Ages Come and Ages Go
Just as a note to all my readers, this story is a prologue to Duty and Deceit, and it is written from the perspective of a neutral youngling. As such, certain actions within this prologue may seem incongruous to the reality of the Autobot/Decepticon War, due to the naivety of the one perceiving said actions. However, the misperceptions made in this story are continually being explained piece by piece in the progression of Duty and Deceit, and the sequels thereof.
Modified on 09/07/15. Warning: The contents of this chapter turned out quite a bit darker than my usual writings.
"Ages come and ages go,
On and on, an endless flow.
Battles raging, vict'ries won,
Have no effects,
In sweet Protihex...
Ages come and ages go,
Sparks of loved ones,
Sparks of kin,
Never lost, they live within,
Each of our sparks!"
The youngling femme hummed happily as she walked down the halls of the tower. She could see all of Protihex from here, through the slightly gold tinted glass. It was late in the rotation and the suns were going down, lighting the beautiful city spires with their golden rays. As usual, the - then - brightly armored femme's gaze was turned towards her jade forest; the green stone gleaming emerald in the light of the setting suns.
So transfixed by the sight, the youngling didn't see the bulky boatformer in her path. With a small crash, the silver, blue, and yellow femme-ling walked straight into the gold and blue mech, who - bent intently over his work in the tower's power lines - was hardly affected by the small bundle of metal now seated hard on her aft beside him.
She looked up at the sturdy mech, golden optics still a little dazed. She noticed a weird red symbol on his shoulder plate. She'd seen it once before, on the news screens outside when she was even littler and younger than she was now. It was on that Zeta Prime guy's chassis. The little femme didn't understand the war; nor did her parents wish for her to know. But she did remember the symbol... and the name. She thought the name sounded cool.
"Who're you? I haven't ever seen you around before. Are you going to live here too? My name's Terabyte."
"Hey ya, kid. I'm called Seaspray."
"Is your voice always like that? It's really weird, like...like Smokey's does when he's trying talk through his Energon." She laughed as she thought about her 'adopted' little brother. Suspicious optics watched as the boat worked on the lines some more. "Do you even know what you're doing? Those are the main power lines that run through the whole city... one mistake and you could cut the whole city's power."
"I know, sparkling. I know." He looked up at her with sad blue optics. "What are doing here anyway, shouldn't you be home?"
"Nope." The youngling shrugged. "I'm going to the new mech's apartment; the old owner asked me to take care of her sapphires while her son was here. Stormsong was always really nice... She made some of the best copper rounds... And I'm not a sparkling. I'm a whole fourteen vorns, actually."
The little femme's fuel tanks rumbled at the thought of food."So... what are you doing? And what's that symbol on your chassis and shoulder plates?"
He averted his gaze, golden brow furrowed as if deep in thought. Finally, Seaspray touched the side of his helm and he started talking to someone in his helm. "Ultra Magnus, sir... there are younglings here... and families... Are a couple trines really worth it?"
Pause.
"But Magnus, the innocents-!"
Pause.
Totally unaffected by the conversation, the youngling looked out the huge glass wall and checked her internal chronometer - that was so cool that she had one now! Her last frame hadn't had one - she'd need to get on to the new flier's home soon...
"Yes sir. Understood sir. I'll try Magnus... Yes sir. Seaspray out." The boat said, his watery tone resigned. Seaspray turned his golden helm back to the femmel-ing. "Hey kid, you know that mercury lake out west o' here? I hear it's lovely this time a vorn... Think it'd be a great place for a picnic, say, tomorrow, yeah?"
She laughed, a sweet tinkling sound."You're weird, Seaspray. I can't leave tomorrow... I've got school, a medical checkup to make sure I'm adjusting to my new frame okay... Besides, even if I didn't have those things, I promised I'd meet Smokescreen at the Energon fountains tomorrow afternoon. It was nice to meet you Seaspray...even if you're a little bit odd... I need to get going now. Be careful with all those wires and stuff."
