Just a little thing i have had on my desktop for a while, dusted it off and polished it a bit last night. Not going to be especially long, but will have multiple chapters. No deep plot, just some idea coming to me for a long while ago. As you will realize it is AU, in a world where The Great War never happens, or a great deal of time before it.
Thundercracker wakes with a groan feeling completely slagged.
"Look! It is stirring."
'What had happened?' she wonders, optic shutters still covering her optics as she dreads the incoming head ache she knows will be there the instant she is unshuttering the protective cover over the optics.
Calmly venting water into her frame to cool it she allows her processor time to catch up, but when the memories finally emerges she can't stop herself from abruptly retract the optic shutters. Bright white light flashes into her optics blinding her in her panic.
"Contact the Professors. It is awake."
The leviathans.
Their flock.
The attack.
The waters tainted with the life fluids of her family and herself only barely escaping the slaughter.
Then the fatigue as her wounds drained her, sending her into stasis.
It surprises her that she survived. She should have died from the severe wounds, but she is alive and feeling okay despite a strange soreness in her frame.
"The sensor pads registers increasing spark pulsing, a bit over what we have registered during its stasis. Internal temperature is at optimal degrees. Vents – if they can be called that – working sufficient, maybe a bit increase, but that might relay to the increase in spark pulsing? Energy reserves are a bit low and - huh – lowering at an increased rate?"
'Where am I?' She wonders as the initial panic slowly leaves her and she is able to pay attention to her surroundings. The white light still keeps her blind, but she is able to discern weak contours.
The water that surrounds her doesn't feel or taste right when she opens her vents fully and draws in large amounts of water to cool her overheating frame, neither does it energize her as it should and as she is used to. Something is amiss with her surroundings and she doesn't know what.
Slowly blurry shapes begin to form in her periphery as her optics adjusts to the bright light surrounding her. Soon her sight has cleared enough that she realizes that she is staring at some strange creatures who all are staring back at her, gesturing to each other.
Doors swoosh open and footsteps sounds.
Sound travels sluggishly through the water from her surroundings, but she is unable to understand the language or the signals. Releasing an echolocation, both to communicate her confusion at the situation as well as to recognize her surroundings, Thundercracker's optics widens when it almost instantly returns.
"Interesting. Non-vocal communication. It uses soundwaves to communicate."
"Do we have any scans of its complete structure?"
"Here Sir."
"Fascinating. Extremely flexible spinal strut. I guess you were right Perceptor."
"It was the only way for them to move as they did Wheeljack."
'What?!' She exclaims in shock. 'How?!'
In rising panic she releases pinging echolocations in all directions and when they return to her she is able to create a map of her current surroundings. To her horror she is only surrounded by water in a distance of 400 meters length, 100 meters width and 100 meters height. It is barely enough water to keep her energized and from panicking due to an ingrained claustrophobia.
With this knowledge she realizes that she is captured, alone, weakened and slowly weakening further with every cycle passing and she enters an all-out panic attack. The next moment she is frantically banging her frame against each surface of the holding tank housing her, trying to somehow escape the confines and get back into the familiar waters of the Rust Sea.
On the other side of the sturdy holding tank a group of scientists are curiously studying the naval animal – a Merefin. They only know the species name due to sparkling tales and until only a few orns ago they thought them to only be that, tales. The discovery of the naval specimen during the first naval fare in the whole of Cybertron's history is the scientific discovery of more than ten thousand vorns and to be able to study the being this closely is a marvel.
For clarification: The Professors are Perceptor, Wheeljack and Ratchet. The rest of the scientists are Autobots.