(-Disclamer- I do not own Transformers or any trademarks associated with them. I own this story and thats about it. I Figured everyone else was doing an 'OC' story so I might as well too! But don't wory, I'll work to keep it interesting and realistic. Also feal free to suggest plot twists and things you want included when you review, I'll do my best to work some of them in! )
Transformers: Each Small Step
Chapter 1 - The choices we make.
'A bad time to visit relatives.' Beth screamed to herself mentaly with such force, that if they could have, the words would have rebounded off the walls of her mind. Other than that first mental comment, another unspoken commentary also dominated her current thoughts, this one somewhat less cheerful than the first, it being 'I'm going to die'!
Beth's chest heaved, lungs burned, legs shook as she ran for her life with the world literaly dissolving into chaos around her. 'A very bad time to visit relatives!' she struggled to repress a whimper of panic and fear, tossing herself down behind a parked car as the heat and force that accompanied an explosion ripped through the area above her head where she had stood a second before.
The shear force of the explosion caused the row of storefront picture windows behind her to rupture into a rain of deadly glass. Lucky for Beth, most of the broken glass from the explosion was blown inward from the force, sparing her from death by thousands of lacerations. As it was only a few gashes were inflicted on her upraised arms protecting her head and neck, and the right side of her cheek.
Not that she felt those injuries because adrenaline was a wonderful, beautiful thing sometimes. Like when you are trying to survive and can't be distracted by little things like pain, blood and so on.While it wasn't true that this madness had moments of piece between explosions, there were a few seconds between the larger episodes of destruction where the area was filled by screaming, gunfire, twisting metal and the sound of architecture chunks crashing to the street instead of the larger explosions.
Becky found herself in one of these moments, every second clarified into surreal and suspended eternity, as life and death situations sometimes were. Becky forced her eyes to open party way, heart threatening to leap out of her throat (or so it felt). The air was full of a sort of faint haze made from smoke, concrete dust and heavens knew whatever else. She noticed with a sort of numb detachment how the shards of glass and chunks of building looked in the slivered sunlight that occasionally struck the dabree right before something struck her partly outstretched right leg with enough force to sting.
Although it didn't really hurt, the impact had enough force to sting and it definitely caused the poor panicked girl to get out a cry and jerk sharply away from the offending object. Whirling around Becky's large hazel eyes focused on the item that had impacted with her leg. Even in this state of madness and in her current panicked condition the metal square that had impacted her limb stood out as definitely out of place.
Startled but inexplicably curious and drawn to the odd looking item Becky reached out and placed her hand on the textured metal surface. And as she did so movement not far away caught her attention. It was a boy, about her age, and he was scrambling towards the object she was not touching. For a moment their gazes caught and held before a sharp pain in her hand caused Beth to gasp and try to jerk her hand back, only to find it…stuck…as if glued into place against the odd ruined surface of the cube.
Her eyes widened as she noticed the slices on her hand and arm had bled onto the surface of the item, the blood tracing the inset grooves that covered the cube's surface and creating a vivid contrast of crimson on gray and tarnished silver. All though it seemed to happen in a kind of slow motion, all of these events only took perhaps three to five seconds in truth, but to Beth it seemed the events took a much longer period of time!
And even though the rational part of her mind could not explain it, that didn't make the strange tingling and odd blue light that rippled across the object from bottom to top any less real. Nor did it cancel out the fact that blue 'ripple' and odd faint indefinable sound seemed to flow up from the cube into her arm as if using her blood as some kind of conduit.
For the time suspended between her heartbeats Beth could have sworn she saw that beautiful alien blue light trace up the vein-work of her arm lighting the skin faintly from within before the connection was broken suddenly, sharply, by the boy who she had seen scrambling towards her. Her conscious focus was ripped back to the world as a whole with a sickening, stomach clenching lurch and she noticed the boy had scooped up the strange cube and was now running with it down the street.
"W-wait" she called out after him, voice completely drowned out in the chaos. Now that she got another look at him, the teen would have sworn she had seen him someplace before today but was unable to place where it might have been. Beth scrambled to her feet as well as another explosion near by sent debree raining down on her location.
She staggered for a few steps before managing a proper sprint, trying to block out the pain in her hands and knees as she did so. Beth took off after the boy, wanting to know what the heck that cube thing was…and if it had anything to do with the obviously out-of-this world-crap currently hitting the fan around them.
