicinal injectables to alliviate pain." "OH PRIMUS NO. NO! I DON'T NEED A SEDATIVE!" Blades shouts, squirming. "Leaking Pit, are you Air Raid in disguise? Are you punking me?!" Air Raid always want to sedate Blades, and Blades does not know why. Arachnae snaps her head back, the yelling a bit offensive, "Very well then. Cease with the fretting or else I *will* sedate you, then." Shifting before she leaps into the air. Blades...actually shuts up and stops moving. He just slumps. He's defeated. A Decepticon is carrying him off, and he's never going to see the other Protectobots again. He tries his radio again. Arachnae soars upwards and towards her hiding hole. Sahara here we come. Long-vanished, versatile water, the shaper of these caves, not only excavated this huge cavern but provided the decoration, too. Setting tiny crystals of minerals one upon another, the slowly moving liquid crafted an eerie gallery of sculpture whose variety and beauty is breathtaking. While time has crumbled most the stalactites, the sides of the cavern still display delicate ripples of petrified calcite, lightly tinted with red bands from iron impurities. Nestled in lower corners like the cobwebs they strongly resemble, are weblike formations of calcite that had been deposited in cracks of a weaker stone that has long since worn away. All this has been here, untouched, for millions and millions of years, even outdating some of the alien robot visitors to this planet. Arachnae Tunnel Blades is continually thinking about how to turn the tables here. Being unable to engage is combat is a stopping block for the Protectobot, though. It's what he does best and his go-to solution for all problems. Maybe he can play Scheherazade? Ahh, the dry desert. The deep wadi's whisper and echo with the winds above, the soft silken rasp of sand eternally shifting, even singing to itself in low, echoing rumbles. Down, down into the sands, steps the indigo femme with her cargo, weaving through a labrynth of wind carved tunnels, side-stepping through spaces that, at first glance would seem to lead to nowhere. Once the movement is done, the soft singing of sand remains a background tone, but the antichamber opens into a sparse space. There isn't much in the way of decoration, cables strung from point to point in a corner, woven into a hammock of sorts with more plastieel woven into what appears to have been a cocoon or stasis chamber. Crates are neatly stacked with planks across several as a makeshift work surface and it is to this Arachnae takes Blades, gently setting him down on the clean surface. "There there." Blades is laid out. He stares up at the ceiling, because he can barely move. After a long moment, he asks, "So... who are you thinking I am, anyway? You seem kind of out of it." Arachnae pads towards one of the crates, wings shuffling back underneath the canvas she's wrapped in. "Patience. I know I have..." poking at a crate, then another, "Ahh.. Yes.. I remember now." Half turning to peer at Blades over her shoulder, merry smile on her face, voice light and airy, "Why, You're Blades. Are you having memory problems, sir?" Spring in her step tempered with an air of skitishness. "I can repair you. I assure you that I've recieved the highest honors at the academy for my methodology in applying field standard appliances to intensice care situations." "...yeah, I'm Blades," the Protectobot admits warily. "And you are... Arachnae, right?" How many female Sweep-things out there can there be. "I'm not having memory problems." Arachnae hums, pulling a crate over and punching a few buttons. The top unfolds, trays petaling outwards like some strange, medical rose. "Arachnae." Pause, considering, "Yes, I do belive I am, sir." Wings cease twitching, going inert for the time being. She turns, tapping an injector, "Now.. Policy dictates a mild cocktail before intensive repairs are performed. This. is a personal favorite." Merry smile. Blades has to wonder why a Decepticon is calling him 'sir'. Is this a sick game for her? Probably. "Uh. Don't drug me. I've got... pretty good pain tolerance." If he's not drugged, he can maybe get away... from this unknown location and... do what? His tailboom and cockpit are both busted. He can't fly. Arachnae studies Blades a moment, a brief flash of pity crossing her features before the chipper smile returns, "As you wish sir." Injector set aside, "Rebuilding that boom isn't going to feel well but if you're collecting mech-points with the other lads, I'm not going to interrupt your game." Boom, boom.. Turning to rummage into another crate, dusty with age, some russian glyphs on it. "Hmm.. This