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black-strike-otp · 7 years

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part 26

Enough flirting, more kissing. >:u Twits.

At last, Novastrike felt confident in something she was doing. She’d spent so much of her own time back on Cybertron working with her weapons, working with others weapons, that it seemed easy in comparison to learn this over medical practices. It was working on a bigger scale, inside portions of the weapon though than outside it. Well, usually on the inside. Sometimes Blackout would have her join him for a ‘space walk’ outside of the Rising Star to check on sections.

Blackout’s presence felt surprisingly comforting. He talked even less than he did when he was in the med-bay which was surprising. All he ever remarked on in a gruff voice was that she needed to fix that there, no no grab that there, this tool was best not that one. Nova tried chucking up the behavior to him concentrating on what he was doing, but she secretly wondered if it all boiled down to the idea he wanted her at ‘arms length’, so to speak.

“You’re so quiet,” Novastrike would tease. “Do you know how to make friends?”

“I have plenty of friends,” Blackout would retort.

“Name one, besides Scorponok.”

“Confidential.”

Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt and believe him, but it was incredibly hard to believe a gargantuan pitch-black shadow whose only expression seemed to be intimidating with the once-in-a-blue-moon dash of a smile.

She just didn’t realize how rare that smile really was. If Novastrike had the tiniest suspicion; the littlest of knowledge to know that the mech had smiled more in his brief encounters with her than the entire history of his existence, she might be thinking a little differently.

Novastrike wouldn’t give up though. She was persistent in at least trying to make a mutual friendship of some sort with Satan, no matter how little he wanted to speak with her or how much he seemed to ignore her. Everyone deserved kindness, she reasoned, and Blackout was no exception.

A loud exhale escaped Blackout.

“What?” Nova asked quietly, glancing over her shoulder. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Connect the H-396 plug into the ST-396, not the SE-396.”

“Oh, right. Sorry about that.”

“And check the circuits to your right, I’m going to check for plasma radiation leaks by running a surge of power through the systems. While I’m doing that, you make sure nothing sparks in the data network system box.”

Plugging the unit into the correct spot, Novastrike wriggled her frame out from the open panels of the ship’s cannon. She held onto the edge and leaned out to look at the console that Blackout had indicated.

“I can do that,” she said in a chipper voice.

Giving a short nod, Blackout stepped across the other end of the room. He placed a servo against the system and a small crackle of energy seemed to surge through the cannon. Lights flickered and a soft buzzing escaped the cannon, followed by almost a coughing sound as debris and dust escaped some of the ventilation shafts to the gun spewed out.

Nova’s optics darted across circuit board as the system activated. She pinpointed the locations where spitting electricity arced out.

Placing her servos against the edge of the panel, Novastrike leapt out and hit the ground.

“Anything?” Blackout asked, turning back to her.

“Yeah, looks like on grid V, lines H-740B, Y-106R, and I-236O are all damaged, as well as grid W line G-833B, grid D line N-476, and grid F lines M-590T and E-794.”

Blackout’s optics grew brighter with surprise. He slowly walked over, glancing over the circuits before looking at Novastrike with arched optic ridges, “That’s.. very specific, Novastrike.”

“Do you need me to project what I saw?” Nova asked calmly.

“That won’t be necessary,” Blackout commented, turning to look at the circuits. “I trust your judgement.”

A fluttering feeling stirred in Novastrike’s spark and she twitched her tail swiftly back and forth with frustration at herself. It was a simple compliment; did she have to act so childish?

Having placed his attention on the cords, Blackout didn’t seem to notice her reaction. Feeling a little grateful of the good fortune, Nova sauntered over to where Scorponok was in the room. The scorpion minicon was busy fussing with something it looked like.

Then she realized what was going on and laughed.

“Oh- Oh- Oh my-! Scorponok you poor thing,” Novastrike cracked up, gasping for air. “Let me help you! By Primus name, you’re tangling yourself up more. Here.”

Bending down, Nova started gently weaving the cables and lines through loops and untangling them from the bug’s pincers. He stood completely still with an irritated glare upon his narrowed optics, watching as each new section was pulled free of his armor.

“Not my fault,” he defended himself. “Just grabbed one.”

“Well it looks like they attracted to you like a magnet, didn’t they?” Novastrike teased.

Scorponok tilted his helm a small fraction. Two of his optics moved just enough to see where Blackout was in the room as he spoke loudly, “Yes. Like magnet. Attracting things.”