As she ran after him down the street a couple of things became painfully clear to Beth. The first was that she wasn't going to be able to keep up with him because damn but that boy could run, didn't he need to breathe?! The second thing was that apparently several of the creatures were out to get HIM and seemed to actually be following the hapless boy. Well that explained why he was running so freaking hard now didn't it?
Suddenly Beth lost all desire to follow the cube-bearing boy and she veered off down the side street praying to leave the chaos behind her with him. Don't get her wrong, Beth certainly didn't wish anything bad on the guy! But there was nothing she could do and the girl wasn't so eager to die from trying to run after him, so Beth figured the best she could do was try to survive to see her eighteenth birthday.
Apparently leaving the chaos behind her was not what fate had in mind however, because as Beth ran full tilt down the street something fell from above with such sudden force she found it impossible to avoid a collision.
A scream died in her tightening throat as half gasping inhale as her sneaker collided with something metallic sounding and she pitched forward, her world blurring into one maddening cologe of silver-gray-brown, sound and the smell of smoke. She hit something hard and unyielding with brutal force, it felt to Beth like she had fallen from a roof onto concrete or something.
Her arm wrenched painfully, shoulder twisting inward past its normal position as she came to a sudden rest on her side on top of the largest piece of fallen debree. Beth's head rebounded off the object with a sickening crack before hitting it a second less forceful time.
For the second time that day time seemed to slow to a crawl for Beth, this time everything magnified further by pain heightened clarity. She could feel a cool smooth surface beneath her cheek and her good hand splayed fingers out across what her blurred vision registered as a slick metallic silver surface.
How odd. Metal falling from the sky? Shouldn't it be brick or cement? Beth tried to move herself, tried to pull herself up but found the pain far too intense. And then in that odd state of clarity she felt something rest against her back, keeping her from sliding off her metallic 'bed' to the glass littered ground.
Beth turned her head slightly trying to take in the damage, each time she inhaled a new wave of pain that seemed to last forever in suspended time, there, loosely resting on her lower back was what appeared to be a large silver hand fingers splayed to offer what shaking support they could. In her current state this made absolutely no sense to Beth, of course she doubted even if she wasn't bleeding from the head that it would make sense.
The teen tipped her head upward as far as she could manage, the cold surface sliding along her face until dilated hazel eyes met flickering blue glowing optics.Well, look at that. Beth thought her dilated eyes widening a fraction, she was laying on one of the creatures…it had fallen from the sky?
Her fingers curled slightly against what Beth now registered was its chest, a chest she happened to be half sprawled across. Her other half? Well it was dangling off where the creature's lower torso and legs were supposed to be, shoes just barely touching the ground. Her numbed mind struggled to piece even a part of this together as the hand on her back spazumed suddenly an odd haunting sound of unmistakable pain escaping the creature who apparently was attempting to help her even though it was obviously in a worse way than she herself was.
Why? Beth tried to mouth her fingers loosely sliding across the chest as she tried to pull herself up once more, this time with the intent of finding the sweet suffering thing some kind of…help. She felt suddenly it was just…WRONG…for such a noble creature to die like this surrounded by chaos and suffering what was so obviously an agonizing end.
She tried not to consider what it would feel like to be torn in half. Her body however had other ideas; it had already suffered too much and let its feelings be known by refusing to do anything Beth asked.
Her arm gave out half way through pushing herself up, sliding across the metal chest until her fingers caught some kind of seam in the metal and it sifted a few inches to one side a glimmer of flickering blue-white shimmering forth illuminating the crack. Beth's eyes widened at the sudden glow as her chin slammed down against the chestplate and this time when the wave of pain swallowed her head in crushing dizziness Beth blacked out, going suddenly limp across the metallic surface.
It was an almost peaceful stillness for a few seconds as the air itself seemed to hold its breath and the flickering glow that lit the eyes of the fatally wounded Mech started to fade out while the sounds of battle in the background climaxed. But there was no movement from the two, none save the faint fading light. Until something truly odd started to happen, unwitnessed by anyone in the deserted street.
Minute tendrils of crackling blue-white energy sprang to life across the vein work of the human's outstretched hand, those fingers that rested so close to the cracked chest plate soon found the distance from fingertips to faintly glowing chest compartment bridged by crackling, crawling threads of light. If she had been conscious Beth would have commented on how similar those lines of energy looked to the ones that had crawled up her arm from the strange object in the street earlier.
