Shake the Earth

Disclaimer: I don't own the Transformers but I do own my OC's. Please enjoy.

When the power of love overcomes the love of power then the world will know peace.

-Jimi Hendrix

By Reminiscing

It had been four million human years since she had seen him and far too many in Cybertronian vorns. War and pride had separated them but perseverance and hope had brought them back together. In those first moments when he held her in his arms and their sparks cried out in joy to see each other again, all of those vorns seemed to fade away in her processor, becoming as insubstantial and harmless as the shadows.

But she knew it could never last. She couldn't stay with him on their new home, Earth. She needed to go back to Cybertron. She needed to go back and secure the Well of Allsparks from Shockwave so that when Optimus and his Autobots finally secured the Allspark they would be ready for him.

These thoughts had plagued her every night, making recharge a luxury that seemed to slip just outside of her grip. Being her sparkmate and other half, Optimus knew that something was weighing down on Elita's spark but he respected her space and let her be, like right now. She was in the middle of finishing a double shift in the graveyard orns of the night, helping Jazz go through reports from all Autobot sectors on Earth, Cybertron and Ultra Magnus' refugee ship.

"Still can't recharge?" Teletraan-1, the A.I. for the Ark asked as she flickered to life near Elita's work station. Her holoform was the same as it was when she first met her; an extremely slender and streamlined femme frame that was completely covered in chrome plating so she appeared to be like a star under the right lighting. She was still having a hard time wrapping her processor around the fact that Teletraan was based off of her cerebrocircuitry patterns, making her essentially a copy of Elita.

"Unfortunately yes," Elita admitted, smiling wearily at Teletraan as she finished a report. It didn't help either that after so long having to be on her guard Elita was finding it incredibly difficult to relax. She wasn't the only one; all of the Survivors of Cybertron, those who were left behind when the Ark launched, were having a hard time as well. Ratchet, First Aid and one of the native organic medics diagnosed them with something the organic humans called "post traumatic distress order". "Figured if I can't recharge, I might as well do something productive."

"Anything I can help with?" Teletraan asked. Elita shook her head tiredly.

"I'm alright here but thank you for the offer." Rubbing her optic ridge, a red warning sign flashed on the screen that was Elita's optics; it was reminding her that she was drawing off of reserve power packs and she needed some more energon. She and several of the Autobot commanders, including her best friend Chromia, had gotten powerful new forms thanks to the energized energon Shockwave had dropped them in on Cybertron but her new form was still susceptible to recharge and energon deficiency.

The warning didn't miss Teletraan' s keen sensors. "At least let me get you some energon." Without waiting for Elita to respond, Teletraan's form flickered out of sight as she traveled the length of the ship to the energon stores. She would be back momentarily. Allowing herself a brief moment of respite, Elita leaned back and shuttered her optics for just a moment. The hum of energy going through the ship was comforting and constant, almost putting her in recharge right there on the bridge.

"You too huh?" A deep and melodic femme voice pulled her out of recharge. Taking a little longer than she normally did to respond, Elita blinked wearily at the blue femme standing in the doorway of the bridge. The femme gave her a similarly weary smile as she walked over to Elita, blue optics just as heavy as Elita's felt.

"What's keeping you up?" Elita asked her oldest and dearest friend as Chromia took a seat next to Elita's station.

"Old habits." Chromia admitted, unconsciously fingering one of her beloved guns in her hands. The old metal shone from vorns of being polished and having seen battle and fixed up to see another orn. "Thinking about Cybertron, about here, about the Allspark. Probably the same stuff that's keeping you up."

"I thought I was the one who worried needlessly." Elita teased, making Chromia smile at her. "But yes, I am thinking about the same things as you are. They have not gone away since we arrived here on Earth."

"The sacred organic mud ball." Chromia said, repeating one of Sunstreaker's famous phrases about the nature of their second home. At the thought of Sunstreaker, both femmes glanced at each other. "You know Lancer's not coming back with us." Chromia told her, voicing the truth that they had known the second they watched Sunstreaker race for Lancer's failing form when they emerged through the space bridge.

"I figured as much; she and Sunstreaker aren't about to leave each other but Ratchet needs to keep her and Stopsign here to make sure they're okay." Elita sighed deeply through her vents, blowing cool air out into the bridge. Chromia chuckled tiredly.