"Just... ask your parents, kid. Maybe you can take Smokescreen with you." Seaspray said a bit too forcefully. The youngling was beginning to be bothered by the mech's insistence that she leave home tomorrow...
"O-kay..." She drew out the 'O' , frowning at the mech doubtfully; the expression wrinkling her delicate and dainty faceplates, her lips showing her confusion and suspicion clearly. Biting her lip-plates nervously, the silver and cerulean femme-ling muttered, "More than a little bit odd...You work with electronics a lot? I don't imagine you're very good at it... Seem to have more than a few fried circuits up here," she paused to tap the side of her helm meaningfully with one sharp servo. "Um... I'm just going to go now... Good cycle."
Stormsong's son turned out to actually be three huge fliers; there was one purple mech, a blue one, and a silver one. The silver one was the smallest, but the purple one seemed to be the youngest. They all seemed nice enough though. Except the silver one, who was rather annoying.
She couldn't help but notice that these mechs had symbols too, only theirs were prettier; all sharp and pointy. She liked pointy things.
When she first walked in, she had been greeted with several weapons pointed at her face. Her size and embarrassingly sparkling-ish squeal had made them instantly lower and subspace their weapons at the blue one's command. After that, they had been really nice to her, introducing themselves as Thundercracker, Starscream, and Skywarp. She soon forgot about the incident with the weapons.
She had been visiting the nice jets for several quartex now, whenever they were here, and she looked forward to her every visit. She suspected that they enjoyed her visits as much as she did. They seemed kind of lonely, and she was more than happy to fill that gap.
The youngling really liked Skywarp; he was hilarious, silly, and acted incredibly young. There was a dark, saddened glint in the back of his red optics; but she didn't recognize it at the time. The purple jet had snuck her some tin curls that he claimed came from Starscream's secret stash this visit.
In the end, the blue and silver femme stayed with the trine quite a bit longer than she ought to have. But that was normal for her visits. They were like family to her now, and she was sure her parents wouldn't mind. She knew when her parents wanted her home, but they were so much fun and had so many new games... Time flew by unnoticed until at last it was near midnight.
"Hey little 'Byte. You're lookin' halfway off there...S'about you're berth time ain't it?" Skywarp asked gently, still playing up his accent since she'd pointed it out a groon ago. "Kept ya here too late as is, we better get you home."
"Bull's going to have your wings on our wall if I'm not back..." She took in a huge vent, small frame shuddering from its magnitude.
Skywarp tickled her abdomen playfully, grinning at her squeals. "Right next to your helm, I'll bet."
"Stop!" She laughed, trying to squirm away from her newfound friend. "Stop! I'm not a sparkling! No tickling!"
With that the little femme threw herself at the Seeker with a cheerful battle cry, tackling him with all her might. About halfway to him, she was caught by her neck armor by Thundercracker.
The femme-ling laughed and then pulled up a mock pout. "Aww, Uncle TC... no fair! Two on one!"
He laughed quietly, the youngling didn't catch the strained tone it held, or the worry and sadness shining behind each of the mechs' optics."Sorry kid. 'Warp's right; time for you to go home." The tall blue Seeker deposited her by the door.
"Okay. Can I come tomorrow too? If my sire and carrier say I can?" She asked eagerly.
"Sure thing, kid." Thundercracker answered. He opened the door and stepped partially through it, her silver hand in his. They all treated her as if she was much younger than she was; probably because she was so small... But she didn't mind. Most everyone did.
As they left, the young femme just barely caught Starscream's dark mutter and Skywarp's falsely nonchalant reply.
"If anyone lives through tomorrow... Those idiot Coneheads, Ramjet, Thrust, and – whatsisname? Dirt? Dirge? – have probably given away our position by now. The Autobots are probably right on our tail, deploying Wreckers."
"Lighten up, bro'! Half of 'em can't even see their own pedes, much less work out where we are!"
Bullwing, her sire, hadn't been too happy that morning when she'd explained why she was out so late. Especially when the young femme had mentioned that the mechs she'd been with had those strange purple symbols. She didn't understand what she'd done wrong or why her parents were so upset that she'd met mechs with two different symbols.
