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Post by Elita-1 on Aug 23, 2010 10:08:26 GMT -5
"Heh. That's more like the Sentinel I used to know," Elita-1 says.
"But you have gone nutty, Sentinel," she continues softly, "You're broken. I... think it may have started when you thought I died, and then she finished the job."
"I want you back. I want my friend back, safe and whole."
Her hand slides over the open panel in Sentinel's bicep. A probe extends from her hand and clicks into an exposed port in that panel.
Time to fix what's broken.
OOC: Borrowing Omega's reprogramming power, and mindscrewing Sentinel approved with their respective players.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Aug 23, 2010 10:14:42 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime looks down at his arm in horror when something clicks into it, and he starts say, "He-hey, what are you doing?"
Oh, no, no, no! Sentinel Prime has had quite enough body horror to last him, he thinks, between what Headmaster did to him and then Blackarachnia and Oil Slick.
So this is his karma finally catching up to him, huh? Maybe he should just swear off women entirely. Life might be safer.
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Post by Elita-1 on Aug 23, 2010 11:01:34 GMT -5
Swearing off women might not be a bad idea. Sentinel always did want to be Magnus. Maybe he should start courting the white Optimus Prime repaint instead. A name by any other means....
"Trying to help," is all Elita says in answer, and expression of extreme concentration on her face. She isn't really looking at Sentinel now; more looking through him as she turns her attention inward.
This isn't working the way she thought it would, based on the download information. It's like using a hammer to try and dissect a butterfly.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Aug 23, 2010 12:39:40 GMT -5
Marrying Ultra Magnus for his name would be entirely inappropriate... which means Sentinel Prime would probably at least consider it. And that diffusion thing is kind of interesting - Sentinel Prime's always been a defensive kind of guy, verbally defensive, yes, but he's always used his shield more than his lance, and his shield can absorbs an enemy's attacks and recycle it as a power source, so that's redirection of an aggressor's energy right there...
Metatextual nonsense aside, Sentinel Prime feels about as transfixed as that poor smashed butterfly. His firewalls have been smashed down in some kind of brute force attack, and his antivirals, malware prevention, et cetera has been blown offline. He can't get a signal out to any of his motor lines. He's stuck in his head, and even that isn't safe.
Sentinel Prime's mindself kind of crumples at the assault. The drugs wounded him, left him weak, and he isn't entirely recovered from that.
Elita-1 will find that Sentinel Prime is a product of, yes, her 'death', but also his society and the life that he lived. He's always wanted so badly to be Magnus, so he's assimilated and internalised the machinery of the great big Autobot machine - the casual xenophobia, the double-talk, the hypocrisy.
But it seems that his dear darling Elita has, too.
Freedom is the right of no one; we traded it away for safety.
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Post by Elita-1 on Aug 24, 2010 12:06:45 GMT -5
No one is every fully untouched by the environment in which they have been raised, and that no matter how much they may protest otherwise. In Elita's mind, not acting to try and "help" Sentinel would be wrong. Should she have asked first? Yes. But Sentinel often refuses help when he needs it most. So she acts out of desperation and fear and worry.
She isn't that different from her other self, after all.
Elita visibly slumps in her seat, though she doesn't break the connection. It isn't working. It isn't working, she's breaking things more and she only has so much time to glue the pieces back together again before she's forcibly ejected from Sentinel's mind.
Desperately, she tries to withdraw, re-stacking thoughts and ideals as she goes. At least he might not hate so much, once she's done.
Though he may certainly hate her.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Aug 24, 2010 12:22:32 GMT -5
Elita-1 makes some changes to Sentinel Prime, for sure. Who can say if he's been changed for the better? But she's definitely changed him for good.
The xenophobia, arrogance, resentment, sullenly burning anger - none of these are gone, they're just shoved away, locked up in a too-full closet, and they'll come spilling out some day.
His slick, false friendliness feels awful lonely, abandoned by its cronies, but there's cunning to comfort it and whisper clearly but darkly in its audios, oh, all the things they'll be able to do together without all those others butting in! No fear to tie their hands, no hate to blind their optics, no arrogance to trip their feet - cleverness and manipulation, they'll run this town tonight, when revenge just wanted to burn this city.
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Post by Elita-1 on Aug 25, 2010 13:27:03 GMT -5
OOC: <3 Wicked reference!
She breaks the connection almost too late, the probe disappearing as it slides out of Sentinel. Elita-1 slumps in her seat and brings her hands up to cover her face as she sobs.
"I'm sorry, Sentinel. So very, very sorry. Wanted... I wanted to help... I thought..."