should work with some calibration but I will need to do a more in depth scan." Optics flickering gold briefly then back to green and an older scanner is pulled off of one of the petal-trays. Dust is blown off of the protective covering before it's unsealed and booted. "Ahh, factory fresh. I do so like brand new scanners, noone elses scans, data corrupting the engrams and affecting paradigm shifts. I can set my own personal calibration preferences, store patient notes and plan neural engram recryption protocols." She gives the scanner a fond pat, freezing a moment before shaking her head and aiming it at Blades, "Lets see what's wrong, shall we?" Blades actually does have a calibration problem with his optic-to-body coordination. In simpler words, his aim is off. Months ago, he had a programmed installed in his head to track how he moves. It has gathered plenty of data by now. Someone just needs to check the record and update Blades's default settings. "Kiiinda wish you wouldn't..." But he can't stop her. Arachnae hmmms, studying the scanner readout. "Not sure I like how the gamma wave activity is synchonizing with the alpha band here." Fingertips type over the device, recalibrating a scan and she aims it again, "There.. we go... Much more. Ooh.." Head tilt and she reviews the scan and then studies the wreck that is Blades. "Now now, it's my duty to repair. Don't fear." She leans in and stage whispers, "I was a medic before I joined so, vorn ahead of these trite, newly minted, freshly programmed *drones*." Tone sliding amused, "You're in great hands." She flexes fingers and picks up a welder, "Now, stay still, this *will* hurt, I'm afraid." Leaning in, she begins the structural re-formation for Blades cockpit, "By the way, were you aware that your optical variance to neural interface is dissonant. I suspect it is causing physical discrepancies in how well you perform with anything aimed." Pause as the scanner beeps again, "I'm downloading the snooper program the scan picked up to see what can be done to rectify this. Can't have the empires finest not at their best." she chirps. "Empire's... finest?" Blades asks slowly, voice reeking of incredulity. There is definitely something wrong with this Decepticon, more wrong than usual. It does hurt. Blades does not move much, because he can't move much. He just has too much internet damage. He does emit a low, "Hng," though, in pain. "If you're saying I can't shoot for slag, you can suck your own exhaust. Stabbing is better, anyway!" he blusters. Arachnae hmms softly, working the welder as delicatly as she can. "Of course.." Trailing off, optics glitteirng gold, "Are you sure you wouldn't like a paralytic or anything to lower the tactile sensory input? It does make this go smoother and they are short acting." Welder is set aside, talons snicker-snack out and are studied. "Hmm, pizeolelectrical..." Trailing off a moment and then hands go into Blades, talosn being used as arc welding points for some of the finer work. "I am stating a scannable fact, Blades. There is a dissonance between optics calibration levels and how you are processing that input. There is a snooper program that shold be downloaded shortly that, if I am reading the header correctly, has been monitoring input and ouputs. It should be a simple calibration but I *will* need to paralyze you prior to poking into your neural matrix." "Go back to that Empire's Finest part," Blades demands, awfully bossy for a scared Autobot on a slab. There's a hisses as he cycles air for coolant. he tries, deliberately, to twitch his fingers, and there's... not much movement. "What makes you think I'm not already paralyzed?" It's true, what she says about the program. He remembers having the program added. He feels "Pit no" about a Decepticon messing with his head and his body that way. Arachnae slowly withdraws her hands while 'stictching' panels into place with small *zots* of electricity. "Because I haven't given you anything. However." Glancing at the scanner, "Your level of damage could cause a temporary state of immobility. Useful, but it can't be counted on." Shaking her hands to clear off bits and globs of Blades internal bits. Half turning, she picks up an empty injector cylender and starts drawing in various substances from ampules. "Medical override, can't have any patient get off my table without being the best they can be.." Smile shading crooked, "Besides, it's just a tiny adjustment. No harm, no foul." Tone sliding crafty. "And what about, Empires Finest? Aren't we all?" Pause as she stares off, blinking. A shake of her head, "Where were we?" Arachnae blows air out of