A/N: Hey all, it's been ages since I've written anything, and for that I apologize. O_O; For those of you who read my first story, Sector Capri, I'm confirming right now that the sequal is in the works! Before it gets put out, however, I'll be putting up short stories like this one to get back into my writing groove ^_^
This story is set during All Hail Megatron, while the Autobots are marooned on Cybertron, before the bridge scene but after the Wreckers arrive. It focuses on a topic I've always thought about, but have never really put into any of my work before.
Please Enjoy and Review!
What a sickly thing. Its visage littered with uneven optical receptor units, teeth protruding from its mouth as though the razor-edged shapes are migrating away from the dark cavity. It's almost too hideous to be real, something that ought to be held in fantasy and left there, hidden upon the highest end of a neglected bookshelf.
Why does he feel he bears such a resemblance to it?
Mirage slowly kneels, his starkly yellow-toned optics shedding a faint light across the deformed chassis of an offlined Swarm creature; one that he just killed. It's a harsh word, "killed", but it is the only way to term what has been done. The young noblemech isn't quite sure what he's trying to feel at the moment; sorrow for the death of such a beastly creation? Fear of what he's just done to it? Fear that he has killed and can never go back, that the destination of the Swarm creature is final and that he determined its fate? Whatever he may decide to tell his mind to think, everything is overshadowed by a deeply set sensation of nausea.
He has been told many times before that in war, it is either kill or be killed. Yet, somehow, he had managed to survive this long without experiencing either. Yes, he did indeed have to resort to violent means at critical times, but never lethal. Now, he can no longer say that.
It shouldn't feel wrong that he's killed this thing; perhaps killing it doesn't even really count as murder in a sense. After all, the Swarm is nothing more than a Decepticon experiment gone wrong, their very existence defiles creation itself. They're drones, mindless fiends without souls, a set of teeth and the intent to maim whosoever crosses their path.
Yet Mirage is fighting the urge to weep for what he's done to a member of this loathsome race. Is he weak? Does his pacifistic ways deem him a coward, one without pride and one without drive for victory? Does his sorrow for a dead enemy classify him as a traitor to his comrades?
"You are troubled, friend." A voice suddenly speaks from behind the mourning Ligier.
Mirage quickly turns around in his knelt position, his pedes scraping across the petrified ground in a frantic movement. His optics trace up to find the face of a bot he's only thus far seen a few times, "Drift… I hadn't realized I wasn't alone out here…" His tone is controlled, as even as he can make it, hiding the emotions he is conflicted with as best as he can.
The quiet mech observes the other for a moment before bowing his white, ornamental helm slightly, "My apologies for startling you, Mirage. You had not returned from your patrol, your commander grew wary. I volunteered to come looking for you."
"Oh, I wasn't even keeping track of the time, how… incompetent of me…" Mirage says as he casts his optics away from the other mech, their color turning dull for a moment.
The one called Drift watches the subtle movements of the other mech, gathering a conclusion of what the situation is. His keen, white optics slowly pass from the fellow Autobot to the carcass slain beside him. It looks like a fresh kill, smells like it; and it would explain why the mech before him is even more quiet than usual.
"Are you hurt, Mirage?" Injury can also lead bots to be quiet, Drift is well aware of this from his time with the Decepticons.
Mirage turns his helm to once more gaze up at the white-clad warrior standing nearby, his voice cracking for a moment as he struggles with his own composure, "No, no injuries, I'm just fine…"
Drift sighs lightly, his helm tipping forward for a moment as he closes his optics. He has made it his personal mission to learn about his new comrades as quickly as possible, while remaining subtle about it, of course. From what he's seen from this Mirage, it is apparent that the cloaker has a gentle nature, compassionate politics that dictate against the use of violence even in wartime. He himself has never held such pacifistic views, not once has he ever considered them, either. He has, however, experienced a first kill.
It can affect bots in many different ways, killing for the first time. While most bots are aware that they have the ability to do so, committing the action is an entirely different situation. Once done, there is no returning to the way one's mind functioned beforehand. Bots can grow cautious, realizing how real death is, knowing that their hands are capable of passing it out. Others grow fearless, believing their power to grant death has cast away their own mortality.
Others can be destroyed by it. For some, it is as though they have cut out a part of who they are, what they believe in, and have crushed it as cruelly as they crushed the life out of their victim. Drift has seen all of these reactions befall many of those he once surrounded himself with, as well as those he now calls comrades.
"I wish I were more like you, Drift. You're strong, skilled and committed with your role in this place, this time. You know who you are, why you're here, and… you know that what you're doing is the right thing…"
Drift is quiet for a sparkbeat, contemplating the mech's soft-spoken words. He steps forward and sits beside the other mech, his ghostly optics staring out towards the orbiting spheres of MoonBase I and MoonBase II. "You are wrong, Mirage. You do not wish to be like me. While I have undergone many trials to come to be who I am now, I am still searching for my place."
Mirage looks to the other mech, a quiet look of questioning on his faceplates, "But you have a place, you are a warrior, accepted amongst an army of warriors, all who know and face battle with strong sparks. You fit in with them, you understand why destruction is the path to victory…"
The mech in white armor turns his helm to return the gaze to the other mech, his optics solemn but not harsh, "You are still trying to understand what war is, aren't you. The thought of Cybertronians killing other Cybertronians, it still clouds your mind with questions of 'why' and 'how'." He watches the other mech for a moment in silence before continuing, "And now that you've engaged in the bloodshed yourself, you are troubled even more. Killing has brought no clarity to your questions. Perhaps it has left you further in doubt."
