A/N: So...
Hey. How are you? It's been awhile since I last updated this story, huh? Like, oh, just a couple of years.
Yeah. I already gave the whole 'Guess Who's Back!' spiel on the other story I published a few days ago, haha. The gist of it is that I fell out of the Transformers fandom (and writing stories in general, honestly) for those couple years, but I'm back. When I decided to try reading and writing fanfictions in this fandom again, I was like "Holy crap, I miss this".
I did miss this. Transformers seriously gets my creativity going like nothing else, which is kind of weird for me, but not a bad weird.
But yeah! I'm back, baby! I found an old document containing this story's outline and was like "Shit, I really want to write this" and figured that I'd do it. It's sort of like a project that I'm setting up for myself (when I first started this story, I honestly didn't have much passion for continuing it, whereas now I do ^_^).
So here! Have a prologue and an edited first chapter (by edited, I mean I fixed some spelling, grammar, and a bit of the wording; I really couldn't change too much about it)! The second will be up in a week or so, after I edit it and finish the third.
To anyone returning to this fanfiction, thanks for sticking with me! To anyone new to this, thanks for giving it a chance! I really appreciate it, guys.
I hope you enjoy! No flames, please, as they will only be used to warm my hot chocolate. Constructive criticism, however, is appreciated.
Disclaimer: The only things I own are my original characters and plotline.
Warnings: Not a happy fanfic, violence, mentioned slavery, gladiator rings, death, slash and twincest, swearing, innuendo, though none of the aforementioned warnings are graphic, most are implied, hence the rating. I'm also warning that there will be many OCs for the beginning chapters of the story, since I know that some fans don't enjoy stories that have it like so. However, this is the main OC's life story - so she'll be along for the ride the whole time.
Continuity: AU with elements from other Transformers continuities
::Comm. link::
~Spark bond~
Time units as used in the story:
astrosecond - roughly half a second
klik - 1 minute
breem - 8 minutes
groon - hour
orn - day
deca-cycle - 3 weeks
stellar cycle - 7.5 months
vorn - 83 years
Coming to Understand
Prologue
Dastardly
Storm's vision wouldn't focus, the sensors in her optic receivers wouldn't calibrate properly when she panicked like this. Cleanser fluid streamed down the sides of her faceplates in response to her frenzied state. Was it her tears which prevented her from seeing the chassis underneath her?
Or perhaps... it was the mech blood - their very life source splattered across her faceplates and chassis? Maybe it was that which prevented her from seeing the lifeless, greying form.
"Storm..." She froze upon hearing that voice, doorwings hiking up further along her back. Her optics were probably cycled as wide as possible right then. She wondered if she looked like a monster, one servo still holding the tool she'd used to cut up her poor victim's neck cabling (with a precision that Storm figured she would be using to save lives, not destroy them), and the still fresh mech blood dripping down the curves of her face, chest, arms, and legs. She was a mess. The femme underneath her was a mess, too. Thanks to Storm.
"S-Storm?" The voice was gaining coherency. Storm, still in somewhat of a daze, looked over to that voice's owner.
Her brother, Maelstrom, was laying on his side just beside them.
Panic rose even higher within her. She wanted to scream but it was stuck in her vocalizer. Her doorwings hitched so high she could hear the hinges straining. Tears wouldn't stop flowing but for some reason she wasn't sobbing. She only trembled.
Storm then stood on shaking legs, whispering to herself, "Primus, no... please tell me I didn't..."
Maelstrom sluggishly sat up, optics just as unfocused as hers had been. Unfortunately, she was gaining coherency once again, and she knew that she needed to be out of here and as far away as possible before her brother could realize what she'd done-
But it was too late.
He cycled his optics twice, before his gaze locked upon the form that Storm had been straddling, and then up to his sister.
"What... did you do...?" Maelstrom's voice shook. He looked so scared, probably just as scared as she was. He tried to stand, but his limbs wouldn't respond, so he settled for continuing to speak from where he sat on the ground, vocalizer spitting sparks, "Storm... what in the Pit have you done?!"
She flinched, dropping the tool in her servo and stumbling back a bit, as if Maelstrom's words physically pushed her back.
"No! No, Mael, you have to understand, I didn't- I-I didn't realize what I was doing until..." Storm's voice was pitched up too high, her joints tensed too much. She felt wound too tight. She felt both as stiff and as fragile as a piece of scrap metal.
She felt- she felt...
Terrified.
Lurching away from both her brother and her victim, Storm practically leaped out of her home. She heard her brother's pleas, his shouts, as she ran but she couldn't stop. She pumped her legs until she found a relatively unused route and dove, transforming into her slim vehicle mode and pushing herself to drive as far away as possible.
An orn later, she was cleaning the mech blood off of herself in a small, neighbouring settlement on the outskirts of Praxus.
A few more orns later, she was on a public transport to... somewhere. Where she was headed, she had no idea.
A whole couple deca-cycles later, she was standing outside the amphitheater of the infamous Gladiator Rings in Tarn, practically a new 'bot. Her paint nanites had undergone a total revision and her once bright personality had turned into a facade to hide under.
And so, with a deep intake, she plastered on a smile and stepped into the place that would serve as her home for the vorns to come, and it would change her - whether she liked it or not.
Storm rolled her helm to the side where she lay on her berth, her vocalizer hissing static when she tried to groan in pain. She had a killer helmache, and her whole chassis was sore. She was going to roll over and alleviate some of the pain in her doorwings when she realized that she couldn't. On her second attempt to roll again, she finally felt the bonds restraining her wrists and ankles.
Her optics snapped open.
Looking down at her chassis, she felt disoriented for a second. She was no longer as slim as she used to be. There was armor covering as much of her as was possible. The armor itself seemed worn, cracked, and a few battles away from needing some serious repairs.
She looked around herself and noticed the dim lighting, the barren, grey walls and table resting right beside her. There were tools on it. Some would be used for medical purposes, and the others... she'd rather not think about.
A spark monitor sat on her other side, parallel with the table. She glanced at it, her processor sluggishly reading the data on the monitor and converting it into information that she could work with in her processor. Several subjects came up in her HUD, but she deleted the thought processes, as well as ignored the urgent requests to fix the damage to her chassis.
She sighed and looked up at the ceiling, feeling numb. That's right. This was her life right now. She almost wished she was back in the Gladiator Rings. Maybe if she knew what she did now back then, she would have been able to avoid this disaster that ruined her life.
A door slid open somewhere behind her, and Storm once again idly wished that she could actually use her doorwings, before a familiar figure appeared in front of her.
The last thing she saw was a single red light before the overwhelming pain that tortured her spark became too much to handle, and she fell offline again.
A/N2: Wow, that was... a bit of a frightening start, haha. The prologue is very much not where Storm's story starts though (chronologically, at least). Nope, her story starts in the Rings, and that's where we find ourselves next chapter!
If you've gotten this far, then all I have to say is, thanks for reading! :)