I, Arcee
Authors Note: I just wanted to step back from my other works and poke at the idea that I had come up for Arcee's background that I was going to be using in my Phage universe. That stated, I don't own the Transformers and I hope that you like the story.
Her first…memories, if they could be called such, consisted of her days back on Paradon. She could recall…no, not really recall, just…know when she was activated for the first time. She wasn't sure if she had life then, only that she saw and recorded what she witnessed. Perhaps that constituted as thought, analyzing, realizing, but…no. No, no, no. She was a drone then, right? She was almost certain. She did not possess sentience. At least, so she believed. She never quite knew when or how she gained life, only that she had crossed that barrier at some point in her life perhaps at her creation or later on. She liked to think of her great awakening when she was shipped to Cybertron, but that was later on.
Her first memories were back on Paradon.
Her first analyzation and collection of data was at the factory where she had been built. As she looked around she found that one fembot after another looked the same as the last on all the factory lines. The only difference in them was their colors, and the factory was designed with separate construction belts for those different color-schemes. For some reason, she got the impression that there was something important about the color. The factory belts held the same looking fembots, dozens upon dozens of them, some still being built while others were being painted an arrangement of colors. Her optics first landed on the green and white fembot centered in the middle of the large, buzzing, clicking, whirling factory room, with thin, mechanical arms stretching forth from the ceiling to build and complete the other fembots on the assembly lines. Her CPU summoned forth information on what the green color scheme meant. Green meant medic. There was the medic line, but what did that mean? She probed the depths of her memory banks and only came up with that medic meant somebody who helped other mechaniods who were hurt. Green meant that they saved lives, made people feel better.
That was nice. A medic sounded like a good core function. She liked the idea of helping people.
Her optics left the medic lines and shifted to the left of it where another line was moving along with more of the same looking fembots on it, but the fembots being color-schemed over there were being painted yellow and white. Again her databanks kicked in and she drew up the appropriate information. Yellow meant Intel, information bankers, waiting room greeters and such welcoming and informational core programming. She didn't understand the purpose of their programming so she followed the string of information logged in her CPU. She found that, like the green fembots, the yellow ones helped mechaniods too, but not in the manner of saving lives. Their core programming was to sit around in offices or major exit stations, parks, buildings, and the like and either wait for somebody to ask them for directions or offer their guidance to anybody who looked lost. For the office sitters it was not only their job to provide that, but to categorize and log away files after files.
She guessed that sounded important, but it didn't impress her. It sounded boring, she needed more…action. She needed movement, she needed excitement…
She looked around and spied the fembot on the construction belts too the medic assembly line's right. The fembots being created there were blue and white. Her databanks informed her that blue signaled dancers, day-time entertainment. Blue meant that it was there job to mimic forms of art and entertainment such as dancing, music, singing, and replication of art pieces.
That sounded interesting, especially as her databanks retrieved what limited information it had on the arts. Dancing sounded the most intriguing, mostly due to the fact that it involved the most movement and action.
Finally, her optics settled on the last of the factory lines. Like the lines before it all the fembots being created on the construction line looked exactly alike, at least, so she had thought. As she watched the final production of the last line she realized that not all looked exactly similar. Some of the fembots had larger chassis, or were smaller, but in the end they all had the same face, the same body design. None of the other factory lines had such differences. This perked her interest and she looked closer, taking note of their color scheme. She waited patiently as the primers and spray cans were refilled for the next fembot, then, once they were refilled and replaced the slender robotic arms dripped down from the dark grey ceiling like the arms of a spider. With programmed expertise the lifeless arms began painting over the drone's mundane metal grey form with the paint provided in the spray cans, slowly breathing life into something that had no life to begin with. As time passed, and the fembot was slowly color-schemed to her specific program, she finally grasped what the last factory line was.
The last factory line was reserved for the colors of pink and white.
Pink and white, what did that represent? One last time she probed the depths of her memory files and found that pink represented the fembots designated for the Red District. They were entertainers like their blue counterparts but…different. They helped mechaniods like the green fembots but in a different way. They were constructed with specific information on their core programming like the yellows, but the information they held was completely different.
