If Anyone Asks, I'm the Morale Officer

“Of course it was wisdom on my part. I only ever have very good ideas.” Whirl had to stop and think, because the terms “pinkeye” and “cold sores” obviously meant nothing to him. He weighed the possibilities in his mind, and decided that it was equally likely that they were actual ailments as it was that they were nonsense terms devised by Windchill to mess with him. 

“You’re going to need to be a little more specific because eye-related disorders have been Other Peoples’ Problem for a long, long time now.” There was, at least, one advantage to having the incredibly rudimentary and limited optical system that Whirl possessed: simpler, hardier structures were less likely to go wrong in interesting ways. 

“It’s a human affliction, where the eye becomes infected with cooties.” He could recite everything there was to know about conjunctivitis, but ‘cooties’ was simpler, infinitely funnier, and he cared about the details about as much as Whirl would want to hear them.

“Of course it was wisdom on my part. I only ever have very good ideas.” Whirl had to stop and think, because the terms “pinkeye” and “cold sores” obviously meant nothing to him. He weighed the possibilities in his mind, and decided that it was equally likely that they were actual ailments as it was that they were nonsense terms devised by Windchill to mess with him. 

«Rally point.» Ping. «We’re on a nearby planet. Survivors are currently being organized to evacuate to our Cybertron. Unicron is within eyesight, but that’s not saying much, considering that at this point he’s an unusually large planet. We’re not running recon yet. I’m—still trying to figure out what’s already happened. So far I’ve got two fuzzy videos and a dozen contradictory witness statements.»

Interesting. Whirl was quite used to being the stopgap between “something we don’t understand, but is probably dangerous” and “everyone else” thanks to his years on the Lost Light, but he could deal with a bit of overly cautious behavior on the part of what amounted to his acting commander if he had to. 

...okay, maybe not overly cautious. This might be an incredibly destructive planet-sized god they were dealing with, so the word for Prowl’s behavior was probably more close to “reasonable.” Whirl pinged a wordless acknowledgement back, and after a moment opened yet another gate, this time popping into existence in the air over the rally point. He made a beeline for Prowl himself, unconcerned with the rest of the rank-and-file, and transformed shortly before he landed, transferring his momentum into a few final, almost-hopping, birdlike steps. 

Prowl wasn’t the least bit surprised that the first person to respond to the call for assistance was Whirl. He was, in fact, on Prowl’s top 10 list of most likely responders.

«If it were an emergency broadcast test, it would have said “emergency broadcast test.” Although that’s a good idea.» A monthly test of the citywide apocalyptic event communication system. He’d bring that up when this was over. «Here’s the situation: a neighboring Cybertron has already been eaten, survivors are being evacuated here. Unicron is currently dormant, and I’m hoping he’ll stay that way; but I’d put odds at over 75% he’s just taking a break before chasing down the survivors. We currently have no plan to stop him and no weapons capable of disabling Unicron. Do you need a bridge or just coordinates?»

“Sounds like my kind of fight,” he replied, eagerness trickling into his voice, “I can--one second.”

He wasn’t sure whether or not his bridge privileges had been restored since the incident, and a quick check confirmed they were. Within moments, he was rocketing out of a blue portal above Iacon. Whirl didn’t head for Prowl’s offices or anywhere in particular, because he was fairly certain he was about to leave in a moment. 

Only Hiro could have developed some kind of modern , yet not, tech that would help express himself the way the other mechs did. He couldn’t use his own eyes, seeing as they weren’t natural for the planet and, obviously, he couldn’t use optics like the rest. A visor would have been nice, but with no mouth to express a smile or anything, how would anyone know what he was feeling? Too much effort to push it into voice, so he left it to the visor.

“That’s exactly right. I gambled and won. You know, the right way.” Meaning he swindled his way through the game. “Thanks. Thought you might think that was cool.” Or normal.

“Luck is kinda fickle sometimes. Doesn’t mean anything.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, it’s taken me… how many years? Four? To even remotely develop a plan to get home. That’s pretty shitty luck, if you ask me.” Still, being wherever Whirl had been seemed to be, for the most part, worse. “You bet I’m not gonna sit and wait for you. I’m gonna go looking for you. Again.” He crossed his arms, head tilting.

“Maybe you should just stick around with someone. I’ve got nothing better to do, I could be like your tiny security mech.” He snorted and dropped his arms to his sides. “I didn’t leave because I wanted us to finish the project together. That’s how we started it, I think that’s how we should finish it.”

His pixel expressions formed and his metallic voice seemed upbeat. “I’m just glad you’re okay and you’re back. Not because we can finally finish the project, but because… well. I was worried about you.”

“Mine’s always been pretty consistent,” Whirl replied, “consistently bad, anyway.” A fair bit of this probably had something to do with Whirl’s own bad decisions and his self-destructive tendencies, but honestly, it was so much easier to blame it all on luck. 

“You’ve been making your own, though, I see. Nice. Never let ‘em catch you.” Somewhere deep down, he was proud of Hiro for swindling his living out of a universe that was hostile to him, and all for the purpose of leaving it behind. Hiro was probably doing what he did out of necessity (and because it was fun) rather than out of spite, of course, but Whirl had to salute him, all the same.

