Christmas Miracles Come in All Spark Sizes
Time Line Notes: The events chronicled here take place nearly a year from the events of End Games in the Transformer Animated Series. During that time Prime and his crew spent several months on Cybertron. In light of Optimus arresting Megatron the council of elders made Optimus acting Magnus until such time as Ultra Magnus was fully recovered. Upon Ultra's recovery Optimus returned the Magnus Hammer to it' s rightful owner. He was then given the option to become the Magnus second which to everyones surprise he declined. Instead he elected to return to earth a place that had become a seconded home to him. Publicly he stated he didn't feel comfortable leaving earth defenseless while there were still Decepticon fugitives still loose that might hold a vendetta against the people of earth. Privately he had other reasons for wanting to return. Not surprisingly all of his crew elected to return with him, he welcomed them and the addition of Jazz and Arcee. (on side, side note: I might eventually explore this interim year time frame in later stories, but first this story was the one that I felt connected to most)
Authors Notes: I am creating a personal canon, picking a choosing aspects of the vast Transformers mythos to tell this story. The characters I will try write true to TF:A style, though I hope to develop them beyond the bounds that would been permitted by a children's show. I will try to note where feel it's needed any major diversions from TF:A canon. I will most likely be exploring at some point what people call adult subject matter, violence ,and sexual situations.
Format Notes: comlink dialog will give the Transmitter's name then be denoted by '*' Example as follows. Prowl: *Being off-lined stinks...*
ON with the show!
Ch. 1 Collision of Crossroads
Optimus slowed down as the air grew thicker with the icy snow flakes that whipped past his windshield. The wind was building in intensity, and the road way was slick enough to start giving even an Autobot some troubles. He realized at this point his search had kept him out for far to long. He knew Ratchet would be sending him a comm soon for their agreed upon check in. Right on time his link to the medi-bot fired up.
Ratchet: *Ratchet to Prime, what in the pit are you still doing out their? There's got be near a foot of snow piled up here already.*
Prime: *I am on my way back. It's slow going though, but I'll make it in soon.*
Ratchet: *Good because I don't know if I can handle another round of Christmas carols sung by Bumblebee, and Bulkhead. Any sign of that signal you thought you picked up before the storm blew in?*
Prime: *No nothing out of the ordinary. It was like it was there and then gone.*
Ratchet: *You know you never answered my question as to what sort of signal you thought you picked up?*
Optimus paused, he didn't really want to tell Ratchet what it was he thought he had detected. He scarcely believed his own scanners himself. He finally answered.
Prime: *I told you I didn't know for sure it's why had to investigate. It's getting thicker out here, I'd better sign off and pay attention to the road.*
Prime heard the old bot grunt, he knew he wasn't fooling his friend and head medical officer. Ratchet decided to drop it for now and pick up the battle later.
Ratchet: *Alright well get back here in one piece..and quick...*
Ratchet transmitted all the sounds around him. The unharmonious choir comprised of Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Sari , Jazz, and Arcee filled the comlink's channel.
Ratchet's Open comlink:*JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS, BATMAN SMELLS ROBIN LAID AN EGG....*
If Prime hadn't been in his alt-mode he would have been smiling while he took in the joyous claimer. All his friends sounded very happy. This lifted his spirits but they quickly sunk remembering what signal exactly had torn him away form his family on Christmas eve in the first place.
Prime: *I'll be in ASAP. Optimus out*
The sadness that tugged at him was the bitter fact that not all his family was waiting for him at the warehouse. One was missing...
Optimus spoke to himself just barely above a whisper, "Prowl, you should be here..."
Ariana cursed under her breath again. Her knuckles were white as she clung to the steering wheel fighting to keep her modest car on the snow blanketed roads. To try and calm herself she spoke to no one in particular.
"You just had to start your trip today. Just had to get yourself stuck in this mess didn't you..."
