TITLE: Broken, part 1
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: R for violence and one naughty dream sequence later on
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
Author's Voice of Warning (aka Author's Note):
English is not my first language; it's German. This is the best I can do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are....
FEEDBACK: Loved
PLOT-BETA: Sapphire
GRAMMAR-BETA: okami_myrrhibis

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The world was a mass of confusion and pain. Memories were sketchy, close to non-existent. He had no idea where he was and how he had gotten here. He didn't know why he felt so much pain and why it didn't stop.

Wasn't someone supposed to stop the pain?

And who was he?

Everything was dark with spots of light that fled when he tried to concentrate on them.

His head hurt.

Head… huh, he had a head. Sure he had a head. Everyone had one, right?

And it hurt.

He wanted to move, but the thought died halfway out of his brain and down the neural connections to his legs. He felt pain, but he didn't know where it came from.

Breathing…

Breathing was complicated. It involved pain. He wanted to stop, but stopping to breathe was bad. It might end the pain, but then everything else would end as well.

So he remained in his pain-filled world, motionless, thoughts bleeding off into nothingness, and he fought to remember.

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The arrival on the planet called 'Earth' by its inhabitants had been less than stellar. It had been a rather forceful crash that had rattled more than just a few systems. Hot on the trail of that scumbag of a Con, the hunter had tried to find a trace of the hunted, but the Con had gone into hiding. And this planet was large enough for him to disappear. So the hunter had tried to get his bearings and find his target again.

It was arduous work. Hiding from the humans, hiding from possible Decepticon detection, and trying to survive with war-scarred circuits on a world that proved to be dangerous to a mechanoid. The hunter had little chance to rest. Always careful, hyper-aware of everything, trusting no one. Trust had killed or crippled comrades. Trust had torn him from his home, his friend, his team. There was no one left, all scattered into the four corners of the universe. Their leader had disappeared, looking for the Allspark, Cybertron had tethered on the brink of destruction and finally succumbed, and the hunter was all alone.

Alone for millennia.

It had grated on the abused systems, it had changed a lot, and it had made him wary.

Contact with the humans was non-existent. They were part of this world, but as much the enemy as the Decepticon he was hunting. The hunter was waiting for the wrong move, to strike out and annihilate this thorn, this dangerous killer.

But the Con remained in hiding.

Instead the hunter found traces of his own kind, and another Decepticon. So the hunt turned into a hide-and-seek, a reconnaissance mission that might end with two killings and a reunion.

The problem was that the hunter didn't know about his compromised circuits. He didn't know that the long neglect, the loneliness, the maddening chase, had done a number on his core systems. Logical decisions had long since died and been replaced by spur of the moment, almost instinctual reactions. There was always a threat, always a danger, and to the already wired mind the constant readiness was like a never-ending overload.

'Feverish', a human would say. Or mad.

Mad was a good description.

Mad explained the hunter's actions.

Because when he discovered a fellow hunter, together with a human, things went down south pretty fast…

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Will Lennox, ex-Army Ranger and former Major, had finished his morning run, long legs eating up the set distance, showered, drunk two large cups of coffee, and changed into his jeans and t-shirt. He had grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and then set off on an early patrol through the base. It was something he had adopted in the last months. He prowled around the levels of the Autobot base, a former Air Force hangar and adjoining buildings, popped in on the humans and mechs working here, and generally got a feel of the place for the day. No one stopped him, no one really asked any questions, and since Ironhide was unofficially the chief of security, Will had become his 'assistant'.

He snorted a little.

He had no official position and he was paid by the invisible funds of the Department of Defence. Not that he had anything to spend it on, aside from the occasional beer or fast food trip. He couldn't go out into the public, couldn't spend an evening at the movies, have a nice lunch or dinner at a restaurant, couldn't lounge around at the beach or anything of the like. The runes made it impossible. They crawled over his skin even if he was completely relaxed. Emotions changed that.

The base was relatively quiet, which suited Lennox well. He nodded at some of the soldiers and spent half an hour chatting with Jazz, then sauntered back toward the main office that was his usual hang-out when Epps didn't kick him out. He had promised Epps to go over some of his old reports and file them away. When the command had changed, Epps hadn't really incorporated all of his former commander's reports, just left them where they had been, and Lennox had more or less volunteered to help. He knew his reports best and he knew the new filing system, so it should be easy.

