A little bit past nighttime, but also somewhat bright. The atmosphere was not bright, but the illumination that was oddly protruding into the gray metal streets came from a synthetic source... unquestionably artificial, but served its rudimentary purpose of providing a means of sight. It certainly performed its task admirably, but it was proceeded almost lazily; it seemed to be constructed and now toiling out of meaningless purpose rather than meaningful purposelessness. It was something - just like everything else on Cybertron. It was filled with somethings, someones, somewhen's, somewhy's, and other things. The vague existences that diversified Cybertronian life (if it could be called that, loosely) were just as emptily hollow as the rest of the degenerate, drifting wisps of planetary cosmos. Perhaps that's why the silver cuboid street lamps flashed every so often with an invigorating yellow beam of light. They were trying to fill someone else. They were trying to fill something with purpose.
"Nutty crap," Arcee remarked, idly swatting away a tiny flying wheel that earnestly attempted to scratch through her outer sheathing. "Just pick up the Energon Arcee, pick up the Energon..." she reminded herself. Her blue paint job streamlined by silver alloy covered her body before this task, which was now bathed in all sorts of inter-galactic junk.
Arcee's thoughts were not lost however. Even if she was completely alone in an ovular intersection road, growing irritated from the repeatedly dull clang of her admittedly slender foot as it furiously pounded the frail alloy beneath it, at least the F.L.I.D had taken notice. The First Laboratory Investigative Device had indeed endeavored to burrow its fat spherical body into her much larger knee sprocket, but Arcee took this rather as a sign that Energon was becoming more scarce rather than the ridiculous notion that the idiotic automaton had decided to investigate (she chuckled heartily) her various philosophical proclivities.
"Scrap... scrap... scrap..."
She lamented it, but if she was to be frank with herself, scrounging for spare resources in the middle of a rarely used freeway in extremely myopic conditions was stupidity taken to an unnecessary extreme. The inky dust-fog that had partitioned itself throughout I-Omega was relishing the consequences of its birthing. Arcee could not identify her own metallic phalanges, much less some half-dead bot buried in the middle of nowhere, probably accompanied by another stupid horde of F.L.I.D's.
"Oh, you know, I tried to bite into this fembot's leg today," Arcee mocked, adjusting her voice transmitter to emit a high-pitched, frustratingly squealing form. She pushed aside some more garbage in her so-far fruitless pursuit, feeling revoltingly green liquid seep out from the cracks in the debris, as well as a host of microorganisms pleased to betray their shallow homes.
"I like to eat a lot, because even though I have a small body, I just can't wait but – Umph!"
In her enthusiastic verbal diatribe against the troublesome F.L.I.D, Arcee had failed to observe a massive steel bar blocking her usual gait. The crunch of her much smaller ankle sprocket could be heard as it forcefully smashed into the sternly unforgiving coldness of solid alloy. Arcee, never the most expressive (at least in a positive manner) of Autobots, scrunched her hard features together before finally feeling Cybertron's powerful gravity twist her down into the ground... although she didn't feel her head collide painfully just yet. Instead, she felt a sinking sensation drown her stomach tank as her spatial gears struggled to cope with the unexpected change in direction. After perhaps four solid seconds of silent descent, she finally felt her cranium connect agonizingly with an irregularly shaped object.
"Fuck..." she gasped, sitting up immediately and swiveling her thin arm around to gingerly caress her now swollen head. Light touches, even with her small fingers, yielded bursts of severe discomfort. She rotated her upper torso around, glimpsing with a brief expression of precarious animosity the site of the collision. A minuscule hexagon, clad in fibrous spokes, lay triumphantly beneath her. She gyrated her now warm head sideways, noticing a dimly-lit cyborg clearly devoid of Energon repeat itself with a low-pitched speech.
"Hello! Welcome to Interworld Omega! This is a major crossroads for many a Cyber - "
Arcee pushed herself off the grimy ground and hauled her heaving head with both hands.
"Hello!..."
She brushed off some unkempt soot from her stained elbow.
"Hello!..."
She moved to joyously bring her foot down heavily on the hexagon, savoring the resounding crunch.
"Hello!..."
"Shut the fuck up."
Arcee however, had recognized something whilst cleaning her elbow that was almost immediately astonishing. Moving quickly, she hopped across a particularly hazardous heap of garbage before firmly crouching down to see two cylindrical capsules shining with light blue liquid. She shifted her shoulder slightly forward, activating the blue paneling that bent outward to reveal a bright white light. The light shone strongly on the larger capsule, highlighting the rusted label.