"Sides, Firestar and I have a bet going on when they'll finally sparkbond." She said. "I'm honestly surprised they didn't do the deed when we first got here."

"Lancer wasn't exactly in a position to sparkbond with mutate venom running through her." Elita reminded her, recalling the final days of their exile on Cybertron when Stopsign and Lancer hung onto life after having been ambushed by mutates in the Sea of Rust. "They'll have to wait for Ratchet's medical okay before they do anything of that sort."

"Since when has that stopped a young and wildly in-love couple?" Chromia asked incredulously. "Certainly didn't stop me and Ironhide when all of society was crumbling around our audio receptors or you and Optimus."

"I seem to recall that Optimus and I took a little more coercing than you and Ironhide did." Elita reminded her, smiling despite herself as she thought of the days so long ago when she and Chromia were two crazy femmes in love with two handsome mechs from Iacon and Praxus. The days before lies, war and death set in. "We had that horrible fight when you told me you had sparkbonded, remember?"

Chromia nodded, recalling the extremely sudden and completely random outburst they had had when Chromia came into their workplace in Simfur and told a highly stressed out Elita that she and Ironhide were bonded. "Wasn't it really over the revolution and Optimus' involvement in it and my bond was just the final blow?"

"I think so; honestly, it was so long ago I don't really remember. I do remember how angry Bluestar was with us and how scary he was when he got angry."

"You forget he's an amal built for battle until he starts clacking his manacles and slamming his legs down on the ground." Chromia recalled, remembering how their manager had even the famously fierce and stubborn Chromia nervous with fear. "Good old Bluestar; I wish he could've made it."

"Me too." Elita said softly.

"Bluestar…your supervisor in Simfur?" Teletraan's voice asked as she flickered back to life near Elita and Chromia's stations, carrying two cubes of energon rather than one. "My sensors told me that Chromia had shown up on the bridge." She explained as she put the cubes before them. Being only an A.I. program, Teletraan couldn't consume energon unless she was in her blank form, which had blown a fuse and had yet to be fixed. "I have heard a few stories about him from Ironhide and Optimus."

"Yep, he was in charge of the Simfur Docking and Shipping hub where Elita and I worked before the war broke out." Chromia told her, taking the hydrogen enriched cube Teletraan had gotten for her and sipping from it. "He was one of the few amals that wasn't a part of the Elite Guard or Planetary Defense. No one really understood why Sentinel Prime had put him in the Docking hub until they saw how good he was at management and organization. He wasn't much of a fighter."

"He was something of a perfectionist." Elita explained to Teletraan. "He had…" she paused and frowned. "What do humans call it when you have to have everything perfect?"

"I believe the term you are searching for is OCD." Teletraan supplied. Elita looked it up on the Internet internally before smiling.

"Yes, he was most definitely OCD. But he was a very sweet amal; he was one of my good friends before the war broke out."

"What became of him?" Teletraan asked. She could have easily accessed the war databanks on the ship to find out what happened but she wanted to hear it from them. They had been there, they had a firsthand account that databanks could never give. Chromia gave the A.I. a knowing look but let Elita continue on.

"He died in the Simfur bombings; the Docking hub was one of the first places to go. We had had the dark energon come through our systems when the Harbinger space station suffered complete systems failure because of a dark energon explosion; Starscream didn't want Megatron to learn where the dark energon had gone so he decided to wipe out all evidence. The data hadn't been copied and taken to the Hall of Records because Sentinel wanted to keep it hidden as well." Elita's optics went dark for a moment. "Only a handful of workers survived the docking attacks. Bluestar wasn't one of them."

"You didn't survive either." Chromia reminded her softly. Both femmes went silent at their memories of Elita's death in the Simfur bombings.

"What do you mean Elita didn't survive the bombings?" Teletraan asked, sounding confused. "Or are you referring to the other two in her cadre?"

Chromia shook her head. "No, I'm not talking about Elita-Two and Three; I'm talking about this Elita, right here." She gestured to Elita's rose crystal frame.

Elita watched Teletraan's confused expression and the unmistakable light of curiosity in her optics. By her very nature, Teletraan was a being who was always seeking to learn and expound her knowledge.

"Teletraan, would you like to hear the whole story about me and Chromia?"