Loyality
By Shadeless
The taste of energon filled his mouth. No matter what he did he couldn't seem to get rid of it. He weaved through the busy crowd, the bots making way for him as they recognized his colors. He moved, focused on nothing but the suddenly complex means of walking.
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Do we have a consent?
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He left the building, stepping onto the oppulent square shadowed by the golden tower. His pedes became heavy. The air around him was different now, nothing of the seriousness and profession inside the HQ, just mechs and femmes moving about, performing daily duties.
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I suggest you let it go now.
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Had processing air always been this hard? He stopped at the edge of the shadow that had filled him with so much pride, once. He had believed, oh, how he had believed… In truth, in peace, in freedom. In loyality.
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Do you really want to end it like this?
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How could it all have been lost? In mere orns, even if it felt like an eternity since he had come online this morning. He ignored the stares his stained chassis provoked. None of the civilains knew about the latest happenings. Would they ever know? How much was being kept from them? How much had been kept from himself?
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We have made a decision and have to hold it up now. Do you understand that?
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His servos whined as he stressed them. His optics were caught by the rim of the shade that still coated him. Suffocated him. The sharp outline of darkness against the light that seemed to threaten to overwhelm it. To him it spoke in a way he had never considered before. The pain in his spark was still blinding him. But, in other means, it was opening his optics to a knew perspective.
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He stood in the council room, battered and dirty like he had come from the battlefield. His disbelieving optics were locked onto their impassive forms. Mouth half open he grasped for something to say, to make them understand, to let them see what they were doing. He found nothing. He had never been a mech of many words, but he had done his best to project what he had seen, what he had realized.
His shaking voice was a whisper now. "Don't you understand? It's, it's worse than useless, it's murder. All they want is a live, a live worth living-"
"That is enough." The eldest was frowning at him now.
"But- This- Is this it? Is this the war you want to hold on to? Clutching at the truth you are preaching, living a world of lies where nothing ever changes, protected by meaningless victories bought with the lives of your own soldiers?!" He was shouting now but he didn't care.
"Listen-" They watched him like teachers an unruly sparkling.
"Are you crazy?! My partner is deactivated! You, you sent us in there, knowing the place was turning into a timebomb, never even sparing us a warning! We did everything you wanted us to, we brought you whom you asked for and for what?! Tell me, is this it? Is he the one who will tell you all you want to know? Who will sell his own people down the river, so you can come down on them with all your power and send them back where they came from?"
"Commander-"
"All for nothing, completely without meaning, a little rat, a turncoat, that's what he is and you knew it… Screw you, all of you!" Icy silence echoed through the chamber.
Finally, the council eldest adressed him again. "Fine. If you wish we are going to accept your oral notice of cancelation now. Yet, after what happened today we are prone to look over your behavior. Ask yourself, do you really want to end your career like this? We have made a decision and have to hold it up now, without letting our feelings rule further steps we may take. I suggest you let it go now. Do you understand that?" He stared at them in uncomprehension. "Do we have a consent?"
Time seemed to stretch. His processors tried in vain to solve the mystery of how they had managed to ignore everything he had said, yet be affronted at him raising his voice. All drive he had had, had run dry. "We have a consent." Gentle fingers pressed into his shoulder-plating and guided him out of the room.
How they had reached his room he would never know. He looked at the other helplessly. "You have to understand, at least you, you can't just ignore…" The look in Sentinels optics stopped him dead. "You knew." Sympathy and pain, old pain, and silent resignation. "How long?" The pain intensified for a click and for a moment he felt he was close to understanding the other like he had never before, all he had to do was reach out and accept- No.
The flare was gone as fast as it had come. "You should recharge." When Sentinel turned and walked away it felt as if it was the last time he would ever see him. He didn't call him back.
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He couldn't stop. Stop moving, stop processing, stop feeling. Since his friend had dropped him off the anger, the energy had come back, feeding of every line his CPU wrote, filling him with the sensation of a his core being on fire. Yet he was strangely detached, as if he was watching himself circling through what had been his home for vorns now, clenching his fists like a bot close to glitching. He watched as he left. Watched, as he decended through the skyscraper, lower and lower until he reached the security center. Watched as his fists took out the COS and his underlings. Recognized surprised sets face-plates like drawing registers in a data store. Watched himself enter the fleet of cells that was nearly empty. The only occupant looked up. His optics widened. "Er- hey- ahm-"
Looking down upon the shiverring figure he asked himself how he could have been so blind, for so long.
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He felt his look. For the first time in his life it didn't make him nervous or happy or…anything.
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Sentinel rang the doorchim. Nothing. Frowning, he tried again. When that got no reaction he controlled the corridor before he punched in the override. The room was empty. More than empty, like it had never been lived in before.
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The security room was a mess. Thank Primus they were alive. That couldn't be said for the system controlls. All he could do was watch, the screens still being online. The widening puddle on the cell perimeters made his spark clench. A still figure on the front screens caught his attention. "Don't."
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The sun gnawed at the buildings shadow. Slowly, the edge crept towards him. A step was all it would take, just one step…
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Behind him screamed demands rang through the command center. His fingers clenched around the screen chasing. "Don't let me have lost you…"
Sunlight illuminated the dark shoulders.
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It was warm. For the first time since he had seen his partner die he felt warm again.
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Sentinel watched his friend vanish into the crowd. He offlined his optics, his audios deaf to the chaos around him. Someone grabbed his arm.
"Sir! Sir, we have to-"
"No."
"What?"
"You won't find him anyway."
"But-" He turned on the mech, a young recruit, optics shining with a light that made him realise he hadn't lost his friend just a breem ago. He had been losing him for vorns, his light dimming with every death, with every time his asking for reason was unanswered. If only he had noticed it sooner. If only he had asked Why?. If. What a pityfull word, conveying nothing but lost opportunities. Leaving him with nothing but Too late. "Sir…"
"That was all I had to say about the topic. Get a medic, Ironhide." He dropped his vocaliser to whispers, speaking too himself more than to anyone else. "I will see him again soon enough." Looking over his shoulder he was almost sure he saw a patch dark plating glistening in the sun on the surveillance screen. "Am I not right, Shockwave?"