RADIOACTIVE ENERGON. ALL PURPOSE.
"Yes." Arcee victoriously whispered. Two short swipes with her blue claws later, the small capsule found its way into her rugged hands. A few more swipes and both containers were evenly balanced in her palm. She hoisted herself to her feet, clattering her gears in ominous anticipation as the dangerously positioned cylinders wobbled carelessly, rocking back and forth in cyclic torture to Arcee.
"Don't fucking fall, don't fucking fall..." she whispered congenially to the containers, fully aware that she was mouthing expletive-laden command phrases to inanimate objects ignorant of their easily achievable, premature demises.
"All right then," she stated, "time to head off."
With a tremendous effort, she carefully held the containers close to her midsection as the rest of her automated body began the process of transformation. Her torso minimized into a perfectly triangular head, her bottom torso elegantly snapped together and twisted inwards to form the rear of the motorcycle, and finally, the torso spun 360 degrees into its seat mode, as Arcee quickly threw the composite seat belts over the two containers and tightened the fastening securely.
"Hello!..."
Arcee winked at the broken bot with a devilish veracity.
"And... goodbye!"
A burst of speed. The gas pedal had been pressed, or rather stomped, and the blue motorcycle was now bursting across the freeway at an incredible speed. To Arcee, the feeling of accelerating into oblivion was a unique sensation that was built upon by repeated experiences of thrill-seeking. Of course, Optimus had always been quick to note her numerous loose-cannon flaws, but she had never been one to seriously consider the Commander's words. In fact, the more she struggled to think about Optimus' commands, the more she became fully aware of how boring it was, to hear him drone on and on, seemingly with no voice box malfunction, either lauding the values of Cybertronian idealism or perhaps another instance of scolding Bumblebee's rash actions. She would receive the calm but stern speech as well, but her audio receptors stood in defiant refusal rather than placated reception.
The sky was darkening with a vapid aspiration, and the short field of view that Arcee had previously possessed (admittedly still quite limiting) was shortening quickly. The tall alloyed structures that encircled her in a false show of security were absent... nothing pervaded her distanced travel except the darkness of heavy fog. In any case, her navigation system would make quick work of the terrain, but she would have hoped for more visibility in such horrible conditions. With Bumblebee still struggling with his newest spark chamber injury, she felt she had been more obligated to acquire such an arduous task of procuring Energon rather than do it willingly. Cybertron lay eaten and ravaged from centuries of continuous abuse; and, if she attempted to portray honesty, she never envisioned herself returning back here. Of course, the moral instinct and loyalist attitudes sprang up at once in supercilious theatrics, but every so often she could close her optical drives and just keep remembering, drifting into memories and strolling across vivid feelings, skating across a frozen lake of suppressed thoughts.
Memories. Past. Over. Gone...
Just large enough to eclipse the nearly invisible delineation of blue horizon, a building was propped up. It slanted disproportionately sideways, so that the struggling streak of luminescence, spewed by nearby street lamps, sweeped across the structure's jagged exterior. The light bounced off of poorly-cut edges and circled deep fissures that cluttered the craggy exterior. So far, Arcee had felt nothing but a cautious antipathy towards its strange aesthetics. Certainly the circumstances of its erection were dire in nature, but still, the way the cascading gleam leaped from nook to nook, sprinted between cornering terrain made the Autobot Base exude a horrible appearance. The blue light selectively wafted through different portions of the building, giving it a degenerate, almost destroyed disposition. Admittedly, in a sea of identical gray towers it seemed a sort of ghastly refresher, but the interest it spawned was borne out of instinctive fear rather than fascination.
She throttled a bit more. The towering structures to her sides were blurring to a much grander degree; whole former hotels and residences being distorted into a fish-eye lens of random gray shapes. The "Blue Base" (as it was shortly dubbed) expanded and grew, as with every second Arcee sped faster, the Base swelled up like a giant, living Spark.
It was very soon then, when she felt herself screech to a gradual stop, bits of galactic dust, fiery and now awake, flew out from beneath the jet-black tires. She relaxed her lower torso. Intuitively, her legs twisted outwards and armor plating slipped through gaps and began to swathe her knees and thighs. In response, her torso rotated inward, seat belts still held tight against the smooth surface of the blue capsules, as she fully transformed her chest inward and the redundant clinks and clanks of armor retrofitting itself onto a living metalloid fell on deaf ears.
