Okay, don't own the characters, wish I did, just like everybody else out there, but it just isn't going to happen. This fic, on the other hand, sucks. I know. I love it anyway. It's my favorite piece of writing. I scribbled it between 10pm and 5am one night when I'd had a migraine for two weeks without break, and life had become a blur while I hid in the basement. It was based on a dream I had because of the migraine medication (I can only assume) and it's quite weird. Which is also why I use the exact scenes I had with very little changing of them, and the words are exactly those that I first scribbled down (excepting spelling and some grammar). And I reread it. And I love it. Give it a try, please? Title comes from a song from a CD I had on loop at the time, a paragraph that got caught in my mind. Figure that I should point that out now.
Path of ThornsThe rest is silence.
The last words of the Maximal hero had great meaning. The wording was first recognized in 'Hamlet', as the dying phrase of the plot's main protagonist. For this story, using humans as the characters, the terminology was ideal.
Alas for Dinobot, it was somewhat ambitious.
*
"Greetings, oh exceedingly insane one," an unusually large black spider lowered itself from a stalactite that made a part of a grand cathedral-looking ceiling to the cavern.
"I have no interest in your games today, witch," an equally large spider snapped back. This one, unlike the first, was metallic with various colors covering it.
The spider more natural in appearance made a sound of disappointment before replying, "You don't even know why I'm here yet."
"I'm sure your reason has no benefits for me."
"That's all going to depend on how you look at it."
"In that case, I know that I want no part of it. Leave my lair!"
"Don't judge so quickly. This will initially put the Maximals into disarray if the project works. If it does, we can use the technology to dethrone Megatron. And you get a chance to test your scientific abilities."
"How?"
"I thought that might get your attention," the black widow smirked as far as a spider's features would allow, then launched into the explanation of her plan, "It's like this…"
*
On a routine patrol for Optimus the Transmetal rat had found himself in a very bad spot – facing off against the one Predacon he knew he couldn't defeat alone.
Retracting his vehicle mode's wheels, the rat stood on his normal feet. Determined not to expose his robot form to attack, Rattrap tried to pinpoint the spider's location using his rat senses.
Unable to find her otherwise, he chose to speak.
"All right, ya lousy femme-bot, where are you?"
"Behind you, ratty."
Rattrap turned only in time to feel the black widow land nimbly on his back, and the spider's fangs pierce even his Transmetal structure.
Paralysis affected immediately after the cyber-venom entered the rat's form, but he could still feel a web being slung over him to drag him away. Before the venom took effect enough for the rat to become unconscious, he remembered how his now-dead comrade had been so adept at taking down the spider.
*
"You must have given him too much venom! He's not waking up!"
"At least I could be bothered to get one of the Maximals at all!"
"For all the good it did us! Do you intend to kill all our assets now?"
Rattrap forced his groggy, drugged optics to open. Before him stood the Predacon spider duo. The rat may have been the center of attention, but Tarantulas and BlackArachnia were more interested in their argument than the state of the rat.
Using his captors' distraction, Rattrap took a better orientation of his position. By visual, he was in a cage, which in turn was in a cave containing various pieces of technical equipment. A check with his internal computer told him that all his systems were disabled with the exception of basic movement and transformation.
"I didn't give him enough venom to kill him! Besides, if I'd done that, the spark would have abandoned the body! He'll be waking up soon."
"Why should I believe that you didn't kill him, witch?"
"Because he's awake," BlackArachnia gestured towards the rat.
Once he knew that his cover was blown, the rat pushed himself sloppily to his feet, hoping to be somewhat on-guard.
With a grunt of approval, Tarantulas was the next to speak, "You have done well with this one, but I still fail to see why he is necessary."
"Because a friend is easier to get information out of," the black widow snapped.
"I'm no friend of yours, Eight-Eyes! So why don't you just let me go on my merry little way?" Rattrap finally entered the conversation that seemed to otherwise be flying over his head.
"No, Ratty, you're no friend of ours," the female bot smirked, "but we need help inside the Maximal base, and it concerns a very close friend of yours."
"You've got your wires crossed, lady," the rat said, placing himself aloof, "There's no way I'm going to betray my friends for a pair of eight-legged freaks."
"There's no betrayal involved, mouse," the male spider addressed Rattrap for the first time, "What we want to do is in the best interest of us, you, and all of your Maximal comrades."
"How?" Rattrap; ever cynical.
