The Oracle
By Airrizzon.
These stories takes place in the second part of the series. Tigatron and Airazor are still alive as are Dinobot, Terrorsaur, Scorpinok, and Rampage. (This is my first ever fanfic so please try not to be too harsh on it!)
The rain fell heavily upon the stasis pod, hidden by a group of thick brush and weeds. Had most of the computer's functions not been destroyed by the alien's heat wave, the protoform would be online and the pod's signal would have been discovered by either the Predicon or Maximal base. The heat had taken it's toll, not only on the pod but on the plants in the area as well. A vine curled it's way into the pod and lodged itself into the protoform's mind.
Sensing the protoform's strong spark but weakening life force the vine, attached to the earth gave strength from itself and therefore the essence of the planet, and all it's mystical power. Inside the protoform's mind, consciousness and thought began to form. Am I dying?
A feeling of awareness flooded over the protoform. Since it absorbed the planet's essence it could choose it's beast mode from any life that ever roamed the planet. The protoform's mind raced through the planet, and it "saw" every creature that ever lived. It's mind stopped on a leopard sitting in a tree. That is what I am to be, the spotted hunter of the night.
A bright light illuminated the planet and caused a severe energon wave, then moments later a leopard emerged from the pod, and strode into the night.
Airazor soared over the forest. She didn't have to scan the area but she felt like it. She needed something to get her mind off of Tigatron. They had parted ways earlier that day, and Airazor remembered it all to well...
"Our mission is to search the planet to see what changes the aliens made to it." Tigatron's face was that of a poker player, no expression to show how he felt. "I feel we may cover more ground if we go separately. It is just safer."
"I won't forget the good times we had on this mission." She said. She hoped Tigatron couldn't hear the anxiety in her voice.
"I shall treasure those memories dearly for all time."...
A bright light from the forest below brought her back to the present. "What the slag is going on? Airazor Maximize!"
The light enveloped the forest and struck Airazor, knocking all her circuits offline. Only one person saw her fall.
Rattrap was in heaven. Apple cores, moldy sandwiches, and rotten eggs fell from the sky. In the midst of all this he heard Optimus say "You are the bravest Maximal that has ever served under me. I'm going to triple your pay."
Suddenly the alarms sounded and woke Rattrap from his nap. "What in the name of Gouda was that? Computer, identify."
"Planet wide energon surge. Cause unknown. Energon patterns do not match any previously recorded patterns." The computer responded.
"Who's closest to the epicenter?" He said sounding anxious.
"Scanning..." Rattrap waited impatiently for the computer to respond. "Closest unit is unit Airazor. Scanners detect unit Airazor is temporarily offline."
"Well, don't that just cut the slagging cheese. First we land on this over sized potato, then we get thrown into an alien deep fryer, and now..."
"What's happened now?" Rattrap turned around and almost fell off his seat when he saw Optimus standing behind him with Rinox on his left and the new transmetal Cheetor on his right.
"Oh, uh, nothing too unusual. Some new sort of energon surge is traveling across the planet, and Airazor was close enough to the source that she's been knocked offline. Like I said, nothing unusual."
The Maximals stood in shock. Thoughts raced through Cheetor's head. No way am I letting my sister go like that. She's all I really have. I'm going after her!
Cheetor transformed into beast mode and ran toward the lift, but Optimus stepped in front of him and Cheetor bowled him down. "Ow! What was that for big bot?"
"In case you haven't realized it Cheetor, that energon wave will hit us soon, so their is no way I'm going to let you go out right now."
"Well in case you haven't realized Optimus, my sister's out there so I've gotta go get her. I can beat that storm no problem."
Rattrap decided to cut in "Not that I'm being rude pussy cat, but do you remember the last time you said that?"
"So what if I wound up at the Pred base? I'm going and that's that."
"If you think I'm going to let you"...
Meanwhile not to far away...
Tigatron was furious with himself. The energon wave was tailing behind him by 3 miles, he was forced to run away like a coward toward the Maximal base, while Airazor was surely dead because he told her to head toward the sector where the energon originated from.
How was I supposed to know the energon wave would occur near where I sent her? One voice in his head told him. I shouldn't have made her leave. It's all my fault. Another voice cried. I wouldn't have been able to prevent it anyway. It's not my fault. The first voice said, but the second voice argued. It's all my fault! This is just like snow stalker. I killed her. I killed her before I could even let her know. And what did you want to tell her? Interrupted a new voice. Was it about those feelings you've been hiding, the ones you've ignored since you first laid optics on her?
There was a long silence in his head. One that lasted until he entered the Maximal base.
Right before he did he heard Cheetor yelling "I'm going and nothing from Primus or Cybertron can stop me!" Then, just as the turbo lift opened with Tigatron standing in it, Cheetor bowled over his second bot of the day.