Novastrike’s audios twitched slightly, leaning back as Blackout shifted his pedes to glance towards them.

“Need any help, Novastrike?” the large mech asked in bored, almost monotone voice.

“No, that’s alright,” Novastrike quickly responded. Her spark gave a hopeful lurch. What if he used his holoform to help though..?

No, that was the last thing she wanted.

“Help,” Scorponk whined. “Taking forever.”

Blackout gave a brief snicker from his position in the room. Nova felt her insides practically melt on the spot. Well- of course because he sounded so horrible- yeah that’s it. He sounded so bad when he laughed she wanted to die.

Exactly no part of Novastrike’s processor bought that.

“I’ve got this, you don’t need-”

The air beside Novastrike smelled slightly different then. A strong, predatory, dangerous scent seemed to blanket the spot.

“-anymore-”

The little femme turned her optics just slightly to see Blackout’s holoform standing at her side.

“-help.”

Primus please hail her home now, she felt very small very quickly.

Quirking his lip up just slightly on the left side into a faint smile, Blackout reached out to take the line out of Novastrike’s servos. She practically jumped at the brush of his digits against her armor. For a nanoklik a ghostly memory surfaced in her thoughts, and she thought she could taste the mech’s mouth against hers.

Lord and Savior Primus, please smite her stupid aft now.

“You were knotting it here doing that,” Blackout snickered quietly. “Unless you would rather tie up the bug further. I would not object to the idea.”

Scorponok gave an unsatisfied hiss.

Quiet, nervous giggling escaped Nova. She couldn’t tear her optics away from Blackout’s. The dark scarlet color was one many saw terror in; a monster, fear, death. But she could see the humor tinging along the edges; the slight haunted expression of someone who had seen and done a great many deeds that followed him like a ball and chain.

“Okay, so I may have needed to cut a few in the end to free him, I could have still done it myself.”

“Wasting cables? Shame on you,” Blackout mocked gently.

“Like you aren’t considering it.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t.”

“This enlightening. Maybe help first?” Scorponok cut in, growing vexed once again.

Blackout rolled his optics, reaching out to grab a different wire. “Hold on a nanoklik,” he growled.

“Just stay still,” Novastrike insisted, her optics trailing the direction of another wire and pulling it free of some of its tangles. “We’ll get you out of there.”

Raising an energon cube, Blackout offered it out towards Novastrike with a light smile. “A toast for a day’s hard work?”

Novastrike giggled softly and held out her cube to lightly tap it against Blackout’s. “And to Guard’s generosity in letting us leave the energon storage area to drink. I’ve not seen him allow anyone do that, unless sending energon to the med-bay.”

“I’m sure he realizes that nobody is going to try robbing me of energon, or anyone that is around me,” the large mech stated proudly as he gazed at the little femme.

Nova’s ears warmed with a blush and she glanced shyly away, taking a slow sip of her energon.

There was a slight slosh of Blackout’s energon as he gave his cube a light swirl. The sensation of the big mech watching her as she drank caused a nervous energy in Novastrike, making her fidget a little.

Clearing her vocalizer, the femme looked up to Blackout once more. “Do I have something on me?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re staring.”

“No, I was just thinking. Apologies. I do not enjoy being wrong but you were right about one thing: having another set of little servos around does make the work go by faster. Although, the company could be better.”

Nova blinked her optics rapidly for a moment. It took her a few moments to realize he was messing with her, and she huffed at him.

“Oh yeah? You think sitting around with you all day is a treat, hmm?” She jabbed back, sticking out her glossia.

“You’re the one who chose to help me, and stay.”

“You could always tell me to leave.”

“That would not be beneficial to my work.”

Forming a fist, Novastrike raise her arm in the air and shook it at Blackout threateningly. “You wanna brawl you big aft?”

Before Blackout could even respond, Scorponok was tapping over swiftly on his prongs. Nearly dropping her energon, Novastrike jumped back from the bug as he came upon her suddenly, raising one of his drills at her. For a moment, she thought he actually took her remark for a real threat to his master.

Then Scorponok went to lightly jab at her side with his prongs.

“Hey!” Nova squealed, squirming. She threw a dark gaze at the scorpion but he seemed unphased as he continued poking and prodding her.

The little femme set her energon down as she hopped away from him. “Alright, you asked for it!”

Armor plating morphed and folded in various directions. Just as the bug moved to approach Novastrike she finished transforming and bounced backward and away from him. Her tail lashing wildly, she pounced forward then and at him as he went to shuffle back, clicking loudly.