The noblemech is silent, bright yellow optics trained on the mech speaking to him. Just that description has somewhat helped him sift through his own thoughts, but still he wanders in a sea of smoke and uncertainty. He slowly swallows down a lump in his throat, his voice growing quiet, almost fearful as he makes the decision to divulge his thoughts to the stranger,
"I'm not sure where I stand, Drift. I was never very positive of my place in this war, I knew that my ways were not accepted amongst my comrades. But… now I fear that I have committed something far worse than taking a life. I've been sitting here, looking at what I have done… and I feel sorrowful. I mourn the passing of life for this—this horrible creature. But it is this same breed that has taken the lives of innocents, that has slain my brethren and has destroyed my home. Am I a betrayer to my brothers, Drift?"
The creature had snuck up on him while he was patrolling a seemingly dead sector of the ruined city of Iacon, what had once been the central hub of life in the Northern Hemisphere of Cybertron. Mirage had made the mistake of letting his mind return to the past, to the once-standing towers of gold and light that had protruded from the depths of the city and had dared to reach for the heavens as if beckoning Primus himself to take notice. Those towers had been his home, the place where he knew he could find solace, where he could feel as though he belonged. It was when he had been enveloped in his own longing for passed times that the Swarm creature had attacked him. All he had time to do was: React.
Drift's calm, observant visage goes unchanged as Mirage reveals his inquisitions and troubled thoughts. He can see in Mirage's optics a pleading for reason, a begging to be reassured, to be given the honest truth. In the back of his processor, Drift is thankful that he is the one who came upon the noblemech in this time; were he discovered by any other bot, Mirage may have been left dejected and torn down.
"To mourn life is not a misdeed, Mirage," Drift begins, "It is a sign of compassion, of a spark that remains true to itself even through the darkest of nights. It does not matter what shell encases the life you weep for, there is no separation between the life that pulses through the chassis of your enemy and that of yourself. Life is equal across all planes. It is something to be cherished and held in the highest of respects."
Mirage listens intently to the other's words, his optics dimming as his fears are verified; what he has done, taking a life, is an unforgivable sin. Is there any hope of redemption for him?
Drift senses the other mech's growing anxiety and hopelessness, and quickly continues on to make his point known, "But Mirage, there are those who do not cherish life as you and I do. I was once such a being." His optic ridges furrow slightly as he feels his own anxieties of his past slowly rise into the forefront his conscience, "There is such a thing as evil in this place, Mirage, in this universe that so many call home. And if it were left unharnessed, if it was allowed to run freely to fulfill its desire, there would be nothing left to cherish or protect. While there is no separation of what life is from one holder to the next, there is a difference when it comes to how that life is used.
"If a life is used to open the gates to the tempest of the mind's darkest desires, if it is used to wreak misery and rain death upon the lives of others and to release evil into the world, then the holder of that life has dishonored the essence of all things good, of our very Creator. If such a life is lead with unbreakable resolution and willingness, then the being that bears it has lost the honor, the right to hold something so precious and pure within them. Do you understand what I mean, Mirage?"
The addressed mech is silent for a moment, his mind reeling with what has been laid out before him. Life is precious, something to be protected, and there are those who defile the purity of it and mean to destroy it; and such beings are to be cut out in order to preserve the good.
Drift continues before Mirage grows lost in his thoughts, "In order to protect all that is good, all that we cherish, we must destroy those who mean to take it from us. Evil is very real, Mirage, and unless the good stand against it, it will dominate and corrupt everything until there is nothing left but fear and despair. What you have done, Mirage, is protect life by ending a creature of this evil I speak of. You weep for the passing of life because you are of a pure spark. It is that compassion that separates you from those who do not treasure life as you do, from those who are at risk of falling into the very darkness that we fight against."
Mirage is taken aback by all that the mysterious newcomer called Drift has spoken. He finds it difficult to believe that the mech before him was really once a Decepticon, one who shared the nature of evil that he now speaks against. Is what he says true? Can Mirage really justify such a duality? To take the life of a vessel of evil and then feel sorrowful for what has been lost, but to also share in the victory of extracting the scourge of darkness from existence? If this is so, then it would appear that victory in battles, as small or large as they may be, is bittersweet. It is something that will always weigh heavily in one's spark, but that weight is a reassurance of the purity that remains in the one fighting in the name of good.
The gentle, blue-and-white-armored mech turns his yellow optics to meet Drift's; and he smiles softly, "You ought to give yourself more credit, Drift. You seem to be quite sure of where you stand from what I can tell."
The white-clad warrior takes a moment's pause as the one sitting beside him smiles before he returns the gesture. "Perhaps, in some senses, I am. Perhaps I have finally found where I belong inside my own plating, but I still have a ways to journey to find my place in this universe; in this army of Autobots. I hope that you, too, will find your place, Mirage." Drift then stands and looks down at Mirage, and offers his hand to him. "Perhaps the best way to find our place is by placing our trust and faith in our brothers; and it could be that in doing so, we find our place within one another, and are no longer lost. No one should travel this path alone, Mirage. It is through fellowship, perhaps, that we find our place."
Mirage is left speechless by the warrior's offer of friendship—of brotherhood. Never did he think that he would ever receive such a gesture from one with such a passionate belief in the ways of war, one with such strength in both spark and body. He accepts the offered hand, and stands, feeling equal to another soldier for the first time since this war broke out. His smile and the new confidence in his optics communicate all that is needed.
The two bots remain in the grasp of one another for a moment, their grounds equalized, their newfound camaraderie and friendship realized, before their hands are released. Mirage takes a final glimpse of the fallen Swarm creature, then turns away and walks alongside his brother-in-arms, returning to their base and comrades.