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There is a brief pause filled with audible clicks and thuds, followed by the slightly echoey acoustics that come from someone recording audio in a large room. "Hello hello! You've reached Dr. Velocity! Feel free to leave a message or a video or whatever here, and I'll do my very best to respond promptly! And if it this is about the stickers, Ratchet, I didn't do it! Love and love and love!"

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Hey beautiful! Want to go to the ball with me? Make me the luckiest insect on the ship?

[Velocity's face instantly lit up when she saw the message, and pressed her datapad to her chest as she spun in a little circle with a squeal]

Of coarse I will, if you'll make me the luckiest Caminus colonist on the ship inn return. ...Lucky, though? Really really?

H-Hello? I-Is this thing on? A-Ah OK, cool! Nice nice nice. Alrighty —

Hello, Velocity!! I would like to say thank you for giving me a part of your blood to me from a few nights ago! I know you were asleep at the time, but I still wanted to give thanks to you since getting to become you was really great! On a side note, maybe I should've asked you first . . . but that aside —

I usually don't get that many chances to become a huge robot like you, but with your blood, now I can grow closer to the other guys on board . . . and especially you!

A-And again, thank you so much for the blood! It was a little bitter at first, but at least I didn't gag too much on it like I used to. If you want to talk to me . . . just go to Room 231 and I'll be waiting there! I don't have my phone with me right now, so I can't wait to see you in person again!

Byeeeee ~ !

[now, like some of the others, primal is prone to avoiding the medibay. too long spent working on the bare minimum and having no choice but to just walk off any injury or discomfort makes it difficult for him to accept that help is readily available. he's getting better at it, but he's not great. so it's kind of an indication at how much what he is contacting velocity - the medic he usually sees - is bothering him when he does go and do it. whatever it is that was wrapped around his spark chamber doesn't hurt, but it feels wrong at the same time it feels right, enought that his entire frame has been extremely tense since he returned from his mission with the others. his HUD is very displeased with him, and so are all his joints.]

Doctor Velocity, when you next have a free appointment I would be grateful to have it.

[Velocity picks up the call at once. She's mildly surprised he's contacting her for an appointment as stretches of time usually go by between when he makes one, but he at least does follow through on being checked out more often than some on board. She does worry about him, too, so this would be reassuring on that level, too]

Of course, Primal, no trouble at all. I actually have a stretch of time free early this afternoon, someone cancelled. Would you be available to come in for it iiiiiin... [She peeks at her schedule] Three hours? The medibay ought to be quiet around then, too, nobody likes having appointments around lunch.

[he nods, then remembers this is a voice call.]

Yes. That works.

[no it doesn't. he wants it out him now, now, now-- no, it's fine. it doesn't hurt. he can't hear her laughing anymore. did he hear anyone? primal returns to what he was doing once the appointment is slotted into his internal calendar, which was sitting stiffly and staring at a wall and pretending like his grief for airazor isn't currently burning a hole through him.

at the very least, when he is there, it's clear that he's managed to pull himself forward in leaps and bounds from the first time where he'd opted for sedation just to stay grounded, onwards to asking the optimus from his reality to accompany him a few times when he needed to be checked over after being extremely poisoned and shot in the grand hunt, up to now, here on his own.]

While we were away on our mission, something... settled around my spark chamber. [...okay maybe he's still downplaying stuff, because he didn't seem to be in any great rush to have something so close to his spark looked at. primal's hands are clenched into shaking fists though, as he looks down at his knees where he's perched on the edge of the medical berth.] I haven't looked. I don't understand it other than it feels... odd.

Velocity only managed to keep alarm from showing on her face because of the dozens of hours of practice she'd put into it during and after medical school, but it was a close thing. Her face definitely did do a thing, but it wasn't an alarmed thing.

"Right," she managed. "I'm glad and grateful you trusted me enough to come in. While I get a scanner set up, can you tell me anything about the circumstances it happened under? Anything might help."

She pulled up the portable scanner to get a look at his system in general, not just his spark chamber. Solus Prime alone knew what effect whatever this was could be having on him.

When it chimed gently to let her know the scan was completed, Velocity took a look. She cycled her optics, then tilted her head first one way then the other, mouth parting slightly before she closed it again to peer closer. "Well, um. You're correct. These results are... odd."