Tetrastar and Bullwing had sent her to school with strict instructions not to talk to anyone with a symbol and to come straight home after meeting with Smokescreen. They told her that she would have to stop visiting Stormsong's sons. She agreed begrudgingly and went to school as normal; ace-ing the exam she had on computer coding and high-level mathematics. Math and code were her best subjects. Her medical checkup was quick and easy, no problems.
Now the blue and yellow femme-ling sat on the Energon fountain in the park, waiting for her little white Praxian friend to arrive. He would be here soon; it was mid-afternoon, directly after school. She figured he'd probably got into detention for back-talking the professor again. She smiled fondly at her little mech-ling; never knew when it was best to keep quiet.
After a few more breems of waiting, her sharp audials picked up the light clink of Smokescreen's small pedes approaching. Good. Now they could go into that animal dealer's shop. Smokey had read about turbofoxes and photovoltaic felines and begged her to take him to see some.
"Tera'! How was school? Did you do good on the tests?" He asked quickly, not bothering to listen for her answer. He grabbed her hand in his own and pulled her to her pedes. "Come on! Let's go!"
"Hi, Smokey." She laughed at his enthusiasm and lengthened her short stride to catch up to the mech-ling. "Hey, slow down! You're the one who got detention... what'd you do this time?"
Smokescreen turned his bright blue optics to look at her for a moment before he shrugged lightly. "The professor kept writing down the wrong answers and telling us our answers were wrong when they were right... He sort of got mad when I pointed that out."
The slightly older youngling took note of the amused grin and the gleaming optics with a knowing smirk."Meaning that you made a big scene in class, trying to play professor to show off your 'genius'."
"Uh huh! He really was wrong this time though."
"Silly. You said that last time too... till you went home and checked it." She grinned, beginning to hear the baying of the pit hounds.
"Whatever." She got the distinct impression that her little 'brother' was rolling his optics at her.
The young femme passed off the strange hissing sound coming from the power lines under the street as a malfunction from her recent upgrade; audial systems must still be glitchy.
"They're so cool looking!" Smokescreen exclaimed as he watched the pit hounds snarling and fighting through their cages.
The white and gray mech-ling had long since tired of the turbofoxes and photovoltaic cats and was almost done looking at every other animal there. He kept coming back to the pit hounds.
"Can I keep one?" Large blue optics looked up at her pleadingly, but the young femme-ling had become immune to the mech's nearly irresistibly cute sparkling face. "Please?"
"And what would your carrier say to that, hmm?"
The suns were low in the sky and would soon be setting, it was time to go home. She didn't want to miss the sunset and she still needed to take care of Stormsong's sapphires; she hadn't actually done that last rotation. The femme-ling had forgotten her parents' warnings not to go back.
Uncles Warp, TC, and Screamy were good mechs. They'd never hurt her anyway; especially not just because of a pretty purple symbol on their wings.
"Come on Smokey, time to go home." She laughed at his pouting whine when he realized how ineffective his sad face had been.
"Alright... You're no fun, you know that?" He teased her happily as he followed her back to the residential spires.
The ground shook and rumbled ominously, the whining hiss getting louder, more insistent. With a fearful glance at the shaking ground, the blue and yellow femme-ling realized that the sound was no malfunction. Feeling Smokescreen's hand slip into hers, the younglings held hands tight and ran towards the safest place they knew: home.
Other mechs and femmes began noticing the danger as the ground shook even harder, throwing the two small younglings to the ground. Looking around fearfully, they saw other mechs tossed to their hands and knees as well, the smaller frames of most Protihexians unable to stand on the unsteady ground.
Screams filled the air as the two younglings, still holding each other's hand like a lifeline, ran in the direction of their parents. Luckily, they lived in the same spire, so both could run together.
"Terabyte!" Smokescreen screamed, gaping up at the spires.
She looked up, instantly seeing what had caught the mech-ling's attention. Spires all around Protihex were swaying frightfully as the ground continued to shake. Glass shattered and fell from the sky like rain, adding its own tinkling sounds to the screaming and rumbling and hissing.