As she accessed the information in her databanks on the pink fembots she found that she possessed more information on Pinks than she did on any other. In fact, she possessed a lot more information. Pinks were the easers of their male-counterparts. They soothed out frustrations and aches, offered sweet-nothingness to their overburdened CPUs. They were the love-makers, the free downloader's. Pinks were the mistresses. Pinks were Red District.
More and more information spilt forth to the forefront of her CPU, explaining more and more to her about the core functions of the Pinks. They were built slightly different from the other color-coordinated fembots. They had to be created in a variety of fashions for the specific tastes of their temporarily suitors. Pinks had to have an advanced drone A.I. setting in order to perform their jobs appropriately, to offer what encouragement and ease that they had too to their client. Pinks were the most valued of the four fembots because they were the most sought after.
Information continued to spill into her CPU until she couldn't take all the information and cut the flow. It was too much too soon; she needed to access it more slowly. There was lots of information to examine, many maneuvers and instructions that came along with it.
Being a Pink would be hard work and covered just about all of the other three fembot jobs. She liked the idea of helping others, of easing their burdens. She liked the idea of work, of action, of movement. Being a Pink didn't sound so bad, at least not as bad as being a Blue, Yellow or Green.
Her optics caught the final touches to the latest Pink fembot being constructed. The spindly robotic arms picked at the lifeless shell's right arm and lifted it up, palm skyward and held it out straight. A moment later another mechanical device drifted down from the dark rafters of the humming and buzzing machinery, clicking and whirling and hissing as it dropped down onto the fembot's arm and pressed down. A space of time drifted by and finally the machine hissed loudly, spewing forth a gush of white hot steam from the arm. When the machine lifted away, she saw that it had imprinted a set of black numbers into the fembot's arm. Curious her optics gazed back over the rest of the factory floor and found that every other fembot's arm was being printed with a set of numbers.
'Which am I?'
The soft voice that spoke up of a sudden in her CPU caused her to jump and utter a slight gasp of surprise. She twisted her head this way and that, seeking for the owner of the voice only to realize three things: the first was that she was currently lined up in a row with other Pinks. Further down the row after a space was the Blues, then the Greens, and finally the Yellows. As she gazed to her other side she found that she was at the end of the Pink line and that on her right was nothing but the cold, humming, metal wall. Back down to her left she saw the rows upon rows again and realized that there were others that stood behind her, their optics closed, covered by the rubbery flexi-metal plating that covered their faces. She also saw a few inspectors addressing other fembots, what exactly they were asking them she was unsure, but her CPU identified their bulky, sturdy builds as those typical for mechs. One inspector, a purple and blue mech, took note of her and narrowed his optics at her before continuing on with his talk with a Pink that was six down the row.
The second thing that she realized was that the voice she had heard was her own, and the last thing she realized was that she already knew the answer to the question her mental voice had posed.
'Pink. I am pink.' Everything in her CPU confirmed her voice. The extensive information installed within her databanks, how her interests were geared more towards the functions of the Pinks, everything. And still, a part of her didn't believe, so she glanced down at herself to see for her own optics which color she was.
Pink. She was pink. A soft, tender pink and bright, pure, flawless white. At least that's what the light in the factory reflected off of what little armor plating she had. Like the rest of the Pinks, she had little armor asides from what wrapped around her interfacing port and her breastplate, along with arm, leg, and high-heeled foot coverings that was more for show of her function than for any actual purpose. Her head twisted sharply around to find some sort of mirror, to confirm what her optics were seeing, and at last she found that the wall she was standing beside served quite wonderfully for that purpose. What the wall revealed to her was a soft, kind, white flexi-metal face that she had seen on every other fembot in the factory with one minor change, her helmet was pink. Of course, every other Pink had a pink helmet and the same face.
It was true. She was a Pink. That made sense at least. It explained why she knew so much about them, why she liked their function so much.
"You!" rapped out a sudden deep voice that broke her train of thoughts. She snapped her gaze away from her reflection in the wall and directly in front of her, where she found the purple and blue mech that she had seen before staring down at her. He seemed bigger than what she remembered and could not help but lean back from his intimidating shadow. His sapphire optics were cold, and his dark grey flexi-metal face twisted into a suspicious frown. "What are you doing?"
