This will be a small fic, only a few chapters. I'm taking liberties with timelines from G1 here, so don't yell at me for the Ark's "original" crew not being from G1, and the G1 crew being the current crew. This takes place in the '07 verse, though you can't tell here. There are OCs, but they're necessary to the plot; I couldn't use canon characters for the parts. Well, that's all, except to say that I got the inspiration for this came from pondering over the story Alone in the dark by Syntia13. Well, I hope you enjoy this!
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of its characters; I do own anybody you don't recognize.
Bumblebee cried out in pain, his recently fixed but still damaged vocalizer being stressed even further by his agonized wails.
It had been another typical run-in with the Decepticons that had become atypical when a stray shot had hit the young scout square in the chassis, dangerously close to his spark. Ratchet had been at his side instantly, assessing the damage and finding him to be in critical condition. If something wasn't done soon, they could lose the youngest Autobot.
Bee had been rushed back to the Ark in Ratchet's alt form. Once there, he was quickly unloaded in the med bay and the medics got to work, moving furiously to stanch the flow of energon pouring from Bumblebee's chassis.
Examining the wound, Ratchet cursed as he saw the damage done to the scout's spark chamber. It was severely cracked and a chunk was missing from one side, revealing the desperately flaring spark within which was dimming all the while. Picking up speed, Ratchet attempted to stabilize the distressed spark, in fear that it may not last much longer in its current condition.
The yellow minibot's optics began to dim, despite Ratchet's fervent protests and curse-filled demands for him to stay conscious. If he lost consciousness, then they could lose him for good.
As hard as he'd tried to stay online, Bee felt himself begin to drift, and the lovely darkness that was surrounding him soothed the pain; he could feel it ebbing away in waves. Whispering a mental apology to Ratchet for not following the CMO's orders, he let himself fall into the calming abyss.
Onlining his optics, Bumblebee surveyed his surroundings. He found himself sitting against a wall in some corridor of the Ark, one that he noted confusedly that he vaguely recognized as being near the rarely accessed rear of the Ark, an area only used for storage.
Vorns ago, before Earth, even before Bumblebee had been created, back when the Ark was first constructed, these back rooms had held purpose. The original crew of the Ark, the very first, had used these rooms for all sorts of purposes, from personal quarters to training rooms, even an older, smaller Rec. room was held here. Now these once well-used rooms were abandoned in favor of the newer, more modern ones in the newer sections of the Ark, and the entire section of the Ark was avoided, only used for the storage of items that nobody really planned on seeing ever again.
Bee felt almost bad for the rooms, though he knew that logically the inanimate areas held know emotion or sentience, but still, the thought of them, dejected and unused when they'd once been inhabited and full of life, it made him sad. For some reason everyone seemed to avoid the entire area, staying as far away from it as they could if they could manage it. Bumblebee had done the same, though he assumed everyone avoided the area because, like him, it made them sad. Some of the mechs, when asked, would claim that it made them feel weird, like they were intruders...or like they were being watched.
The scout couldn't quite figure how he'd gotten from the medbay to the eerily quiet hallway, but the thought seemed to slip from his thoughts like grains of loose sand, quickly disappearing from the Autobot's CPU altogether.
His helm flew up as he heard a sudden noise, muffled, but still audible if he turned up his audios. It sounded almost like...crying? Yes, he definitely heard sniffling and a few soft sobs. His spark ached for whoever felt so depressed and anguished, and Bee, being the kind-sparked minibot that he was, went to comfort this poor being.
Listening for the sound, he located its source as one of the abandoned rooms, one full of old crates and objects that hadn't seen the light of day or a living being in too many vorns to count. The crates may have interested the scout at another time, but now he was focused solely on the mech sitting atop one, faceplates pressed in his servos, sobbing so morosely that it tore at Bumblebee's spark.
"What's wrong?" he asked the other in a soft, concerned tone. He was surprised when the other's helm flew up, bright, almost excited optics looking around desperately before finally landing on Bee. Bright red optics.
"Decepticon!" Bumblebee shrieked. He immediately tried to shoot at the other, before finding his weapons systems to be offline.
