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Post by Mirage on Nov 9, 2010 1:28:35 GMT -5
Mirage starts when Sentinel taps hims on the shoulder, but Mirage doesn't immediately look up or answer. Even after Rodimus arrives and addresses him, Mirage still takes several moments to raise his head. It takes him that long just to regain his composure, but the face he finally turns first on Sentinel, then on Rodimus is relatively calm, almost detached.
The only way Mirage is going to make it through the next several minutes is by separating himself mentally from the situation. It's a handy trick used by hunters to keep themselves from becoming too attached to their prey. It isn't healthy, but it is handy.
"I can manage all right Sentinel," he says, voice as calm and detached as his expression as he draws his legs up to his chest and wraps his arms around his knees, " but thank you."
He shutters his optics as Hound dies, and draws in a shuddering breath before speaking to Rodimus.
"Hound accused me of killing him, Rodimus, and of being a Decepticon."
"I would like to request an examination of whatever of his final memories may be intact. I know that is borderline ghoulish, but- I would never do something like that. It can't be my Hound. I need to know it isn't."
OOC: as an aside, I do not ship Hound/Mirage. I actually detest Hound/Mirage. But there is canon support of their being friends, and that I do like.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Nov 9, 2010 1:55:04 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime looks away when Hound dies and spends a good long moment staring at the floor, as he thinks about how should he be reacting to this situation. He finally takes a look at some of the others for visual cues.
"'Can' is not the same thing is 'want'," Sentinel Prime mutters, low and only intended for Mirage, but with Rodimus Prime's heightened awareness of things, he just might pick up on it. Anyway, Sentinel Prime would know.
Still, he allows Mirage his pride, because he'd want to be allowed his pride, were that him. Sentinel Prime straightens, and he backs away, standing at attention and saluting Rodimus Prime before he falls back to his watch post.
Clearly, the mood of the day is not to heap recriminations upon Mirage. If Perceptor and Rodimus Prime were casting stones, Sentinel Prime'd cast stones. There's nothing like shunning an outcast to firmly establish oneself as a member of the in crowd. However, condemning someone who has even Rodimus Prime, Autobot second in command, checking on him, despite Rodimus Prime's own injuries? That would just make Sentinel Prime look like a jerk. Which he is. But that doesn't mean he wants to look like one.
So Sentinel Prime looks grave and somber instead, and he lets some of the defeat he's feeling, that same defeat he feels with every Dead On Rocks, show. That suggestion of Mirage's is ghoulish, and it makes Sentinel Prime squirm. It's too close to home.
On the other hand, tapping Wasp's memory logs would have exonerated Wasp before they ever tossed him in the stockade...
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Post by Perceptor on Nov 9, 2010 2:26:07 GMT -5
No matter how quickly he works, Hound's spark seeps away quicker. Even the thin trickle of energy he had just barely managed to splice in is destined, ultimately, for the ether. Perceptor will not idly stand by and accept death, though, and he keeps working, right up until the moment that spark gives out, not with a whimper, and a fluttering fade, but a searing burst of energy that rips through starving circuits and systems and leaves char and slag in it's wake.
"Hound, no!" he gasps, reaching, futilely, toward the broken spark chamber, even as Hound's colors fade. Another life, slips between his fingers. Another failure. He slumps in defeat, staring down at his dark hands on faded grey plating.
Not his own Hound, or so the presence of the spark would indicate, but Perceptor feels the scout's loss, nonetheless. Another friend lost.
"He wasn't yours, Mirage," he intones hollowly, aching with such helplessness. "No matter what he said. You are one of us. You are my friend; I trust you, still. But I will do as you ask." Because Xaaron will want to know, too. And Perceptor can put Mirage's mind and spark to ease. Hopefully. It is... the only thing he can do right now.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on Nov 9, 2010 10:33:04 GMT -5
Omega Supreme watches and listens, and he lets himself be no more than set dressing. An Autobot died. An Autobot still alive in the room was blamed. This could get ugly, Omega Supreme well knows. Will they have to warn new arrivals about Mirage, now as they warn them about Long Haul?
There's an easy way to settle this, if he can bear them being a bit unnerved by him, not by physical force, but a last gift from long-forgotten malevolent creators. Of course, maybe Perceptor can handle it on his own; Perceptor's a genius like a supermassive black hole suck down stars is dark.
