Authors Note: In the time line of this universe, the events in 'Echo' takes place roughly two-and-a-half years after the events in 'The Golden Hour.' Optimus Prime and Phage share spark bond that was acquired after Phage temporarily stored Prime's spark inside herself to save his life. The resonated link caused a shift in their relationship that neither is fully certain what to do with it.
Autobot Language: Uto – help. Alax – stop, desist, or halt
CHAPTER 1
Phage felt she had been plunged into a pool of concentrated acid after rematerializing from a botched Spacebridge Jump.
She gave vocalization as she materialized to a long continuous shrill-pitched scream. The vocation of her cosmic pain was so unearthly that others would have been inclined to believe the noise originated from the Spacebridge itself as it manifested and violently tore a hole in the fabric of time and space.
Brutally forced back into a gravity-subjective form from what had once been scattered bits of hyperactive atoms and bent beams of light, Phage found that every atom of her being had come alive–screaming–as she was blown clear of Ground Zero. The kinetic force of the skewed Jump shot her off like a snapped rubber band and sent her bouncing off the planet's hard surroundings ragdoll style. She skipped several times off jagged surfaces until she lost momentum and found herself in one long audio-cringing scrap across the metallic floor before ending in an undignified heap one-hundred-twenty-six-point-one yards away from Ground Zero.
Thin trails of wispy smoke twisted up from her smoldering corpse where by occasion of torched nerve endings her body was given to fits of compulsory spasms. The imagery was not unlike the final jerky throes of a fly sprawled on its back with its various legs kicking off at erratic intervals. Lost amidst the rubble and broken charred debris of the alien landscape, Phage was at that very moment like the fly.
A million and one terrifying thoughts raced through her CPU at the speed of a fraction of a second. The first and foremost horrifying reflection she allowed herself to give rise to: was she horribly disfigured? Was she even recognizable? Had she made a horrendous mistake when she attempted to phase through the damaged Spacebridge's interior walls to escape the impending Jump? Had that already tricky combination of events left her with half a body or as a bubbling pile of slag? Were these her last sentient thoughts before she passed into madness from sheer pain or slipped into the fine veil of death?
Growing frantic with the unknown, and with no small amount of willpower, she willed what should have been her arms to move. The strength alone to do just that was terrible. Her joints wailed in resistance, her sensory nodes flaring alive with a white pain that gave the femme cause to cry out. Error messages and cautionary warnings spammed her internal database.
The pitiful cries of pain trickled into anger as she purposefully ignored all internal systems damage reports.
Lying there for a time, Phage took in short frantic breaths as she persisted in her endeavor to view her charred corpse. It was only with a dogged perseverance she managed the strength.
What was her arms trembled violently, and to lift her head was like trying to lift a steel ton block using only her neck cables…
A small part of her cautioned that the sight might drive her mad–and then she realized she could not see.
Phage felt her spark contract, and a jolt of adrenaline flush her systems. At the very at-hand threat of finding herself blind, bodily damaged, and in a complete unknown environment that assuredly possessed some form of threat to her, Phage found herself not unreasonably struggling with sudden impending fear. With a great intake of air, she prepared to hyperventilate –then realized quite abruptly that her optics were only closed.
Muscle tension and stress levels dropped only marginally as she batted her optics open, attempting to adjust to the dim lightning around her only to find her vision blurred and her right optic cracked. After batting her optics a number of times in the hopes of her vision adjusting, and gaining no improvement, Phage reluctantly pulled up a damage report that revealed that her blurred vision was due to heat damage to the crystal lens.
'Wonderful.' She thought sarcastically, marveling that her dry humor was still intact and how utterly useless it was in this situation.
Releasing her abated breath she had been unaware of withholding until an internal warning threatened overheating shut down, Phage attempted to claim her center of calm, and press on with the absolute need to see the state of her body. Summoning the strength she needed to lift her arms and head once again, she attempted to regulate her breathing, a moan of pain slipping out unbidden here and there, and attempted to gather about her mental self the remains of her battered walls to bare against the pain she knew would strike should she move…
Once again biting back the notion that the sight of her could plunge her off the deep end, Phage cycled in a deep breath, tightened her core, and lifted.
The searing white hot pain was immediate, absolute, and uncompromising. A scream slipped past her lips even as she acquired at last the visual confirmation of the state of what should have been her arms...
