"Then one day I was ravished by a wild Princess!"
Title: The Nine Rings of Vos: Defection
A Transformers G1 Fanfic
Author: Sanjuno Shori Niko
Summary: Sometimes you look and get an answer to a question you didn't know you needed to ask.
Timeline: More fic here.
=/=
(In which Soundwave finds out.)
Soundwave could not help but feel relieved when the door to his temporary quarters shut behind him. The Seekers had been nothing but startlingly hospitable since the telepath had awoken in Vos. Other than the initial abduction that had brought Soundwave and the Casseticons to the citadel in the first place, the Seekers had treated Soundwave with nothing but courtesy and respect. Despite the repeated blatant attempts to get the telepath back into their berth, the Elite Trine had asked nothing of Soundwave. No demands for information. No requests for aide. No attempts to blackmail or suborn him to their cause. They seemed simply content to have Soundwave here in their Tower.
It was all very confusing.
For the moment, Soundwave found himself glad that the Casseticons were bunked in with the Seeker younglings in the Crèche. It was rare that Soundwave had the opportunity to meditate. It would have been exceedingly unwise to make himself so vulnerable while among the Decepticons and his creations tended to disrupt the peace he needed to maintain the proper state of mind. His offspring’s psionic talents were still too undeveloped for the techniques that required meditation, although if Ravage continued to mature at his current pace Soundwave would have to look into teaching his eldest the basics sooner than he had predicted.
Turning off the lights, Soundwave made himself comfortable on the overlarge berth. Optics dimming as his shutters closed, Soundwave relaxed the hold he usually kept over his telepathic powers and stepped outside of himself.
It was impossible to describe what the world looked like when Soundwave forwent the limitations of his shell. The best Soundwave could do, should he ever care to try, would be to say that it was light. Sparks were bright stars, surrounded by auroras of flickering emotions. Bonds shone in glittering strands, some thinner, some thicker, intensity depending on the depth of the bond in question. Non-sentient life, reduced as it was by the near-starvation of their planet, was seen as blurry swirls of simple drives.
Soundwave had been wary of trying this while he was held captive, especially since he still had difficulties getting an accurate reading off of any one Seeker, let alone a city full of them, but there was nothing else he could do without endangering the precarious accord between himself and his erstwhile hosts. Finding a way to contact Megatron would be… unwise. There were sparklings, younglings, and other non-combatants here in the Vosian Citadel that Soundwave knew his leader would not spare. In his efforts to make Starscream pay for his defection and long-time betrayal, Megatron would raze this stronghold to the ground and slaughter anyone found within. Of that, Soundwave had no doubts. After all, the warlord had done so more than once before. Escape was impossible, not with the amount of security between the central tower and the walls. At first, Soundwave had thought it Starscream’s typical paranoia coming out to play, but after given time to observe, the telepath had come to realize that the Seekers of Vos were simply just that fanatic about the safety of their leading trine. The level of devotion Vos had for Starscream and his trine was something Soundwave thought only Optimus Prime could inspire. The only place with more protection placed on it was the Crèche, which was an interesting quirk of priorities for war builds. Soundwave could understand the Seekers not wanting their leaders to go missing again, but the level of trust and devotion the residents of this city had in their commanders was insane. There had to be a reason for it. Perhaps this mindwalk would give Soundwave the answers to his questions.
Whatever Soundwave had been expecting when he decided to try this trick, it had been nothing remotely like what he found.
A web. A nebula. The swirl of clouds shaped by hurricane winds as seen from space. Moving. Alive. Shifting and changing as bonds were forged, strengthened, altered states.
Fascinated, Soundwave moved deeper, entering the storm and being careful not to be caught by it. This was the true nature of the Seekers. Overlapping bonds that connected trine to trine, Flightless to Skyborn. Outsider sparks like free-floating atoms, lending extra strength, and extra charge. The Flightless Seekers grounded the vortex, gave it stability. The Skyborn burned, agitated, in constant motion, the momentum that kept it going, kept it light enough to bear. No wonder Starscream had been so easily confidant in his plan. With so many varied bonds tying the Seeker populace together, nothing less than total annihilation would have made the Seekers break. Deeper and deeper Soundwave went, amazed by what he had already discovered, anxious to learn more, until finally, he reached his ultimate goal.