Finally, the cause of the chaos became clear. In a few moments, the hissing of the power lines reached a crescendo and explosions could be heard throughout the city as the Energon ignited in the overpowered lines.
"RUN! Smokescreen, run!" She screamed as their home spire began to come crashing down.
Neither youngling had an alt-mode yet, so they ran. She heard Smokescreen's wail as the street beneath them erupted in blue flames and smoke. The force of blast tore their hands apart, flinging her light frame in the opposite direction.
"TERA!" Smokescreen screamed as they were separated.
"Don't worry, Smokey! I'll find you! I promise!" She shouted into the smoke behind her, even as she flew through the air on the edge of the blast.
She felt the intense burning of the explosion on her dorsal plates, quickly singeing her thin, civilian armor. A high scream peeled itself from her vocalizer and coolant streamed from her golden optics as she crashed against the ruins of a collapsed building that had contained the city's archives.
Her engine whimpered as she struggled to rise and flee the shadow of her collapsing home. Her left arm hung useless at her side, fiery pain rolling through her every system, countless warnings popping up on a HUD she hadn't known she had. She didn't understand much more of the error messages other than to realize that she was injured. She never realized that pain could hurt so badly until just then.
She could hear a few screams of the remaining mechs, but most of the screams had been permanently silenced. The air was burning and the smell of spilt life-En clung to everything. A low keen split the air, the dented and dirty youngling not recognizing that the voice was her own. She looked up at the falling building, knowing that she couldn't run fast enough to escape.
From where she stood, she could see straight into her own home and she watched as her carrier's diamond roses fell from the window as if in slow motion. Nanoseconds later, the shape of her sire in jet mode followed the roses, carrying Tetrastar's limp, graying frame. Her carrier's frame...was gray. Gray. No...
"TETRASTAR! Bullwing!" Her carrier's sparkless chassis was slowing her sire down too much... He wasn't going to make it. She screamed again, her faceplates stained with hot pink coolant. Mindlessly she ran towards her sire, running with all the speed she could muster.
The young femme watched as the building crashed into her sire's jet mode, sending him hurtling towards her alarmingly fast. As the distance between them was cut in half, she noticed with horror that Bullwing's frame was already fading to a dull, gunmetal gray. With a mourning howl, the femme fled the rapidly approaching carcasses of her own parents.
Their crash ignited the Energon in their lifeless frames creating a massive explosion only inches from her. The blast flung her high into the air like a doll, her frame gone limp. Somehow, as she sailed through the air, the young femme got the vague impression that she was being carried to safety, as if by the wind.
When she crumpled to the ground, the little femme didn't move. She simply laid where she'd landed, her processors numb and her golden optics wide and blank. The ground-shattering crash of her home went unheard, massive explosions unseen. All of Protihex shattered, collapsed, and exploded around her without her even noticing.
She simply laid on her scuffed and dented knee plates, curled up in a ball with her forearms on the ground, her pointed helm with its one bent finial resting on her arms. One forlorn, alive femme-ling among the wreckage and grayed, smoking chassis of the dead.
Soon all the screams were silent, the only sounds being the cracking of small leftover fires and the occasional bang as the flames spread into the dead frame of some mech, exploding as it touched the life-En. Smoke filled the air with the sharp scent of burnt Energon.
"Tetrastar... Bullwing... Smokescreen..." She whispered brokenly. Slowly and quietly, she began to whisper the names of every mech, femme, and youngling she knew.
Her photographic memory very helpfully drew up a number that she'd seen on the news boards earlier that orn. 275,913. That was how many mechs had been in Protihex. Now it would be surprising if there were even a dozen left alive. 275,913.
So much destruction. So much death. The youngling stayed in that position, the faces of all those people standing foremost in her thoughts; her family most prominent among those faces. The numbers repeating in her mind like a chant.
275,913. 275,913. 275,913.
The youngling looked up at the dark, smoke-filled skies, tears of coolant flowing freely down her faceplates, dripping from her delicately pointed chin. Her wail of pure, unrestrained grief echoed through the burning ruins, before she collapsed to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest plates, frame rocking back and forth in rhythm with the numbers pounding in her helm. So many...