Her little rant to herself stopped suddenly when the front tires of her metallic blue sedan slipped. Reflexively she spun the wheel the opposite direction of the skid quickly righting herself. Her heart thundered against her chest despite her quick recovery. Falling back on old habits she pressed the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth and drew long breath in through her nose, and released it slowly out her mouth. In short order her pulse slowed and the tension that had built up released from her body. It was moments like this she was grateful for have taken martial arts and meditation classes.
Talking to herself again she intoned,"Girl I know your excited to start that job at Sumdac Systems..but this was just plain stupid..."
She didn't know what had drove her to start out on her trip to Detroit on Christmas Eve of all days. She had even read about the potential bad weather forecast . She really felt like a fool. Though in fairness the weathermen had gotten it all wrong, it wasn't supposed to be this bad. But then again it wasn't as if she was expected at Sumdac Tower on Christmas day. She had until Dec. 27th to report in for first day of work. Even though at this point and time she had started questioning her reasoning she exactly knew why she had left today. She had no one to spend the holiday with. She thought that the change of scenery would at least keep her mind busy and keep her from feeling blue over being alone.
Needing a little white noise Ari said,"Radio on, volume low."
The car radio obeyed her command, and the soothing sound of softly playing holiday tunes filled the car's cabin. It was Bing Crosby's singing 'White Christmas'
"Bing you have no idea..." She said.
Her eyes narrowed as the wind whipped up more powdery white snow, she could hardly see anything. She slowed her car down to a crawl. For moment she thought she had seen red and blue police lights flashing ahead of her. She proceeded with caution. If there was an accident she didn't want to be the next victim.
"OH SHhh...!", she declared as she slammed her foot on the breaks. Out of no where on the nearly snow whitened out road way she suddenly saw a highway patrol officer clear as day. His gloved hands and leather clad arms out stretched as if his will alone could stop her forward momentum. In that instant she took in an almost unearthly amount of detail as time itself seemed to nearly stop. The officer was tall, in an uniform that almost seemed impossibly perfect. He had been wearing mirrored glasses, she'd seen the glint of her head lights race across them. She thought perhaps the patrolman had a mustache, but her view of him had disappeared as the car careened side ways barreling around into a series of stomach turning spins. 'Please..let me miss him!' she silently prayed as she noticed the hundreds of individual snowflakes dancing and shinnying like little glass sparks over her windshield. She fought to regain control but all the traction under her tires was gone. Her fate was left to chance.
Optimus was nearing his second to last turn to get him home when he noticed ahead of him a blue sedan making slow progress in the bitter storm. At once his protective nature kicked in there was no way he was going to simply pass by the car. He slowed to give the wayward traveler some distant having already deciding he'd follow the car until it got to its destination.
He was about to comm his situation to Ratchet when with no warning and for no apparent reason he could discern with optics or scanners the cars break lights flash on hard and fast. Instantly the sedan spun like top over the ice. It turned several full circles and for a few servo chilling instants he saw glimpses of the terror filled face of the woman driver who was disparately fighting to bring the car back under control. The car ripped through the guard rail which stopped it's kamikaze like spin. Unfortunately it's inertia shot the little car strait down the embankment. It plummeted down the hillside like a ballistic missile toward a tree dappled shore line.
The fire truck that was Optimus Prime unfurled like metallic origami to reveal his robot mode. He slide on his heels as a large blue mechanical hand dropped down and pushed off on the ground to steadying his large frame. He fought the winter slicked surfaces and raced toward the scene of the accident. He wasn't going to get there fast enough. He helplessly watched as the comparatively small to him sedan with passenger came to bone jarring halt wrapping itself around a large oak tree. The sounds of screeching tires, laboring engines, and tearing metal had stopped, and in it's place a horrible near silents filled his audio sensors. All Optimus could hear in that spark rending moment was the hiss of the snow fall and his own frantic foot steps.
Prime to Ratchet: *To my position! There's been an accident!*
Thank you for reading! Reviews appreciated. If you happen to be wiz at grammar and feel like being a beta-reader for this story contact me. While I am a decent storyteller ,thanks to dyslexia proofing for me can be rough row to hoe. You have been warned! Stay tuned for more!