Tigatron stood up angrily, brushing himself off. "If you intend to go outside you will have to wait. The storm will hit us in a matter of nanoclic..." Tigatron didn't get a chance to finish his sentence because just then the wave struck the base. In the heat of the argument no one had remembered to raise the shields, and all the Maximals were knocked out.
A sharp pain unlike any Airazor had ever experienced jolted through her head and all the way down her spine, mixed with an eerie numbness in her arms, legs and torso. She tried to sit up but her body wouldn't respond. Panic began to rise within her, but before it could surface she heard a female voice.
The voice wasn't speaking (at least in any understandable language,) but Airazor could hear a sound that was a fusion of 1,000 voices all blended into one. It was the most beautiful thing Airazor had ever heard, and it also seemed to remove the pain from her head and spine. She opened her optics to see where the sound had come from, and was very surprised to see a bot kneeling over her. She looked amazingly like Tigatron, except where he was white and green she was silver and orange. She had sapphire blue optics and her chest plate was in the form of a leopard.
"Greetings. I am Leppender. I apologize that my entrance into this world was so...dramatic that you were injured by the energon surge." The new bot paused for a moment to try and see Airazor's reaction. When none came Leppender continued. "Before you make any assumptions of me, please allow me to explain how I have come to be. When my activation process began, my pod had been severely damaged, to the point where plants like vines had cracked open the pod and began to invade my body, crushing my internal organs and nearly killing me. One of the vines entered my mind and began to fill me with life and the essence of the planet, therefore I was able to choose a beast mode from any creature that had ever lived on the planet."
Airazor was stunned. This woman had the essence of the planet in her. Airazor didn't want to sound rude but she couldn't suppress her curiosity. "When I woke up I heard you making some kind of noise. What was it?"
Leppender gave Airazor a mysterious smile then said "I thought you would be in pain when you woke up, so I was communing with the planet's spirit asking it to heal you. It worked didn't it?" Airazor smiled and tried to nod, but she still couldn't move. Leppender almost seemed to be able to read her mind. "My powers are unable to help you to move. I can see into your body, and you have a fractured spinal column. Is there a way for you to regenerate?"
Airazor thought about it for a moment. I doubt I can transform in this condition, so I can't use my beast mode. Maybe if I tell Leppender how to get there she could take me back to base.
"Would you be able to take me back to base? I can show you how to get there. You'll get to meet all the other Maximals, including our leader Optimus Primal." A strange look flashed in Leppender's optics but she hid it before Airazor could tell what it was.
"Very well. Show me how to get there so that you may be healed, and so I may meet this Optimus Primal" Leppender lifted Airazor up and began walking with her, but the look in Leppender's optics kept haunting her. I hope I didn't make a mistake telling her that I'm a Maximal. What if she's actually a Predicon?
Two people the energon surge seemed to miss were watching Leppender and Airazor leave the forest with avid interest.
"Once we have captured these females and brought them to the colony, the royalty will surely give us a promotion." Inferno said feeling his soldier ant instincts rising to a boil.
"Remember, whoever takes down the first one gets Megatron to himself tonight. I'm getting very sick of seeing you go before me." Scorpinok reminded Inferno. It could get very lonely for a man during a war when there are no willing women around, but thinking of Megatron, Scorpinok felt a rising in his loins. Before he could make his mind focus on something else, Inferno took the opportunity to open fire on the Maximals.
"FOR THE GLORY OF THE ROYALTY, BURN MAXIMALS!"
Balls of fire exploded onto the ground near Leppender and Airazor. Leppender looked at the ground and saw small singe marks on the dirt. Fuming with anger, she set Airazor on the ground, raised her arms to the sky and made her sound again, except this time there was nothing pleasant about it. It sounded more like a banshee cry. Suddenly a swarm of thousands of scarab beetles emerged from the ground and dug themselves into the Predicon's circuits. Airazor watched in pure horror.
"If you EVER harm another blade of grass on this planet while I am near enough to feel it, your sparks will be lucky if they can ever go to the inferno to escape the torment I shall inflict on them." She looked calmly at Airazor as she said "I never have been known to stand around and do nothing as someone willingly harms something I love. Shall we continue?"
Airazor began to think really hard on her way back to the base. Their's no way Megs would let her do that to Scorpinok and Inferno if she were a Predicon. Maybe I shouldn't judge her before I get to know her. After a while a thought emerged in Airazor's mind, and she had to suppress a smile. I finally have a woman friend.
