Data! Data! Data!

[Deleted]

Characters: Prowl, @embergaze
Location: inside the Sigma
Content Warnings: N/A
Plot Summary: Autobot Embergaze meets Prowl and gives him a report on what she has been doing ever since she left Cybertron.

[Deleted]

Catching up with things was harder than Prowl had thought. He had been away from the warzone a long time, he knew. It was understandable and even expectable for things to progress at such a slow pace. But Prowl prided himself on his swiftness, and these days he was downright sluggish by his standards.

He gathered data, he crunched it down, he added it to his ever-increasing database, he ran it through his processors, and then did it all over again. It was all in vain: one could not solve a puzzle if one didn’t have all its pieces. What Prowl was working with was laughably little. He was a police officer specialised in urban and guerrilla warfare. He could improvise and adapt to new situations just fine. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that one didn’t win a war that spanned millions of years based on hunches and spur-of-the-moment decisions. The Autobots needed a plan, and they needed to come up with it fast.

Which was why Prowl was making every Autobot residing on Earth report to him and tell him everything they had seen and heard since leaving Cybertron. No ounce of information was to be left out. Everything was important. Anything could be crucial. He stressed this a lot and very often. He wanted to drive the point home that nothing should be left unsaid.

The Autobot he would be seeing today was a recent arrival. Embergaze of Kaon. Prowl remembered the femme. He had commanded interdepartmental police operations back before the war, and the nature of their jobs had ensured that they contacted each other through the Grid during her—relatively short—time as commissioner of her city-state. He remembered her as competent and composed. An intelligent but taciturn individual. Someone who, for obvious reasons, reminded Prowl of himself… though he could at least boast to have a sense of humour, no matter how dark it might sometimes be.

He leant back on the Sigma’s copilot seat, going over the mental list of the questions he had planned to ask Embergaze. Jazz had parked her on the Omega-1 Outpost’s roof for the day. Their ship was just small enough to fit the flat top of the mesa, and her cloaking systems—which were again operational—allowed for her to remain hidden from sight while her crew were in the base. Prowl disliked leaving the ship alone anyway, just in case her deflectors spontaneously decided to short out, so he was sitting at the controls waiting for Embergaze to arrive.

[Deleted]

Why leave Cybertron's police? To do something while you still can, even if it's illegal. The war wasn't start yet, she had not job anymore… Who could stop her now? The police himself? Nah. Embergaze knew all about the police, and therefore knew how to avoid it. She prepared to do things by herself when everything began. War. Death. Destruction. The choice of camps was evident. She wanted to continue to do what she had always done: Defend the planet against terrorism. The Autobot were civilians. Decepticons were mostly criminals. They always are.

She knew Prowl only by message. She had never met or had not paid attention. Apparently, he was more or less like her. They have the same objective. However, it was probable that they do not get along because of their very similar behavior. She acts according to his behavior. She will analyze as she always does. She only knew that the bot is very talented. It was with pleasure that she would bring him her testimony. She just wondered why he insisted on staying in his ship… No matter.

She came to him. She entered -the ship was already open- without paying attention to anything. It wasn't a really huge transport. It was not hard to find him. She was in his back, looking at the seat where he was. He seemed focused. It was interesting to note, by the way, that all the white Autobot on earth was official military soldiers/Wreckers or policemen… Except Ratchet. Doctors are always red/rorange and white. It is a kind of tradition, it seems.

- Ahem.

She finally “said”, wanting to be noticed. She crossed her arms, staring at him. Her head was tilted slightly and her eyes already shared that she was not very sociable… or friendly. Ember was however not aggressive. Just neutral.

- Nice to finally meet you in person, officer Prowl.

It was true that before she left office, she was like his superior as commissioner... Or the same rank. He was specialized and recognized. She won't abuse. This robot was actually very competent. She knew it.

[Deleted]

The Sigma’s security systems beeped as Embergaze entered the ship. Prowl pulled up a surveillance video, corroborating it was her before closing the CCTV feed. He continued to look over the console’s readings, keeping a close optic on the cloaking systems—he trusted Jazz’s talents as a tinkerer, but he didn’t trust the second-hand spare parts they had used to fix the Sigma up.

Prowl’s doorwings picked up Embergaze’s walking into the small cabin before she even said anything. Prowl swivelled around in his chair, looking up at the femme. She was tall and elegant, a flyer with broad wings and long limbs. Out in the open, Prowl was sure she must look regal. In the cramped cockpit of their lacklustre freighter, however, the effect was somewhat lost. He stood up to greet her.

“Commissioner Embergaze,” he said. She no longer held that title, but it was only polite to refer to her as such. “Likewise. I hope I didn’t throw a wrench into whatever plans you had for today.”

He knew he most likely hadn’t. They had scheduled this meeting in advance, so there was no chance that she had had to shuffle anything about, but it was always polite to say that anyway, or Jazz had told him. In any case, it made for a good conversation starter. Maneuvering around her, he stepped out into the hallway and motioned for her to follow.

“Come, there’s a common room this way. We’ll be more comfortable there.”