'What am I doing?' The question reverberated across the empty expanse of her CPU. What did he mean by that? She frantically searched her data tracks for some form of answer and finally came up with something interesting. So, she repeated it back to him.
"A good Pink is a bright Pink." She had to smile at her words, not so much that she liked the catchphrase for the Pink fembots, but more because she had used her vocal unit for the first time and she found that she rather liked her soft, kind voice. It was louder and more solid than the version of it that she had heard in her head, but it still sounded like her nonetheless.
The large mech stood over her, fists thrown on hips, squinting down at her with his same suspicious frown. Finally he shifted, pulling away out of her space and crossed his arms decidedly, releasing a grunt. "You're not supposed to be active yet. Purpose for activation?"
She didn't know what to say to that. So she just repeated the words she had found before, her smile growing bigger and bigger each time her audio receptors picked up on her own voice. "A good Pink is a bright Pink."
The mech's frown deepened slightly. He tilted his head at her and gave off a sigh, grumbling in resignation, "Number?"
"Number?" she repeated, more because she wanted to hear her voice out loud rather than in her head. Again the mech's optics narrowed at her and she took a mental note by the change in his features that repeating somebody's words probably wasn't a nice thing to do.
"Yes. Your number. Show me your number, Pink."
She searched her data tracks and came up with the information that he requested. She lifted her right arm and gently tapped the metal square on the underside of the metal guard around her lower arm. The pink metal square clicked and shifted, splitting apart and folding back to reveal her number. Her brand.
Her product number.
A number that she did not remember getting, but one that she new as well as she knew that she was a Pink. It was a brand that she had watched other fembots receive a moment ago, and could still see newer ones receiving.
She returned her gaze back to the large mech and timidly showed him the numbers branded into the grey plate underneath her decorative armor, a plate that was just as much a part of her actual body as her exposed cable muscles.
The mech didn't so much as glance at it. Instead he uncrossed his arms and suddenly, just like that, a data pad appeared out of thin air in into his hand. She blinked her optics in astonishment, which consisted of the flexi-metal slipping down and over her optics and then back again. Her mouth unit slipped open, amazed that he could do such a thing. Her shock must have amused him, because he made a light chuckle as he took the data pad in hand and began punching on the buttons at the bottom of the pad.
"Stupid Pink." he muttered beneath his breath, but not soft enough so that she wouldn't hear, which she did and was somehow hurt by, though she didn't know why, before he lifted his optics back to her from the pad and said, "Well, what are you waiting for? Read it to me!"
She started at the rough and harsh tone of his voice but did as she was told nonetheless. She lifted her right arm and viewed the numbers branded into her very protoform.
"RD576389." She glanced back up to the mech as if seeking a treat for a job well done, or at least recognition that that indeed was her production number. All she got instead was another grunt from the purple and blue mech as he logged the information into the data pad. She knew in that instance that she had given him more than her production number; she had given him her very name.
Her name. Hers.
That sounded wonderful. She had a name!
"RD-389, you are to log off and await activation upon the request of your buyer."
"My buyer?" RD-389 repeated, blinking stupidly at the mech as her databanks searched frantically for the information of her buyer. Who was it? What were they like? The only information that she recovered was the name Skyhigh.
"I said deactivate!" the mech commanded, rounding on her with such a gnashing frown that she shrank before him against the wall.
Her vocal processor ejected a strange noise that sounded like a sharp squeak as her body jumped back against the wall. The mech continued to glare death and daggers down at her until she straightened back up, feeling his optics burrowing into her as she looked straight ahead and closed her optics.
She was, however, unable to deactivate herself. She was too wound up over the discovery of her function, of her name, and of her buyer. Though she pretended to deactivate, loosening herself as she might when in deactivate state for the sake of other mech. It was her function to please her mech counterparts, and if he wished her to deactivate so as to calm him, than she would.
Or at least pretend.
RD-389 tuned her audio receptors onto his heavy footsteps and marked his path as he rounded around her and went further down the lines. She cautiously cracked open her left optic and peered back behind her to see what he was doing.
