Chapter Text
Whirl wakes up in a transport. At least, he thinks so.
He tries to look around but it’s too dark to see anything, even with the dim light from his optic.
The space feels small though – not quite small enough that his limbs feel awkwardly arranged, but not exactly big enough for him to stretch either.
He takes a second to think - because yes he may be Whirl, but he can be smart when he wants to be, thank you!
His memory's all fuzzy but he sorta remembers the Lost Light setting down on some populated planet he hadn't paid attention to the name of. He had gotten bored and run off to scare the locals stretch his legs in the primitive city.
The memories after that are even more blurry but he clearly remembers some glitch-head grabbing him from behind and zapping him.
Tch. Fragger. Who did they think they were, grabbing him like that?
At least the memory files confirm where he is.
He tries once again to look around him, switching to infrared this time, but he can't see any details. The box he's in must be lined with something protective. He can't hear anything going on outside, either, which is weird because he can feel the vibration from the transport's engine. He should be able to hear it.
Hm. A transport that blocks sound and thermal imaging?
Whoever nabbed him, they certainly came prepared.
Which probably means the metal around him is too tough to bust his way out of. Shame. He’d reaaaaallly like to try.
But whoever’s outside probably still thinks he’s in stasis. A mech who hasn’t had experience being zapped with an energon prod a hundred times by now certainly would be.
Great. Now there's a strategic decision to make. He hates strategic decisions!
Option 1: Sit tight and wait till the transport stops moving, then bust out when his captors try to open the box he's in. Maximum shock factor, sounds like fun. Except that he has to wait and utilize his rusty impulse control.
Option 2: Bust his way out now – which he’d love - before he gets to whatever secondary location these glitches want him at (he's heard that's a bad thing. Something about survival chances dropping), and risk doing nothing more than being loud and alerting his captors that he's awake. Because as much as he can't hear anything going on outside the box, he's pretty slagging certain anyone outside would notice him trying to break out.
It's annoyingly obvious which option is the better one.
Gah, but Option 2 could be so much more fun!
... Eh. He's done stealth missions before, this should be no biggie.
He shifts himself as much as he can within the cramped space. There's no telling which side of the box is going to be opened when the transport stops moving, so he tries to prepare for any possible angle.
Cool. Now that's settled. Or rather, he is.
All that's left is to wait.
If Whirl had a mouth, he’d have such a huge smirk right now… these fraggers’ll have no idea what hit ‘em.
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Bored.
Bored.
Bored bored bored bored bored bored bored.
Whirl is. So done with waiting.
He didn't look at his chronometer earlier so he has no idea how long it's been, but it feels like hours .
Aside from the inaudible rumbling of the transport's engine, the occasional bump in the road underneath him, and the sound of his own venting, he's been in near-complete sensory deprivation for the past who-knows-how-long.
He feels jittery.
He is this close to saying 'frag it' and busting out of the transport with his claws.
...
…
…
Frag it, he's busting out of the transport with his claws.
He feels around the box for a moment - just a moment - then in the split second before he lashes out at the wall, the transport beneath him jolts to an apparent stop.
Whirl doesn't consider himself a dignified mech. But if anyone ever asks about this moment in the future, he would not admit to the squawk that leaves his vocalizer when he’s thrown against one of the box’s walls.
It seems there’s a surge of commotion outside because his box feels like it’s being put in a blender set to ‘scramble’. There isn’t much for flailing-room but somehow his limbs manage to pretzel themselves more.
Then there's a thud , and the side of the box he's leaning against falls open.
He spills out onto the ground with an oof . He scrambles to his feet instinctually, but it takes him a second to find his balance and get his bearings. When he finally looks around, he's met with a dozen gun barrels aimed straight at him.
"Arrival #14-M, you are ordered to raise your hands and surrender," says the armed alien directly in front of him.
Whirl blinks. “...The frag?”
He ignores the guns for a second - he's had countless pointed at him before, they're not exactly scary - and glances around. He's standing in some kind of warehouse (underground, if the concrete walls and lack of windows mean anything), beside the transport he must've been shipped in on, with his shipping-crate-box only a few metres away, and surrounded by a group of heavily-armoured aliens that are roughly his size.
Whirl gives a mental shrug. Eh, he's been in far weirder situations before.
The organic being in front of him impatiently steps forward in an attempt to be intimidating. "Arrival #14-M, raise your hands and surrender or we will take you by force."
