[Video] [Transmission originating from: Prison!] - Eleventh Offense

[namesnotprowl]

[Oh look, it's Barricade! But he's looking a lot more like himself. He even has his firelizard perched on his shoulder... who is probably the one that got him his Link back, the dastardly creature.]

Mm. I don't suppose I could convince anyone to come let me out of lock-up by showing off these legs of mine. Could I?

Or this new-slash-old facelift of mine.

Well. Even if it don't, I'd be ever so glad f'r a visitor or ten. Does get awfully boring here.

Comments

[megaton]

Enlightening.

Yes.

It is such a comfort to know how much better things could have gone...or how much worse.

[By his tone, it is clearly not a comfort.]

[namesnotprowl]

You say that like most of the awful things that happen to us in places like this are a comfort, Sparrow.

We learn from the mistakes or triumphs of Those Others because otherwise we just end up complaining about the whole thing or refusing to acknowledge that it happened.

1/2

[megaton]

...

[He's quiet for a long time.]

2/2

[megaton]

Yes.

I know.

And then we work a little harder to find some sort of status quo amongst the noise.

And then it starts all over again.

You must be tired of it, Barricade.

[Because he sure was.]

[namesnotprowl]

I'm more tired of cosmic entities that don't exist in my timestream jerking my chain and then leaving me to pick up the pieces.

And then doing it a dozen more times.

It tends to grate.

[He's tired of a lot of things, really. He has that much in common with his alternate.]

But. It's given me a lot to consider. About what I've been doing.

[megaton]

Imagine how we would have turned out if absolutely left to our own devices.

[It is food for thought, given that they both now know.]

Why Barricade...is there anything you've come to regret?

[namesnotprowl]

A terrifying thought, that. Not sure if we oughta go there.

[Considering that he does know - and it was just as awful as the rest of his universe.]

[Dryly-] I regret not hugging Bonecrusher more.
[He pauses, shrugs, and gets serious again.] Always. You don't live as long as I have without having a few regrets.

[Locked]

[megaton]

No. No, we shouldn't.

But neither should we forget.

[Given his normal future self...it was something he'd always sworn. He'd fix Cybertron, without dragging it into a million-year war. He would. But how could he do this, if he could not return home?]

Mm.

I have been thinking, lately. About ways to minimize these regrets.

[He locks this.]

With the Firstforged gone I have been thinking more. This is not my Cybertron, but I will do what is necessary to keep it safe...and to make it into a world that Decepticons can live in.

At least...until we finally find that way home.

[Locked]

[namesnotprowl]

No. Forgetting could make it even worse than it was previously.

[He couldn't say that was something he'd sworn to do... but it was his duty, in that situation. If no one else was left, then he would have to lead, and he'd do whatever it took to get what was left of the Decepticon forces away from Earth.]

A complicated proposition. Autobots are in most of the positions of power... and not all of them will suffer Decepticons, or look past factions.

[He's run into that plenty already.] But I'm curious as to what you'd suggest towards this end.