They showed a secondary energy source was indeed coiled around his spark chamber, but it was impossible to tell just from the readings if it was mechanical or organic or even technorganic in origin. Velocity worried her bottom lip between her teeth, then looked back at Primal for his response.

Edited 2025-03-30 23:56 (UTC)

Fortunately for Velocity, Primal had the presence of mind to assume that whatever is inside him is probably cause for concern. It does not have to be actively harming him for it to be an issue, after all, and so he does not look overly shocked at this news.

"At Kopaya' we were invited to drink something, as is their tradition. It seemed to have a different effect on everyone, with this being mine. One of our compatriots said this is an offering from the twin of Destiny. I have not had a chance to look further into this. I fear it may be magical." He feels ridiculous saying that. Primal, like many others, has not had much experience with supernatural things before this reality. "I will open my chest so you can see. It does not cause me discomfort."

He leans back as he says this, chest panels shifting to open. Velocity can probably recognise the shape of the thing inside him, as many of their race would-- this strange Matrix appears to be fully inorganic, until she looks closer and sees that it seems to be wooden around the handles. Then she might notice she's being watched. Not by Primal, who is also looking down as his finials very slowly start to droop, but by a few clusters of smaller eyes that have opened on it.

"That is indeed... odd." It's probably no surprise how faraway Primal's voice sounds, but also a testament to his willpower that he doesn't immediately react in a significantly less downplayed way, even though he really, really wants to. "It probably shouldn't be in there. I'll take it out for study."

He reaches in and easily grips the handles, as they were made for his hands, and gently attempts to lift it out. If he pretends hard enough, he can ignore the eyes watching his movements.

Primal manages to move it about an inch before he suddenly jerks forward, almost elbowing poor Velocity in the face, as he doubles over on the berth with a feral, animalistic shriek of pure agony, his optics going extremely wide and bright from the shock of it. He brings a fist down on the berth out of reflex to try and deal with the pain, hard enough that he splinters most of his knuckles and splatters energon across it. This works in his favour; the pain stops when he lets go of the relic and his processor is immediately diverted to the new problem of his broken hand.

He says nothing else, then, just stays doubled over on the berth, optical mechanisms spinning wildly as he tries to process it all.

Not long after returning from the Cathedral of Mirrors, Velocity finds herself floating in darkness. Is she floating, actually? Or is she falling very, very slowly. Her thoughts float gently from one idea to the next before her one last peaceful moment is broken when a white chain suddenly clamps around her right wrist. Then her left one. Then, lastly, her neck. She's yanked in all directions, her arms pulled into a t-pose as she's forced to look up into the darkness.

He descends, his hands outstretched, reaching and holding her face tenderly with both hands. His silver-blue tentacles float behind him as though he's swimming through water, his face pulled back into a malicious grin.

"Mine again, just as you were meant to be." He whispers, leaning in until their faces are uncomfortably close. "Such a pity your teammates didn't consider you worth sacrificing for. Your life and safety is never anyone's top priority, is it? I know your worth though, Velocity. I would have given the world to you."

He laughs, cold and mocking.

"You will be useful to me again soon enough.

Sleep well, my dear. Until our next reunion."

Abruptly, the dream ends.

Velocity jerked awake and sucked in a strangled vent to scream that didn't come back out, optics flaring so brightly they'd gone from yellow to almost white. She catapulted herself out of her berth, stumbling and crashing into her end table and scattering unseen objects as she crumpled to her knees. Sucked in vents that shrieked in her audials, too fast and too ragged and too too too-

she'd chosen this she'd known it would happen she'd accepted it she'd chosen this she'd known it would happen she'd

Without thinking, she scrabbled frantically for her datapad and attempted to comm Megatron, unknowingly opening an audio message to the entirety of the group chat instead as she dropped the datapad. Velocity bent in half over it and hugged herself and rocked, hyperventilating vents dragging ragged gasps that scraped her throat raw.

"M-Megatron I'm sorry I'm sorry I- I- you c-can be mad still be gone still- st- I need you I need you please he was in my dream he-" She clapped two hands over her mouth and keened through her fingers. "I'll s-say anything you want if you just-"

Her forehead touched the floor next to broken glass and the sticker on her datapad that proclaimed 97% in faded pink glitter and let out a broken, punched out noise as she started to weep alone in the dark.

