Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Oct 14, 2008 18:05:26 GMT -5
As his senses fade out a bit at a time, leaving more and more of his CPUs nothing to do but idle, Hellbender suddenly understands. This is Hook's subtle retaliation for his protest.
Maybe I shouldn't have protested--but staying silent when my creator and master was insulted.. only a coward with no loyalty would have done that!
Fear creeps up on him on memory's quick feet as everything fades away--so much like his incineration and dismemberment by Unicron. The fear thrashes around in his mind, demanding that he make it stop, beg Hook to let him hear and feel--
No. He will not be a coward again. He will not yield to terror again. He is a Decepticon warrior! He will endure.
His only reply to Hook is silence.
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Post by Hook on Oct 16, 2008 13:45:16 GMT -5
Hook disconnects Hellbender's audial sensors. He does not, at any time, make any attempt at turning off Hellbender's consciousness. In fact, if it seems like Hellbender might turn off his own consciousness, Hook has methods at his disposal to poke the mining worm back to 'wakefulness'.
As he walks back down the length of the mining worm, Hook attaches omniscanners at various key-locations to give him the necessary feedback for this job. Then he settles in to rearranging what he considers Shockwave to have done wrong (rearranging but not removing, because Shockwave has unfortunately been too much right in this), and then constructing the rest of the transformation skeleton and reshaping the systems to fit.
Hours pass.
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
|
Post by Hellbender on Oct 16, 2008 20:59:00 GMT -5
Time stands still--or perhaps eons pass. Hellbender cannot tell. He exists in a void--no sight, no sound, no sonar, no tactiles, nothing. He's not offline--he is aware... but there's nothing to be aware of.
He can't just run at idle; something keeps kicking Hellbender out of that when his CPUs try to initiate auto-sleep mode. He can remember. His memory banks still work.
He starts at the beginning, his earliest memories--waking under Shockwave's instruments as his creator worked on him. He is Midnight, heavy fighter/bomber, built as Shockwave's experimental testbed for high-survivability. Shockwave himself is a unique essay in massive firepower and unparalleled toughness... but unique. For the war against the pernicious Autobots, the Decepticons needed mass-produced power--something stronger than the average Seeker. Shockwave experimented, trying to develop something that could be built by any factory, not dependent on the random quirks bestowed by the Creation Matrix for power... something that could stand up to a Dinobot.
Shockwave still hadn't forgotten or forgiven his defeat by those savage Autobots....
History unrolled in Midnight's mind; a short, very active history. He fought Wreckers in the lip of the Smelting Pools, and got himself tossed in, got decapitated recklessly chasing a Wrecker into an ambush, got upgraded by his creator and sent out into the field again and again to prove out his design.... and to prove himself. Midnight's extra toughness came at the expense of extra mass, massive fuel consumption, and poor maneuverability... and he always felt the sting of the other Decepticon's taunts at his slow speed and ponderous flight.
His response was recklessness, leaping blindly into the fray against any enemy that dared to show itself, no matter what the odds. Midnight would show them that he could fight, and fight well, even if he had to take on the worst of the Autobots all by himself. If he defeated them, he returned home in a far better humor; but woe betide his erstwhile comrades if they stood in his way after a defeat or an Autobot escape! More than one loud-mouthed Seeker found himself needing extensive repairs after taunting the exceedingly strong, short-tempered, impulsive heavy fighter at the wrong time.
Years pass in seconds to memory no longer constrained by a clock. Years that ended on one very bad day...
"SCRAMBLE! Defend Cybertron!"
Iceraker and the others started to move, and Midnight snapped to. Cybertron needed some serious defending! They hit the air and crossed into space, their target as big as a planet.
It was about as easy to kill as a planet, too. It shrugged off their bombs and lasers like something with armor as thick as continents would. Unicron's lesser defenses opened up on them, and Seekers died by the score. Midnight saw it slam one clawed hand down on Polyhex--
"Shockwave!" Hellbender roared aloud--
His creator's frequency, that had always hummed in the back of his radio as long as it worked, went dead. A bolt of green light hit Iceraker, only feet from his right wing, and he just... disintegrated. One instant he was there, the next... a fading cloud of metal vapor.