"Scrap," she denoted, unbuckling the seat belts and gently grasping the containers with both hands. It was radioactive Energon of course, which would require a laborious medical treatment procedure for purification. Ratchet was never too keen on this, so she fully expected a justified request for help, most probably from Arcee herself.
The gate, to her slight discontent, remained firmly pressed against the leaden ground. The silver surface remained as worn as ever. Gigantic support bars dotted its sides.
She was sure of it, a covert note had definitely been sent to Wheeljack's office concerning the specifics of the time of her departure and return, but in traditional "Wheel-Jackian" fashion, the note had surely found its way to its grave, discarded without even a brief reading. It might be sagacious to attempt another communicative stance, but it was the recharging period: Bulkhead would not man the Gate for at least another two cycles or so. For brevity's sake, she mulled briefly over remaining outside, but the auspicious nature of her surroundings, thickly still, and implacably symmetric, was unnerving. Skipping over a nearby boulder, she lightly pressed her silver fingers to the edge of the surface.
"Arcee. I.D Number 23949. Returning from Energon scouting."
At best, she had hoped for a vague glittering flash before a green panel would crawl its way out of the solid metal, but no such event occurred.
"Arcee. Requesting immediate entry."
Silver, but no green.
"Arcee. Request permission to recharge so I can finally rest for five fucking minutes."
The silver spray coating groaned as Cybertron's slight tectonic plates shifted to adjust the massive gravitational pull.
Unfortunately, the fail safes were presumably also nonoperational. Her first biased assessment pinned uniform blame on Wheeljack's numerous technological failures, but further analysis made her double back. True, he was responsible for a whole lot more than Gate activation. True, it was a certain period of time that entailed no mandatory help whatsoever. And true, the finished product of ten cycles of continuous recharging was a further delay of two cycles before the guard bots shook their heads out of slumber and eliminated drowsiness. However, she had overlooked a key detail: the Energon capsules. They were not Autobots, they could not autonomously stand upright and demand entry into a private, hidden base. They did, however, possess the incredible power of persuasion. Arcee pinched the ends of blue capsules where the ringed placeholder lay idly, bumping it delicately against the grayed surface.
A din, certainly not a mere sound, screeched in thunderous approval. The Gate's entrenched bottom pushed upwards with an enormous leverage. Rubble and fragments of metal work fell limply to the ground. The creaking noise was nearly unbearably, but the enervating sight of watching a 40 ton "door" defy the laws of Cybertronian physics was pleasing. Just at the very top of the ascension, the screeching waves paused mid-air, gradually fading away into static noise. Arcee was always moderately stunned by the gaping chasm that appeared shortly after the Gate revealed the interior of the Base. A long hallway proceeded to fill her vision, flanked by functioning Energon lamps that gleamed with neutral light... perhaps one of the last remaining sources of truly white light on Cybertron.
Tightly wrapping the capsules around her back via seat belts, she briskly jaunted into the hallway. She had, at most, 20 seconds before it would automatically close and resume its deep trance. The clangs that followed her were no longer present; her foot now made contact with special alloy that produced no sound once touched. Optimus had specified it himself, stating various goals of surreptitiousness, secrecy, among other things. Nevertheless, the privacy was enchanting. And on cue, the expected creaking of closure erupted from behind her, rattling the capsule strongly enough to make Arcee adjust the seat belts more tightly. She was making her way to the right corner of the room, a bland white space that seemed unremarkable at first glance. It bore no distinguishing marks to separate itself from the rest of the white walls, but years of continuous usage of its "features" had driven Arcee to consider its purpose almost subconsciously. She covered the distance in fifteen nanocycles, and began pressing the perpendicular edges in five. A rumbling noise could be audibly detected, and systematically, the rest of the white lamps began to flicker out and depower... in contrast to the corner Arcee was occupying, which was shining fiercely. The walls collapsed inwards, surrounding Arcee and increasing the pressure locally. The top sealed itself off. She turned to look at her feet, noting their lateral movements apart as the floor methodically split in half, tearing away at her foothold and eventually, her standing area. She closed her optical drives for this next part, as the swishing noises of tube dynamics and pressurized air whizzed past her head, sometimes inspiring fear, and at other times, curiosity. The rapid fall slowed a little, and her feet found solid ground once again.
"Bitch."