Her scream near transformed into inane laughter when she saw that she was staring at two fine arms damaged in only that her delicate fingers had melted together or fused at the fine delicate joints. As her body and stretched willpower would allow, Phage came to gradually oversee the rest of her state of being and found that, despite other places where her metal body had melted or fused together, she was whole. She still had two arms, two legs, a head, neck, torso and everything else in-between that she could possibly desire as a bipedal being. Despite her desperate half-melted state, she preferred that compared to the alternative.
At last, Phage laid herself prone across the cold, unforgiving ground of the foreign environment, finding that she could breathe a little easier.
She was alive!
It was, of all things, a start.
For an excruciating period of indeterminable time that seemed to stretch on and on and on and on, Phage attempted to wade through the pain searing through every fiber of her body. By initializing her ability for compartmentalization, Phage attempted to bury herself away from her condition by reciting a particular mantra over and over again within her CPU:
The pain is not mine. It is someone else's. Displace. The pain is not mine. It is someone else's. Displace…
As Phage well knew and feared, mind tricks only went so far. She could not hide herself away completely from the present, and found herself torn again and again from her mental hidey-hole whenever a fresh stab of pain would lance through her system, dancing over her sensory nodes like an electrical short. Alone as far as she could tell, she permitted herself to show signs of distress through typical vocal projections of a series of whimpers, pangs, and cries. When her condition persisted, it is not to say that she eventually gave up on her mental bracing, but rather attempted to delve much deeper into it.
The whole time she kept telling herself to hold on a while longer…
…Five seconds more…ten seconds…three seconds more…twenty…
Endure the pain just a little while longer, what's five more seconds when the Autobots will show up soon? Ratchet will be with them! And he'll give you the good stuff. You know, that fine, beautiful, lovely injection that will dull the pain and loosen the muscles. Medicine that, hopefully, will be so strong as to send you into a blissful recharge so that when we wake up in the Medibay later, you'll think this had all been nothing but a horrible nightmare.
Just go deeper. Displace.
Phage hissed at a sudden pang.
FIVE MORE SECONDS! THREE MORE SECONDS AND THEY'LL MATERALIZE AFTER YOU. RATCHET WILL BE WITH THEM! Ratchet will be with them! Ratchet!Ratchet!Ratchet!Ratchet!Ratchet!
Three more seconds…
Unsure of when she had begun biting back on her screams, Phage became aware that she had begun doing so when she tasted the offensive tang of her lifeblood on her tongue. Phage spat it out, and in doing so snapped a bit of skin on her lips that had fused together.
Of all things, that was the final proverbial straw.
At wits end with the pain, the femme rolled onto her side, suffering further protest and blossoms of bright red and white pain across her vision and throughout her body. She screamed:
"RATCHET! DEAR GOD, RATCHET! HELP–! UTO! UTO!"
Her words broke into blubbering cries of pain and solvent tears. At some point, she mercilessly cycled down.
Whooping and taunting, Cliffjumper and the Autobot flyers shot after the retreating specks of the Decepticons as they fled the battlefield. Cliffjumper chased after them on foot while the Aerialbots and Powerglide followed only a short distance before breaking off and circling back around. Cliffjumper had to get pinged by Prowl to break off and return.
The red minibot was sulky for the rest of the day.
From in and around the surrounding ravine where the battle had taken place, the battle-scarred Autobots regrouped around Optimus Prime, who stood nearby the ruined Decepticon Spacebridge at the bottom of the ravine. Jazz slide down the ravine wall of loosely clumped earth and stone; showering dirt and pebbles on anybody below and receiving general disgruntled moaning as his fellow Autobots scattered. He landed with a bounce six yards from Optimus Prime. As the rest of the Autobots regrouped, Jazz noted the Terrible Twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, exchange a victorious high-five, the minibots chatting away amiably, and Ratchet quickly zigzagging amongst the troops, taking a head-count and noting that nobody had taken any wounds that were life-threatening.
From the gathering mass, Prowl's voice could be heard as he called for a sound off.
"Aerialbots: Silverbolt, Skydive, Fireflight, Slingshot, Air Raid!"
All five resounded at once as if they were quintuplets, "Here!"
"Powerglide!"
"Here!"
"Cliffjumper!"