Giving a soft hiss, the cyber-cat raised her paw and batted at Scorponok’s drill. The bug chirped in response, mimicking Novastrike’s movements exactly so his drill raised and lowered in mocked mirror of her own motions.

“Scorponok, at least allow the femme to finish her energon,” Blackout rumbled.

“No, that’s okay,” Nova huffed. “I can kick his aft in a nanoklik, watch!”

Rearing up on her hindquarters, Novastrike went to swipe at the bug gently, claws retracted of course. Scorponok shifted his weight backwards and let Nova hit the floor in front of her, chattering.

“Don’t expose your under-armor like that,” Blackout said gently, taking a drink of his energon. “You give him room to directly attack your chassis and snuff out your spark.”

Slightly startled by the giant’s remark, Nova glanced up to Blackout.

“If you wanted to cause someone with Scorponok’s frame damage, you would aim for the same thing. However with the shape of his legs, and the fact he borrows, you wouldn’t get the chance,” Blackout went on. “Instead, you should likely aim to blind him and deactivate his drills by any means necessary. That would disable a weapon and an invasive action; making it impossible for him to escape with ease or ambush you.”

“Your next problem would probably be his rockets. Since you do not have an EMP device, your best hope would be to dodge and make distance between yourself and him swiftly so you have the room to outmaneuver any of his rockets until he runs out. It shouldn’t take him long; he doesn’t have many on his person but they still do pack a punch.”

“After that, going for his tail would be your next best bet, if you could not yet take him down by other means. As long as you get the barb, you would be good. Firing upon the section of armor right where the barb meets his tail is a weak point, so you would aim there for best conservation of your ammunition. Once he is broken, without much to fight with, you go in for the kill. Hypothetically.”

Novastrike opened and closed her mouth slowly. Her processor worked out what the mech said while he took a drink. After he’d finished, she finally asked: “Are you advising me on how to fight Scorponok?”

“I’m advising you a specific manner of fighting,” Blackout disagreed. “For instance, if you were fighting me, I could advise you on best tactics to go on a large-framed, multi-weapon carrying individual.”

“Won’t do that,” Scorponok grumbled. “Too proud. Too scared. Only me. Want me beat up.”

“I never said I wanted you beaten up,” the large mech challenged. “It was only advise, Scorponok.”

“How would someone get the slip on you?” Novastrike cut in transforming back into her bipedal to grab her energon cube and drink some more.

Glancing around the room, Blackout seemed to be inspecting for sort of device that may be listening in on them. It was fairly clear to Nova that he didn’t openly discuss this sort of thing. One could easily think of a hundred reasons as to why.

“Well,” Blackout gruffly began, “First, if you were up against someone like me, I would advise you to flee without pause. At any given point, at any opportunity, you should run. Run as fast and as far as your legs could carry you. Because you wouldn’t want to fight someone like me; someone who has nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

He gave a lengthy pause, his optics searing into Novastrike. She was stuck between a desire to curl into herself and a weird sensation like she was drawn in by the sheer danger. There was a thrill to it. She shouldn’t like it; she knew she should be afraid of those murderous optics and the scent of blood-energon and the threat in every movement of his frame that suggested he could crush her and everyone in his path without a second thought in the blink of an optic.

But she stared with a keen sense of interest.

Blackout’s optics grew darker. He seemed to realize she was waiting with anticipation; and although he hid it well, he was very intrigued by her curiosity.

“If you can not get away,” he went on. “If you must fight; there are a few obvious things to keep in mind. The furthest or the closest areas are your best bet. If you are far away, it renders your attacker more difficulty in getting a good shot. Target systems may help, but if you are in constant motion, it adds a challenge. Being very close; right beneath their pedes, it becomes difficult to fire. Shooting too close to themselves risks damage. However you need to be careful in not being trampled by pedes.”

“Taking out weapons would simply take too long. If you can get out at any point in the confrontation, you should. Going for optics or legs would be a good tactic. Blinding the individual or giving them a handicap so they can not move fast enough to keep up with you so you can close in on them or escape would work well.”

“Upon my frame, going for the rotors on my back would also work if you aimed for the mount. Aiming for the blades just cripples me and would enrage me further. That is not to say that that damaging my rotor mount wouldn’t bring me into a frenzy, but the pain overrules your logical senses to attack. A similar location such as the place where the helm meets the spinal strut could paralyze on another mech may not be a bad idea...”