Arcee craned her neck sideways to again glance at the capsules, which remained obediently strapped to her back. The white room was now part of her memory core; now, she stood in a much more confusing area. Pathways littered the massive open space she currently resided in. The white light was still here, but doted out in far smaller quantities; bits of it breathing life into signs overlooking the branching pathways, and others positioned just above her head. She completely disregarded the bulky figure, a massively lopsided form livid with rage, shuffling in front of her.
"Easy," she acquiesced, privately reasoning that she hated awakening mid-recharge. "I didn't expect anyone to hear." She grinned widely at the figure. "Especially not you, Bulkhead."
Bulkhead scratched at his deformed green temple impatiently. "The Shoot makes a hell of a sound coming down," he defended. "But Primus' luck, only I got up. Had to walk a bit, but I probably need it anyway..." Bulkhead rubbed at his bulging midsection, sides decorated with white burn marks.
"Why do they call it the 'Shoot' anyway?" she probed, easing her way past Bulkhead's irritated state with a certain degree of trepidation. "It doesn't shoot you anywhere. It transports a bot from point A to point B, via a tube."
"Yeah," the green Autobot scorned, snorting slightly but habitually with his large, overlapping jaw. His teeth unveiled their hideous forms to Arcee, who recoiled a bit. "Go tell Boss Bot that."
Arcee felt her neuron drive clatter inside of her head with confounding astonishment.
"He's... still awake?" she asked, perplexed.
"Last time I checked, yeah," Bulkhead responded, shifting around his huge backside and turning it to face Arcee. He ignored her poorly suppressed giggle, but his fading steps made Arcee feel unexpectedly affected.
"Wait," she called out, earning his bemusement as he turned around. "want to just stay and chat a while?"
Bulkhead grunted a bit violently. He took his best shot at verbalizing an expletive, but clearly lost energy and drive mid-proclamation and resumed his normal pace towards the left-most pathway. The glowing letters "Recharging Stations" dotted the sign hung above the entryway.
Arcee chuckled, but promptly frowned. She wasn't exactly sure why she chose to conceal her discovery of new Energon from Bulkhead, and the fact that she had indirectly assured herself of its safety whilst talking to him was disheartening. He had seen her, surely, glancing at her back midway through talking. But she had relied on Bulkhead's fatigued processor and his current annoyance level to spare her from further questioning, or even worse, compliments. In actuality, she was never the prominent bot for Energon scouting - usually, that task would fall to Bumblebee or Sideswipe. But Optimus had informed of her task in a different manner. His breath was hushed, his voice emitter resonated with a quiet, urgent whisper, and the request came from pleading retinal sensors.
She headed for the middle corridor, overseen by the words "Watchtower Lookout". She knew he would be there. Maybe by choice or by procedural habit, but the Commander, when in emotional turmoil or philosophical thoughts, would retreat to the relative solitude of the Watchtower.
She halted her steps before stepping into the archway. Vague, flashing images of Chicago burning, Autobot ships flying, and people... people could be remembered. A dull whirr in her left elbow motor commenced as she tilted her forearm up and down, visualizing a Spark feebly beeping on and off.
She crushed her hand. Painful sensations from metalloid fibers arose at once, but it could not compare to... now. So she would ignore it. Just as she had always done.
. . .
"Just a bit more Starscream..."
A perpetual silence erupted.
"STARSCREAM!"
The three-story tall Transformer struggled to his feet.
"What now?" he asked. "Master." The last word was inflected with a bitter, sarcastic mockery.
Megatron brushed an uneasy hand shakily over his dull features. His normally red-eyed glare was growing dimmer now, the constant indignation being thrown his way tiring him fully.
"Starscream," the Decepticon repeated with emphasis, "This boulder is far too large for me to shoulder alone."
Starscream huffed and placed his hip motor lazily on the support beam. Even if the local mines had been toiling to scour for spare spaceships, he knew fully fell that this particular mine was utterly useless. Its interior was bland and crack-worthy, and so far he had noticed no breaking of structure, no diversion in the rubble, and no giant spaceship buried away in this wretched asteroid.
"It's not here you stupid moron," Starscream bluntly suggested. "This whole damn cave is filled with nothing but fecal matter!"
Megatron blinked his optical drives twice, once for the insult, and twice for the unusual substance Starscream claimed was in here.
"Shit you fool! Actual shit in this hole!"
"Starscream..." Megatron advised, relenting to finally separate himself from the massive rock blocking his path to another unexplored tunnel. "The ancients used these tunnels for centuries... often as transport. We would most certainly find something or another in here - "
"That's what you've been saying for the last ten solar cycles!" the angrily purple fighter plane raged. "That's what you'll keep saying for the next thousand!"