But. Doesn't Omega Supreme owe it to them? He can't be their last line of defense. He doesn't know what he is, anymore.
He takes one step away from the corner where he stands vigil, approaching no closer than that. He pops out his logic probe - if people have seen him doing his duties or having his meals around the Event Horizon, chances are, they've seen him use it and haven't thought twice about it. He uses it open doors. He uses it to get cubes out of the dispenser. He uses it to write up reports. Certainly, any other Transformer could do the same with a link cable, but they have proper hands, and the kinesthetic feedback is probably more satisfying.
Omega Supreme looks pointedly over at probe and offers, stiltedly, "I am a Quintesson-era Dark Guardian given life by Vector Sigma."
Yes, Omega Supreme can speak normally. He doesn't enjoy it; most days, he doesn't feel like an 'I', to himself, but he did speak normally when he explained his history to Optimus Prime in "The Secret of Omega Supreme", but this is the other secret of Omega Supreme.
"Not in body now. Not in all of mind, but the programming lingers. Assistance: offered. Pulling sensor logs from the short-term memory buffer shouldn't be hard." Not hard at all, not impossible like fixing the damage the robo-smasher did. His speech break and slips.
Only Perceptor might know what he's implying, and only Perceptor needs to know to make the call, but he continues, "Dark Guardians were designed to keep the slave population of Cybertron in line. Physically. Mentally."
Congratulations, the Quintesson-era mindcrime superweapon is in the room with the two Autobots who are currently most mentally scarred by the Quintessons. Well done.
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Post by SceneMod on Nov 9, 2010 10:39:19 GMT -5
Hound's gone, slipped off to that grey hereafter.
Checking his head will reveal that there's nothing useful left up in there, aside from perhaps his exquisite tracker's optics. The rest of melted down into slag and clink. It's impossible to tell if he had a brain module or not.
The secondary processors that most Transformers keep in their chests are fine - they were bypassed by that disastrous short, and they were designed to be bypassed. It's why many Transformers can survive without their heads, a redundant system that, in Perceptor's reality, would allow the Headmasters to simply download themselves into their torsos to free up room in their heads for little men.
The longer he sits without power, the more degraded the data will be, though those short-term buffers will last a little while. It might not make much computer sense, but Transformers clearly experience massive data degradation after death, or interrogators would be out of work. Seems powered memory systems are rather in vogue.
Blame Needlenose.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Nov 9, 2010 11:40:19 GMT -5
Rodimus attempts to place his fingers lightly against Mirage's arm, but only for a moment. He still feels... strange. Detached. There is a cloud between him and what is happening, and he has an air of preternatural serenity that's unusual for the haunted Boy Prime. His optics lift towards Sentinel at his muttered words, and there is acknowledgement there, but that is all. Then his gaze turns back to Mirage.
"If you'd never do that, don't you already know whether or not he's yours?" Rodimus asks the spy simply.
He lifts his head and listens at Omega Supreme's explanation, then looks between Omega and Perceptor for a moment before giving a brief nod of his head and glancing at Mirage.
If Mirage really must have this, than do what's needed.
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Post by Mirage on Nov 10, 2010 0:41:30 GMT -5
Mirage still doesn't look at Rodimus, still doesn't open his optics.
"I would not do such a thing," he repeats, then switches to private radio, //But Rodimus.... spies do terrible, terrible things sometimes when undercover. Sometimes there is no other choice. You know this.// Certainly, Rodimus should.
His optic shutters slide back as Perceptor attempts his reassurances. Softly, entirely too softly, Mirage says, "Trust is entirely too valuable a thing to be given as easily as you give it."
His head swivels toward Omega. Mirage twitches ever so slightly.
"Isn't that just lovely?"
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Nov 10, 2010 1:02:22 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime can't help but stare at Omega Supreme over that admission. Wait, what? Omega Supreme had better] be where Elita-1 downloaded those reprogramming powers from, or otherwise, Sentinel Prime may as well just go hide under his berth for the rest of his life. There are entirely too many mindbenders running around, Sentinel Prime feels! In fact, hiding under his berth really sounds great right now, anyway. The only thing that stops Sentinel Prime is that he has a shift to finish, and then another, and then another. He has his duty. To skip out would be to invite that insidious vampire disorder into his tidy house, and he can't have that. So he just keeps up his watch, out of the way, thoughts of Wasp rattling around his head. - - - OOC: Skippable.