"Ages come, and ages go…..
On and on, an endless flow…..
Battles raging, vict'ries won…..
Have- have no effects…..
In sweet Protihex….."
Her voice cracked off with a hiss of static as the femme-ling gasped with pain, both physical and mental. She couldn't bear to finish the song her family had sung together so often.
"Sparks of loved ones…..
Sparks of kin…..
Never lost….."
She never knew how long she'd sat there, her thoughts pained and numb. She didn't know if it had been rotations, joors, groons, or even just klicks. For all that it mattered to her, it could have been orns or only nanoseconds and it would have made no difference.
There was only silence. Until there was sound. Footsteps. Many footsteps.
She stood up quickly, biting her lip plates until life-En flowed onto her chin against the pain. Golden optics flicked back and forth like a wild animal. Slowly she bent down, picked up a sharp metal pole, and raised it like a weapon.
Carefully walking towards the sound as quietly as she could, the femme-ling tripped over something large and somewhat round. Landing hard on her aft, the battered youngling examined the object. She rolled it over closer and screamed, sliding backwards in her aft as she scrambled away from it.
Purple tinted lifeless optics stared up at her from the charred and dented helm that she had tripped over. The rest of the body was nowhere to be found, but she recognized the helm.
"Uncle Warp..." She breathed sadly, no more coolant left in her optics; no more tears to be cried.
Travelling further, she found the group of mechs that she'd heard. From a distance, the femme recognized the blue and gold mech she'd met yesterday.
The memory filled her processor and her optics widened as the pieces of the puzzle all fell into place. In her mind, she saw Seaspray with his hands deep in the power lines. Now that she knew what to look for, it was obvious what the mech had been doing: sabotaging the systems. A few other mechs in strategic points in the city doing the same thing and they could easily have rigged the city to blow.
She caught sight of a big blue mech with the red symbol on his frame. He had strange shoulder plates that stuck up into the air and grim face. In his hands, the mech carried a massive war hammer that was bigger than she was. And he looked up at her.
Cobalt optics met golden, the several meters between them shrinking as both walked towards each other unknowingly. Their optics remained locked the whole time until there were only a few feet between them. For nearly a klick they simply stared at each other silently, then the mech spoke.
"The Autobots will give you a safe place, child. A haven. I am Ultra Magnus." He held out one giant blue hand to her. "Come with me, I shall take you somewhere safe."
She glared at the giant hand, lip-plates tipped down in disgust. Her faceplates showed too much... she'd have to fix that. She took one shaky step away from the colossal mech with the deadly gold hammer.
"You ask me to join you, your 'cause'. But why would I do that? This is your fault... Autobot." She hardly recognized her own voice. It was - older - somehow. Harsh from screaming so much, but not just that. It was stronger, determined... Older. She gestured to the wreckage, the smoking, burning rubble; the grayed chassis of some poor femme whose spark chamber had been thrust through by a strip of white hot steel.
"All of this. You made this." With one last look at the 'Autobot' as he called himself, the battered femme-ling turned away. "The life-En of my people rests on your helm. I hope you're proud of what you've done, Magnus."
Dented and bent helm held high, the femme walked away. A single drop of coolant slid down her face-plates. She walked towards the city of Kaon. It was a long journey. She would have a long way to go, but she would go and she would get there.
Her childhood orns felt like a lifetime ago, the young, carefree femme-ling she had been now laid dead with the other Protihexians. She was Terabyte, and she would see that her people were avenged.
Hard, icy, determination filled the young femme's spark, accompanied by a dark loathing for these 'Autobots'. She would have her vengeance on the murderers of her family, the destroyers of her home, no matter what it took.
The Autobots would pay for what they'd done, if it was the last thing she did. They would all pay.
A.N. Wow... That was... dark. I had a lot more fun doing that than perhaps I ought to have...
So. That was how Terabyte began. Sort of like a prologue to Duty and Deceit.