The older Decepticon scratched the back of his chiseled dome as light dust began to accumulate on top of his head. The inner biology of this cave was... disgusting, to say the least. At least the others had a lone streak of fire burning in a corner. Or perhaps, they possessed a quiet solace. Here, only dark brown walls and a rugged floor bumped into the two Decepticons, fueling their mutual discontent. Their was a glowing entrance above them, but the cavity was too far away to provide any artifical hope anyway.
"There were times," Megatron reunified, "when I had more respect coming my way." The last two words were punctuated strongly, and eloquently elongated.
"I'll try and find someone who can cry for you," Starscream retorted, before stomping off into a local corner and resuming his power-cycle. The again-free snoring engine began to rumble.
Megatron watched Starscream's heaving midsection with a blank expression. At first, he grappled with the notion of disrupting the huge stone from its delicate equilibrium and gleefully follow its heavy walk towards himself. First it would crush his legs, tear through his hip flexor, then finally squish his oblong Spark with a phenomenal concision. He wouldn't even be conscious by the time it greeted his frontal lobe. And what a spectacular greeting that would be...
Then another more primal sentiment seized him. This feeling was fiery and controlling, willing to conquer and kill.
"Master, please... enough... I will follow their ship the next time Master! I will! I promise!"
The whimpering bot fell silent as another spike was thrusted forcefully through his knee servo, as a distant "squelch" was audible. A scream was attempted, but the silence proved to be far more formidable.
"I want you to learn Starscream..." the gruff voice commanded, casting a massive, jagged shadow over the squealing robot. "I want you to know the manifestation of consequence..."
A second spike's piercing propulsion followed. No yelling was attempted.
"I... I..." the bot repetitively stated, his voice box clearly jamming from overuse.
"There is no 'I' Starscream," the voice corrected, almost patronizingly.
The wailing bot's head quivered.
"... only me."
Squelch.
He laughed a bit. Just before he was laboriously explaining to Starscream that the boulder was too large to be moved alone, and then he had stupidly made plans to shift it on top of himself in a dramatic statement. Now... he could only think of more squelching. Bad ideas, negative thoughts, and overall depression in general was far more common (more common than he would like), an effect preceded by a lack of authority. Megatron shivered from the thought of returning back to Home Net with yet another disappointing report. His metallic surface protested immediately, the strain of continuous physical labor desensitizing the motors and draining the Spark. For now, this pathway would remain as mysterious as he had discovered it. Lugging Starscream back to Home Net was a worthy cause, and a goal that would certainly leave him with enough shame to last him an eon.
"Starscream," Megatron drowsily communicated, "off your rear port. We're going back."
The heaving stomach quelled for a moment. Starscream anxiously sat up.
"Great!"
Megatron scoffed privately at the ridiculous affirmation. "Transform, and rise - "
"Shut up," Starscream cut him off.
With a fleeting glimpse at the frustrated, larger Decepticon, Starscream bent his neck preternaturally backwards, collapsing it into his back. His lower half combined together and rolled into each other, swiveling majestically into his torso, which had by now folded inwards. A pointed fighter plane cockpit reared its head from the front portion of the chest, and the now fully-formed military aircraft displaced sand and intergalactic dust as it rose sharply into the air with a booming echo. It zoomed into the glowing cavity, eventually fading out of sight.
Megatron, put off by his former 2nd in Command's leading behavior, leaped into the air. His legs, in contrast to Starscream, split apart and joined his arms. The combined force found its way into the sides of his chest, which was quickly lengthening itself. His head was swarmed by a plethora of glass shielding, which smoothly fell over the radius of his cranium's range of motion. His form, of course, was still true to Cybertronian specifications. Following Starscream, (he almost vomited at the thought) he burst upward, reaching and surpassing the golden entry.
The golden hue was merely a facade however, as the overwhelming darkness rotated around him almost instantaneously. He looked backwards, observing with relish as the cave grew smaller and smaller until it was rendered completely nonexistent. Eventually he saw the rest of the burrowed caves vanish. Frontward, the silky form of Starscream was still racing upwards. He had not quite adjusted to the odd gravitational situation quite yet... several times he had to institute it into his memory core that proceeding upwards lead to the Home Net, while proceeding downwards led to the Mines. They were both asteroids, of course, but while Home Net was snugly stuffed into the topmost asteroid, the Mines were crammed into the bottom-most asteroid. One was for luxury, while the other again inspired projectile gagging.
