MingaWritten (and then rewritten) mostly by Ina who has a freakishly good memory. O.o
Ina: (makes a face) I do not. I can't even remember what we had for lunch yesterday. ((grumble))
Minga: (rolls eyes) whatever. Ina (known here as Draconic Caduceus) is a co-author of this story. She writes a lot and there seems to be no limits to her imagination. Anything else you want to say, Ina
Ina: Well, this story will be AU, based off some of the movie and old G1 series. :) Minga and I also don't own the Transformers used in this story, save for Slash, Streak, Whin, Narzenim, Firebird, and Jumper; they belong to me. :)
Minga: I own…the idea? Well, some of it, anyway.
Ina: ((grumble))
Minga: Don't mind her; she's just grumpy right now. ((whispers)) She doesn't like the cold too much.
Ina: (glares at Minga)
--
Windtreader's Log:
How long have we been traveling as such? Even I, the sort-of historian of all of us, am not fully sure how long this war has been going on. It is a brutal war that has left us with many casualties. We are all Cybertronians – children of Primus, the giver of life to our race. And yet it doesn't matter anymore; brother kills brother, mother kills child, and sister is pitted against sister and all her family.
I am torn. My twin, my beloved Windstreaker is on one side, and my brother, dear Optimus, is on the other. Who am I to choose between them? They are my siblings and regardless of what they do to me or to each other, I love them both equally.
All I know is the war, despite being sparked in the Golden Age of Cybertron – the brief, fleeting but wonderful years before the war. The Great War that destroyed Cybertron – our once-beautiful home – and sent our fighting to the far ends of the galaxy, involving worlds who had no business being caught between us. I knew that my dear brother, leader of the Autobots aches that it happens this way; his spark is weary of the constant war and battling, and I don't need to be a medic to see that the immense responsibility on his shoulders is slowly crushing him.
What crushes me is the fact that he hates me; he hates me with such a passion that at first he didn't want to charter my services, despite the fact that I was a supporter of the Autobot cause though not quite under his command. I am a captain, by the way. If anything, that in itself is enough to get me into a high-ranking position in the Autobot ranks should I have decided to join at any moment; many ships have gone along with their captains. Even more were killed in battle, in cold blood, or forced to join the Decepticons – enemy of the Autobots.
I am one of the few Neutrals that are still alive; I and my crew, really, are most of the known Neutrals on the planet. The rest were killed or enslaved and tortured by Megatron, cruel leader of the Decepticons , for his amusement.
As it is, no one dares to attempt to harm me or my crew; I am too valuable an asset to any side. Not only am I captain of a ship, I am a formidable warrior, medic, spy, tracker, and historian. I possess great strength (I don't mean to brag about this, really), and feline-like grace and agility. Above all, I am a femme and stronger in many ways than the average mech.
These are not traits that I am proud of; I'd rather be known as an artist, historian, good captain, good sister, good friend, and good mother. Alas I am not.
That is how I found myself in this rather interesting predicament. Optimus, at the prompting of his second and third in command, not to mention CMO and weapons specialist who knew me, acquired me as a captain to fly his ship, the Protector to Tyger Pax. We were on a special mission, as I understood, to hide a very powerful artifact from the Decepticons, in hopes of waiting out the war. I and my crew was not told what it was.
We were carrying a large…bit of cargo that resembled a rather large cube. It came up to my waist and after a loud shouting match (which Optimus contributed the most to) I left it alone. We bore a young spy by the name of Bumblebee, a sweet young mech that thankfully wasn't much tainted by the war. In addition to Bumblebee was a large chunk of the higher-ups and top-line warriors in the Autobot Army. I knew some of them; Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, another set of twins that were legendary as melee fighters, Prowl, Autobot tactician and young 'bot that I myself had raised, Jazz, Autobot Saboteur and very good friend of Prowl's; Ironhide, weapon's specialist and old friend; Ratchet, Chief Medical Officer and old friend. And of course there was Optimus Prime, my beloved brother.