"Here and ready for more Decepticon ass-kicking!"
Prowl rolled his optics and continued on.
A Cheshire-Cat grin split Jazz's flexi-metal face as he turned to Prime.
"Now this is what I would call a resounding victory! Am I right, Prime?"
Cloaked in heavy shadows cast off by the towering ravine as the sun set, Optimus's bulky backside remained adamantly facing him. Unused to the blatant disregard, Jazz came up short.
Sensing something was horribly amiss, Jazz's audio-splitting grin slipped from his face. With an air of cautionary note, Jazz probed with fumbling eloquence: "Um…Prime?"
"Sunstreaker and Sideswipe!"
"Here!" boomed the twins as one.
"Mirage?"
"Accountable!"
"Jazz!"
"Here," reported the sabotage with less than a lackluster tone so faint, that Prowl had to call his name again.
"Jazz!"
The 'Bot in question tossed a sidelong glance at Prowl, but never truly took his gaze off Prime. Annoyed, he returned with more gusto; "Here!"
"Phage!"
Absolute silence was met by Prowl's call and with it, a sudden wave of restlessness descended on the gathered strike force.
One of Prowl's eyebrows quirked up. From atop the boulder where he took note, he scanned the crowd and called again, "Phage, report!"
Again, the returning silence was deafening. The Autobots began to fidget and look around, low whispers rising on the wind and reaching Jazz's audios: 'Where is she?' 'I saw her earlier in the fight…' 'She's probably trailing behind somewhere.' 'Wasn't she with you last?'
Prowl's lip components pressed together into a fine, unamused line. "Mirage! Bluestreak! Phage was assigned to your unit! Where is she?"
Mirage offered Prowl an apologetic shrug. "I lost sight of her when Starscream and the Seekers flushed us out from our sniper position."
Prowl's optics turned hard on Bluestreak next, who fidgeted uncomfortably. "Well, from the start of the fight I was with her up until we got flushed out. However, after I claimed another position I did catch sight of her in the thick of the fight. I observed that she was engaged with Rumble, Frenzy, and Ravage, so I know she didn't get buried under any rock. I remember thinking to myself at the time how Phage reminded me of one of those old Earth Amazon warrior-women and Rumble and Frenzy were like those weird like mini-humans from Easter Island –what did they call them again? Humans have a name for it…pygmies! That's it! Pygmies! Oh! Wait, but I forgot, I mean, I only thought Phage reminded me of an Amazon warrior not because she's built like one but because I had seen this History channel coverage on them about a week ago, and Phage was engaging them with her spear by the way, and you know how scary that femme gets in battle. I mean she's so sweet and reserved at The Ark, but as soon as a battle starts up she transforms into this she-devil and…actually, it's a lot like that Earth novel with that human doctor-scientist guy that has a good side and then he transforms into this evil man–"
"Never mind!" Prowl snapped, his patience at roads end with the Blue Lightening.
From the corner of his optic, Jazz saw Prowl grow impatient and jump on his , but his full attention was focused on Optimus Prime. If Jazz had not been fine tuned to Prime's subtle body language from working with and fighting beside him for over nine million years, Jazz would have missed the tremor that shook the whole of his body.
"Optimus!"
The heads of the entirety of the Autobot strike force turned as one, optics locking with unfaltering interest on Prime and Jazz. But Jazz's alarmed tone brought down the full attention of a more terrifying critic–Ratchet.
With the conviction of a nurse-bot in full care-mode, Ratchet burst his way through the Autobot ranks by shoving them aside, fully aware that he could only cause at most a few scrapes or dents and truly and utterly not giving a damn about it.
"What's the matter over here?"
When Optimus did not turn around, Ratchet's steely optics fixated on Jazz, who shook his head, indicating that he did not know. Ratchet's attention focused back on Prime – and he zeroed in with all the business of a hawk on a hunt.
"Optimus, you and Megatron had quite the scrap." as he approached, Optimus remained as he had been since the Decepticons had fled–facing the Spacebridge, as immovable and resolute as an iron-caste statue. Like Jazz, Ratchet slowed, growing concerned at Prime's dissociation with his surroundings. He tried again, "I have not checked off on your operational status yet."