// Midnight? Midnight! Where are you? I lost your position-- // screamed his other wingman, Thunderbolt--
"Iceraker's gone! Thunderbolt, take cover!" Hellbender screamed, trying to slew around and dive for the city canyons, on wings he no longer had, with motor circuits that were disconnected anyway--
Midnight looked at those evil green orbs as big as cities, and knew he was next. Iceraker had disintegrated beside him into a cloud of metal vapor at one touch of that hellish green beam. Stark panic seized him and drove him down and away, trying to hide from that baleful gaze, that promise of instant oblivion--
Searing pain as the eyebolt skimmed him, burned him like his one-time fall into the Smelting Pools. Midnight felt his armor boil at its touch, armor nearly as strong as Shockwave's. Boil and drip away, as the more vulnerable mechanisms it shielded crumbled to ash. One wing puffed away in a flash of metal vapor and he fell.
Then the building hit him.
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Post by Hook on Nov 1, 2008 15:46:35 GMT -5
Once the new transformation skeleton for Hellbender has been installed, Hook goes to work on increasing the flexibility of key systems so that they'll fit into place in the new form. There is some grumbling over the largely static nature of Hellbender's current body, though it's a habitual grumbling. Anyone who is familiar with Long Haul might recognize a shadow of him in Hook's speech.
Eventually, though, Hook finds himself short a few bolts. Spanner in hand, the Constructicon sets about removing his omni-scanners and reactivating Hellbender's sensor arrays.
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Nov 6, 2008 20:00:17 GMT -5
Feeling and other sensations trickle back, but in the dream of destruction and pain, Hellbender does not yet recognize it. He's back in the swamp, feeling the dirty water seeping into his shattered body, feeling it press against him.
His head seems to be still attached, this time. How peculiar.
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Post by Hook on Nov 24, 2008 17:48:44 GMT -5
"Status, Hellbender."
It wouldn't do for the Decepticon to have gone uselessly insane while Hook was working on him.
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Nov 24, 2008 20:31:58 GMT -5
Hook's voice cuts through the muck and humidity of the delusionary swamp like an arctic wind scouring through Hellbender's mind.
"Mah head is still on," is the first thing he blurts out. No, wait, that was back then. You've been running a memory replay, idiot! Hellbender realizes with some embarassment. What did he do and do that for? Status, status, what are his systems telling him...
What are all these systems? Shockwave and Hook sure had been busy.
"Er... Well, there's some new systems here, aren't there?" Oh, that was a brilliant thing to say! A bit slow today, are we, self?
"Uh.. Ah was stuck in a memory replay for some reason; still gettin' re-oriented, sir."
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Post by Hook on Dec 1, 2008 18:32:15 GMT -5
"Likely an artifact of the installation process. Installing new sensors should not be done while any other sensory apparatus are online." Hook leaps lightly out of Hellbender's body.
"I need to fetch more supplies."
He doesn't add 'wait here'. What is Hellbender going to do, learn teleportation?
---
OOC: And Hook is back out of thread.
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Dec 1, 2008 20:59:07 GMT -5
"Oh."
Hellbender processes this tidbit of information. Perhaps Hook hadn't shut off his sensors maliciously, after all. Hellbender hopes he isn't getting paranoid; it's such an easy personality distortion to acquire when you have to be suspicious of almost everyone all the time.
So's cowardice. Start running from danger, and you'll keep doing it. It gets distorted into first a habit, then a burned-in personality trait. Can't do it again, or I won't be fit for anything but wiping and re-programming.
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Post by Victoria Raines on Dec 5, 2008 23:04:16 GMT -5
Hellbender does not even have time to feel lonely, as but a few minutes after Hook exits, Shockwave enters. And lo, the mad scientist has with him more bits and pieces- including the bolts and such that Hook just left to grab.
Shockwave paces around the worm, every now and again, inspecting a part of the new framing, hand gliding over a join here, testing a brace there. He then turns his attention to Hellbender's internals, taking note of how Hook had "improved upon" Shockwave's original placements. A faint sense of annoyance tinged with amusement makes Shockwave's optic flicker; he had reason's for his original placements. True, the original arrangement would have meant only Shockwave- or Hook- could perform invasive maintenance or repair, but Hellbender's care should not be left to those others in Medical anyway.
Shockwave goes down on bended knee so as to more easily improve upon Hook's improvements, and finally addresses Hellbender.
"Hook has done his job well. I have a few more items to install, then will see about your body rebuild. You will find you will not be able to access these systems and they will not be online, but it is easier to install them now rather than later."