"You've heard of spark reclamation projects?" BlackArachnia asked.
"Oh," green optics grew wide as the rat understood.
*
Rattrap had been allowed to walk out of the cave without a problem after that.
Upon getting back to the Axalon, he was let in without second thought. No one suspected. That was good, because the Maximals couldn't understand, even if he told them they would never understand the way he did.
The next day, Rattrap left for patrol again, as is nothing had or would happen out of the ordinary. When he left the base, he took with him various building supplies and pieces from old matenence bots, along with some disks containing information.
He wasn't questioned. The Maximals trusted him. For the moment, he wasn't betraying their trust – just going behind their backs. So it was good that he was trusted.
The result that would come from not telling them would benefit them all in the end.
*
Rattrap watched as BlackArachnia gathered the many make-shift computers from the soil.
He was thrilled with the cause of all their troubles, but the fire-scorched vally in which they stood brought back far too many unpleasant memories for his liking.
In just the few days since flame had seared the area, all of the anthropoids had left, having nothing useful to them in the area. Rattrap was none too happy to leave the area when they did – as soon as possible.
Tarantulas and Rattrap looked on in silence as the black widow finished packing the computer equipment into a silken carrying bag of sorts.
The female spider took a loop on her webbing and slung it over the rat's tail.
"If you've collected the information you need, I'll continue to my lair to prepare," the tarantula took his vehicle mode, "Rattrap, follow behind BlackArachnia."
"No complaints here," the rat brought down his beast mode's wheels, while moving his head in an extravagant show of inspecting the female bot head to toe – elicting a disgusted groan from BlackArachnia and a chuckle from Tarantulas.
As quickly as that happened, BlackArachnia transformed and Tarantulas sped from the valley in his motorcycle form, and out of sight.
It was scarce a few seconds after that when BlackArachnia began out of the valley, Rattrap close behind – both eager to be out of the place of death.
*
Back in the cathedral cavern, the rat served little purpose. All that he could really do from this point on in the project was stand around being 'Egor'.
It was Tarantulas' show now.
Yet it was enough for the rat just to be here now. This was the time that all that he had hidden from the Maximals was made worth it.
He looked at the robotic form that laid on a metallic table and was connected to a main computer terminal by many wires. A protoform that he had helped create. The form didn't do justice to its purpose, but it would serve until better was available.
Then the process began.
*
A misplaced calmness was all that made up its existence. For the calmness that surrounded was for one at inner peace as well as outer. Conflict emerged from this problem, which caused further agitation.. In short, no matter how great the hero for one point in time, it did not mean peace in the place.
And as the conflict became eternal and set in stone, a tug came through.
A gentil pull, away from the confusion. Away from all the glory of the spot, but to an easier place. Where the calmness wasn't so painful.
As slowly, little by little, it returned to former reality.
Ever so slowly, a spark fell away from the Matrix.
*
Dim optics flared to life, focusing, unfocusing, and focusing again.
The form lay unmoving, letting only the optic sensors wander shyly around the cave, as if not quite believeing what was transpiring.
"Did it work?"
"That's what I'd like to know!"
"Do you take me for a fool?"
"I'll get back to you on that. I still want to know if it worked."
"Of course it did! If you doubt me, go straight to the source!"
Moments later, a silver-blue bot appeared in the new form's live of vision.
In response to the appearance of a voice's source, the being made its optics concentrate on the robot, right away seeing the friend from memory.
"Vermin?"
A look of what might even have been glee crossed the face of the bot, optics widening, mouth turning into a wide grin.
"Chopper-face!"
Rattrap was beyond happy. Beyond joyful. He was soaring.
*
The spiders had again let them walk free without so much as a harsh word between factions. There had been adjustments to make within the Maximals, not only to get used to a 'dead bot' in their midst, but also to get a handle on the fact that Dinobot now had a robotic form that was barely taller than Rattrap, with a jerking transformation to a semi-metallic velociraptor.
*
Where there would usually have been roaring engines there was the almost soundless noise of footsteps on grass. These quiet footsteps carring an odd assortment of creatures.
Creatures being a great blue-maroon metallic primate, a rat colored with red, brown and silver, and a lank though somewhat clunky velociraptor.
Maximal scouting patrol had taken a second place to a request from what many of the team considered to be their most important member. From the grave silence of the small raptor, his comrades respected that it was something of utter seriousness that was to be addressed. Yet there were many moments of silence before the raptor began.