her intakes with a soft series of puffs, "Earth.. Sounds like a communicable disease. Who names a place E-arth.." A shake of her head as she pads about the makeshift operating table, attention going to the bad boom areas. "I have just the thing for this." Bits from the russian marked crate are pulled out and the welder returns to play. "Earth.. Huh.. why does that sound..." trailing off, optics shading gold, memory engrams catching up slowly but surely. Combat: Arachnae expertly repairs Blades's injuries. Combat: Arachnae is able to repair some of Blades's internal systems damage. Combat: Arachnae runs a diagnostic check on Blades "I didn't name the place!" Blades says, defensively. He would throws his arms in the air if they were working. He debates with himself. Should he tell her that the humans are their friends? Or will that make her turn on him? "We're... allies. With some of the locals. They're little, but there's a lot of them." Blades deadpans, "You're not much for experimentation on the unwilling, huh?" Sure could have fooled Blades! What with kidnapping him to an unknown location and repairing him against his wishes while he can't move. "Aaaanyway, sometimes they give us energon in exchange for protection." Arachnae snaps out of it and smiles down at Blades. "That's an excellent exchange. If they are smaller, protecting them shouldn't be too strenuous." She smooths out the last seam, reaching across Blades to tap the scanner for a rescan. "Lets see how these hold. Now.." She pulls the injector up, taps it, "A tiny sting, a few moments of immobility and we'll get that dissonance sorted out." Yeah, the irony isn't apparant at the moment to the slightly befuddled medic. "Once thats sorted and you go through a reinitialization, I can see what fuel they ahve stored in here and then release you to whatever it is you combative sorts do when not breaking things." "...I play softball, sometimes," Blades says faintly, feeling absurd. It surprises him that Arachnae thinks that protecting humans in exchange for energon is an excellent idea. It *is* a good idea, Blades thinks, but he wouldn't have expected a Decepticon to agree! But they're military goods, mostly, aren't they? Blades sure was. It's nice to fulfill one's function. If the Decepticons would just be military by protecting people, rather than conquering them... It's a pipe dream. But now Blades really is immobile. His fingertips won't twitch. Arachnae gently pats the now paralyzed Blades on the shoulder, "You'll have to explain that to me later, Blades." Hand lifts, travels up and then rests on his head briefly. She studies the now unpacked data from the snooper program Blades had running. "Now.. All I need is..." Turning to her tray, she picks up a slender tool with a wispy end, "This.. and.." Studying the display, "aaand this." picking up another oddly tuned tool. "Now, you may feel an odd pressure inside your cranium." She starts to delicatly open up Blades' head. "Aaand your optics just may feel as if they're goingt o erupt out of your face under their own rocket power." Now she warns of side effects, "But it will be over momentarily. It will take just under a day or so.." pause.. frown, "Day?.. Day.. until your optics show the full chromatic spectrum again. The resynchronization will be complete before the chrimatics return but I do advise caution. Some of those seeker frames are colour tetchy if you get their names wrong.. So colour sensitive..." Blades actually whimpers brokenly, "...turn off my voicebox." And then there's a pause. "Please." Because he knows that he's going to scream. A Decepticon has him paralyzed, he doesn't know where he is, and she's going to be in his head. "I - I'll explain softball. Later. Just. Please." He doesn't want to scream in front of her. Arachnae wings give a twitch and she holds her own head for a moment, softly hissing. A hiccuped venting of air and she gives a nod, talon-tips moving to shut off Blades vocoder, "I won't let the others know that you were unsettled. I'd be unsettled too, in your place." -Click- no screaming for Blades, well, not externally. She gives wings a shake, then leans in to begin the work of delicatly altering the harmonies between Blades optical pickups and his abiity to translate that into positional relativity with his external surroundings. "Just.. a little bit longer..." Blades hates himself, here and now. He hates his own weakness, so obvious that even Arachnae is calling him on it. He hates being here. He hates how *stupid* he is, that he keeps ending up in these positions. At least Solstice got clear, he thinks. There's that pressure she