Something in that framework of words triggered a response from Prime. The battle-busted Autobot Leader exhaled nosily as he lifted a hand and placed it firmly on the wall of the Spacebridge. If not for the wind that kicked up just then, sending particles of dirt and minute stone through the air that prattled against the their metallic hides and the damaged Spacebridge, whining like a pitiful Earth child as if upset with the their disruption in its path, Ratchet would have thought that Prime's sigh had been an attempt to disguise a painful whine.
Ratchet was of a mind to think the noise was just the wind, or the groan of a strained servo, until he noted Prime's uncharacteristically drooping shoulder struts.
Suddenly, Optimus Prime's distinctive baritone vocals rose above the mournful strains of the wind and the stressed servos and gears of the battle-busted Autobot's gathered about to announce with an air of grim finality:
"…operational status: terminated."
Optics settling into troubled slits, Ratchet rushed forward and grabbed Prime by his right shoulder strut and whipped him around.
Damage from his brawl with Megatron was immediately evident. The Decepticon leader had taken it to Prime hard–both glass panels were busted out. His left antenna had been ripped off, exposing a series of delicate multicolored wires that, Ratchet was all too aware, were connected back into his CPU. A trickle of his lifeblood, now dried, stained that side of his face. His grill was concaved in the approximate shape and size of several of Megatron's fists, until bits of the metal had broken off or pierced through into his internal workings. Fluorescent lifeblood spilled by delicate streams from the grievous wound. Disregarding signs of laser fire and bullets lodged firmly into his metal frame, his midriff and the missing antenna were points of serious concern for Ratchet; and he stated as much.
Attempting a lopsided smile that did not reach to his optics, the CMO reported; "I've seen you in worst condition before, Prime. Although I will require you to report into Medibay for repair, your injuries are hardly cause for termination unless you go unrepaired."
Standing in his long shadow, Ratchet could now plainly see that Prime was slouching. Partly, he suspected, due to the wound he sustained at his waist, where he kept his right hand over. But Ratchet's attention focused onto Prime's optics –which were dark and unfocused.
Ratchet shook his shoulder, trying to claim his attention. "Optimus! Optimus!"
Languidly, the pinpoints of cerulean light that were Prime's usual shade trained onto Ratchet for the first time. The CMO took Prime by both his shoulder struts and slowly said, "What…is…wrong?"
"I can't Sense her."
Ratchet took a moment to process the words. Once they sank in, the words struck him like a gravity hammer. Visibly shaken, Ratchet backed up one step, his hands dropping to his sides. The shock muted the Chief Medical Officer only temporarily. As it wore off, he shook his head violently, closing his optics firmly before opening them again. When he spoke, he punctuated each word with a hard underlying tone.
"What. Do. You. Mean– You can't Sense her?" Ratchet's voice dropped to a hiss as he recovered two steps, bringing himself up underneath Prime's chin. "You're resonated with her like you are with Roller! Or like Jazz is with Prowl! Or Sideswipe and Sunstreaker! You cannot Sense her unless–"
The words caught in Ratchet's vocal processor.
Optimus hung his head, his shoulder struts drooping further.
"Primus." Ratchet breathed, horrified. "The two of you share a Level Three Resonation, nearly as strong as the Twins. You must have felt…Primus." Ratchet attempted to ask, "You didn't feel… Did you–?"
Darkened, hollowed optics met Ratchet's own bright ones. Listlessly, he rocked his head back and forth with three heavy nods.
For his credit, Ratchet's white face paled while the flexi-plate skin molding his facial features contorted into a sickened grimace. It took the Chief Medical Officer a span to formulate a reply as the reality of the situation sank in. And then he remembered:
"During the battle, when the Spacebridge activated, you screamed." Ratchet's optics shot up to Prime's. "But that wasn't you –was it? Not really."
For his effort, Optimus attempted to formulate a reply. It took him near a full minute.
"It was Phage. Through the bond, I felt her pain. And then–nothing." Optimus shook his head as if trying to clear it of a fog and quickly corrected himself. "No, not just nothing. I thought the pain was excoriating but what came next was absolute nothingness…
"…She was in the Spacebridge when it activated." His heavy optics sought Ratchet's. "Phage has terminated, Ratchet."
