Chapter I
It has been two years since they betrayed me. They went back on their word after all I had done for them. Now I'm taking my revenge becoming a rouge in this timeless war. Today I had found their leader of those I had once called friends. The Decepticons. Megatron walked through the energon mine inspecting the extraction done so far. I checked the identities of the others surrounding him and saw Starscream his spineless power-hungry Lieutenant. Right behind the two was my former mentor a femme well known for her ability to kill without mercy leaving an unrecognizable corpse behind.
I stood up and leaned forward to check on their direction knocking some pebbles down right on her head. I walked into the side tunnel and picked up my gear and continued walking down further into the tunnel I didn't get much farther until I heard her voice.
"I hear you've betrayed us. Why?" Her voice full of concern
"I didn't." I answered turning to her looking into her optics. "He did." I reached into my bag and pulled out two scraplets. "And now he'll pay." Before she could question me further on explosion happened sending her to the ground. "Sorry I can't talk like old times but that's my Que."
I turned the corner and had an overview of the chaotic screen. Starscream ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off like normal, begging for Megatron to give the order to run.
"Stop talking." Megatron said slapping him like he would a pesky scraplet. Megatron scanned the area and saw me. With a smile he started laughing "Well looks like the traitor has finally shown himself. So tell me Rownan do you want to know the sound they made when I killed them?" He taunted me.
"You know I just noticed that you always talk your opportunities away. No wonder the Prime is still alive." I said seeing the anger on his face.
Before we could get further into our taunting a ground-bridge opened up and Autobots came out shooting causing yet another period of chaos. I didn't have time for this. I activated the two scraplets in my hands and threw them at the far wall. As they flew more and more came crawling out of the cracks of the walls and ceiling.
"Scraplets." Came the same cry from multiple Decepticons.
"Bring down the cave." I told the scraplets I held in my hand. It flew off, the scraplets made work of the energon in the walls. The cave collapsed in two sections. The Autobots on one side the Decepticons on the other.
"Bulkhead?" Came the cry of a young girl on the side of the Decepticons.
"Miko!" The reply I never wanted to hear.
"Not so fast little one." Starscream said followed by a scream
"Miko!" The bot side the sound of rocks being thrown and smashed.
Megatron's laughter brought my attention back to him. "Choose. Me or the human." And with that Megatron blasted the opposite direction than the Autobots and left.
I dropped from my vantage point and started hunting Starscream in the dust cloud. As I got closer to the screams I came across Decepticons, some pinned under the rubble from the ceiling. Opening my hand an axe formed and I beheaded one before another shot my exposed shoulder. Energon splattered over the rocks, a group of scraplets attached themselves on the con and ate him alive. The other cons soon fled after their leader.
"Starscream!" I shouted energon running down my arm.
"Not one more step or else the human gets it." Holding her like he would get something from her.
"You must be dumber than I thought to forget what I fight for." Just then scraplets not crushed zeroed on him eating his arms off then his legs. The little girl dropped and hid behind some rock. I started to make my way to Starscream.
"I-I swear I wasn't going to hurt the human." He looked at the axe blade nervously. "I'll- I'll tell you anything."
"No you won't I'll take it straight from your memory core." Before he could protest I decapitated him and removed his memory core. A bright flash appeared off to my right I looked to see the girl holding her phone up taking pictures of me. The sound of the Autobots breaking through the barrier brought my attention on my need to escape.
After a few minutes of running through the freshly done tunnel I found myself outside the sun was starting to set over the desert. I ran the short distance to my motorcycle and sped down the hill, shortly after the sound of another was heard.
"Shade it's best you just leave me alone." I said on her frequency.
"I suggest you stop and come with me." A different female's voice said. I picked up the speed only to have my motorcycle shut down and roll over me.
"Did you forget who got you that bike?" My mentor asked me.
The other bike got here and transformed into a femme blasters at the ready one on me and the other on my mentor.
"Well well well if it isn't Shade. And who is this a new protege?" The Autobot asked eying my mentor.
"Hellow Arcee this is Rownan my best pupil." She commented me.
By then the other Autobots were there and my bike was off of me. My breathing was in short gasps and full of fluid. The crash had done more damage than intended. I reached for my face but had eight sets of blasters on me.
"They still don't understand it yet?" I asked my mentor ripping off the helmet and coughed out a mixture of blood and energon out onto the ground , before passing out from the pain.
I came in and out of conciseness more times than I can remember. Bits of arguing stuck with me. And a few faces one in particular the girl I saved. This young Asian girl had her hair in two ponytails she looked at me with worry and curiosity. Then I felt myself slip away.
The feeling of something piercing my skin snapped me out of my daze. Snapping my eyes open a woman in a white lab coat just finished pushing a needle in my shoulder. Instinctively I jumped off the cot I was on and held the woman off the ground by the throat. The needle still in my shoulder had its contents quickly injected as the woman tried to sedate me. The sound of blasters preparing to shoot me drew my attention away from the woman.
"Rownan calm down. She's here to help you not like the others." Shade said getting between me and the bots. I looked at the doctor and set her down. All of a sudden my stomach needed to empty itself of some horribly tasting substance.