Whirl laughs. If he had eyebrows, he would raise one of them. “First of all, buddy, I don’t have hands. Second…” He narrows his optic in the approximation of a smirk. “I don’t surrender.”
With a yell he launches himself at the organic, digging his claws into their chest armour and throwing them at another being who had been rushing forward.
Gunfire peppers his plating with energy bolts as he tears his way out of the ring the guards had formed and darts across the room to put some space between himself and them.
Now that he has the elbow room he didn’t have in the box, Whirl checks his subspace for the guns he usually keeps there. Scrap, empty. His captors must've found a way to confiscate his belongings while he was unconscious.
Ah well. Hand-to-claw combat it is!
Unfortunately his opponents have a different idea. One of them fires a kind of bola out of a fancy-looking gun. Whirl manages to dance out of the way, but the second shot - from someone positioned on the sidelines - manages to hit. It tangles around his spindly legs and sends him crashing to the ground.
The beings waste no time swarming him, pinning him down as they wrestle his arms behind his back. His wrist shape isn't exactly handcuff-friendly, but they seem to find a way to manage because suddenly his arms aren't going anywhere.
"Hey, frag off!" he snarls, struggling under their shared grip. Once they're done, one of the organics grabs him by the shoulder pauldron and roughly yanks him to his feet. He stumbles a little but manages to rid his ankles of the now-loose bola with a kick. He wrenches out of the being's grip and backs away, his optic narrow.
"What the frag do you think you're doing? Is this some kinda arrest? I swear I didn't do anything wrong this time! I didn't even start any fights!"
"Quiet," one of the beings orders, and two others step forward to grip his upper arms. He thrashes as they start moving and try to drag him along with them.
"Oh, I don't think so! You ain't takin' me anywhere!" Whirl raises his voice, indignant. But they manage to haul him across the warehouse and through one of the many garage-style doors into a smaller room.
The room is wide and very tall, but only a fraction of the main warehouse's size. There's another garage-style door against the far wall to the right, and yet another on the left wall. Crates are stacked in the corners of the room, along with structures that look suspiciously like cages.
But what truly catches his attention are the other handcuffed aliens - big and small, organics, mechanoids, and everything in-between - that huddle in the center of the room. He's shoved forward to join them, and he almost trips in his effort not to squash some of the smaller organic prisoners.
"Oi, watch it!" Whirl growls at the guard (because that's definitely what these guys are, whatever their overall intent). The guard just turns and takes up a position by the door.
As a few more prisoners are brought in, Whirl takes stock of the odds. There are at least two dozen armed guards in the room now, double the number that he just fought. That's only a few more guards than there are prisoners. But seeing as all of said prisoners are handcuffed and most seem considerably frightened, they don't stand much of a chance.
Well scrap.
Guess he's stuck playing the waiting game... again .
It seems the guards have the same idea, because it's a long time before anything else happens.
Whirl tries to make conversation.
“Hey, stupid!”
The guard he’s directing the comment at ignores him.
“Any of you lot gonna explain what’s going on here, or are we supposed to sit here with our claws up our afterburners?”
All the guards are unresponsive.
Whirl rolls his optic. “Not ones for talking, got it.”
He plops on the ground, arranging himself into something somewhat cross-legged (being careful not to crush one of the smaller prisoners of course; he'd rather not get fleshy gore between his seams) and shrugs. “Eh, fine by me. Leaves more room for me to ramble. I tend to prefer action over words , but hey! Rambling’s saved my aft before. Once there was some dude who made me spill my life story, just so he’d spare some scrawny little therapist. ‘Course, that didn’t really do much since the lil guy got his head blown open anyway-”
“Enough!” One of the guards finally seems to break, barely able to keep the groan out of his voice.
Whirl gives a slag-eating grin. “Aw, am I talkin’ too much? Should’ve thought of that sooner. You sure you’re not gonna explain what we’re waiting for, here?”
Nothing. The guards seem to be trying the silent treatment, again. Ha. Like that’ll do anything.
Naturally, Whirl responds to their silence by talking more.
Unfortunately it doesn't last, since he runs out of things to say and ask (he’s not nearly as good at this as Swerve is), but he feels accomplished when he sees the exasperated expressions on the guards' faces.
Eventually, one of the guards steps away from the wall he was leaning on. He approaches the group and aims his weapon at them. "Line up. Backs against the wall." he says curtly, and gestures towards the back wall of the room.
