Going Green

Chapter 29: She Hated That

Her plan went wrong from there.

"I can't believe Optimus just let that tratior back in here," Arcee glared at the intelligence officer's back.

Verdant might have had white optics, but she wasn't gray and she wasn't deaf. Still. Arcee had every right to feel betrayed, so Verdant opted to prove her change of spark by helping them.

Specifically, a change of spark. There was no innocence to prove because there was truth to Arcee's words; Verdant did betray them. A tratior was an accurate description.

She hated that.

Verdant tried to tune out the not-so-quiet words of her compatriots and focused on the data at her disposal. According to the groundbridge logs, there was a surprising amount of activity during her absence. No major malfunctions were detected—at least none that hadn't already been dealt with.

Of course, there was always the option of building something instead of repairing it, but Verdant's files hadn't gained much intel even aboard the warship. She could file away a few tidbits about various Decepticon officers for personal use. The map of the ship could be uploaded to Ratchet's public files.

If Verdant had asked for a map instead of a walk to the maintenance room, she could have kept her datapad and used it to gain access to the Decepticon database. Unfortunately, she'd been too short-sighted in her rush to rescue an Autobot hostage.

She was such a fool.

Soundwave played her like an instrument. Had the whole ship been in on the little secret regarding her recruitment? She'd been the stupid, ignorant idiot blundering around, wallowing in self-pity, while a war raged on outside. Verdant hated that. She hated how blind she had been.

Verdant's helm had been drooping, her optics dimming, almost dark, but now she was white again. She couldn't concentrate. There wasn't enough work to do and too much emotions swirling around in her processor. Her servo clenched around the keyboard, denting the metal.

Numbers. Letters. Patterns. Rhythms.

These were the things she must focus on in order to aid the Autobots. Without her work, there could be no redemption.

Wheeljack said she needed to— Verdant shoved the thought away. Who cared? It wasn't important right now because she needed to work.

Numbers. Letters. Patterns. Rhythms.

Verdant let out a shallow breath and started sifting through files, looking for anything new that had been added. Anything she could possibly work on.

Work was how she was supposed to escape all the discomfort and anxiety. Verdant needed to bury her helm in a mountain of data to pretend she couldn't feel the stare of Ultra Magnus's optics.

She didn't know what he felt about their situation, but Verdant at least knew he wasn't happy. He had the right to be unhappy.

But she did too. Verdant's servo tightened around the keyboard. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to bash his helm into the wall and feel his spilled energon dripping down her forearms. What he did was unforgivable. She hated him.

And she hated that she couldn't focus.

Numbers. Letters. Patterns. Rhythms.

Verdant gritted her denta and leaned forward, pushing her processor to the edge of it's capacities. She wasn't entirely sure what exactly she was pushing into or what she was looking to achieve, but an intense feeling of frustration vibrated within her and she needed to contain it.

That only made it worse. It only made the frustration bubble and hiss, steam rising between the cracks of her armour and condensating on her optics. She was going blind, her servos grasping without intent over an abyss of abnormally bright, red light. Seething steam curled along the edges of the spiraling ceiling and dripped back down, plopping unceremoniously onto her armour and soaking her to the core.

She felt the feeling coming from a long ways away, but didn't notice until it was bursting from the seams. Verdant's frame grew hot with rage. The target was unknown. Maybe Ultra Magnus, maybe Soundwave, maybe herself, or maybe at her inability to simply read the data swirling around her.

Numbers. Letters. Patterns. Rhythms.

Verdant wanted to scream. These stupid, fragging lines of code were purposefully pulling away as if their only purpose was to evade her. They succeeded in a fashion that made Verdant want to lose her bolts.

Digits harshly dug into something. Her denta ground loudly against one another. She lunged forward, processor whirling fast enough to fail. By now, she should have offlined and lost her consciousness to the depths of the monitor. She should have gone gray.

Why the frag wasn't this working? Would she be surprised to know that Ultra Magnus somehow influenced and inhibited her abilities? Or was it another virus planted by Soundwave, this one less helpful than the last two.

Oh, and that was another good reason Verdant wanted to wrap her servos around somebot's neck. How could he plant an entire virus in her systems and Verdant not even know about it? Her own systems!

The manipulative bastard!

Numbers. Letters. Pa–

Her connection to the Autobot database was suddenly broken, and her optics turned blue. Verdant looked down, wincing at a mangled keyboard that had been destroyed under the weight of her four constricting appendages.

She let go and stared.

Not even when she was connected to the monitor could she get away from the sweltering heat of her emotions. Why couldn't she be depressed? Anger was so much more difficult to deal with.

Verdant glared at the keyboard. She only knew one set of emotions that fired her up and didn't also tear her down. The intelligence officer gave the broken keyboard one last sneer before turning around.

Ultra Magnus was standing there, blocking her path, his optics still trained on the keyboard for a nanosecond before he drew his attention to her. Their optics met.

The sneer on Verdant's face deepened, and she gave him a hateful look, conveying her fury, and then shoved past him.

"Ver–"

"Shut up," she snapped.

He did.

Verdant marched out of the room, ignoring any curious optics, and seethed as she stormed down the halls. She needed an effective method for dispelling her anger before it was used up on Ultra Magnus or someone else.

A pair of servos wrapped around her waist, yanking her back, and spun her out of the hallway and into a familiar berthroom.

"Wanna fight?" Wheeljack purred into her audio receiver.

She swung her fist at his helm.