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Post by Perceptor on Nov 10, 2010 1:37:32 GMT -5
Perceptor doesn't fully comprehend - not like he would if he were pulled from just a few episodes later when the Quints had started trying to unravel time - but he understands enough. The Transformers from Perceptor's reality owe their existence to the Quintessons, but Omega Supreme was built by their very own squidy little tentacles. To control and quell the earliest instances of sapience and sentience of Perceptor's own kind.
Distantly, Perceptor wonders if he should be more concerned about that or not. But Omega Supreme had been given life - and thus sapience and sentience, just like the rest of the Transformers - by Vector Sigma. What he had once been created as, he is no longer. And Omega, despite his robo smasher born issues with anger and Constructicons, has proven himself time and time again. He is Omega Supreme, not a Quintesson Guardian. Not any longer.
"Do it, Omega. Please," he replies softly. "Before the data becomes more degraded."
It is then that Mirage's so-soft words wash over him, and now, in that moment, it is Perceptor, and not Omega, who suddenly suffers the stinging barbs of rage.
"I would rather grant my trust as freely as a half-credit courtesan wields his body. At least then, I know that I am still capable of believeing and hoping, rather than clutching those ideals as tightly to my core as a soulless miser!" he snarls, turning a hateful glare upon the shaken spy.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on Nov 10, 2010 19:31:42 GMT -5
The Autobots take that news better than Omega Supreme expected. He shuffles his feet a bit, embarrassed, and he wonders why it took him so long to confess, if it was that much of a non-issue. Some snark from Mirage, some wariness from Sentinel Prime? That's all? Sigma, he could have been helping with... all those cases where brute force mathematical attack reprogramming would be handy. Perceptor seems angrier at Mirage, of all people! Omega Supreme doesn't really get it. He lumbers over and kneels down on the rocks, next to Hound. A quick check tells him that the head's a mess, so he moves down to the torso. His movements are stilted and even a bit fumbling as he pries up panels with his claw hand. This set-up is a bit unusual. What's he even looking at? Ah, okay, that looks likely. Omega Supreme jacks in and see what he can pull up - not too much degradation at all! Just a little static on the audio toward the end. He pops a connection cable out of subspace and jams it into his gun arm, running the other end over to the main Rock Room monitor. The images he shows, the last impulses saved on dead circuits, are a bit disturbing: Mirage places a gun to the head of Jetfire (or maybe Skyfire), who doesn't look in any shape to defend himself, making threats. Optimus Prime accepts the surrender. Hound disagrees. Mirage examines some odd technology and is ordered by Megatron to kill his prisoners. Mirage chooses Hound as the first against the wall or the floor, as the case may be. Optimus Prime's begging is for naught - down comes that jagged-ended pole, not even a clean kill with Mirage's gun.Mirage looks like this Mirage, with the yellow optics and the blue half-mask. He's clearly wearing an Earth mode, but everyone's wearing an Earth mode. Only the Decepticon symbol, in violet against his chest, seems strange. The Mirage that Springer might know of lacks that blue half-mask.[/url] A timestamp in the corner of the video identifies Hound's pull-point as March 5, 2008. Omega Supreme remains mute, offering no commentary, but this is not what he wanted to see. OOC: Scenemod is skippable now, since I was Scenemod for this scene, anyway.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Nov 10, 2010 20:25:57 GMT -5
//I do,// Rodimus answers simply over the radio. //It's... not only spies.//
Perhaps he would react more to Omega Supreme's revelation, if he wasn't so out of it. It's in a daze that he watches Sentinel sit back down. As Perceptor snaps at Mirage, he murmurs, "That's all well and good, until your trust gets someone else killed." Or loses you Cybetron. Or gets you shot in wagon. Even as he says this, however, he shows no emotions beyond a faint sorrow that creeps into the edges of his voice.
He turns to watch the images that Omega Supreme displaces, then takes a deep breath, cycling his air-coolant systems. He tilts his head slightly to the right. "It... really doesn't prove anything, does it?"
But it doesn't disprove anything, either.
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Post by Mirage on Nov 12, 2010 12:58:17 GMT -5
Mirage shows no reaction to Perceptor's anger. Truthfully, the spy is now showing nothing in the way of emotion or reaction now, not even his normal haughtiness. Shock, perhaps. Rodimus and Perceptor at least, should recognize that this is very much Not Normal from the spy.
