Thrall-Making

[Rodimus Prime-3]

OOC: Day 11, between Fireblade and the Bad Guy party. Also after Rodimus's departure from Meeting of the Minds.

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Rodimus Prime completes his meeting with Kup and heads off, leaving both his troops and Starscream, who seems off on his own business, behind. He leaps from street level to rooftop, to higher rooftop, to higher rooftop. From his higher perspective, he looks around and eventually manages to spy a spot of red. Several spots of red. He runs over the roofs, leaping when necessary, sometimes farther than he has business jumping.

Eventually, he lands in the rubble of a street, notes the fallen buildings, and the fallen robot. Looks like something knocked down the buildings on Perceptor, he dug himself out, and then was hit by something else instead. The Prime examines the parts.

Given time and supplies, he could have Perceptor returned to operational condition, but supplies are short, and one of Rodimus's critical flaws is a lack of patience. Even if it wasn't, with mop up to do in a limited time period, he just can't wait, especially when the one injured is the one he needs to do repairs.

Rodimus looks around, checking to make sure the area is secure. He stares off in one direction in particular and narrows his optics. Then he shifts to make sure he's fully facing that direction, and so, theoretically, can see anything coming from that direction. Then, he opens his chest compartment and pulls the Matrix just far enough out to allow him to open it just a little, letting the tainted, healing light wash over Perceptor's body.

[Perceptor-3]

From the memory of pain, that of the sudden onslaught of that flying buffoon that Perceptor still firmly believes that he should have simply reprogrammed for Skyfire's benefit, to the reality of true pain that sears him all the way down to the deepest root of his core. It hauls him from the darkness of oblivion by main force, like a turbofox seized by the scruff of the neck and shaken into whimpering stupidity. It wipes all thoughts from his mind, filling every byte and bit with a pervading agony that would make him shriek with it, if he but had the capability, tempering it all with a deep, thrumming rage, a need so primal to strike back, to retaliate, to hate and to rip and to tear with bare hands, if need be, that the pain is pushed back, if only a little. Still that little.

The thought of fighting back, of getting even sparks the tiniest ember of pleasure deep within, filling that place that the pain no longer fills. Yes. Yes! To turn this pain back, to cast it out, to spread it to his enemies!

Perceptor writhes on the ground at Rodimus' feet, his wounds sealing themselves closed, lines fusing, wires splicing. Fluids cease their sluggish trickle, armor re-knits, servos creak as they realign themselves. Scattered parts draw together into a slowly reshaping mass whose optics blaze with a baleful, brilliant blue-white fire. A taxed and shattered vocal processor abruptly comes back online with a scream as Perceptor arches, staring unseeing up into the smoke-hazed blue sky above.

Within, like a cancer, that rage and hate grows, inexorably pushing the pain before it in a wave that threatens to force him back offline once again, and yet, never does. Pleasure mounts as image of tearing blue and purple plating fills his mind's optic, and at the heart of it all, a blight of darkness where none had existed before.

Pain, like the crackle-pulse of lighting just being born, lances through him, leaving pleasure searing in its wake, racing along every circuit and relay, each and every single one now rendered whole and intact once again. That scream fades, hands crushing shattered stone and steal beneath them, jaw working silently until sound bursts forth once again in a long, low moan. Where once pain and only pain reigned, now such wanton, abject joy, as he has never known before. And still, at its heart, that blight coils, becoming.

As abruptly as it had come, even that pleasure ceases, leaving Perceptor sprawled, whole and unblemished - at least physically - at Rodimus' feet in a needy, mewling pile.

[Rodimus Prime-3]

A faint smile touches Rodimus's lips as he watches his scientist's - his scientist's - twitching, screaming, and mewling, but only a faint one. Overall his expression is unusually solemn. There is something both holy and profane in using the Matrix, this Matrix, for healing, and even the Dark Prime respects that. Once it's done, he quickly closes the Matrix and returns it to his place, then studies Perceptor for a moment.

Then his faint smile widens, the right edge climbing slightly higher than the left side, and he reaches down to touch the red robot lightly on the scope, seemingly a supportive gesture.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Perceptor," he says, and his voice carries all the welcome warmth of a deep ebon gravestone at high noon.

The sort of black warmth that burns to the touch.

[Perceptor-3]

Touch. It grounds him, even as it sends his sensory net reeling for a moment. That touch, his touch, there where Perceptor lets so few - no one! - ever dare initiate contact. It is his function, his tool, that piece beyond his Emulator that defines his very existence and the programming that guides him; he does not risk his scope lightly.