warned about, and it's building with rapid force. He starts to see stars. Arachnae picks up the second tool with one hand, the other using the scanner on a magnify setting, twitching neural cables as fine as spider silk out of tiny knots behind Blades optics. She's watching the scanner to match the readings the snooper had given, not wanting to push the envelope of what is needed. There, physically sorted, now to trigger the synchronization sequence. "Brace yourself.. Pain is coming." A tiny, miniscule, microscopic pulse of energy emits from the tool-tip, feeding into first the left optics pathways, then moved to pulse into the right, triggering the sensory systems to override, then shut down and from there, come back slowly, with, hopedully, the new changes firmly in plae. Pain comes like one of Torque's punches to the back of Blades's head. his whole vision explodes in stars of every colour - stars which promptly die and fade to grey, and then here's just nothingness, no sensation of vision at all, just the claustropbic feeling of being trapped in a coffin made of his own body, immobile and buried. There's nothing left but the pain, which feels like it will never, ever stop. Arachnae watches the scanner closely while gently closing up the surgical site. It shows the highly charged pathways, reflecting the discomfort in shades of plum and wine. She rests a hand on Blades' shoulder, murmuring, "Hold on in there. You're not alone, it will stop." Wings rustle, almost in harmony with the rising sound of the singng sand drumming through the rocks. Blades feels like his optics are going to dribble out of his face like wax candles. But his radio is working! But the only thing he is up to doing with his radio is curse at absolutely everything. Arachnae continues to monitor the screen, optics flickering green and gold, the indigo femme humming softly as.. withought his vocoder, all she can count on is the scanner to know when the process is over and to turn his systems back on. "Soon, Blades, soon." softly spoken, velvety, near whisper. "I'm remembering more, you see. Now I *know* I'm missing things, but I don't know what I'm missing. It is.. an interesting conundrum." Talon-tips travel and flick, shunting power back into his vocoder, "Scream if you must, but I think we need to talk." "Ooooow, blast me backwards and bifurcate my swashplate," Blades curses, moaning in pain. Arachnae winces, giving the readout a lookover, "It should ebb." Snagging an injector, dialing a combo into it and giving Blades something to at least make the stabby more of a throbbing. "That will help." Puzzled frown. Blades's optics boot back up, and he can't see colour. Just great! He stutters, head throbbing, "I - I - you want to talk? Get me walking. I'll walk and talk. Movement, to distract me from the pain." Arachnae hrms, "Yes.. Just.. talk. I'll admit to being very confused as to what. exactly is going on right now." Putting together a cocktail to counteract the paralytic and pausing prior to injecting, "You pull any mechly slag on me and I'll slap the back of your head so fast, you'll think before was a loving massage, ner vod." Injecting Blades with yet another delightful chemical concoction. The injector is set aside and she offers her hand. Blades takes her hand - thinking, for a moment, about if he could flip her - probably not. He gets up. He's woozy, but he's on his feet. Blades does a weapons systems check, silently, and a transform check, equally silently. Is he armed? Can he transform? "Yeah, I noticed that you don't know what planet you're on, too well, and you seem to have forgotten..." ...what Blades did. Arachnae lets go of the hand after Blades is on his feet, backing up a few meters and standing nervously, on the tips of her peds. Wing shift behind her and she swats at a panel, shoving it back, "$@#$" Chuff then stare at Blades, "I know that this place, from the note I left myself, is or was a safe haven. I belive the resonances from the sand singing around aids in preventing in depth scans from locating. But I digress." Optics narrow, "You're very familiar in both a bad and a worse way. I know I'm missing something important and I also know from what my internals are reporting, that I have quite a qhile before everything finishes recompiling. Something about a safety measure, tampering and enemies." Optics narrow even thinner, "You're not my aru'e are you?" "I was a Combaticon. I served Onslaught," Blades says flatly. He paces around, trying to get used to walking again. Not seeing in colour is weird. He tries stretching. "Combaticons had to be control-chipped, at one point. Not something