He watches those images flicker across the screen, hears those words. The Mirage in Hound's memories looks like this Mirage, even talks like this Mirage, voice, syntax, and inflections the same. Perhaps there is a harder edge to the Decepticon Mirage's voice, a colder glint to his optics, but that is it.
Carefully, and with all of his usual grace, Mirage unfolds himself from his position on the floor and rises. He looks down at Rodimus. Mirage can't help but wonder if the Prime's dark shadow doesn't find this entire affair rather amusing.
"You are correct. It proves nothing- one way or another."
"Permission requested to be relived of watch duty early. Omega is next on shift. Perhaps he will not mind replacing me."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Nov 12, 2010 14:14:36 GMT -5
OOC: Heh, guess I had something to say, after all.- - - Sentinel Prime should stay out of this. He's in enough trouble, as it is. He should leave Mirage's mess well enough alone and let Mirage fend for himself. Sentinel Prime owes Mirage nothing. One of his optics twitches as he watches the feed pulled from the dead bot's data buffers. That is a Mirage for sure, and he looks to be a close kissing cousin of this Mirage, nearer to him than a lot of alternates are. The voice sounds right; the mannerisms dead on. Something's crawling in Sentinel Prime's circuits, snaking draconic brain impulses, that all but roar at him that they should throw Mirage in stasis cuffs, toss him in the stockade, and throw away the key. It is better to be safe than sorry. Safety will always be more important than freedom. But they did that with Wasp, and they were wrong. Sentinel Prime rubs his temples, and he stands up, pitching his voice to carry, "If you think about it... Mirage has had time after to time to betray us, to capture us all or kill us in our recharge, any number of things that I don't even want to think about. But here we all are, well and whole." Hah, yeah right, good thing Sentinel Prime is good at being convincing when he's saying things he doesn't believe. He gestures over at the screen and continues, "I think that says more than any memories pulled from a dead bot ever can. Now, if we treat Mirage like a murderer or a Decepticon, if we give him reasons to be bitter and resentful, I'm going to have to put the blame on us, not him." Sentinel Prime turns to Mirage, a friendly smile on his face, and he finishes, "So, I, for one, am willing to trust you like I'd trust any other Autobot." Just how much does Sentinel Prime trust the other Autobots, anyway? Especially that Omega Supreme there, Sentinel Prime recalls now - his memory's never been good, forgetting who his students in boot camp were, confusing Majors with Mayors - Elita-1 did tell him. Sentinel Prime would just love to finish the watch with Omega Supreme, Mirage. But he's doing this for Mirage, anyway, on the one hand because of his own failure with Wasp and because on the other hand, making an enemy of a potential murderer seems like a really, really bad idea. Getting leverage on a potential murderer, though, sounds great. Finally, that speech is as much a threat as anything, though it might be couched as a friendly, saccharine Autobot display of camraderie and support. Mirage is not the only Autobot in the room who has reason to resent being mistreated; not the only Autobot in the room who just might crack someday.
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Post by Perceptor on Nov 13, 2010 6:34:07 GMT -5
Oh, but how close to the mark Rodimus strikes with that comment. Perceptor flinches back as if struck, and refuses to say anything, visions of all those who died at Megatron's hands after Perceptor had cured his cosmic rust flashing through his processors.
"You are correct, Sentinel," he finally manages, not meeting anyone's gaze.
"Unless anyone has any objections, I will re- remove Hound to Medical. Rodimus, please report to medical later so that I may repair your damages," he adds quietly.
And, unless anyone stops him, he will kneel down and pick the faded chassis up, cradling Hound's remains in his arms with the strength that so many so often forget that he possesses, and carry his burden back to Medical where he had been preparing for Magnus's arrival.
ooc: out of scene, unless stopped or addressed.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on Nov 13, 2010 14:49:21 GMT -5
Omega Supreme is finding that, try as he might, he just can't look at Mirage the same. His own history of betrayal has left scars that won't heal. Omega Supreme's not good at deception, and in his failure to really look at Mirage after the 'video' is over, he makes his discomfort clear.
He does grant, "Acceptable."
If Omega Supreme's feeling unsure about Mirage, perhaps it would be better if Mirage does not sit the watch. On the other hand, is letting Mirage get up to things off on his own really advisable?
Perceptor and Sentinel Prime going off on about trust doesn't reach Omega Supreme. He just looks to Rodimus Prime for confirmation of whether or not he starts his watch now or later.
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