Rung is to his feet right away. He told himself there were to be no regrets that the choice must be done. But how can he follow his logic to protect some one right next to him if..

He makes his way down the halls. "Lottie, dear it's not Megatron. But I am still coming to you. Speak to me. Name 5 things you see, keep focus on this till I get there "

"I'm on my way," Moonracer adds in, phasing towards Lottie as fast as she could. It wasn't fast enough - she couldn't get there instantly- but she's hurrying.

"We're coming."

"I- I- I-" Velocity drew in a startled vent. Her vocalizer spat out static and choked, hiccuping noises on the vent out but she lifted her head slightly.

Her optics skittered around her darkened hab suite like frightened animals, unable to settle. She wanted the gift Megatron had given her on the cruise but she'd traded it away to help defeat Nemo she'd given it away and she had nothing left of him she'd traded away his present-

Another sob caught in her throat and she vented in and in and in with sharp bursts. "St-sticker, I-" Her gaze settled on her upturned datapad. It had landed on the notifications page for the group chat. At the very bottom of the page, half cut off, was the alert that Megatron had left the chat.

He'd left.

He'd left and he'd never have answered her begging him for help, anyway.

Velocity's vocalizer clicked and clicked and came back online halfway through a cry of, "-lert that he left he's gone he isn't g-gonna-" Her optics widened further as the realization pierced through her panic that Rung and Moony had both heard her they'd all heard her, she-

Velocity froze, her extra set of hands drawing in towards her chest in horrified shame just before she lurched back to her pedes. She staggered away from her datapad, every step crunching through broken glass and squishing small fidget toys before she slipped and bumped back into the wall, startling another thin cry out of her. "S-s-sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm-" She drew her top, original set of arms over her head and wailed wordless fear and misery.

"sweet spark, it's okay. He's not here but you're not alone. I'm sorry dear, I should of been at your side when we returned," Rung rounds a corner finding the door to velocity.

"I'm at your door. I'm opening it, and I will be here now"

He's slipping up in his own ways. But she will not be alone now.

"I'm here," Moonracer says as she finally phases into Lottie's room.

Instantly, she's moving to wrap the medic up in a hug, engine ticking over in a soothing sound.

"We're here for you, Lottie."

She makes sure to leave room for Rung, too. Lottie needs everyone she can get.

Velocity hiccuped out another stuttery burst of static when Moonracer appeared out of nothing and gathered her up in a hug. Her knees gave out and Velocity sagged, dragging them both down to the floor. Her lower, newer pair of arms clapped back over her mouth and she shuddered in Moony's arms. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, you shouldn't have to-" She whispered in an agony. She was bothering Moony and Rung and everyone she was making her choices their problems and had done so much worse, too. All of the blood he'd spill was on her hands too, she'd agreed to it, she-

she'd chosen this she's chosen this she'd chosen this

"I want him back, I- I need M-Megatron, he-" Velocity said in the smallest, glitchy whisper that faded into a purely mechanical noise of misery, clinging on to Moony.

She lifted pale optics to look between them both. She had only ever had Nautica before arriving on the R2. She'd never experienced the war firsthand, never been abandoned by anyone. This was her first true firsthand experience with loss, and it made her spark lurch in her chest. It was overwhelming, strangling. "H-he helped me, he always helped, he made it better he told me wh-what to do to fix it and said he liked me that I was one of his favorites, he-"

She drew shaking legs up to her chest and started to rock again. "I'm sorry..."

"There is no reason to apologize. I should, dear. I didn't take care of you, I didn't consider you like I should." Rung moves forward and sits by and works to puzzle pieces them all into this hug.

"I'm so sorry, Lottie. I know I'm no Megatron or powerful defender. But I want you to know you're not a burden. Not to me."

Velocity hiccuped out a burst of static and buried her face into Rung's shoulder. "Y-you don't have to be a-" Her voice caught and wobbled, and she shook her head. "I should be able to-"

All the words that had been hurled at her before made her heave in a vent far too fast, then another. She needed too much, made others fight her battles for her too much, weakling, useless, can't be depended on-

That awful, twisting anger that had been boiling in her chest since Megatron had done what he did lurched inside of her. She could also feel an almost painfully sharp feeling of relief hovering just on the other side of yelling, of rejecting the offered help, and she almost did. Trembled with it, but-

But in the end it all crumbled from the edge of her tongue and she sagged into Moonracer and Rung's embrace, the same way she always did. "I trust him," she whispered weakly. "We all do. Why couldn't he trust us back?"