The mech had turned on his heel and had stormed off behind her to question the fembots in the rows behind her. She heard him ask for the Pink to activate and respond, then once she had, for her to give him her product number. Then once done RD-389 watched as he skipped two or three and went onto the next.
She studied the conversations he had with the next two Pinks before his words were lost to her the further away he traveled. On all three accounts he had asked the same of all of them. Activate, respond, product number. His words suddenly burned into her data tracks, his rough voice repeating back, 'You're not supposed to be active yet. Purpose for activation?'
'A good Pink is a bright Pink.'
Her CPU ran through the scenario, tried to understand why her conversation was different from the other Pinks. All that she could come up with was that she had activated on her own and judging by that mech's reaction, RD-389 wondered if that was a good thing or if the reason for his grouchiness meant that he was worried that she might be flawed.
She really hoped she didn't have a virus in her programming. She began a virus scan of her systems, just to be sure.
"Arcee? …Arcee! Wake up! Please…"
She felt somebody shaking her and slowly reactivated her systems. Arcee blinked her optics against the absolute darkness folding in around her, her dream slipping instantly into the depths of her CPU. Asides from the darkness, error messages scrawled across her vision, alerting her to several malfunctions and damage to her body, luckily however the damage wasn't anything critical.
"Phage?" she mumbled quietly, blinking her optics several times before she recognized the other femme's bright white flexi-metal face, outlined by her dark emerald helmet that blended almost too well with the shadows surrounding them. She tried concentrating on her friend's sapphire optics, as it was the only light that she could readily pick up on. It also helped her to pick out Phage's cringed metallic ridges and worried expression, of which instantly melted away upon hearing her voice.
"God Arcee, don't scare me like that again! You had me worried when you went down."
"Went down?" she grumbled out, repeating the words. She moved her right hand to her forehead and pressed her fist against it, trying desperately to suppress the cranial surge she felt coming on, only the very motion sent sharp, painful surges licking throughout her entire frame and she cried out. Phage instantly grabbed at her arm and gently but firmly pressed it back down.
"Yeah, 'Cee. We were out on patrol with Bumblebee, remember? Scouting out to see if any Decepticons were in the area? Tch, they kind of found us first though, Motormaster and them that is. Bloody blasted Stunticons were all over us quicker than you could say 'drop and cover.' I barely managed to drag you into a nearby cave for safety, right before they shut us in…" Arcee noted as Phage's dark sapphire optics drifted away from her for a moment, obviously drifting off into the direction that they had entered from.
"Right," Arcee grumbled as she tried hosting herself up onto her good arm to try and see what she was staring at but all she could see was rubble, even as she activated her crimson visor to monitor in night vision and infrared. She picked up on Phage more clearly, but she immediately noticed that Bumblebee was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Bumblebee?"
"What are you doing?" Phage grumbled as she snapped her attention back to her friend and pressed her back down onto the hard, cold, rocky floor. "You shouldn't move. You got pretty banged up out there. I tried repairing what I could, but I don't have any medical equipment stowed away up my arms and fingers like Ratchet does."
Arcee tried to smile pass the pain lacing through her systems, though she inwardly despaired as she filtered through more and more warning messages. Apparently the damage was worse than she had thought, but nothing was ranging in the red. She guessed she owed that to Phage as well as her life.
She obediently rested back against the cavern floor, her own bright blue optics trained onto Phage's through her hot pink visor. "How bad am I?"
"You suffered some minor damage to your abdomen and left leg, but mostly your right arm took the brunt of Motormaster's shot. Melted most of the armor clear off. You're lucky the blast didn't take your entire arm with it. Next time you shouldn't transform until you find appropriate cover to do so!"
"Grouchy humor? Medical expertise? Bossing others around? Tch, ya know you're starting to sound like Ratchet."
Phage sensed the sarcastic joke underlying her pink femme's words and smiled softly back in turn. "Heh, I have a bad tendency of picking up on other people's bad habits if I hang with them often enough."