Ironhide was tinkering with the security systems and wouldn't come out of the lab unless the base was under Decepticon attack. Lennox wasn't about to disturb him. He had spent quality time with him last night, sleeping in the transformed mech. Sometimes he did that. It was just… nice… being so close. It was just rather embarrassing that the runes showed it so openly. There would always be the same strings of cosmic code lazily swirling over his exposed skin and when Will had once checked his chest, he had seen some of them there, too.

Ironhide had been amused.

Lennox had been even more embarrassed and muttered curses under his breath.

Not that it helped. Not that it ever stopped them from becoming even closer, even when Will was human. In the beginning he had had to change into his Protoform form to connect to Ironhide, but a similar way had been discovered because of the runes and his changed body. It was different, lasted longer than the Sharing in his Protoform shape, but it was satisfying for both.

Lennox knew the new guys to the base always stared, talked behind his back, but he had friends who stopped the talk, who set people right on the matter. It never took the newbies too long to adjust and giant alien robots were a lot more fascinating and gawk-worthy than a simple human with runes and glyphs. Only the medical personnel knew that he was genetically no longer human either, so they always wanted to check or test something or other. Lennox had ended those Q&As a long time ago.

He wasn't the local guinea pig.

Sometimes he hated the runes. They were part of what had separated him forever from his ex-wife. A divorce was one thing; declared dead another. Annabelle was growing up, Sarah had a new man in her life, she was back in her hometown and worked a good job, Annabelle went to school… life had gone on. For both of them.

Major Will Lennox had died. His life had ended. Will Lennox had continued to live. Sometimes he pondered letting Annabelle and Sarah go, stop his prying into their lives. Only sometimes, because she was still his little girl and he still loved Sarah. Ironhide was someone else, something new, something different. How could he ever explain what he felt and what it was to him to someone else – he didn't even understand it himself. He was in a strange kind of relationship with a giant, alien mech. And it was fulfilling and warm and calming and something he had come to enjoy, for lack of a better word. He couldn't call it love, but it wasn't simple 'like' either.

Sitting down in the chair and powering up the computer terminal, he tried to chase away thoughts of Ironhide. The runes begged to differ, bright and running in long strings over his exposed skin. He glared at them, but his emotions had launched them and the soft feelings reflected in the writing. A few cosmic code strings among a lot of Cybertronian glyphs.

Will glared more when he read the words.

Great. Just fucking great. If he ran into a mech now, or Sam, who read Cybertronian just as fluidly, he was an open book. Resolutely he turned to the computer files and paged through them until he found his old stuff.

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Every human of the military contingent at the Autobot base had a tracking device, mostly in their cell phones, and the higher ranking ones had an extra one they were required to carry with them. It was a matter of security and so far it had proven to be effective. So when Lieutenant Trent DeMarco didn't call in as usual, the officer on duty alerted his own superior, Captain Epps, and Optimus Prime.

"Call Arcee," Epps ordered, standing behind the man and waiting.

"No reply," Baker replied.

Optimus tilted his head, apparently trying to do the same, then his optics narrowed a little. Epps felt a grim feeling rise inside him.

He didn't like this. Not at all.

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He had lost consciousness for a while. He didn't know how much time had passed because it was still, or again, dark. He only knew that the pain had woken him and he couldn't move. It was colder now. Part of him was shaking. At least it felt like it. Maybe it was an illusion.

The pain wasn't really so bad any more. It was almost bearable. He had been in worse. When he had broken his leg during a football game. Damn, that had hurt. It had been a sharp pain, not so dull and distant as the one he felt right now. But at least back then he had known why he hurt. It had been that idiot Borlander, crashing into him while trying to impress one of the cheerleaders. Moron…

He wondered how he could remember the name of the jerk who had broken his leg, but not his own.
Suddenly there was noise. A lot of noise. And lights. Voices. He had no idea what they were saying, but his eyes were forced open, the lights blinded him, the ground was shaking, then deep rumbles could be heard. More voices, then someone moved him.

The pain returned with a vengeance.

And finally there was only blackness again.

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The desert was awash with lights. Gleaming headlights, spreading an eerie cold aura of whiteness. Red and blue flashing lights of a police cruiser and an emergency vehicle, coupled with the blue lights of a military contingent from Nellis Airforce base. In the absolute darkness beyond the blinding lights, animals had gone into hiding. Shadowy figures moved, armed and ready to fend off whoever might still be lurking around the attack site. A Black Hawk helicopter was hovering the dark sky above, massive rotor blades disturbing the air. Its night vision equipment showed the pilot the area as clearly as daylight.