The door to the C.R. chamber opened and Optimus stepped out. After he came too he decided that the others needed the C.R. chamber more than he did, so he made sure everyone else was treated before he was. One look at the Maximals told him that tension was high, and that Airazor was still missing. Optimus decided to chance a look at Tigatron, who was sitting at one of the stations. Even though Tigatron kept to himself most of the time, and therefore wasn't an easy person to read, Optimus knew enough about unrequited love to tell how he felt. I know you love her but you don't want to tell her in case you loose her, especially after what happened to Snowstalker. Optimus thought to himself. I know exactly what it feels like to loose someone you love, but it feels so much worse if you never tell them. He thought, remembering a pretty young woman from Cybertron.
Suddenly, the sensors picked up something in grid Deltron. Rinox reacted immediately . "Computer, identify."
"Two Maximal individuals detected. One signature identified as unit Airazor Other unit unknown. There is no identical signature listed in data tracks."
All of the Maximals with the exception of Tigatron (who seemed to frightened to see what state Airazor was arriving in,) ran out of the base to meet Airazor and the new Maximal. They were all very surprised to see Airazor being carried by what looked like a female version of Tigatron. As they neared Optimus noticed that Airazor wasn't moving. The strange new bot approached the group and looked at everyone as though she were scanning them. She looked directly at Optimus, straight into his optics. For the first time since he left Cybertron, Optimus felt self conscious under the gaze of a woman.
"Are you Optimus Primal, leader of the Maximals?" The strange fembot asked. Primus, where have I heard that voice before. She's so beautiful! Optimus pulled himself back to reality. He couldn't allow himself to be attracted to a member of his crew.
"Yes I am. I'd like to be the first to welcome you to the Maximals. What's your name?"
"My name is Leppender. I am an Oracle, and now an emissary of this planet." While Optimus spoke with Leppender neither of them seemed to notice the other Maximals examining Airazor, or even taking her out of Leppender's arms and bringing her inside for treatment. Both were caught up in a world of their own, but neither seemed to notice that they were sharing the same world together.
"When I signed up for the Axalon mission their were six other Maximals from the P.E.L.M. Academy, but I could not identify any of them in the crew."
Optimus was broken from his spell. When he looked at her she seemed very disturbed, but he didn't know what she was talking about when she said the P.E.L.M. Academy, so he couldn't really help her. "Leppender, what is the P.E.L.M. Academy?"
Leppender looked at him with a slightly stunned look on her face, but she hid it fairly quickly. "P.E.L.M. is short for Psychic Experimental Laboratories for Maximals. Recently people began coming online with supernatural abilities, so the Maximal Elders began an organization to collect any Maximals born with strange powers and test their abilities at what was believed by society to be a high quality school for overly intelligent children. It was known to the public as the Preparation for Exceptionally Learned Maximals Academy."
Leppender looked down at the ground. "My brother and I were sent there, then we got on this ship together after escaping P.E.L.M. We promised each other that when we woke up we would use our telepathic abilities so we could find each other. A few days after we signed on, we found four more people we knew from P.E.L.M. who had joined the mission. I can't sense any of their minds."
Something seemed to stir inside Optimus' memory banks, but before he could grasp what it was, it seemed to drift away again. Optimus began to pity this new Maximal. She needs love right now more than anything, but even though I want to I can't. I can't allow myself to care for one of my crew members like that. Instead of saying that to Leppender he just said "Maybe their pods are still out there, but in the meantime why don't you stay at the base and try to get to know some of us. We can't make up for your brother, or your other friends, but at times it feels just like the Maximals were family."
Leppender nodded and walked into the base. Optimus, have you really forgotten me? Have you really forgotten what we used to be?
Tigatron paced in front of the C.R. chamber. During Airazor's time gone he had made a decision. As soon as that door opens I will tell her. First I shall sweep her into my arms, then I shall look deep into her optics and tell her that she is my galaxy, and finally I shall press my lips to hers. She will at last feel the love I have for her and nothing can stop me from telling her, nothing at all! Then the C.R. chamber door opened. She stood looking at him, her optics penetrating his spark. Tigatron felt his throat close up as he tried to tell her but only a squeaking noise came out.
"Tigatron, what's wrong? Do you have something caught in your throat?"
"I uh, I just wanted to um, to just tell you that, well um... Optimus thinks you might make a good flight squad commander."
Airazor gave Tigatron a sideways glance. "That's really nice to know, and I'll keep it in mind if we ever get more than three fliers."
"Y... you deserved to know... Well I left my scanner in grid scavos so I have to go get it. It was nice talking to you again."
"Yeah, same here. Well, bye Tigatron"
"Goodbye Airazor" Once Tigatron got outside he started scolding himself. Why am I so stupid! I can't even tell her that I like her when I want to. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid Stupid!
The End.
Want to know what happens next?
Just read the next chapter!