The group shuffles in place, hesitant, but eventually they comply. Whirl grumbles as he follows them. He hates this, but he's been a prisoner before. He knows how this stuff works. Best thing to do for now is play along until he can finally figure out what these guys' deal is.
The guards take up their positions again, and through the door that's now on Whirl's right comes a tall organic alien. He's at least a mechanometre taller than Whirl, and equally thin. Whirl doesn't exactly know much about the whole galaxy-wide 'clothing' thing, but the robe that hangs off this being's slightly hunched form does not look cheap. The stiff posture and down-his-nose look he's giving the prisoners certainly helps sell the 'Wealthy Ventwipe’ impression.
He is accompanied by a mechanoid assistant that's only half his height and carrying a datapad. The pair begins going down the line of prisoners. They speak casually as they seem to inspect each being, talking about weight, strength, species, and giving each one some kind of rating. Whirl shifts. He's not sure he wants to know what they're rating them on.
When the pair stops in front of Whirl, the tall male's four eyes widen. He turns to his assistant. "This one is a Cybertronian, is it not?"
Whirl narrows his optic. " It has a name."
The tall male seems amused. The mechanoid chitters something in a language Whirl doesn't understand, and the male's eyes glint dangerously. "Is that so?" He looks Whirl up and down. "I'll take this one too."
The two attempt to move on to the next person in line, but Whirl jerks forward aggressively. "Take? The frag are you talking about, 'take'?"
The lanky male looks back at him with a raised eyeridge. "Mouthy," he observes.
"Yeah," Whirl growls, "I'm told I get snarky when stuck-up glitches start talking about me like an object."
The male's expression hardens, and his lip curls. One of the guards moves forward, but halts when the male raises his hand. "He is new." He levels a narrow gaze at Whirl. "He will learn."
Whirl snorts. "Like the pit, I will." He steps forward and brings his face close to the male's. "You better explain exactly what's going on. Or even better, let me go! I promise I might not even kill anyone on the way out."
The tall male doesn't flinch. Instead he tilts his head to address the guards, without breaking eye contact with the mech in front of him. "Have this one put in holding while we wrap this up. I'd rather inspect the rest of the stock without pointless banter and useless threats following after me."
" Stock? "
Two guards approach - derailing the incredulous thought - and Whirl crouches a little, defensively. He flexes his claws behind his back. It'd be reaaaally nice to have use of his arms, right about now.
Still, he resists as much as he can when the guards attempt to yank him away from the wall. It's a fruitless effort, on his part, because they manage to nab him eventually - but it makes him feel a little better. That's always a plus.
They mech-handle him through the door that the alien and his assistant had come through. The ceiling of the wide hallway is much lower, and the space is slightly better-lit. Doors line each wall. Big ones, like the doors of a human garage, except more heavy duty. One of the guards punches something into a keypad beside one of the closest doors, and it retracts into the ceiling.
" In ," one of the guards orders him.
Whirl twists in their grip. "Yeah no, I'm good thanks." He'd rather not go into another cell. He's been in plenty of those in his millions of years and he's pretty sure he's had more than his fair share. "How about we try something else? I know a game! It's called 'Let's Let Whirl Go’. To win, you guys let me go, and I- "
"Quiet." The guards shove him harshly, and he could swear something catches his foot because he stumbles and lands flat on his face - or rather, his chin, ‘cause… well.
He hurries to get back on his feet and turns around with a scowl, but the door has already closed.
Great.
"Tripping me? Really?" He asks the closed door with a narrow optic. "That was stupid, childish... and incredibly effective. I should remember to try that sometime."
He glances around the room. It's small, but definitely not enough to be cramped. The ceiling, like all the other rooms, seems to be made of a large sheet of dark metal. The concrete floor and walls are two different shades of grey.
The walls are gouged and cracked in places, probably from whoever or whatever was in this cell before him. Hm . He tilts his head a little. "Wonder if I can break through that..."
He gives the back wall an appraising look, before winding up and lashing out with his foot.
The resulting noise is relatively loud and dust rains from the corner where the wall meets the ceiling, but his foot has left hardly more than a dent.
Well. That was underwhelming. Whoever built this room clearly intended it for someone a lot stronger than him.
He throws a few more kicks at the walls, especially the places that are visibly weaker, but the damage is all pretty minimal. Guess he's not getting out of here that easily - which is probably just as well, considering he's pretty certain he's underground anyway.
Cool.
... Now what?