Looking sideways, Megatron saw exactly what he expected to see, but it irked him nonetheless. A dull gray sphere, distant but shining adamantly, rotated endlessly.
Cybertron...
How miserable was it, he thought, that he lay so close to his home, his true home, only to relive a never-ending exile status on these two, bloated pieces of floating garbage. The asteroid he resided in was merely a fraction of Cybertron's impressive size, and its population 3 times greater... and twice as stupid.
Starscream increased his speed a little, and Megatron adjusted to fit his query. The central entry to Home Net was more visible now, with the numerous gray craters spanning the entirety of Home Net's asteroid residence practically visually announcing their presence. Entry was loose terminology at best. To be more accurate, it resembled a giant hole... pushed right through the center of the asteroid. In the asteroid, where he knew branching homes, supply ways, and entire civilizations lived, he knew he had one more chance. One more chance to talk about...
"Pay attention old man."
Megatron wished he could shoot Starscream out of space right then and there. If only his plasma cannon was operational...
Soon, the surrounding rock formations that comprised the interior of Home Net eclipsed their flight, and now the circular view of the Asteroid containing the Mines was shrinking behind them. Blurring homes and rough societies passed by in a visual dance of nebulous, monochromatic color. Starscreeam veered off to the right, and Megatron followed suit, although justifying it as instinct rather than obedience. He had returned back to the Docking Station numerous times... with numerous failed reports. Starscream reversed his transformation process and landed squarely on both feet on an elevated rock formation. A bustling crowd of bots below him ignored this arrival completely. Megatron landed right next to Starscream, also reversing the transformation process.
"We should probably clean this up more..." Starscream noted, observing the rich stalactite formation and pointed rock jettisons dotting both the rock floor and ceiling. It was a cave as well, but it was a brown space littered with hurrying Decepticons, rushed movement, overlapping noises, and a fiendish aura of complete confusion.
"Hold on..." Megatron started, pushing Starscream aside and bending over the edge of their elevated platform.
"FELLOW DECEPTICONS!"
Starscream let out a brutal chortle as the crowd continued to produce a constant, unrecognizable conversation noise. The topmost tubing in Megatron's crown throbbed painfully.
"DECEPTICONS!"
The crowd below Megatron unanimously silenced their idle chatter before rhythmically turning their heads of all shapes and sizes to gawk at the distant Decepticon. Megatron, startled by the unforseen but rapt attention given, took several seconds to carefully organize his thoughts. Some remote bleating arose underneath the elevated rock, pressuring its speaker far more.
"I am known for giving this oratory method often - " Megatron began.
"Fuck off old man!"
"Shut the hell up!"
"Kick your own rear drive Mister!"
"Bollocks!"
"Where is the spaceship?"
Several stones whizzed at Megatron, who in his temporary trance-like state induced by the varied insults utilized by the crowd, failed to notice them collide fruitfully with his head. Sparks clashed as the rocks chipped off the worn metal exterior.
"I wasn't able to - "
A brief pause. Stones gradually drifted downwards and generously landed on Megatron's feet rather than his skull. Relieved at the show of mercy, the tall Decepticon re-energized and muttered a clearly restrained honesty.
"... procure any spaceships."
This was a mistake however, as repeated thunks followed as the rocks soared back to life, clashing with Megatron's browed ridge and nasal drive. Blue Energon seamlessly dripped downward, spattering the cold floor with dashes of watery artwork.
"Please... we must go back to Cybertron... we must - "
A significant portion of the crowd guffawed derisively.
"You always say that!"
"We can't leave our homes back here!"
"Trying to take back Cybertron is suicide!"
Megatron was now profusely drained of Energon, collapsing to his knees and coughing bitterly. Another stream of Energon poured from his lower lip.
"Please! Listen to me for just one moment!"
The stones still chipped away. Starscream's retreating footsteps could be heard.
"Just one moment... that is all - "
The stones continued to fall, perhaps chipping away at something far more valuable than metal armor.
. . .
As she strolled noiselessly through the brilliantly shining corridor, Arcee took the time to gingerly stroke the amber walls flanking her, soak in the aromatic texture of the comfortingly soft microfiber supporting her walk, and earnestly search for Optimus Prime. The elevator that transported to the Watchtower was only fifteen steps away, but each pace closer shook her with temporal unease. Optimus' reserved disposition did nothing to help the matter... far too often she had, while conversing with him, strived to see him laugh. The chief trouble was, however, that regardless of the well-executed puns she would toss his way, subtle innuendos and occasionally even the odd toilet humor, his silvery complexion never once changed. It remained static and rigid, forever locked in a blank state of complete neutrality... a stupid limbo state.