I was worried about you. This had Whirl hesitating a moment. It wasn’t as if Hiro was the only person who would worry that he was gone--Whirl had somehow managed to amass a small circle of people who cared about his well-being, despite how difficult such a thing could be when Whirl was, well, being himself, but it was still a little jarring to hear someone just up and say it out loud. “Well,” he began, and then paused, uncertain as to what to say next. 

“I’ve already got security. I’ve got Killer, don’t I? But seriously. If I vanish, I’ve either gotten sucked out into another timeline, or have finally gotten put down, or have gotten arrested, so don’t--hmm.” A pause. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no to a jailbreak, and I doubt they’d see you coming, but, regardless. I’m at least self-aware enough to know I’m not dependable. So don’t you go depending on me.”

“Nobody likes Drunk Whirl, people just like the effect Drunk Whirl has on his environment,” Whirl replied, “and even then, they only like it when that effect doesn’t happen to them. But you’re right. They might show up, after all.” That’s right, he would be going to a Lost Light that had one of his doubles on it–which was frankly kind of interesting. He vaguely hoped he’d see the guy. There seemed to be a dearth of Whirls out there in the multiverse, for some cosmically unfair reason.

If that other Whirl showed up and got drunk with him, then maybe they could wreak enough havoc to make up for all the times Whirl hadn’t gotten a chance to get up to the sort of shenanigans having Another Him around would have allowed. “Sounds good to me. You’re on, mech. I’ll comm you the day before I’m ready.”

“Sounds good! I’ll keep my comms open so anytime’s fine!” This would be awesome. Once they had a day set for Whirl to come and get drunk off his aft, Swerve could start advertising tickets.

Bluebottle smacked her lips to show understanding. Whether she would heed Whirl’s wisdom remained to be seen. One could only hope that, in the far flung future when she might be presented with the possibility of an electrical wallop, she would make the right choice. In the meantime, she could learn from example. Her single eye grew larger, taking up more and more of the screen in subtle increments until it had consumed all. She didn’t want to miss another zapping.

Whirl’s pain—because of course he got popped again—was rewarded with a chortle, an ugly, grinding sound that would be alarming if it wasn’t coming from a bug. She clapped her three fingered hands and pulled a blanket over her head for warmth, her red optic peering out of the cowled darkness.

It was all a little ominous, for a one-year-old.

She waited like that, quiet but not slumbering as she should have been until the barnacle was revealed. Her fat head emerged, protomandibles twitching with suspicion as Killer unfolded. It looked…edible, but not tasty. Why keep such a thing around? Her mouth opened to demand an explanation, but was cut off when it attacked. She uttered a little gasp and pointed with far too much enthusiasm at the ineffectual violence.

Lacking any sense of tact, likely a hereditary defect knowing her progenitors, Blue gave Whirl an unconvinced look at his words. Her gaze shifted back between him and the Killer, trying to see the connection. No matter.

“Ah! Ah!” She shook her finger, trying to point out objects to feed to the thing.

Whirl didn’t seem in any way bothered by her joy at his pain, which was equally likely to have been from his inexperience with young creatures (at least, the sort that Bluebottle was) or his experience with them (where the murderous little cloud of scraplets that Whirl had called “Sparky” was involved).

At any rate, she responded appropriately to the demonstration he’d given her regarding Killer, which, in Whirl’s reckoning, was an instant desire to feed it. Or, at least, that’s what he (correctly, as it were) identified her pointing as. “As you can see,” he said, dryly, “Killer eats garbage.” He pulled his claw out of its mouth at last and squatted down, rummaging through the rubbish bin that he’d set near Killer’s perch. “But it prefers garbage it can actually swallow.”

He began to hold up potential snacks: spent bullet casings, shreds of metal, and even small pieces of glass. “I’ve also got actual food for it, but I safe those as a treat. Peanut butter, too.” Bluebottle was going to have to wait for the breathtaking spectacle of Killer messily trying to eat peanut butter off of something.

Once he had an item that was worthy of Blue’s approval (or on that was unworthy if she took too long), he carefully offered it to Killer who, after some blind scraping, finally accepted it. The tidbit disappeared as the three beaks retracted, followed by the delicate, feathery cirri. Whirl held up a claw, signaling for silence, and after a moment, a very faint grinding noise could be heard. “There it is. Chewing. Pretty cool, huh?”

Whirl let this go on for a few moments before he stood up. “Now, I’ve got an errand to run. You’re not asleep yet, so I guess you might as well come with me.” The datapad was picked up again, and once more Blue would find that her world through the screen reduced to a confusing series of blurry, moving images, until Whirl managed to wedge the datapad into place in his cockpit. “There we go. This is the only time you’re going to get a view from in here, Child of Gigantor.”

“First of all, if you ever call me ‘daddy’ again I’m… going to do something. I don’t know what it is yet. But it’s going to be something bad, and it’s going to happen to you, and you’ll never know what it is until you’re reeling in the aftermath of my wrath.”