Ratchet struggled to digest the information. His thought processes kept cycling back around to Wheeljack and himself and the Level One Resonation bond that they shared betwixt themselves –a bond forged millions of years ago during Cybertron, when both Autobots and Decepticons were attempting to develop combiner teams. The engineer 'bots kept having problems with the volunteers rejecting each other after undergoing the reconstruction process to enable combining–much like a rejection of a new transformation cog or laser core. It had been Ratchet who had suggested to the top Autobot heads that, theoretically speaking, a combiner team could work if they could find 'bots with a spark composition of a similar charge. Unfortunately, Ratchet had been correct. However, his theory did not include a solution or the personality meld rejection. Despite that which was, quite frankly, out of his field of research, the higher brass began a wide ranging search through all of their ranks for volunteers with spark compositions of a similar charge for the combiner process. As it turned out, Wheeljack and he had a similar spark charge. Luckily, Ratchet felt, Ratchet's own spark was too weak to maintain a combined charge with Wheeljack's that was sufficient enough to maintain an effective combined form for any length of time. Lab results had revealed that long before either of them underwent the combiner reconstruction process, and yet whether it was a fluke of working beside Wheeljack for so long or the lab results that were run so long ago to determine their spark compatibility – their sparks had forged a Level One Resonation bond, which had resulted in either of them occasionally receiving what Ratchet fondly called emotional 'ghost messages.' Nothing that was of a permanent happenstance, as Ratchet had heard happened with other 'bots, but strong enough to where it still took him by surprise whenever it would happen. Mostly, when Wheeljack had gone and gotten himself blown up after one of his invention failures.
Recalling the shock and trauma that he would receive after being bowled over by any one of Wheeljack's accidents sent the CMO's mind reeling as he attempted to comprehend what Prime was going through right now. The weak bond between Wheeljack and him in no way compared to the Level Three bond that Prime had shared with Phage, or even the unheard of Level Four bond that the twins shared –Sunstreaker and Sideswipe being the only two 'bots in known medical history with that kind of connection. As he understood it, having a Level Three bond granted a near omnipresent emotional and mental awareness of each partner.
Ratchet's CPU staggered at the notion. Optimus had sensed Phage's death, her final thoughts–if there had been any–as if they had been his very own.
Ratchet dragged his hands over his face and muttered once more in a hollow tone, "Primus." Remembering Prime, the CMO's crimson hands fell heavily on both of Prime's shoulder struts. Smaller than Prime, he was able to force the mech to look him in the optics.
"Optimus," said Ratchet gently, "you're in shock, but right now we need to get you and the rest of the Autobots back to The Ark. Optimus, can you hear me?"
Prime remained listless, his optics dark and trained on a dangerous event horizon. Ratchet snapped a look off over his shoulder strut to Prowl. With a single message over their internal communications, told the undeclared second-in-command that he needed to take over and now.
Prowl seized on it instantaneously.
"Autobots!" rapt out Prowl, "transform and roll out!"
Some general confusion rose among the strike team who had not been standing close enough to Ratchet and Prime to overhear the grim discussion. Silverbolt was the one to voice their collective concern:
"But Phage is still missing. With permission, I'll take the Aerialbots and scout over the landscape for her."
Prowl cut the air with a deft chop of his hand, signaling the 'negative.' "Unnecessary. Return to base."
The Autobots looked from Prowl to each other as if he'd gone mad, though a number of them began to show signs that they understood what the conversation between Prime and Ratchet had been, and what Prowl was now suggesting.
"But–" Silverbolt began to protest.
"She's terminated." Came the abrupt announcement, loud and hollow. All optics jumped to Jazz, who stood motionless, his visor dull and lifeless. "Lil' Katt–Phage," he corrected himself, the name he'd given to Phage around the time that he had unofficially adopted the femme as his little sister stinging on its way up through his vocal processor. His gritted his teeth, as if biting back on the taste of it; "terminated at the time of the Spacebridge jump, attempting to sabotage the Decepticon drone within."
If morale was a gaseous element that could be sucked from a vicinity, than that was surely what had just transpired among the ranks.
Feeling rather numb himself, Ratchet took Prime by the shoulder strut and steered him towards the rest of the Autobots. "We should get back to The Ark."
Nobody moved right away. Whether rooted in their places by shock or taking a moment of peace, the end effect was the same…
Nearly two-dozen pairs of weary cerulean optics focused on the decimated Spacebridge as if their hard stares could condemn it to the lowest depths of the Pitt.