Jumper was my first mate, and was often picked on by some of the rowdier of the bunch, as he was a cyber-wolf – a talking, feeing cyber-wolf. Firebird is also picked on, though he usually stays near me or Narzenim, my adopted daughter. It was a common sight to see me around the ship with Firebird the turbo-hawk perched regally on my shoulder.
Tyger-Pax was a ruin when we reached the colonized asteroid; I felt bad that I couldn't make much of a difference to them, and offered more than one prayer to Primus for them. For the most part I ignored the Autobots, instead checking the massive ship for cracks in the hull that could affect its flight. The only time I joined then was when they asked for my help carrying their cube of a cargo out.
This disturbed Narzenim for some reason, and when I tried to figure out why, she wouldn't tell me more than that it was very dangerous. I trusted my daughter enough to bring the matter up with Optimus who yelled so fiercely at Narzenim for snooping around the cargo hold that the rather tough little youngling cried like a sparkling. This prompted an argument that had Jumper hiding in their bunk with his tails between his legs and even Jazz and Prowl hiding somewhere.
No more than a week later, the Decepticons attacked and made off with young little Bumblebee and the cube which Narzenim told me was actually the AllSpark. Which was why I joined the force that attacked the Decepticon base where it was stored. Not only to keep the artifact out of the wrong hands, but to ensure that no one was attacked by my sister.
I was the one that bore back the stasis-locked body of Bumblebee who I already considered as a sort-of son-slash-younger brother, and I stayed with Ratchet and helped to fix the youngling who was both older and younger than Narzenim. Despite our best efforts, the youngling's vocal cords were irreparable at the moment; he would likely live a good chunk of his life playing back sound files to 'talk'.
The thing that really killed me about it was that he so reminded me of Prowl when the tactician was younger.
And so, that is why we hurtled through space with the Decepticons close on our tails (so to speak) to chase down the ancient artifact. It was agony to watch sweet little Bee mimic voices to say something as simple as 'hello' and that was the entire reason I pushed the Protector to its limits to get the cube before the Decepticons.
Unfortunately they had a cruiser of better condition and better speed than the Protector, and we were rammed hard from behind as we approached the planet where the AllSpark had landed, causing us all – Autobot and Decepticon alike – to crash land on the planet.
The planet was young, just forming – a dominant species wasn't quite there yet, and great beasts that rivaled me in size but not strength walked the earth. Unlike ours it was an organic planet, full of natural resources. The Cube was nowhere to be found and we resumed our battle on the dusty ground the planet.
That was when trouble started.
It started with the Decepticons, and Windstreaker was the first to fall ill; it was a strange virus that swept like wildfire along the Decepticon ranks before being spread to the Autobots. One by one people died; Windstreaker was the first to fall and it hurt me more than any physical wound could, to feel the sudden extinguishing of her spark.
There was no cure, no way to find it; Ratchet was one of the first to die, and I was too sick to do much. Jazz and Prowl fell ill just after Ratchet passed, and the twins were failing quickly. Ironhide, Bee, and Optimus were the last to get ill, and of the three Ironhide was the first to go. Jumper, Firebird, and Narzenim were fine though battling with the sickness themselves; when Bee and Jazz were gone, Optimus was about to join the Matrix himself. Prowl, Jumper, Firebird, Narzenim, and I were the last ones left, and we all knew that the only way to bring everyone back was to find the AllSpark.
So carrying them on my back, we searched for the powerful artifact. Firebird was the first of us to go and we placed him in a tall pine tree, a perch he would have loved. We continued on.
Jumper was next. We put him beside a river, as he loved water. And then it was as if something was calling to my spark and unconsciously I knew that it was the AllSpark.
Strangely enough, we traveled slower despite having two less to care for; the remaining two on my back were on the brink of death. That made me push myself even harder to reach the AllSpark.
Eventually we did find it, but it was too late; Prowl was gone, and Narzenim soon after. I was the last Cybertronian on the planet and upon seeing the gray cube, I implored it –and Primus – to help – to do something. And then…
I died.