"Oh scrap, no, no, no, no!" Ratchet yelps one bright and sunny day in the medibay - one of the rare days he's working on the R2 instead of on Sigma in a location he still isn't comfortable sharing with anyone. One of the drones has flown a bit too close to Knock Out's desk, its low hanging claw knocking a stack of datapads over which then caught some misc items he'd left before... well, leaving.

Ratchet slaps it away then grabs the datapads, quickly stacking them back up after looking around to make sure no one can see him at Knock Out's desk, despite the fact it is in the main area with the other desks and not exactly off limits.

Reaching out to put everything back where it was before, so Knock Out won't find anything amiss if - when - he comes back, Ratchet's expression pinches. He remembers the first time Knock Out had gone down on a mission, and the amount of time he'd spent looking at the empty desk with worry it would remain so. Knock Out tweaking his chevron when he was back because Ratchet was being all Autobot about it... he still hasn't really worked out a useful therapy technique for the uncertainty of reality the bridge forces on them. He's feeling it now. Knock Out could walk back in after lunch, or he could never see him again. It's not the same as knowing where someone is, be it in the morgue or another planet.

Sighing, he stops squirreling over the desk. Last thing he wants is for Breakdown to catch him and for it to get awkward.

Velocity made a hushed, almost inaudible noise as she came up to stand beside Ratchet. She tangled all of her hands up together in knots as she leaned a bit to give first him and then the desk the same anxious, helpless look. The kind you felt wound in every inch of circuitry when you were at a memorial ceremony and didn't know whether to talk or hug or cry or laugh and laugh and laugh because the pinched feeling in your spark was going to bubble out whether you wanted it to or not.

But maybe that was just her.

Her finials clicked against each other before opening wider again, almost like the flicking fins of the fish she had been compared to more than once. "Hey..." She said quietly, then hovered for a few moments more, not knowing what to say, just that she should say something. "I know you're the therapist and everything, but..."

She looked back at the desk and started to speak, to move, only to hesitate with her hands curled uselessly in front of her chest. Poised, frozen in mid-motion. Helpless, useless, stupid girl...

A vent in, a vent out.

She then forced a single hand to reach out and lightly ghost her fingertips across his desk as if she were afraid of disturbing the unspoken, unacknowledged bubble of anticipatory grief the entire medibay felt... before she pressed her palm flat to the top of the desk and smoothed her thumb across it in a comforting gesture.

"I- I don't know what'll happen either," she murmured without looking up yet, "but... but I do know one thing. I know he'd hate the idea of us packing him away into a box like delicate porcelain that will never ever be looked at or touched again. He'd throw a fit. He'd want us to chip all the plates having cheap, empty treats and use the teacups to drink high grade and tell stories, good and bad, because- because he's both. Knock Out was here, and he is our friend, and one thing he would never want," she added with a shaky attempt at a smile as she tucked one arm through Ratchet's, "is for anybody not to look at him when they come into the room."

He keeps looking at the desk, not really reacting to anything Velocity says, or really even her presence.

"This length of time usually means the person is gone for good," he says, his tone stiff in a way she hasn't heard before. Ratchet always knew this would happen - if not to Knock Out then to someone else who was an important member of the R2 community - and he thinks it's a tragedy that this time, Breakdown has been left behind and Knock Out has gone back to a world where his beloved is dead.

He doesn't know if this is the first time Velocity has lost a friend in this way, and doesn't really want to ask. At least he knows this isn't catastrophic and fatal desynchronisation now.

"Sure would be nice if people could friggin' give some kinda warning before they decide to disappear," he says with a huff, as even now he struggles to accept any support offered to him. "Maybe I should work out a system that can reshuffle appointments when they do. Primus knows I've done it manually enough times when someone decides to go bye-bye."

What Ratchet said instantly knocked the determined expression off of Velocity's face, with a very audible hitch in her vents. She actually fell back a step before collecting herself as much as she could, but a coolness in her hands drew her gaze down.