Tapping his digit along the side of his energon cube, Blackout gazed down at Novastrike and her awed expression.

“Wow,” she breathed quietly. “I mean- thank you I appreciate you telling me this. I’m...”

“Confused?” Blackout offered.

“Shocked,” Novastrike corrected. “And humbled. You didn’t have to. I would understand if you thought it was too risky.”

Grunting in response, Blackout took another drink of his energon. “I don’t think you’re able to stab me in the backstrut anytime soon.”

“I don’t want to hurt you at all,” Nova murmured, seeming slightly hurt.

Blackout stiffened. He shifted his gaze briefly to Scorponok and his sly expression and then turned to look upon Novastrike again.

He lifted his energon cube. “That makes two of us.”

Trying to hide her blush by pinning her audio receptors to her helm, Novastrike gave a cheesy grin and commented, “Oh, you don’t want to hurt yourself either?”

“Mmmm, I meant the remark towards you, but I suppose that statement is true as well.”

“How very noble of you.”

“I am nothing if not a mech of righteous ethical magnificence.”

Laughter bubbled up from Novastrike. She placed the cube of energon in front of her face, snickering loudly to herself.

Behind her, the bug’s scheming expression grew more devilish as he stared at Blackout.

Satan took another drink of energon and pretended not to notice Scorponok, or the slight irregular jump his spark made in his chassis.

#quid pro quo au #OTP AU #OTP Lit #Cute OTP

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matrixbearer · 7 years

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It's bayverse!anon again. Again, thank you for the long reply. I've been thinking about opening a tumblr account just to write longer messages to you because I appreciate your insight. I'm not sure if I should though, I only ever look on tumblr for Transformers... But back to the important stuff: if the Allspark animates the metal, then the Cybertronians don't have to or don't reproduce at all. They just need a plate or two of metal and use the Allspark. Part 1/2

Part 2/2: That would explain why they were so desperately looking for it in TF1 - without the Allspark they are doomed. But that can’t be, right? if it was then their extinction would already be a done deal, no matter which side wins. I haven’t seen TF2 and 3 in a while, but I rewatched the 1st one recently and from what I understood they can’t return to their world, because it’s dead(?) but there was no mention of their extinction being a done deal. Mind you, I haven’t read any comics or novels

As far as the lore stands at this time, the Transformers are are only a few more casualties away from being declared extinct.

Think of it like this: if Transformers were placed on the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife they would be classified as❛ Threatened ❜—the last stage before a species is declared extinct.

Personally, it always saddens me when the media for some of the TF continuities downplays how desperate their fight is to survive. But before I get to that…

The Tyran series came before Transformers Prime, and TFP took a lot from Tyran and other continuities. It is the flagship media of the Aligned continuity, which was intended to be a better amalgamation of previous continuities than any other. It was intended from the beginning to take influence from its predecessors. But now we can see that Tyran will be taking some cues from TFP.

Going back to the matter of how critically ignored the plot points of how critical endangered the Transformers are in the franchise’s media:

In Transformers Prime they had no AllSpark for the majority of it, and their world was dead. Without both a world and the AllSpark they have no Well, and without a Well they have no new lives. In the Covenant of Primus it is finally clarified that the AllSpark is a sentient singularity that has feelings and intent; it can be sad or please, and it can also pick a side in a war. It is also not an unlimited source of energy. As the Cybertronians began to colonize other worlds they took with them pieces of the AllSpark, carrying it forward like a torch to light their way. With this piece they cyberformed worlds and made miniature Wells so the colonies may begin to have natives of their own. What they did not know was how they were weakening the AllSpark, ultimately diminishing its capacity to flourish in the hard times to follow after the spacebridge network was destroyed all to protect Cybertron from the rust plague that had already taken entire colonies. It was after this time that Cybertron entered the Age of Rust—they were a stagnant population too small to support their planet, and for the so-call good the caste system had metastasized malignancy. When the war reached its zenith and Megatron set his eyes on the AllSpark—it was for no other reason than an intention to force the AllSpark to make entire generations of new Decepticons for his army. The irony is that the last generation the AllSpark made comprised entirely of Autobots. One of those Autobots was Bumblebee, who later played a crucial role in aiding Optimus’ mission to send the AllSpark into deep space. So yeah, the AllSpark may have had something like a swan song towards the end of Cybertron, but it chose its side and the AllSpark chose the Autobots.

I could go on, but my point is how the species has been marching towards its extinction long before Optimus launched the AllSpark into space—which was done in both Tyran && TFP.