The other mech visibly deflated, looking so very miserable. "That's all they ever think, all they ever say," he muttered sorrowfully. "They see the optics and they judge me, they attack me. Nobody ever talks, nobody ever listens, and they never stay. Nobody ever stays with me. I've been alone for so long, so long. It hurts; it physically hurts, in my spark. They look at me and they reject me. When somebody passes through, they ignore me. Nobody wants me around. Nobody cares." He began to sob brokenly once more.
Bee immediately felt guilty, and he went to comfort the poor mech, placing a servo on the other's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean...it's just, you're a Decepticon. What're you doing on the Ark?"
"What indeed," he murmured softly. Looking up with hopeful optics, he said, "I'm Echo. What's your designation?"
"Bumblebee," the scout responded, glad that the other was cheering up. Finally taking the time to really look at him, Bee noticed that he was very young, around Bee's age, and was colored a deep red, with an odd looking Decepticon insignia on his chassis.
It was definitely Decepticon, but it looked somehow...different, but he couldn't place how. It looked...old.
"So, you've been here for a while?" Bee asked, trying to draw Echo's thoughts from whatever had been upsetting him so much. At the other's nod of confirmation, he inquired, "How come nobody's caught you yet? I mean, Red Alert – that's our security director – anyway, he has cameras everywhere, even in the back rooms. He freaks out at any potential Decepticon threat; how'd you keep from being seen?"
The mech gave Bumblebee the oddest, most unreadable look, like he couldn't quite believe what Bee was asking him. He then shook his head, as if to physically clear it of thoughts, and said, "I told you, everybody ignores me. Trust me; I'm no threat, at least not anymore. You have nothing to fear from me."
"But you're still a Decepticon," Bee persisted. "Why are you here and not with the rest of your faction?"
Echo once more gave him that unreadable look. "They have no reason to look for me. Don't get me wrong, they look after their own, and they don't leave anyone behind, no matter what you Autobots insist. But if they came...I couldn't go with them. Bumblebee, I can't leave this place. I can never leave."
"Why not?"
The Decepticon just shook his helm, and Bee knew he wasn't going to get an answer. Another thought occurred to him, and he said, "No offence, but you don't seem much like a Decepticon. Why'd you even join up with them?"
Echo looked at him again, and this time he showed a tiny smile. Chuckling softly, he told the other, "They practically raised me. My creators, I have no idea what happened to them. They died, they abandoned me, I don't know and frankly I stopped caring long ago. The Decepticons took me in when I was just a youngling; I can barely remember a time before them. No matter what everyone thinks, they aren't all bad."
Bee took in this information, reeling at how similar it was to his own situation with the Autobots. Suddenly he felt a wrenching in his spark, a yanking, as if his entire being was being folded around that one point in his spark and then was being sucked through a hole there. He gasped at the odd sensation. Echo gave him a sad smile.
"Ah, you're going back. That's good; he can't hurt you there. No, only me. It was nice to talk to somebody. I haven't gotten to do that in a long time. I've been so lonely..."
"Echo, wait, what are you talking about? Who can't hurt me? Who's going to hurt you? Where am I going?" Bee was very confused, and he was filled with worry for his new "friend".
"You're going home," was all the Decepticon would say.
"What do you mean? The Ark is my home and I'm already here!"
"Bumblebee, there are a lot of things that you don't understand, and I pray to Primus that you'll never need to. Please, just let yourself go back and forget about this, about me. Go live your life; be happy, fall in love, have sparklings, anything. Whatever you do, stay away from these rooms, okay? It's not safe. It's harder for him to reach out to there, but if people come to these rooms, he can pull it off. He should leave you alone, but if he knows you spoke to me... Just stay away; tell your friends, too."
"Who?! Echo, who are you talking about? Who is he?!"
"I can't tell you," Echo said, fear in his red optics. "If he finds out about even meeting you...it would be worse if I told, for the both of us. Things are bad enough as it is... Please, Bumblebee, you need to go!"
Bee knew it was time to go. Wherever he was supposed to go, he knew he would be forced to leave soon. "Wait, Echo, you can come with me!"