Her hand was still on Knock Out's desk.

She stared at it with her mouth parted, optics spiraling and spiraling. Knock Out was gone. Megatron had left. She had left Nautica by coming here. What if-

Her hand shook on the desk, making quiet rattling clicks of metal on metal. "Ratchet," she said in a breathless, almost pleading tone, "he- he'll come back. He wouldn't leave you or Breakdown or-" Her voice caught again. Click, click, click, went her vocalizer, and when she spoke again her voice cracked. "Good things come back. I- I promised Nautica, before the exam. That I wouldn't fail again like the- the other nine times, because... good things don't stay gone. They'll come back to you. So-"

Velocity's optic lenses spiraled open wide and paled at the thing within Primal's chest even before it opened its eyes, everything inside of her cringing in instinctive mortal terror at the mere concept of an organic or technorganic being squirming amongst your most vulnerable areas...

Then he grasped it and attempted to pull it out, and he began to scream and curl in on himself, bringing a fist up and then swinging it down hard enough to add a terrifyingly loud crack that she had to double check didn't come from his spark chamber. Even as she did, Velocity screamed as well. Couldn't help it. It was short and sharp and horrified, and she unthinkingly lurched forward to... do what exactly? Shield him? Take some of his pain into herself?

But everything stopped even before she clattered against him, one servo going to clutch at his injured one, all the others partway through motions even she couldn't have defined. He stopped screaming, stopped pulling, stopped punching, just... stopped.

She stood there next to him venting hard for just a second before she shook like she was ridding herself of rainwater and began to busy herself with the familiar task of cleaning and inspecting and then repairing a set of knuckles.

She swallowed hard as she worked, vented in and vented out. "Right. Observations. The... device appears to be technorganic or perhaps purely organic in nature and simply engaged in advanced mimicry, at least visually resembling a matrix. However, with the reaction it had upon attempting to remove it, it very well might be parasitic in nature."

She chose not to expand upon differing views within the medical community if the matrix itself and Primus by extension were parasitic. That was a scholarly debate best saved for another time and with someone else.

"Have you felt or experienced anything else unusual? Have you-" She swallowed, optics flitting this way and that. "I am... not at all experienced in matters of the fay," she said. "I would like to bring in another doctor, Red Alert, to consult. Are you all right with that?"

Edited 2025-07-19 06:50 (UTC)

His plating shifts around suddenly, and Velocity can probably tell he's trying to transform, but he stops himself partway and snaps back into his robot mode. Primal still says nothing, just nods slowly from where he's curled in on himself, leaving his arm hanging uselessly at his side so she can see to the damage he's just done to himself. It hurts, and it keeps him grounded. His hand is limp in hers, but he's not pulling it away or trying to stop her. Some part of him wants to stop her so he can keep hurting, but he knows better than trying to stop a medic seeing to their patients. Memories of Rhinox patiently talking to him like he was a petulant protoform who was being avoidant also bring him comfort.

"Yes. She won't be happy with me," he mutters quietly.

Nothing Velocity is saying is a surprise to him, as he had also recognised it when he'd seen it. He'd suspected the parasitic nature when he could feel it growing into him. This just feels so... cruel of this Destiny twin, putting something like this into him. Maybe he deserves it, for trying to be like Optimus. For looking like him. Maybe this was just inevitable.

He shudders and squeezes his optics closed, suppressing an awful wail in his chest before it makes it to his mouth, because all he wants right now is Airazor or Cheetor or Rhinox, who would know what to do. Who have already seen him at his lowest, as he has seen them at theirs.

It takes him a moment to realise how Velocity has reacted. He curses internally; Ratchet is so used to the constant loss one way or another, that he didn't realise...

He looks over to her, no pity in his expression, but plenty of sympathy. He remembers his first losses too-- he expects everyone on the ship does. Giving her false hope would be cruel.

"I could be wrong, but I'm not gonna lie to you and say otherwise."

Looking back at the desk, Ratchet takes a step back now that he's stopped all the datapads from sliding to the side and knocking everything over.

"Maybe try not to think of it as leaving, Velocity, because that implies he had some choice in the matter."

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[VOICE from the R2's local landline; Caller ID Unknown]

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