I looked around and found a barrel and stumbled to it. I got to the barrel and threw up a nasty paste. After finishing I pulled the needle out and threw it down shattering the glass.
"What have you been feeding me?" I asked with a hostile tone.
The woman coughed before answering still holding her throat. "Food."
Shade looked at me and asked "How long has it been since-"
"Four years" I snapped "Do you have any low grade?"
The bots looked at each other their blasters still trained on me. Their silence was getting on my nerves. "Low grade energon? Do you have any or not." My anger starting to show.
The medical bot turned around from where he stood holding a glass syringe. "Alright June here's the mixture for-" The medic saw me up and rather angry.
"Give it to me." I demanded holding out my hand, the medic looked nervously at me.
"Do it." The woman said.
I was given the syringe and tasted the liquid inside it. I spat it out and threw the syringe to the ground shattering it. "You got the mixture wrong."
I groggily looked for the ground-bridge when I found it I started looking for my gear. "Where's my stuff?" I asked stumbling towards a locked up area.
"Rownan if you haven't noticed you're dying and can't go and fight like this." Shade said with concern.
"I'm going home to get what I need. And where did the all of this concern come from?"
I continued to the enclosed space before a red leg got between me and the area I was heading to. I looked up and saw Optimus Prime leader of the Autobots. I stared at him for a couple of seconds then started to feel my head pound into a headache making me scream in pain. My breathing got heavier and more feral. My left hand turned into a blaster and I raised it up to the Prime. Gave one long yell and before anyone could do anything I shot myself using what will I had left.
Shade's POV
Everyone stood transfixed oat Rownan's action and stared at his body. I walked up and picked him up taking him back to the cot. I set him down and hit the button to secure him. His life signs popped back up on the screen in front of Ratchet the medical officer.
"By the all-spark how is this possible?" He asked me.
"Megatron found a way to make some humans immortal. He's the only one I allowed to live through the process." I said walking to the ground-bridge controls and punched in the location of Rownan's last known hideout.
Upon activating the bridge I was met with a question. "Where do you think you're going?" The wrecker asked.
"Getting Rownan some supplies." I answered not looking back at him.
"With what's been going on it wouldn't be wise to go alone." Prime said to me.
"She won't be alone. I'll go with her." Arcee said moving to my side.
I nodded my silent thanks. And made my way through the bridge.
We had been traversing through the forest of Yellow Stone National Park in silence for awhile now.
"So Rownan's important to you?" The Autobot warrior asked.
"He's been through more than I have and I would never wish it upon anyone. And yes he is. He's not much older than your human." Our conversation stopped as got to the cave Rownan once called home.
"He called this home?" Arcee asked confused with what she was seeing.
"Yes this is where he went to meet me before and after missions." We walked into the cave and met a dead-end.
I pushed against the wall and it began to move with a slight squeal of rusted medal. "Tell the others that you'll be unreadable for awhile." I told Arcee.
Behind the false wall I saw our training room just as I had left it. I walked to a cabinet and opened it to reveal multiple syringes of low grade concentrate. I began to fill a bag that I had next to the cabinet.
"So is this you two at the beginning?" Arcee inquired. I looked at the wall she was looking at and saw the years of photos on it.
"Yes." I answered smiling at the memories each one held. "Alright I got everything he needs lets head back."
Two hours later we walked back through the bridge and I seeing Rownan shivering the way he was broke my heart. I handed June a syringe and watched her administrate it. I sat next to Rownan and waited for him to recover. As I sat there I thought about when I first accepted the mission from Optimus Prime to infiltrate the Decepticons to gain their trust and rip them apart from the inside out. I had never thought I would make a friend or was he more. He was so young to have to go through the procedure to have to do all of the killing they had made him do. As the hours passed I slowly felt my optic lids slowly close until I fell asleep.
Flash Back Eight Years Ago
"We are on the verge of a breakthrough Shade. The first one to go through will be under your training supervision." Megatron said as he and I walked down the hall to the lab where I heard screaming. We entered the lab and I saw a kid stretched out and cut open with metal being poured into him. Energon was forced down his mouth his eyes full of pain and hate he looked right at me and Megatron with nothing but fire and daggers.
"Lord Megatron so far the subject is taking to this well." As the professor said this the kid on the table started to rip through the restraints spilling the contents all over the table. I saw the kid grab some kind of electronic and run into the darkness of the room, shortly after his disappearance I heard some racket then he started to slowly emerge from the shadows wires coming out of his ears.
"Get him." Megatron told the professor not caring if it was going to cause the kid harm.
The professor ran to the kid, the human lowered his left and a axe appeared out of nowhere. With one attempt the professor swiped his hand down to scoop up the human only to lose it from the axe. The professor fell to his knees holding what stub of a arm the human took the axe and decapitated the professor. The head rolled to our feet followed by the human running towards us dragging the axe on the floor causing sparks to fly Megatron kept a smile on his face.
"Deal with this." He ordered me leaving me and the human alone in the room.