Here. The center. The eye. The keystone. The core. This is what held the massive, impossible bond together. Three sparks, holding fast, holding strong, holding steady. Balanced on the edge of a blade. Skirting the event horizon of oblivion. Such a large-scale bond was impossible, should have been impossible to sustain. It should have long since collapsed under the strain of itself. Yet as far as Soundwave could determine, this impossible web of bonds was old, ancient, as much a fundamental part of the Seekers as their wings.
It was mind-boggling. Maintaining a bond network of such magnitude and multitude should shred their sparks to nothing. Instead, against all known rules of medical science, the Seeker’s sparks were strong, stable, and incandescent. The non-Seeker sparks blazed with life and vitality, with strength transmitted from their mate’s sparks to their own. Adding to the bond only strengthened the sparks involved rather than causing them strain. It was if the laws of the universe simply skipped over the Seekers without any negative effects.
Soundwave looked for his creations and found them. For now, it seemed that the Casseticons were only connected to the Elite Trine through their imprint bonds. They were not yet truly a part of the Seeker nation (how apt the label was!) Soundwave knew better than to expect that state of affairs to continue for long. Already he could see faint threads reaching out for his offspring. If Soundwave did nothing, his creations would be assimilated into the Seeker’s maelstrom of bonds. Once that came to pass, the Casseticons would be far too entangled in the Seeker's bonds to ever escape.
What could the telepath actually do though? Realistically, this whole situation was of Soundwave’s own making. Soundwave had used Seeker spark energy and codes to create his sparklings. Soundwave had caught the attention of the Elite Trine and encouraged their interest by interfacing with them. Soundwave had carved his own tomb.
A tiny rippling tug caught Soundwave’s brooding attention. The telepath knew the flavour of his creation’s minds, and this was none of them trying to gain his attention. The connection was fragile, ephemeral, and nearly non-existent. Had Soundwave not been in this ultra-receptive state at precisely this moment he never would have noticed it. Curious, Soundwave traced the faint touch back to the source.
Sources.
Three of them.
Soundwave saw the trine of sparks, such familiar sparks for all he had touched them only once before with his own. The telepath had just spent an inordinate amount of time tracking them down. Three brilliant sparks that supported a nation's worth of bonds, and each carrying, cradled protectively within their light a much smaller presence.
Astonished, Soundwave reached out for the tiny sparks that resonated with his own, just as the sparks of his Casseticons echoed his own. These were sparks that Soundwave had helped create.
Things were now clearer and more complicated than ever before. It made sense to Soundwave now why the Seekers had taken him. Soundwave knew now why the Elite trine had ordered him treated so well. Soundwave knew why his affections were being courted so earnestly. Soundwave had seen how treasured sparklings were by the Seekers, and he had seen how possessive the Seekers were of their mates and the providers of their offspring.
Soundwave moved back carefully, detangling himself from the filament fine threads that reached out from his creations and sought to bind him to their carriers. The telepath took one last long, considering look at the brilliant, impossible reality that surrounded him.
Soundwave had made his choice.
(Word Count: 1388)
=/=
Hey look. It's Soundwave. Huh. How about that. Haven't seen him in a while. Wow. *pokes telepath* Aren't you like, supposed to be one of the main characters? You need to speak up more often. For something other than porn. Fer serious. I mean, at this rate, Skids is going to beat you out for screen time. I mean, WTF? Do you not like me or something? *pokes telepath some more*
Sooooo... there's like, nothing interesting happening in my life right now. My dad got promoted to senior management (no pay increase, but still nifty.) I'm doodling some stuff for the Botcon Art Contests. I get my car back on Thursday. But yeah. Nothing new.
... Anyone got some good fic recs? I wanna read stuff.
Here there be dragons!