There are no words to make this right. No words at all.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Aug 25, 2010 14:01:27 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime takes a while to stir. His optics flicker and there's a soft chime sound as he reboots. Sentinel Prime brings up a hand to hold his head, because he does have a killer headache still, even with the reboot to assimilate the new systems settings. He focuses on the headache for a long moment, because it's a distraction from how... empty he feels.
Elita-1 freed up a lot of clock cycles, that's for sure, when she was ruthlessly culling and pruning his mentality. It's quiet inside, so very quiet.
Staring off at nothing, Sentinel Prime says finally, "Huh. I'm preeeetty sure I ought to be railing about how I hate you right now and possibly making some threats involving the spiked edge of my Skyboom Shield." He thinks for a moment, mulling it over. "Yeah, that'd be what any 'bot in my situation would do, right? But..." His gaze actually focuses on Elita-1, for the first time since his... accident. "...someone, and I'm not going to name names, seems to have taken at least half of my emotional subroutines offline." He pinches the bridge of his nose, and Sentinel Prime realises that he has just an inkling of what it must have been like to be a Supreme, with an intentionally induced incomplete mentality. He should be enraged at how... violated he is, and the rage just isn't there. The function library's gone. Dimly, he realises that this should just make the situation worse, but again, Sentinel Prime can't bring himself to feel upset about it.
"I'm not sure I can feel much of anything." Sentinel Prime shrugs and grins. "That's all right. I've always been good at faking it." He reaches out and tries to gently pull one of Elita-1's hands away from her face, and he adds softly, "I asked where my woman of a thousand powers went. I was asking for it, huh? But tell me something, babe. Who'd you download that off?"
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Post by Elita-1 on Aug 25, 2010 17:08:36 GMT -5
Elita only makes a token effort to keep her hand in place, and Sentinel succeeds in pulling it away from her face. His words make her stiffen, and her expression is one of complete horror.
"Can't feel? But no. Nonononono, that shouldn't have happened... it wasn't... wasn't what I was trying to do...."
She almost wishes he would rail at her. She deserves it, certainly, and it would be familiar. Not like this odd calmness that unnerves her so.
"I... I downloaded it from Omega," she answers at length, and then much more softly, "Sentinel, I- ."
"I should get Perceptor. Maybe he can fix it...."
Except she isn't moving.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Aug 25, 2010 17:24:30 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime and the Case of the Flattened Affect!
He urges, "Calm down. Here's the thing. You're a Grade A Danger, you know that, right? I mean, what if you got it into your head to 'fix' Emirate Xaaron? You did that kind of stunt back home, and you'd be flat on your back on a vivisection table so fast your rims would spin... or you'd be working for the Head of Intelligence."
Sentinel Prime smirks. Like he doesn't know how shady his Autobots can be. He tries to move his fingers down to cup her chin, continuing, "But these Autobots are different, and the difference is that while they might not vivisect you, they're sure not going to give you a Black Ops job."
"Doing this by the book, I should turn you in, but look where doing things by the book got me." He laughs, but the bitterness is just an echo; he can't manage any real malice. "So why don't we just say that you owe me and call it good? But I'll be watching." He taps the side of his helmet and then points at her. "That's why I'm Sentinel."
Omega Supreme, huh? Tall, orange, and gruesome can do that? Sentinel Prime wonders if the Autobots have any idea what kind of monsters are in their midst. Aside from the one he sees the mirror, of course.
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Post by Elita-1 on Aug 26, 2010 11:56:50 GMT -5
"But... you shouldn't have to live this way just to keep me our of trouble!" Elita protests.
But she can't protest too much. She knows that if Command finds out about this, she'll probably still be in the brig in a year. Sentinel is being eminently practical and understanding.
That scares the hell out of her.
"All right," she says weakly, "But Sentinel, if it gets too bad, we have to tell then. I'm not worth protecting, not like that."
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Aug 26, 2010 15:18:59 GMT -5
"I'm an Autobot, and Autobots are all about protecting life," Sentinel Prime answers, smiling, looking for all the world like something out of a propaganda video. In fact, that's probably where he heard that line.
See, when Sentinel Prime isn't freaking out about Optimus Prime somehow sabotaging his career out of paranoid delusions or trying to suck up to his Ultra Magnus, who remains unimpressed, he is theoretically a capable and qualified Autobot.
Or he's just very good at faking it.
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Post by Elita-1 on Aug 28, 2010 8:10:27 GMT -5
Or both could be true, depending on point of view and mood.
She should get up and leave.
But she doesn't.
Instead, Elita remains on her stool, head bowed, on hand on the berth's edge. She'd like to touch Sentinel's arm, but she won't. She's lost the right to touch him with impunity.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs again.
OOC: This looks like a good place for a fade?
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Aug 28, 2010 8:46:45 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime replies simply, "I'm not." "I never am." And that's the truth. - - - OOC: Sure. End of thread?
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