Echo looked straight into his optics, his faceplates a picture of pure sorrow. "No, Bee, I can't. I can never leave here, remember? It's my curse...and his. We can never leave this place, but you can, and you need to go, now."
The scout felt the pulling increase and he knew that the young Decepticon spoke the truth. "I'll find a way to help you, I swear!" he promised, bright lights flashing in his optics though the room was filled with shadows.
Echo watched him gloomily and lifted a servo in farewell. "Goodbye, Bumblebee. If you're lucky, you'll never see me again."
"Echo!" Bee exclaimed, feeling himself being pulled through with one final, harsh tug, the phantom sensations making him feel as if someone had reached into his spark, grabbed on, and pulled backwards, dragging him with it. His vision swam with colors; he could no longer see Echo, or the room, or anything for that matter. With a final burst of light, his optics onlined swiftly to see Ratchet's worried faceplates.
"We've got him!" the medic called, and all mechs present relaxed some, relieved. "Someone go tell those slaggers outside my medbay so they'll go away. Bumblebee's going to be alright."
"Ratchet?" the yellow mech asked groggily. His head was pounding and his processors ached like all get out.
"Don't you ever do anything like that again!" the medic admonished the minibot. Bee didn't even try to argue that his injuries weren't his fault. It wasn't worth it, and they all know who would win that conversation.
"If you weren't in such a sorry state already, I would be throwing a wrench at you right now. You had everybody worried sick; Sam is terrified, Mikaela too." Ratchet's faceplates softened almost imperceptibly. "We lost you for a while there. We thought you were gone for good."
Bee nodded, sorry to have worried everybody. A thought hit him, making him ask, "What about Echo? Is he okay?" Ratchet looked at him as if he'd grown a second head.
"Who are you talking about? Echo? I don't know any Autobot named Echo."
"No, he's a Decepticon. I know we don't help them usually, but you've got to understand, someone's hurting him, is going to hurt him. We have to help him!"
"A Decepticon called Echo?" Ratchet asked, racking his CPU for any files on such a mech. Now that he thought about it, the designation was somewhat familiar. Walking to the medbay doors, he opened them and saw that most of the crowd had dissipated with the good news. Optimus and Ironhide had remained, just as Ratchet had expected. They'd practically raised Bumblebee; they wouldn't leave until they'd seen for themselves that he was okay. He ushered them into the medbay, closing the doors behind him.
"Do either of you know of a Decepticon designated 'Echo'? Bee claims to know him." All optics turned towards the scout.
Bee added to the description. "He's about my age, kind of a dark red color, maybe a little bit taller than I am."
The two thought for a minute, and Ironhide said, "I think I know who he's talking about." Moving to a computer located in the medbay, he accessed it and pulled up the enemy files. Moving through them, he seemed to be searching for somebody before he pulled up a file and stepped back, showing it to the others.
It had all the information the Autobots knew on the mech, as well as an image capture of him that had obviously been taken from afar. When Bee saw the familiar red form and the red optics, looking at something in the distance, obviously unaware of the image being recorded, he exclaimed excitedly, "That's him!"
"That's impossible," Ratchet stated firmly.
"How?" Bee asked, confused.
"Bumblebee," the Prime began. "That image capture was taken a long time ago, a very long time ago. When that capture was taken, Ironhide wasn't much older than you are now."
"No, that's not possible. I met him; he was sitting right next to me! He looked just like he does in that image capture!"
Ironhide took over, saying, "Bee, that image capture was taken right before Echo was taken prisoner. He was held on the Ark, and according to files he just disappeared. We'd believed that he'd escaped, but we never saw him again, in battle or otherwise. Then the Decepticons came looking for him – they lead a whole crusade, storming the Ark and ripping it up trying to find him. They hadn't seen him either."
"So?" Bee didn't know where this was going, but he knew he didn't like it.
The elder mechs shared a look. Prime said softly, "Bumblebee, from what I know of him, he wasn't the type to desert the Decepticons, and nobody ever saw him again."
He looked at the short yellow mech sadly before saying three words that chilled the scout to his very spark.
"Echo is dead."
Well, here's the first part, hope you liked it. Please review!!!