"I do not belong here," to emphasise his point, Dinobot aimed his newly angular head around where they stood – a vast meadow that streatched to a large body of water to one horizon and a monsterous forest to the other, and an endless sea of grass and flowers in every direction not otherwise covered. The way the grass was cropped short in some areas, with large bunches of flowers in the longer sections told of some breed of grazing animal that made habit of visiting the fresh grass.
"Well, chopper-face, I have to agree with you there. You aren't exactly the type to go strolling through a field picking daisies," Rattrap enjoyed every moment of once again being able to argue with his friend.
Optimus hushed both the rat and the raptor before they could enter a verbal sparring match, then went on, "What are you trying to say, Dinobot?"
The Maximal leader felt a moment of panic, as Dinobot had addressed the team in a similar manner when they had been due for Cybertron – what seemed like years ago. Once again, the ex-Predacon felt that he didn't belong.
"I mean that I don't belong here, on this planet. I should not be here. I've had my chance here."
"Fine lot of thanks I get for going through all the trouble to get you here," Rattrap immeadiately regretted his words, as once again he had pushed too far, just looking to get a reaction. "Uh… sorry, Chopper-face."
"No, I apologize," the raptor's voice was not even the one that it had formerly been, for lack of a proper voice synthesizer, but it still held the characteristic snarl, "I do not belong here, yet… nor did I belong as part of the Matrix. I am still too much Predacon for that."
"But that would mean that," the gorilla could not push anything further from his throat. The raptor knew what Optimus had implied.
"Indeed, but it is as my heritage dictates. I do not fear my fate, it is as I would wish it to be. I am not, nor will I ever be, Maximal."
"We'll leave you alone now," Optimus placed one of his huge gorrila hands on the raptor's head, having long since learned that this was the closest Dinobot would allow to physical contact.
"You are an exceptional leader, Primal."
Without another word, Optimus took his flight mode and roared back toward the Axalon. As if the raptor would return.
Only time would tell, but the Maximal leader knew when it was time to leave.
*
"So, I guess I'll see ya later, Chopper-face," Rattrap turned to leave in his vehicle mode.
"No, Rattrap, you won't."
The rat turned back sharply, in hopes that perhaps Dinobot was joking.
Alas, at that point, anything that Rattrap said would have been wasted on the wind. The raptor-bot was focused, still as a statue, looking towards the water horizon as if watching something that no one else could see.
"Good-bye… forever… Dinobot…"
*
Out from the shore, there flowed a grass covered land-bridge, continueing infinitely, yet having no distance at all.
He walked to it, and upon it, never ceasing to walk, never tireing, and never getting anywhere.
Unaware as he was, that as he walked, he was changing. From with beast mode to his robotic form. From his robotic form to a striped brown and tan velociraptor. From the raptor to a tall bot made up of gold, taupe, blue and raptor eliments. From his original form from the Beast Wars, to as he was on Cybertron – before being fused with a prehistoric earth creature. And as he went further along the modes fused to that he was all of them yet none at once.
The form continued to shift and melt until he stopped at the true Dinobot. As he was after arriving on earth. As he was when he died.
When the shifting finally ended, the end of the land bridge was also at hand.
The end was a strange circular island with mountains rising on the land in a crecent-moon shape on the far side of the island, though the far side was but a stone's throw away.
At the deepest-part of the cresent stood a sleek velociraptor. The beast mode of the form he was in at that point.
He walked to the raptor that leered at him, unmoving, but as he approached it a force he didn't understand pushed him to one knee, as if he was kneeling before his other self.
When he fell, he felt a familiar handle under his fingers, and he grasped it tightly to discover that it was his sword.
He looked up at the grinning visage of his beast mode, then back to the sword in his hand. He understood all too well what his purpose was now.
He raised the rotating blade and turned it against himself, then plunged it into his own chest, of more specifically, his own spark.
Cybertronians had never had purpose for tears, and therefore robots were unable to cry, but at that point a single, nonexistent tear rolled across the warrior's proud face.
As in his last moments of existence he turned himself to look at his beast mode, howling with laughter.
*Optimus will understand* Dinobot told himself silently.
He was a Predacon by heritage, by law, by honor, by heart.
This was the way things were supposed to be.
There's no more coming back this way
The path is overgrown and strewn with thorns
They've torn the lifeblood from your naked eye
Cast aside to be forlorn…
n Path of Thorns Sarah McLachlan
BlackLightning '00