It hadn't been an accident. It had been a clear attack, and armed forces had been dispatched. Captain Robert Epps was talking to his men, directing them to take up position, secure evidence, trace, anything they could find. No criminal science team would be called; this was a matter of the highest security.

The ground shook a little as Ironhide walked over to where Ratchet was conversing with the emergency medical personnel as they prepared the unconscious Lieutenant to be airlifted out of here. Trent was hooked up to several machines, all showing the same, disheartening, actually quite shocking, low read-outs. Lennox was with the team, fully armed, in combat gear, despite the fact that he wasn't part of the Army any longer. No one cared.

When the Search and Rescue helicopter had finally picked up the lieutenant and the paramedics were on board, too, Ratchet transformed and followed on the ground. The Black Hawk remained, slowly expanding its search perimeter, sometimes closer to the ground, then rising up into the air again.

Lennox looked up when Ironhide joined him.

"Anything?" he asked, voice cool and controlled. Anger boiled in his eyes.

"Not so far. No sign of Arcee. Jazz and Barricade found signs of a fight. Traces of energon, traces of another mechanoid."

"Decepticon?"

"We don't know. You can't generally tell from a few drops of lubricant and energon."

Lennox's lips were a thin line and his grim expression was matched by Epps, who had walked over to them.

"We secured the area," Epps told them. "Wide perimeter. No sign of anything but small animal life."

"Arcee wouldn't have left Trent just like that," Ironhide rumbled. "She must have been forced away."

"She didn't call us either," Epps added. "Whatever hit them, she's incommunicado."

"Not good," Will muttered.

Definitely not. They had only found Trent because he hadn't checked in on time and Epps took these things pretty seriously. All his men were drilled to follow protocol and check in on the second. Trent had never missed a call and when he hadn't replied, the search had been on. They had discovered the small tracer they all wore out here. Unmoving.

Trent was in a very bad shape. No one knew how long he had been laying in the desert. He had been out and about with Arcee, both on them on leave for the weekend, and he had always checked in on time. Since they hadn't left the area for the time off, had even paid Bowman at Nellis a visit, the attacker must have struck just as they were going back.

"Got word from Barricade," Ironhide suddenly said. "He's following a faint trace, Cybertronian energy signature."

"ID?"

"Impossible."

It was a big step on Ironhide's part that he didn't just transform and go where Barricade was to keep an eye on Jazz's partner. The trust Ironhide showed was a thin one, but it was trust.

"So you think it's a Decepticon?"

The expression in the metal face said it all. Lennox knew the mechanoid well enough to read even the slightest twitch of flexible parts. Ironhide wasn't happy.

"So we're going to join Barricade and Jazz?"

"The moment we're done here," was the reply.

Okay, the big guy had learned at least a little bit of patience.

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An hour later Ironhide and Will were on their way, heading to where Jazz was waiting for them. Will was talking to Epps, who would stay at Nellis and coordinate what needed to be done from there together with Bowman. When he had finished, he leaned back and gazed out at the almost monotone landscape that flashed by.

"I felt two," he finally said.

Ironhide rumbled softly.

"And we thought one's a Decepticon because of the events in Maine. Now Trent was injured in Nevada and Arcee has disappeared. You think the Decepticon knows the Autobots are located here?"
Another rumble. "We don't know if it is a Con," Ironhide said reluctantly. "Could be an Autobot."

"Who hurts a human and leaves him to die?"

Ironhide gave a sigh. "Not all of us have Prime's tendency toward other life. Some of us are pretty self-absorbed. Then there are some who can't get enough of alien contact."

"Like Jazz?"

"Like Jazz."

"So it might be an Autobot. But why attack Arcee?"

"I don't know. It doesn't feel like a Decepticon," the black mech elaborated.

Will cocked an eyebrow. "Feel?" he quoted.

This time the warning was more of a mild version of before. "I know what Decepticons do, Lennox," Ironhide growled. "Trent would be dead and Arcee's body parts scattered for us to find and collect. This isn't them."

Lennox watched the runes drift over his skin for a moment. Finally he nodded. "So it's an unknown factor, a mechanoid, possibly an Autobot, but very likely dangerous."

"Exactly."

"I can work with that. Let's hope Arcee's still alive."

"She's a troubleshooter. They're hard to put down."

Will hoped they were. He liked Arcee and she had been a breath of fresh air among the Autobot forces. If she had been killed it meant something very hostile had arrived, something they hadn't detected. Maybe something that had been here for as long as Prime and the others; maybe even longer.

Whatever it was, Will knew it was one thing for sure: trouble.