I stood my ground in front of the door. The human stopped slamming the axe into the professors head splitting it in half exposing the memory core. He picked through the mess and retrieved it and offered it to me. "What's your name?" I asked him.
He stood their silently for a while. "I don't remember." He said fear and panic flashing in his eyes for a split second then they became blank and meaningless. I looked at his arm and noticed a mark I looked at it I scanned it and was Japanese it was the symbol of the rownan the master-less samurai.
"You'll be Rownan." I told him accepting his offer of the memory core. And that's how it all began. As the years passed I slowly started to train him the idealism of the Autobots.
End of flashback
Rownan's POV
I woke looking straight into bright lab lights and immediately started to struggling against the restraints that I started to feel. I looked up and saw a silhouette of a cybertronian holding something. Upon seeing it I struggled even more.
"Shade he's up." The silhouette said quickly backing up. I still struggled then I heard my music despite the fact it was heavy death metal I started to slow my breathing and struggling.
"Nice to see you back to the world of the living." Shade said looking down at me turning off the lab light giving me the chance to see that I was still in the Autobot's base. I looked to my right and saw a group of humans laughing and talking among themselves and the Autobots.
"Hey he's up!" The human girl I saved said excitedly jumping off the couch she was sitting and ran to me.
"Miko. Get back here." A bulky Autobot ordered the girl back but she kept running to me.
I started to feel uncomfortable and made quick work of the restraints and flipped off of the cot causing everyone to freeze. I looked at Shade and she nodded. I looked up and noticed a steel beam jutting out of the ceiling.
"It's too crowded." I quietly told Shade before making a run for the wall.
All of the Autobots watched me free climb the wall of the silo towards the beam. I reached the beam looked down at the others. Miko looked up at me in almost disappointment. I stayed up there for hours trying to figure out why Shade and I were somewhat welcomed here. Slowly the humans left first the yellow bot took the little one out of the base then Miko left with the wrecker. I waited for the last one to leave but he never did.
"You know you might get use to this." Shade shouted up to me. I exhaled in defeat and stood up on the edge of the beam and dropped straight to the ground.
I was getting ready to land until I was caught by the bot femme. "What the hell were you thinking?" She asked me.
I jumped out of her hands landing soundly on the ground. "I've dropped from higher." I replied under my breath angrily.
"Rownan remember your-" Shade started but stopped as she saw the look on my face as I tried to remember anything outside the last eight years of my life. "Sorry." She finally said.
"Hi I'm Jack." The last human said keeping a safe distance but close enough not to make me feel unwanted. I looked at him trying to figure out his life and how he fit into this war was he like me only with memories?
"Rownan." I bluntly stated. "Your mother-" I thought for a moment was that the right word for it he did look similar to the doctor I had chocked. "She's June?" I asked having a hard time figuring out what a mother did.
"Yes and I know about two days ago." I said looking me in the eyes in them I saw a fire burning wanting to come out. No he's nothing like me, lucky but I will have to quench the fire before it comes out on someone else.
"Where is it Shade. The memory core." I asked fearing it had deteriorated from the time I was unconsciousness.
"Right here." She said pulling out Starscream's memory core.
I walked up and took it and quickly inspected it. It was still good but not for long. Shade also held out my bag of gear. I thanked her before taking it and returning to my beam.
I spent the entire night watching all of Starscream's memories from the beginning of the war to when I had killed him. The bots came and went but the medical officer staid at his bench for most of the night. I dropped down from the beam and found a large geographic map of the surrounding area and started plotting deposits of Starscreams private energon supplies and mines to be drained.
The morning came and I found myself passed out on top of the map. It was only the feeling of having someone behind me that woke me. I spun around and looked right up at Prime.
"I'm sure you can control yourself now." He said looking at the plots I had put on the map. "What is this?"
"Energon deposits and stashes left by Starscream." I said dropping from the massive table. "Do you have a training room?" I asked feeling my muscles aching for practice.
"Yes I'll show you." Prime said offering a hand for me to ride in. I took it making the trip quicker.
After a minute walk I came to a room walls covered in blaster marks and slashes from blades. The air was heavy with burnt energon.
"Thank you. And if you don't mind I have my own equipment." I said pulling out a small cube and throwing it in the room a ruined city popped out and the smell of burnt rubber and fuel filled the air.
I jumped from Optimus's hand and had a shield and sword form as I ran towards holographic cons. The fight was quick and bloody. By the end of it my skin was stained blue then the real fun came Megatron's hologram came in and quickly jumped into the fight. I was winning until I heard a voice I hoped would never would be heard. I turned to see Miko running towards me
"Ah cool training." She said.
The little window the hologram was given took it and delivered a painful blast to my gut sending me to the ground with my stomach open my guts spilling out. I sat their clutching my gut and watched as the hologram trained it blaster on Miko. All of a sudden I jumped at the hologram and started to rip it apart with my bare hands and teeth. by the time the battle was done I looked like a animal just finished with a fresh kill. I turned to look at the others and they all had the same look on their face. Fear.
"End simulation." I said and the battle quickly disappeared along with my wounds. "I need some air." I said walking past all of them and towards the exit of the base.
End of Chapter I
Please R&R will need it