Of course if she had been conscious she would have also probably had a nervous brake down and freaked when said energy seemed to brighten painfully and the glow in the creatures chest flashed brightly then went out as her whole form lit with a eerily beautiful pale blue glow for a moment before all was still once more.
And Beth most certainly would have lost it if she was awake, when two more of the huge creatures came running down the street to kneel next to the body of their fallen comrade. One of the creatures working feverishly to prevent what had already come to pass. The loss of their brother. But it was already too late.
Beth however did not wake up. Not than, not when the paramedics arrived and not on the ride to the hospital. In fact Beth remained her almost death-like state for over a month, unmoving and unresponsive. The doctors informed her parents when they arrived the evening after the battle shaken and expecting the worst.
They were informed that it was a coma brought on by brain swelling due to a serious head injury that their daughter was currently suffering from. Her mother cried while her father listened to the explanation that as the swelling went down some or all of Beth's functions might return, but there was really no way of telling when or if she would wake up.
It was said that those who were in a coma might or might not be aware of what was going on around them, that things like familiar voices or a touch might register someplace deep inside the patients brain. Beth didn't show any noticeable reactions to the doctors, or her parents as the days passed.
But that was understandable if one could see inside and realize that her consciousness had been drawn deeply inward to the core of what defined the human teenager's awareness, and that Beth was seeing and experience things no one on the outside could ever hope to understand. Certainly not Beth herself.
From the second she had fallen unconscious in the street things had only managed to get stranger for Beth. Not that she would have imagined that was possible. Of course she wouldn't have imagined that loss of consciousness due to a head injury would lead to her standing in an endless sea of glowing white light either.
Her first thought was an understandable one. She had died and this was the famous 'white-light' that people hear about. Beth blinked and looked around the seemingly endless glowing expanse wondering when her life would flash before her eyes and the pearly gates would make an appearance.
To be honest she was not a happy girl about this whole thing, the first time her parents let her go on a trip with friends and she has to go and die in some freak attack out of a Hollywood movie. "Well, at least it didn't hurt as much as it could have right?" Beth muttered eyes widening as her voice echoed back faintly from what seamed like several angles before fading into nothingness.
"Whoa…" she muttered, and that too reverberated into what seemed like eternal light. Suddenly she had the impression of a….presence…calm warm and unfathomably complex form around her and something coming into being behind her. As she turned in place, looking around Beth's eyes caught movement and she focused on a section of air at about eye level as a picture formed slowly like the ripples settling across a pond to reflect an image.
Beth's eyes widened as she instinctively lifted her hand half way to touching the image, fingers frozen outstretched a couple of feet away as she caught herself. It was that creature, the hurt one she had landed on. But here, in the image it was ok..in one section and standing. Beth couldn't help but notice how beautiful and proud it looked in an alien kind of way.
"He's going to be ok than? GOOD. No reason we should both die, he seemed like a good guy." Beth blinked after asking the presence her question "Why did I just call it a he?" she shook her head and watched the image ripple again this time showing what looked like a glowing orb of shifting white and blue energy. She knew somehow that was the ….robots?...well…soul for lack of a better word.
Not understanding fully what the presence was trying to get across to her, Beth watched with growing apprehension as the image swirled around itself taking on a tangible three dimensional representation of the image and now was a true glowing orb floating in front of her and TWO distinct presences could be felt.
She was nervous, but couldn't help but watch the shifting energy create ever changing patterns across the orb's surface. This was the robot, the one she had fallen on. She knew it somehow with an unquestionable certainty. But what was it doing in her white light? Beth also noticed a faint warmth radiating off the surface before it started to drift away across the endless sea of light.
"N-no…..wait! Don't go, don't leave me alone here!" Beth stuttered stumbling after what was the only other thing in her luminous limbo. It was bad enough she was scarred and stuck in this place, did she have to be alone too? The presence returned brushing against her mind and sending that tingling sensation across her skin once more. 'Was she following its creation? Why would she wish to do that? She should be heading the other direction.'
Beth turned her head slightly and noticed that sure enough some kind of path had appeared leading upward into another even brighter light. But. But she was afraid and she didn't want to go alone. "No, no..! I don't want to, I don't want to go. I want to go with him, I don't want to be alone. I'm not ready to go yet!" she almost sobbed half walking, half running after the floating orb as it drifted off into the distance.
The ground beneath her was changing slightly; it was still glowing brightly but now with a faint blue and gold hue instead of the pure white of earlier. The presence took on a comforting, get gently restraining quality as she found herself unable to go deeper after the fading blue orb. Beth almost panicked before she noticed the orb had stopped moving and was now hovering still in mid air several yards away, as if it had noticed her distress and was hesitating before taking that last step.