The elevator had approached rather too quickly for her to finish her thoughts, but she nevertheless strained to tear the two interlocked metal doors away from each other. Stepping in, she turned around and found the moldy control panel. Only one destination was labeled, and her finger rapidly depressed the matching button. A surging movement shifted upwards, and her spatial gears adjusted to fit the gravitational launch skyward. Arcee idly twiddled her thumbs while rocking back and forth, making sure to avoid physical contact with the rest of the horrid transport system. Some things, such as Bulkhead's empty but putrid snacks was all together tolerable (at least after shutting down one's central processor). Other bits, such as rusting F.L.I.D's, Ratchet's bloodstained tools forgotten permanently on the floor, and a peculiar mossy yellow stain covering half of the back wall was more gag-worthy.
The elevator slowed to a complete stop. Arcee witnessed her query just fifty strides away from her. Thankful to exit, she made as much an effort as possible to loudly jaunt all the way to the Commander's presence. This meeting in particular felt more light-hearted. The elevation of the Tower was in the pathway of a flowing breeze wading through, and the temperature had cooled to a sufficient degree. The top floor itself was spare in ornamentation, seldom for the blue and red Autobot perched on top of one of the peaks directly above the Gate.
"Yes?"
Optimus turned to face her. Arcee was again disappointed to see the face plate covering his lower features, and his breaths coming out in controlled, but highly unvaried tones.
"You could have opened the Gate for me," Arcee sarcastically indicated, motioning for Optimus to slide over ten feet so she could also sit down. He hesitated at first, but felt pressured to commit to her request. "I was freezing."
"Hmmm..." he broke off, staring at the two distant asteroids. "I see."
"Um... no, you didn't. Well, not me at least."
It was overly hopeful, perhaps even childish, to expect even a half-hearted grin. Optimus echoed her presumptions, giving no response whatsoever.
"You should stop staring at them, you know," she scooted a bit closer to his massive torso. She grapsed the side of his aged head and forced it to face her. "They're just asteroids."
"Yes... they are."
"Do you want to be alone?"
Optimus sighed vastly, the transparent chest windows stretching under the tension of drawing breath. His red forearms waved a bit dramatically in the air.
"I - " he waved his forearms again, in an awkward circling manner. " - have no preference in the matter."
"Fuck!"
Arcee jumped as another F.L.I.D had unsuccessfully rammed itself into her already tender knee sprocket. Her fingers retracted inwards, and a golden razor shot outwards... and directly into the estimated Spark Chamber of the F.L.I.D. The buzzing fat body powered down immediately.
"Language, Arcee..." Optimus wearily groaned.
"Right, right..." she lied, ignoring his plea unabashedly.
She hummed an old melody for a while, taking chances randomly to look at him, with his knees still hanging limply over the fort's perch, his lower legs dangling whilst his upper body curved inward. His back was sloped oddly, and had lost the strong posture it had once possessed. He seemed to almost be crushing himself inward, deliberately trying to squish himself into a ball.
"What's this?" he broke the silence, extending his comparatively much larger finger to poke Arcee's neck, although the tip pointed upward at the back of her head.
"Oh, that?" she asked, bemused. "I just fell on some stupid thing while getting... THIS!"
She felt she proclaimed it too loudly, but was excited like a giddy school girl attending her first day in the Autobot Academy. Whipping out the dual Energon flasks, she proudly extended them both to Optimus. He eyed the dancing liquid for a moment.
"Keep it."
She narrowed her eyes at him, his slumped posture starting to annoy her.
"You asked me to get it for you."
"For the general welfare of the Autobot community," he reprimanded.
"Same shit."
His head drooped downwards. She snickered a bit.
"How about this?" she proposed, eyeing his disinterested features with careful patience. "I stop swearing, and you stop moping."
"I, I - "
His random pronouns were something at least. Arcee nudged him with her elbow, the soft metal clinking as it only minutely shifted the much larger frame.
"We are running low Arcee..."
Arcee sniffed, adjusting herself so her small hands wound itself tightly around her body.
"Everybody knows that Optimus," she warned. "It's not a surprise."
"No, I mean..." he looked at her with musing retinas. "We are always running low."