I really want to talk about. You look kinda like a Sweep. One of Scourge's special troops. Unicronians tend to be a lot higher on the ladder than disobedient mercenaries." "But I said I'd tell you about softball, didn't I? It's a game. A sport. You play it on a field shaped like a diamond." "Onslaught's an aft." Flat tone, waspish. She shadow paces, keeping the exact same distance from Blades as he moves around. "I didn't like that program. It was stupid and I wrote a report about it." Pausing to rub her helm, "Funny enough, it's one of the memory engrams that has recently been parsed. It would appear that I've lost a lot of bits over the eons." Optics flicker gold, "I.. have no idea what that is. Sweep.. Or who Scourge is.. For now." Arachnae maintans the distance, "You did." Curiousity lightening her tone. "But you also didn't tell me if we are enemies or no." "I'm saying that it's all political and above my paygrade," Blades says flippantly. "Back in 2005 - it's 2035 now, by the way, Megatron and some other Decepticons got chucked out a shuttle. They met a Transformer the size of planet, called Unicron. Unicron turned 'em into new people. Megatron became Galvatron. I dunno who Scourge used to be, but he's a ferocious hunter tracker. Real big wig. The Sweeps are his special agents. But aaaanyway, if Onslaught's with the Empire today, yeah, sure, we're on the same team. If Onslaught's throwing one of his pity parties, I may be persona non grata around Imperial Bases today." Blades shrugs. "I was out for a while." Arachnae huhs, head tilting to observe Blades. "How are the optics? Monochromatic I'd guess but resolutions should be on the higher end." Pause to absently start to tidy the work area, all the while watching Blades warily. "And just where would this base be, on this planet you've named Earth with the wee natives that we call ally?" Optics remain gold, "Care to lead me there?" "Greyscale, yeah. Anyway, we stowed Trypticon somewhere near the South Pole. I can show you if you want," Blades says brightly! He doesn't know exactly where Trypticon is, but a plan is forming in his head. "Oh, and then, in softball, you got someone, in the middle, who throws a ball, and someone at a point on the diamond, with a bat, who hits the ball." Arachnae hmms, picking up the med scanner and tucking it away in a side panel."That'd be delightful. However." Optics flicker emerald, "I'm going to have to blindfold you to lead you out of here. Per my notes, this is a hidden place of safety and either you submit or.. well." Frown and she dusts her hands togehter, Well, I'd dislike any violence to occur, that isn't my primary function at all. Please. She extends a length of darkly dyed canvas. "It's only until we're out of the area..." "Okay," Blades agrees, with regards to the blindfold. It doesn't look hard to get off in a hurry, and if it gets him out of here... he'll do it! Arachnae pads closer, those multipaneled wings flicking and shifting behind her, "Alright then." She waits for Blades to tie it on then reaches out to put her hand on his shoulder, "Walk next to me, it's a winding path." And so Blades follows her out. Despite his plan, it's actually the weather that gets him. He just doesn't handle well in high winds, so he ends up excusing in uncool fashion, "I think... Onslaught wants me for a mission... in Carbombya. But you keep going South, to the Pole, Okay? Trypticon's down there. Can't miss him." She may actually get very lost, but the other Decepticons will probably find her. Arachnae leads Blades out to the desert and then some, away from her lair. "Wouldn't dream of interrupting your mission for Afthat." Absently while staring at the sky. "Thank you, Blades. Let me know how the optic reintegration goes and if there is an issue, call me." Optics flicker gold then slowly shade to emerald. "K'oyacyi!" <hr> <p> Blades shows up, looking sheepish, "...uh, so Solstice and I were out playing softball for charity? In New Madrid, Missouri. Carjack and Blast Off showed up and made some weirdo earthquakes? Solstice scared them off, we evacuated the humans, and I feel in a hole." </p> <p> "So, uh, good job, Solstice." </p> <p> "And then this Decepticon, Arachnae, found me, and uh... mistook me for a Decepticon, so she repaired me. Then I claimed that Onslaught needed me in Carbombya, and I ran away." </p> <p> "I had some EDC techs check me for bugs in Egypt. I should be okay. My colour vision isn't working, but it'll come back in a day or so, I'm told. I'm relying on the rest of you to tell me which Seekers I am stabbing!" </p>
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