And it is so very... sensitive, especially now, to the merest brush of fingertips. Perceptor shivers, choking back a soft gasp as he struggles, and fails, to not lean into that simple touch like an obediant pet seeking affection.

"Prime?"

He doesn't want to enjoy that touch, doesn't want to cling tightly to the lingering aftershocks and the memory of those last sensations trembling through his systems as awareness had returned to him.

All at once, the full gravity of that touch, of His presence, of the ease at which the rage and fury rises up inside, of the justoposition of his last memories and the present state of sprawled at His feet, strikes him.

He is damned.

[Rodimus Prime-3]

He is redeemed.

It is important to understand that, so far as Rodimus Prime is concerned, the effect that he has on other Transformers through the Matrix, either the temporary effects caused by his mere presence, or the permanent changes that result from a Matrix healing, are done to make others into what they should be. Cybertronians should rule the multiverse, and should thirst to do just that. All that exists does so to feed the hungers of the Children of Primus, for all the hungers of the Cybertronians are of divine source.

Rodimus remakes Transformers into what they should be. Dark. Cruel. Violent.

His.

And he is young in his power. Every day with the Matrix, he goes stronger, and the time will come when distance is no longer a factor, and it will not take the temporary vulnerability of a healing to result in permanent change.

Rodimus can barely wait for that time.

"That's right," Rodimus says softly in response to Perceptor's question. He is smiling, and his smile is... fond. Gentle. And more deadly than the cruelest smirk he wears on the battlefield.

"Now, come, Perceptor," he murmurs as his hand moves away from the other's scope - perhaps brushing lightly in the process - and reaches down to attempt to help the scientist to his feet. "Rise up. You've got work to do."

[Perceptor-3]

Shockwave had taunted him with the claim that Perceptor had been owned by his Prime, a taunt which Perceptor had chosen not to answer out of distrust for the Decepticon. Let Shockwave think what he will while Rodimus Prime provided that which Perceptor most wanted and enjoyed.

Now, however... Perceptor cannot answer that accusation. Now... now the taunt is truth, and for the first time in eons beyond counting, Perceptor is confronted with irrefutable truth that there is one greater than he. One who can truly command him as none have managed in countless millenia. He is owned.

He is owned by a young god.

A young god who is apparently pleased with him; that is a look most often reserved for Mirage, and some little ember of spite and agression, perhaps fed by the sheer strength of his confusion at having the entirety of the universe as he'd come to understand it turned on its ear, revels in the fact that that expression is being betowed upon him now. He shifts, leaning into that touch, shivering with a soft gasp as it trails across too-sensitive plating, the memories of that too-brief, sheer pleasure once again replaying themselves through his processor.

"Yes, Prime," he breathes, accepting that hand up. Hunger stirs deep within, near the fringes of that blight pulsing near his core.

// Prime? // he transmits privately, his tone one of respectful entreaty undercut with a tight, burning fury. // When the time comes to crush these Decepticons, may I request the buffoon? The one whom I have repaired in the past, who they call Duskwing? //

Blue optics flare brightly once again. Cruelty and darkness Perceptor has nurtured in his core for centuries, fed by a casual indifference of life and a hunger for knowledge, no matter the cost. Violence now awakens deep within, twisting those dark hungers down even more fell paths. Suffering had once been a byproduct; now it is the goal.

// I wish to... educate him to the folly of firing upon your Autobots. // Starting by tearing his wings from him, one thin sliver at a time.

[Rodimus Prime-3]

//He will be yours, Perceptor,// Rodimus promises, smile still there, but fainter. //But for now, you have work to do, and so do I.//

"I'd suggest you check the location where we had our emergency secondary medical station. They might have had it in the same place, and even if they've taken most things, it should serve as a reasonable work place. If anyone else has found it, however, you'll have to share."

With that, he turns away. He had already tucked Mirage away someplace nearby, and now has repairs of his own to do. Unless stopped, he will be off to do just that.

[Perceptor-3]

"Yes, Prime," Perceptor answers, nodding, optics downcast in a subtle approximation of a bow. "I will begin at once."

Even if what he really wants to do is follow Rodimus... and he isn't even certain if he would rather throw himself at the Prime's feet, waiting for a single moment of undivided attention... or if he would rather wrap his hands around the Prime's throat and squeeze until the light fades from those mad, crimson optics.

Worse, knowing that the Prime would be pleased by either action. Perceptor shivers as he turns and begins picking his way through the debris toward his goal.

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ooc: out of thread.