"Things have... well, moved on Optimus. Changed. Our life is... well, malleable now."
He snorted.
"And what did it used to be?"
She observed him quietly. His back was straighter and the posture for positioned for her, but this attention was for a reason that she loathed.
"I won't lie..." she began, earning at long last, a half-hearted chuckle from his still-covered lower mouth. "It was a lot better."
"Remember the daily drives with Sam?" Optimus invited Arcee to remember, "Usually he would go with Bumblebee. On some days when his schooling was complete or college or whatever education institution he was attending... he would ride with me. Him and his romantic partner... I can't recall her name."
"First it was Mikaela," Arcee informed. "Then it was Carly."
"Yes... yes... sometimes I could watch them for hours on end, engaging in random, childish acts, running across to hug each other, watching sunsets, people, other humans..."
Arcee felt her throat's sensitive lining tighen, and by the looks of it, Optimus' was too.
"Optimus..." she begged. "Thinking of memories is stupid."
"Then why do we keep them?" he countered, almost in a demanding gaze. "Why do I keep them?"
She honestly felt she had no answer to supply.
"Chicago and Earth are behind you now... behind us now," she reminded him. "Cybertron is what we have now. Don't you want to make the best of what we have now?"
"And what do we have now?" he again fired back, his normally steady pitch becoming alarmingly deeper. "Reduced to hungry scavengers? Looking through garbage..."
"Technically, I looked, not you..."
Optimus closed his eyes, clearly annoyed.
"I had several duties to perform so that prevented me from successfully aiding you in - "
"Yeah, yeah, no worries Boss Bot."
Arcee looked at his his square face again. His lower jaw plating was beginning to seem highly unnecessary.
"Why do you keep your old Earth form?" she gently inquired. "All of us have switched out by now."
"Because," he began solemly. "this form," he stuck a silver finger to his rimmed torso.
"What?" she pressed on.
"It keeps me close to them. To Earth. To the past."
She looked at her knees, desperate for an escape route.
"Before..."
"That's enough," she cut him off. "You've said quite a mouthful."
And he complied. The wind was slowing down again, so the former chilling breeze was leaving the two Autobots and thus, tiring their joy and emotional resilience. Uncannily, the distant asteroids brightened a bit. The full night atmosphere had set in... inky black fog shrouded their sight, surrounding them in a tent of pure blindness. Optimus kept staring catatonically at the distant asteroids, to Arcee's slight disdain.
"Reminds me of the Moon... if it was split in half..."
"Lower your face plate," she commanded, "you look old with the face plate on."
Surprisingly, the lower hinged metal sunk in. The grayed features were only partly tarnished. They had lost their former luster, but the carved definition was still there. So Arcee clung onto that hope.
"Can I sit here with you, or do you want me back inside?" she repeated from her previous request.
Optimus slumped once again, tilted his massive head downwards, and let his blue spiked antennas vibrate idly against the frosty weather. He placed his hands on his knees, admiring his lower legs dangling carelessly over the edge of the top of the Gate.
"If you can, please do."
Ideally, she would have pushed further and open him up significantly more, but her neural processors instinctively guided her. That would be tomorrow's job. For now, she would sit with him. He would most likely not return to his dormitory until early morning, when every bot would have finished recharging, but that was fine with her. She would stay as long as he would. She did not need to hold his hand, stroke his face consolingly, or even offer verbal comfort. She knew that her presence lightened him. That was enough.
It was amusing really. It was humorous to note how in the infinite pursuit of thoughts large and rough, that Cybertronian philosophers had missed out on the incalculable value of the small and the soft.
A/N
Hello! I always thought the Transformers Universe deserves a nice, allegorical and "deep" representation of realistic life... for robots that could walk and talk. This would mean actually picturing what would happen to an entire society of autonomous robots that actually live out life! How would it be structured? How emotional will it be? How will the drama be created? All of this is explored in the fic... at least, I have plans to!
This is mostly likely to be a really loooooooooong fic, with a sustained, slow-burning narrative (although I'll mix in a nice blend of action as well), deep character relationships, and mature themes. Nothing excessively graphic or salacious, but certainly I'll touch upon more complex themes that can only be explored under the "M" rating!
If you've read any of my previous stories, you'll know that I will modify a lot to fit my reader's suggestions! So R/R, review, and enjoy the fic!
~Frax (cool pseudonym)
P.S: If you do choose to give feedback... How's the chapter length? Style? Anything to improve? General suggestions? Anything at all? LOL :)