♠
♣
♠
♣
♠
♣
A Transformers G1 Fanfic
Author: Sanjuno Shori Niko
Summary: Sometimes you look and get an answer to a question you didn't know you needed to ask.
Timeline: More fic here.
=/=
(In which Soundwave finds out.)
Soundwave could not help but feel relieved when the door to his temporary quarters shut behind him. The Seekers had been nothing but startlingly hospitable since the telepath had awoken in Vos. Other than the initial abduction that had brought Soundwave and the Casseticons to the citadel in the first place, the Seekers had treated Soundwave with nothing but courtesy and respect. Despite the repeated blatant attempts to get the telepath back into their berth, the Elite Trine had asked nothing of Soundwave. No demands for information. No requests for aide. No attempts to blackmail or suborn him to their cause. They seemed simply content to have Soundwave here in their Tower.
It was all very confusing.
For the moment, Soundwave found himself glad that the Casseticons were bunked in with the Seeker younglings in the Crèche. It was rare that Soundwave had the opportunity to meditate. It would have been exceedingly unwise to make himself so vulnerable while among the Decepticons and his creations tended to disrupt the peace he needed to maintain the proper state of mind. His offspring’s psionic talents were still too undeveloped for the techniques that required meditation, although if Ravage continued to mature at his current pace Soundwave would have to look into teaching his eldest the basics sooner than he had predicted.
Turning off the lights, Soundwave made himself comfortable on the overlarge berth. Optics dimming as his shutters closed, Soundwave relaxed the hold he usually kept over his telepathic powers and stepped outside of himself.
It was impossible to describe what the world looked like when Soundwave forwent the limitations of his shell. The best Soundwave could do, should he ever care to try, would be to say that it was light. Sparks were bright stars, surrounded by auroras of flickering emotions. Bonds shone in glittering strands, some thinner, some thicker, intensity depending on the depth of the bond in question. Non-sentient life, reduced as it was by the near-starvation of their planet, was seen as blurry swirls of simple drives.
Soundwave had been wary of trying this while he was held captive, especially since he still had difficulties getting an accurate reading off of any one Seeker, let alone a city full of them, but there was nothing else he could do without endangering the precarious accord between himself and his erstwhile hosts. Finding a way to contact Megatron would be… unwise. There were sparklings, younglings, and other non-combatants here in the Vosian Citadel that Soundwave knew his leader would not spare. In his efforts to make Starscream pay for his defection and long-time betrayal, Megatron would raze this stronghold to the ground and slaughter anyone found within. Of that, Soundwave had no doubts. After all, the warlord had done so more than once before. Escape was impossible, not with the amount of security between the central tower and the walls. At first, Soundwave had thought it Starscream’s typical paranoia coming out to play, but after given time to observe, the telepath had come to realize that the Seekers of Vos were simply just that fanatic about the safety of their leading trine. The level of devotion Vos had for Starscream and his trine was something Soundwave thought only Optimus Prime could inspire. The only place with more protection placed on it was the Crèche, which was an interesting quirk of priorities for war builds. Soundwave could understand the Seekers not wanting their leaders to go missing again, but the level of trust and devotion the residents of this city had in their commanders was insane. There had to be a reason for it. Perhaps this mindwalk would give Soundwave the answers to his questions.
Whatever Soundwave had been expecting when he decided to try this trick, it had been nothing remotely like what he found.
A web. A nebula. The swirl of clouds shaped by hurricane winds as seen from space. Moving. Alive. Shifting and changing as bonds were forged, strengthened, altered states.
Fascinated, Soundwave moved deeper, entering the storm and being careful not to be caught by it. This was the true nature of the Seekers. Overlapping bonds that connected trine to trine, Flightless to Skyborn. Outsider sparks like free-floating atoms, lending extra strength, and extra charge. The Flightless Seekers grounded the vortex, gave it stability. The Skyborn burned, agitated, in constant motion, the momentum that kept it going, kept it light enough to bear. No wonder Starscream had been so easily confidant in his plan. With so many varied bonds tying the Seeker populace together, nothing less than total annihilation would have made the Seekers break. Deeper and deeper Soundwave went, amazed by what he had already discovered, anxious to learn more, until finally, he reached his ultimate goal.