'You can't follow him where he is going child. It is not your place of 'being', as you are it would destroy you. '
Beth's chest vibrated slightly as the presence felt much stronger in this place for some reason, but she wasn't afraid…only upset and growing stubborn trying to wriggle free from the invisible grasp. It wasn't working.
"I don't care! I'm dead right? How can I die again? For once I want to be the one to choose, are you saying I can't even do that when I'm dead? Let me go with him…I don't want to go to heaven yet…I've screwed up to much and judgment would suck a lot. And I don't want to be alone here either, so let me go! Please?!" Beth shouted at her unseen captor and felt a considering note enter the presences touch.
'You want to be with him. Even if it changes who you are and what you have for all of existence? You will exchange what you are, for what you will become? Consider child of earth. Things can never be undone. It is a path that I will open only once all others are closed to you. Do you accept this?'
Beth stopped fighting against the invisible grasp and her eyes widened at what the words implied. Give up what she is for what she would become? Did it mater? She was dead; it wasn't like she would have to adjust to anything beyond what she was already going through right? And even if it DID mean things would get weirder, things had to go somewhere from here. And no matter where they went it would be uncharted territory. So why not make the decision for herself?!
"I understand. But I want to make my own choice for once ok? So I agree, I'll deal with whatever comes…just let me go too." Beth said glancing at the glowing sphere noticing with pleased shock that it had drifted over while she was talking and now hovered mear feet away. She wasn't going to be left alone after all! A huge sigh of relief sagged in her chest.
'very well. This changes things, but perhaps it will be for the benefit of both. Use the time you have wisely my new child, and you as well Jazz-spark of myself. Until you both return to where all are one, remember you are who you choose.'
Beth blinked at the odd choice of 'words', not that the presence spoke really…they were more like impressions directly in her head…but still. What did it mean 'the time she had'? Was time in the afterlife limited or something? The teen looked over at the hovering orb just in time…to see it disappear into her chest and the world exploded….again. It felt like her very essence was dissolving, and being reformed into something else….and she lost awareness of..everything.
This time she came to awareness Beth found herself standing in an open space…. again.
"Are you experiencing a feeling of dajavu?" she muttered twitching and pulling herself to her 'feet'. This time things were…different..than before. It wasn't a field of light she found herself standing in. In fact it seemed like she was standing outside at nighttime.
Beth glanced upward and gasped as the black expanse of a star littered sky canopy stretching out seemingly endlessly above her. Two full moons, luminous and stunning set in the sky, one blue and one a pale golden white. She blinked "Two?" the confused comment slipped out. Two moons? Beth glanced forward and noticed a glow in the distance, just over a rise in the ground.
Walking forward she found herself cresting the hill, and a city glowing with a golden light, vast and of indescribable beauty stretched out before her eyes for what seemed like forever. Beth gasped, staggered at the vision before her. What was going on now?
"That's…" She started in disbelief and about to comment how what she was looking at was impossible, but another voice cut her off. It was smooth, velvety and slightly amused sounding "Cybertron. Looks like we'll be hang'n togeather for a while little one."
Beth let out a squeak and spun around to see who was speaking inside her head this time, but was only met by a bright painful light….again. But this time the light focused into a pinpoint and the rest of the world a blur as the features of a nurse blurred into semi-focus.
"Wh—hh" Beth had meant to say 'What the hell' but it came out as a sort of strangled croak instead with her throat raw and somehow obstructed. It became clear to her what was going on in a few moments. After her parents rushed into the hospital room, her mother crying, her father choked up and the nurse telling her to relax and not try to talk.
She was in the hospital. So she hadden't died? So than what the scrap was up with all that white glowy limbo stuff…what the scrap was up with the word scrap for that matter? Was everything some sort of brain damage induced coma dream? They were saying she was out for a month. A month.
Beth tried to smile as she listened to her parents and the doctor, each minute becoming more convinced her experience was some sort of trauma induced dream that was drawing from the 'terrorist attack' on the city. But even as she was disconnected from the equipment, and all through the days that followed as Beth struggled to get her body to remember how to move after her coma…she couldn't completely burry the unease that came with the stubborn insistence in her heart that said something HAD changed big-time, and she was going to be forced to face it sooner or later. Because that was what she had chosen.
It turns out, that would be sooner rather than later….
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