Arcee chuckled softly at that as she rolled her head this and way and that, trying desperately to pick up on the little yellow 'bots signature but failing yet again. "Then I'd say you've been around the doc too long. …Phage, where's Bumblebee?" she asked once more, her voice coming out ragged for her pained state of being. It felt as though every bit of her was on fire, especially her right arm. She really didn't want to move, instead she just wanted to curl up in a nice, comfy corner and lay there until the pain either subsided or she deactivated.
"Bee? He managed to escape. At least, I hope he did. I was counting on him getting back to base and getting backup for us. I tried the com. But communications are jammed, so I took to trying to move some of the rubble away from the entrance but ah…well I just don't know if that's such a good idea. The Stunticons could be waiting for us outside or the Decepticons and with you down and only me up I don't we'd last long. Even if they weren't I can't move some of the bigger boulders blocking our way."
"So we wait?" Arcee mumbled out, her voice growing weaker and weaker. She really just wanted to slip back into recharge, to escape the pain hounding her physical form…
"Yeah. We wait. We should be safe until Bumblebee and the others arrive at least. …Arcee?" Phage's voice rang out across the dark abyss between them, catching her fleeting attention as she drifted between the state of living and the realm of dreams. Arcee replied back with a soft, "Hmm?"
"Who's Skyhigh?"
Her optics shot open behind her visor at the mere mention of that name and lit ablaze with newfound strength. Phage watched curiously as Arcee's visor flashed momentarily then died just as suddenly.
"Where'd you hear that name?" Her voice came out a bit tense, a point that Phage did not miss, nor did she miss as Arcee's body tensed, almost as if she was ready to pounce on her. Her optics, unlike Arcee's, were more adjusted to the darkness than hers at the time being. Phage did blink her optics at her companion, wondering why Arcee reacted so.
"From you." she said truthfully. "You mumbled it just before I managed to wake you. I was worried; you looked like you were having a bad dream."
Prickings of her dream whispered distantly at the back of her mind, but she roughly shook it off quite easily with the poundings of reality beating down upon her. "It's nothing. Nobody," she responded too quickly and turned her head away from Phage, lips pulled tight and optics narrowing. She had retracted her visor, so Phage could see her frown all too clearly.
"You sure?" Phage asked tentatively, though there was a hint of a lighter jab to her tone of voice.
Arcee rotated her optics back to her and replied. "Yes."
"Positive?"
"Yes." Arcee said once more, her words growing harsher by the moment.
"One-hundred-percent?"
"Shut up!"
Phage pulled back from her female companion, a bit struck by the sudden flare of rage that had overtaken her. Distantly Arcee's voice reverberated off the cavern walls and back at them. Phage could hear as it traveled further back into the cavern they were in, slowly fading into oblivion as the vibrations and echoes grew weaker and weaker.
There was a moment of tense silence between the two as Arcee tried twisting over on her side, only to utter a sharp cry of pain as new, fresh stabs lanced up her right arm and seared its way into her entire right side. Phage jerked to help her but Arcee quickly repositioned herself, throwing herself onto her left side. Unfortunately that put her facing the femme that had just pulled the wrong string.
Without a word Phage settled back down against a boulder, her optics settling elsewhere but on Arcee. The silence between them grew steadily until Phage at last spoke up, saying softly, "I didn't mean to upset you."
"I know," Arcee replied curtly, still a little frazzled at the mere mention of that name, and the fact that her body was wracked with pain, mostly in her arm. It felt as though it'd been blasted off and she was doing her best to hold in the scream that was gurgling up from her vocal processor. She desperately wanted to release it, but if the Decepticons were around it wouldn't be a good idea to let them in on the fact that the cave in hadn't crushed them. "Just…just don't ever say that name to me -or anybody- ever again."
Phage's optics reverted back to her friend and rested there a moment as Arcee curled her legs up against her chassis, trying to seek comfort where little could be given. Her CPU instantly was sent awhirl over those few words, summoning up reasons and scenarios for the hate that Arcee obviously possessed over whoever this Skyhigh was. It must have also been a recent, tender subject for her to be so sore about it still, but then again how did she know how long it took a Transformer to get over anything when they could live for millennia? Actually, now that she thought about it, what did she really know about Arcee other than she was a sweet and caring femme, a merciless warrior, an excellent sharpshooter, pink, and that they had met on Cybertron?