Here. The center. The eye. The keystone. The core. This is what held the massive, impossible bond together. Three sparks, holding fast, holding strong, holding steady. Balanced on the edge of a blade. Skirting the event horizon of oblivion. Such a large-scale bond was impossible, should have been impossible to sustain. It should have long since collapsed under the strain of itself. Yet as far as Soundwave could determine, this impossible web of bonds was old, ancient, as much a fundamental part of the Seekers as their wings.
It was mind-boggling. Maintaining a bond network of such magnitude and multitude should shred their sparks to nothing. Instead, against all known rules of medical science, the Seeker’s sparks were strong, stable, and incandescent. The non-Seeker sparks blazed with life and vitality, with strength transmitted from their mate’s sparks to their own. Adding to the bond only strengthened the sparks involved rather than causing them strain. It was if the laws of the universe simply skipped over the Seekers without any negative effects.
Soundwave looked for his creations and found them. For now, it seemed that the Casseticons were only connected to the Elite Trine through their imprint bonds. They were not yet truly a part of the Seeker nation (how apt the label was!) Soundwave knew better than to expect that state of affairs to continue for long. Already he could see faint threads reaching out for his offspring. If Soundwave did nothing, his creations would be assimilated into the Seeker’s maelstrom of bonds. Once that came to pass, the Casseticons would be far too entangled in the Seeker's bonds to ever escape.
What could the telepath actually do though? Realistically, this whole situation was of Soundwave’s own making. Soundwave had used Seeker spark energy and codes to create his sparklings. Soundwave had caught the attention of the Elite Trine and encouraged their interest by interfacing with them. Soundwave had carved his own tomb.
A tiny rippling tug caught Soundwave’s brooding attention. The telepath knew the flavour of his creation’s minds, and this was none of them trying to gain his attention. The connection was fragile, ephemeral, and nearly non-existent. Had Soundwave not been in this ultra-receptive state at precisely this moment he never would have noticed it. Curious, Soundwave traced the faint touch back to the source.
Sources.
Three of them.
Soundwave saw the trine of sparks, such familiar sparks for all he had touched them only once before with his own. The telepath had just spent an inordinate amount of time tracking them down. Three brilliant sparks that supported a nation's worth of bonds, and each carrying, cradled protectively within their light a much smaller presence.
Astonished, Soundwave reached out for the tiny sparks that resonated with his own, just as the sparks of his Casseticons echoed his own. These were sparks that Soundwave had helped create.
Things were now clearer and more complicated than ever before. It made sense to Soundwave now why the Seekers had taken him. Soundwave knew now why the Elite trine had ordered him treated so well. Soundwave knew why his affections were being courted so earnestly. Soundwave had seen how treasured sparklings were by the Seekers, and he had seen how possessive the Seekers were of their mates and the providers of their offspring.
Soundwave moved back carefully, detangling himself from the filament fine threads that reached out from his creations and sought to bind him to their carriers. The telepath took one last long, considering look at the brilliant, impossible reality that surrounded him.
Soundwave had made his choice.
(Word Count: 1388)
=/=
Hey look. It's Soundwave. Huh. How about that. Haven't seen him in a while. Wow. *pokes telepath* Aren't you like, supposed to be one of the main characters? You need to speak up more often. For something other than porn. Fer serious. I mean, at this rate, Skids is going to beat you out for screen time. I mean, WTF? Do you not like me or something? *pokes telepath some more*
Sooooo... there's like, nothing interesting happening in my life right now. My dad got promoted to senior management (no pay increase, but still nifty.) I'm doodling some stuff for the Botcon Art Contests. I get my car back on Thursday. But yeah. Nothing new.
... Anyone got some good fic recs? I wanna read stuff.
Here there be dragons!
♠
♣
♠
♣
♠
♣