Author's Note: Welcome to "Sparks of Salvation", the sequel "Drifted Sparks Reimagining". This story picks up immediately after the last one, except for the prologue which takes place right before the epilogue of DSR. Also, check out my collection first-person pov snippets related to the series called "Shock & Awe". There's not much else to say about it, so as always enjoy and please review!
Sparks
of Salvation
By: Silver Spider
Prologue
Human
First Lieutenant Elizabeth Myers of the Marine Corps would have been hard pressed to remember a world without Cybertronians. She had been three years old when the Autobots and Decepticons emerged from their four million year slumber when Mt. St. Hilary exploded in 1984. She had seen the massive metal goliaths do battle, felt the ground tremble as they clashed. By the time she joined the Marines around the turn of the century, the world had accepted Autobots and Decepticons as part of every-day life.
It was not always a good thing. The alien's Great War had caused more damage than most human wars in the twentieth century combined. Countless lives had been lost, whether on purpose or by accident. But some good had come out of the robots' presence. Advances in technology – both military and civilian – had grown exponentially since 1984 due to corporation with the Autobots, but more than that the Cybertronians had shown mankind not only that they were far from alone in the universe and forced them to think of themselves as a species, as humanity as a whole instead of a collection of different nations and races that happened to occupy the same planet.
It was for that reason that Lt. Myers stayed quiet when her commanding officer, Marine General William Sheppard raved about how wonderful it was to finally have them off the planet for good in 2005. All the general ever saw were the enormous messes he and his troops were charged with cleaning after a major battle between the two Cybertronian factions. Myers understood his resentment for being treated as little more than a glorified housekeeper but having never known a life without them, she had always thought that the advantages of their alliance with the Autobots outweighed most of the trouble the Decepticons caused. So she let him rant, but quietly kept her opinions to herself. Lt. Myers may have been a dedicated soldier, but she refused to be a drone.
When a small group of top officers including herself had been notified by the elusive Sector 7 that Cybertronians were back on Earth, she allowed herself a moment of excitement. Having barely served five years when the Autobots and Decepticons returned to their home planet, there had been little opportunity to work with them closely so she looked forward to it now. She briefly wondered why there had been no announcement by any news network about the arrival but had not been terribly bothered by the apparent secrecy at the time.
It had, however, been difficult to hide her surprise when she was presented with three tuxedo-clad men and a boy who looked barely in his teens and told that they were something called 'Maximals', apparently Autobot descendants. She had trouble wrapping her mind around not only their size and human appearance but also their behavior which seemed very un-Autobot-like to her. There was an edge to them all, a cynicism that their ancestors never possessed. It was most evident on the often grim face of their commander, the young man with the golden curls. She'd also heard them speak of a fifth, a woman who she had not met but who was apparently the young commander's sister. Myers did not understand how that was possible when she'd never heard of Cybertronians having any family structure at all similar to humans, but then again a lot of things were strange as far as these Maximals were concerned.
The second time she saw them she arrived at Hoover Dam to inform Tom Banachek, head of Sector 7's Advanced Research Division, that some apparently extremely sensitive information had been stolen from their Boston office. She had been told to go directly to Banachek and only speak to him when she was absolutely certain they would be alone, but when Myers arrived, he was speaking to two men she had never seen before.
Their ages were difficult to pinpoint, though both had to be at the very least in their late thirties. The man on Banachek's right stood an in inch or two above six feet, and if there was a difference in their ages, Myers would have guessed he was the elder of the two. A peppering of gray was beginning to show in his dark, neatly trimmed hair, with wisdom evident in his warm brown eyes. Ever so slightly noticeable lines ran across his brow and around his mouth when he stopped speaking and gave her a genuine smile as she entered.
The second man was different. At first glance he could have easily been mistaken for the other's younger brother, but it occurred to Myers that she was not certain he actually was younger. He was about two inches taller than his companion, but the softness that predominated the first man's features was completely absent in his chiseled, high cheek-boned face. The man could have been carved from marble. His hair was a shade lighter than black, not so much curling as falling in waves to just below the nape of his neck. And his eyes... too light to be black, too dark to be blue, they seemed nearly violet.
He was the most beautiful man Elizabeth had ever seen... and also the most frightening.
Like the Devil himself.
She must have been staring – completely unprofessional and more impotently unlike her – because the man noticed. His perfect lips curved in a lopsided grin that was everything from amused to seductive. Everything but warm. Elizabeth turned away.
"Lieutenant Myers," Banachek cleared his throat as if noticing her in the doorway for the first time. "I wasn't expecting you so soon."
"My apologies," she stood straight, her hands clasped behind her back in typical military fashion. "I was unaware you were occupied. I will come back later."
"Actually we're almost done. In the meantime, could you do me a favor? Please find Christopher Stark in the infirmary and ask him to come down here. He might need some help, so give him a hand, if you don't mind."
"Of course."
Turning on her heel, Myers left the office, all the while wondering just who were these two men who were so alike yet obviously so very different.