We see very few bots joining in on Earth in Tyran. Sir Burton may describe it as a score coming to Earth, but in the grand scheme of population science it is a fragile amount. Every spark matters, which is why Optimus is so worn out by each one. His desperation is growing and his options are shrinking.

Sadly, the writers choose to throw the extinction plot point under the rug until it is a convenient flippant remark. However, Tyran and Aligned are actually both tragedies for the Transformers. In the conclusion of TFP we’re left with the hope that Cybertron may recover and flourish. In Tyran? Nope. Their world is still dead, now conjoined with Earth, and literally falling apart. The sight of the Transformer’s homeworld breaking apart at their tectonic seams, held together by the planetary vines, well it is nothing less than tragic.

So, you’re right: no matter who won the war the species was already doomed. There was a small bit of hope in TF1 that they could defeat Megatron and take the AllSpark back with them. But, buckets are buckets and Megatron didn’t stop long enough to think that maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Optimus’ primary mission in TF1 was not to save his species; he knew they were doomed unless a miracle happened. He did it to protect Earth. This is a case of not allowing the sins of our elders be passed down unto us and now we are damned by their sins. This is the same reason Optimus sacrificed the Omega Lock in Transformers Prime. In both Tyran and TFP, Optimus had to weigh the lives of a small handful of his people against the billions of lives here on Earth.

This is the kind of shit that even Shakespeare would go, ❝ Woah, I think this is a bit much, dude. ❞

Personally, I love exploring their threat of extinction. Obviously I think primarily from the standpoint of Optimus. But I imagine scenarios where he never landed on Cybertron, but continued to float through deep space for hundreds of years later. Found by a spacefaring race Optimus wakes up to a future where he is last Transformer in all the universe.

On Reproduction—

You said, ❛ They just need a plate or two of metal and use the Allspark. ❜

Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. AOE specifies that they have a unique metal that humans stupidly called Transformium. Now, in the previous movies we saw AllSpark radiation zapping our everyday machines and bam, some crazy juicer on the loose firing missiles just because Cybertronians are naturally assholes.

But, we never see anything lasting come out of these bots. We never see them transform into anything else but the original machine they were sparked from. I theorize that without the Transformium they are stuck with only two modes and can never changed like Optimus or the rest. I doubt these bots would be accepted by natural Cybertronians. On the flip-side maybe direct expose to the AllSpark’s radiation transforms metal into Transformium? This is also a possibility.

In TF2 we see the concept of hatchlings that the Decepticons failed to sustain because of a lack of energon. How did they form the hatchlings? We don’t know. We know their natural metal (Transformium) is regenerating. So maybe that same process allows for a hatchling to develop into an adulthood and quite literally grow metal as some form of a biological process. The hatchling plot was dropped quickly and left to only speculation. I wouldn’t guess any of the hatchlings survived into adulthood.

Primus is real because in TLK we got the baby Dinobots. Sadly, with no explaination and left with only speculation. But a primary question is once again: are they made from Transformium or some ‘inferior’ metal?

This line of thought reminds me of the KSI-made Decepticons, which were made from Transformium. The KSI Transformers are not explicitly discussed in TLK, but we know Megatron was original one.

Side note: I think Megatron in TLK got his new body from Quintessa, so this more recent resurrection probably gives him a higher degree of pedigree than he had as one of KSI’s creations.

In the social hierarchy this is a logical order: first natural Transformers born on Cybertron or one of their possible colonies, Earth-born hatchlings (if any survived), followed by the manmade ones, and lastly the ones made from simple machines. So yeah! More bigotry out of the Transformers.

Of course, we could go and argue the question about whether the so-called natural Transformer are natural at all—are they born or are they made? Lockdown and Quintessa and a few things to say on that subject.

SO yeah, it isn’t as simple as taking two pieces of metal. There needs to be circuitry involved, the a specific and rare metal, and I couldn’t begin to fathom the rest from there.

—Hope to hear from you again, soon! ❤︎ Opi

#transformers prime #transformers bayverse #optimus prime #megatron #maccadam #— ✱ ┊ 「 meta 」;;#— ♔ ┊ 「 meta 」;;#— ♞ ┊ 「 meta 」;;#— ♞ ┊ 「 headcanon 」;;#— ♔ ┊ 「 headcanon 」;;#— ♞ ┊ ( ❛ TYRAN ❜ ) 「 ⋅ 」;;#professor opi #bayverse anon

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