"How are you fairing, Hellbender? Have you noticed any issues with the new systems and their integration into old?"
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Dec 8, 2008 19:45:14 GMT -5
"Yes, sir. Understood, sir." Shockwave installing sub-systems to be built upon in a later experiment? Standard procedure. This Shockwave seems more and more like his own every day.
"Ah'm still checking that out, sir. Hook just done reconnected mah sensors, and Ah think Ah had a bit of a time and memory glitch while Ah was disconnected. Seems okay now, though. Feels like he re-attached mah head, and Ah see a weapon hook-up and..." Hellbender trails off into silence. "Ah got transform cogs."
"Them there new optics? They aren't pickin' up anything but dark, sir*," he adds as an after-thought.
--- * Hellbender's new alt-mode optics are behind shutters, but since his motor circuitry is still turned off, he can't open the shutters.
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Post by Victoria Raines on Dec 8, 2008 22:28:42 GMT -5
Shockwave pats the worm reassuringly. "Your optic shutters are closed, and you will not be able to open them until your motor circuitry is back online. Which will not be for awhile yet. An involuntary twitch at an inopportune moment would be...unpleasant for you."
He continues to work a few moments longer, installing the new systems he mentioned earlier and also making his own...adjustments to Hook's placement of others. Not too many adjustments, though- just enough so that when Shockwave does decide to augment his work later, it can be done with a minimum of fuss. He then moves to Hellbender's front, running a quick diagnostic on those optics, as the worm seemed concerned over them.
"Your optics are fine. As said, I can not yet restore your motor control. However," Shockwave pauses, typing in a few commands on the datapad, "I can do this for you." One last command, and the shutters slide open. "Better?" he asks.
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Dec 9, 2008 19:43:11 GMT -5
Hellbender considers for a moment. "Ayep. Ah got light... it's calibrating now. Aha! Got full vision on both right and left, sir!"
He falls silent, just looking at things--especially Shockwave. Hellbender compares what his optics see to what his sonar says, mapping colors and shapes to each other. Routines that had been compressed and archived during his long tenure as a blind worm began to unpack themselves and hook into his CPU: visual perception routines that parse color and shadow and perspective, estimating distance and motion, superimposing his status HUD at the edges of his view.
The flight routines stay archived away; he still has no wings. Hellbender's flying skill are literally forgotten, like his visual sense had been. Such was his design--what is not needed in this iteration of experiments is removed and archived, to avoid cluttering the CPU and confusing the results.
"Ah'm... remembering stuff. How to see," he finally says in a low voice.
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Post by Victoria Raines on Dec 9, 2008 22:14:34 GMT -5
"That is good to hear. I will start working on rebuilding your body now. You may continue to talk if you wish, and keep me appraised of your well-being." Yes, Shockwave is monitoring the worm with his equipment, but he as always preferred to compare what his subjects tell him to the actual diagnostics.
Shockwave gives Hellbender another pat, then moves out of the worm's field of vision. Perhaps Shockwave treats the worm too much like a pet, but then is that not what Hellbender is? A pet. An experiment. Shockwave's experiment. True loyalty is a precious, precious thing among their faction, and Shockwave has spent vorns learning how best to cultivate it. Hellbender responds well to such handling, and so that is how Shockwave will handle him.
He begins the long and tedious task of giving Hellbender a body once again.
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Hellbender
Major
Mecha-Shai-Hulud
"Seriously."
Posts: 892
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Post by Hellbender on Dec 12, 2008 18:23:34 GMT -5
True loyalty is indeed a precious thing; it took the original Shockwave many, many trials to create it... and there are still flaws in Hellbender's personality. Some are intrinsic in the nature of loyalty, some are a by-product of finding the right compromise between obedience and initiative, while others are the peculiar quirks that separate a truly sentient machine from a smart toaster.
Hellbender dutifully gives Shockwave status reports as the rebuild progresses; it's part of what was expected of him by his original Shockwave anytime Midnight was left online during changes, and he falls back into the habit naturally. Still, parts of his mind wander; what does Shockwave have in mind for him to do? Hellbender suspects that his new Shockwave is no less ambitious than his old Shockwave, and this time, he's not stuck on Cybertron while Shockwave carries on his coup on Earth.
"Sir, what will my mission and final configuration be?" Hellbender finally asks.
---- OOC: time-skip to end of rebuild?
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