Remnant of Perfection

Chapter 1: Julian Star

A/N: I just want to give a big thanks to my beta Dinogrrl, your cultural notes were so very helpful. Also I'm going to try and update this about every week. I'm hopeful. There's also some supplemental material (soundtrack, artwork, etc) here (take spaces out where necessary): desertcastle. piczo. com /remnanthome

There was never a more beautiful place to be, the sky was unbelievably clear, a corona shining brightly around the moon and the stars shimmering in the sky. The only comparable place for Messina Leading would have been on CA-1 on a partly cloudy day. Even that had a hard time holding up to what she would see once she exited the small mountain pass and began to descend into the valley. Her visit to the small historian's club had been very pleasant but they always were happy to have her up to discuss things. It was late though and she would be very happy once she finally made it back to her small home. But there was an odd pitch to the car and Messina would never in her life ignore a possible ailment in her beloved vehicle so she had to investigate. As she came around a bend in the road she spotted the old Cliffhanger restaurant which was still closed for renovations. They had been working on repairs the past few times she had driven by even using floodlights on cloudy days and dark evenings to continue their work for the closely approaching reopening. It was empty though, later than the time pressed owner liked to keep at repairs and made it the perfect spot in Messina's mind to stop. After parking in the small lot she snuck into the restaurant and ferreted out the light, making sure to plug it in before taking it out to her car.

But she stopped at the threshold, simply amazed at an incredibly bright light that had appeared in the sky. "But the papers didn't mention any comets or meteors..." she muttered while standing transfixed, something not letting her budge as she watched the light grow brighter and larger. A few moments later she realized that the meteor was going to land incredibly close, and that it was possible it would damage her car. And that wouldn't be good, she cried if so much as her car's paint got scratched. And she was quite proud of how well she had ghost painted the phoenix on the hood, the reddish purple and gold partially made visible from the glow of the city below hitting it at just the right angle. Before she could move though, a piercing screech filled the air which caused her to double over, an explosion occurring but a few yards in front of her. Dust and shrapnel flew past her, stinging her eyes, a piece of twisted metal slamming firmly into her shoulder and cutting deeply.

"Hephaestus!"

The first thing she could think of wasn't her own injury, not that something had obviously exploded; the only thing she could think of was her beloved Corvette. The dust settled slowly in the warm summer's night, barely delaying her discovery of what she feared most. Her car was completely totalled, what she could only deem a right ugly space loogie sat atop the majority of the remains of her freshly painted Corvette though several chunks of fibreglass and ancient computer gadgetry had impaled themselves in the landscape and building.

"No." She shook her head. "No... No, no, no!"

Each utterance of the word became more strained with the horror of what had just happened, tears streaming forth readily. She couldn't even approach the remnants of the old car, her knees buckled underneath her each time she tried to step closer to free the poor dear of the large meteorite sitting atop it.

She never suspected the offending space detritus to move in anyway by itself, and especially not for it to shift and transform. Within moments a several story tall robot-like thing stood before her, destroying even more of what was left of her car. The looming creature was simply staring at her, making no move to apologize, not even step off of her poor automobile. It didn't pass through her mind that whatever was atop the remains of her once beautiful machine probably did not realize what it had done. To her the fact that this creature was obviously not just a rock made it completely responsible for its offense whether or not it in any way could understand what it had done. And really she had no thoughts of self preservation either as it didn't matter that the thing could step on her and kill her, the shock of it all focussed her on the loss of her car.

"You killed Hephaestus! You bastard, you horrid piece of junk, you decimated my beloved Hephaestus!" She wanted to continue berating the strange thing in front of her but her voice gave out as a second wave of tears hit full force and choked her up, sending her from on her knees to beating her fist to the ground as she collapsed forward. Her heart was torn into ever tinier pieces as she spoke what she had hoped was not really real. She had hoped that maybe she was just nodding off, maybe she'd gone off the road and hit a guardrail. That wouldn't be too hard to fix, not at all. But she knew that truly her car had just met a new form of total loss.

A few more guttural sounds escaped her throat as tears sprang forth easily. She couldn't take it, her car meant the world to her and she didn't even care that she was effectively stranded in the mountains with something completely unknown staring at her. She couldn't begin to process that because every time she thought of the odd spectre it just slammed home the fact that it was standing on what was for the most part left of the car she loved and spent the better part of five years restoring. She curled up in the restaurant's door frame, bawling her heart out and hoping that whatever it was would be hostile and would promptly put her out of her misery.

"J-just kill me too!" She rasped out in her fit of misery. "J-just kill me t-too."

The idea that the car she had worked so hard to save up for then repair had been taken from her in such a horrid manner was too much for her. She felt as if a husband or close friend had been murdered in front of her. She couldn't imagine life without it. Him.


Tracks stood completely perplexed. Planet fall had been... rough, he'd landed on some decidedly not empty piece of soil and now one of the locals he'd been trying to avoid until he got a suitable disguise seemed to have been injured as well if her severe show of distress was any indication. He didn't want to have the poor little thing shut down just because atmospheric interference had wrought havoc on a few of his landing system. The things looked decidedly fragile, their lack of any outer armouring to protect their weaker workings and their small size seemed like a great risk if her leaking shoulder was any indication. Without at least a moderate amount of aid he figured it might be severely at risk for a system failure so he decided to scan an alternate mode quickly and deposit her at one of the numerous medical buildings in the vicinity as shown by a map from their data network.

But there was nothing to scan. Nothing on his radar even except the remains of what he had landed in. Glancing at the shrapnel he couldn't help but feel a bit bad, his processor was able to piece together parts of the dark blue vehicle and it had been positively pleasing to the optic sensors. He then spied a small slightly singed wood paste booklet resting safely in a piece of dark sturdy looking plastic which announced itself to be a "82 Corvette Owner's Manual". The most interesting note being written below the title listing several schematic drawings which supposedly covered every bit of the car. A quick search on their data network for the title delivered an electric version which he was able to download and scan through. The schematics from the book in combination with the partially intact paint on the wreckage provided enough to go off of.

To be honest it felt kind right when he shifted into his new alternate mode and he thought that perhaps this form was better than his alternate Cybertronian form. It certainly was aerodynamic and most definitely shapely.

But he had other priorities at the moment, the small organic creature had sputtered some more and continued shaking, completely oblivious to Tracks's new look. He doubted scooping her up and racing down the mountainside to the local college's medical facilities (which the map had said was the closest) would do more than put her more at risk for expiration. He needed to calm her down which he doubted he could do but she needed to be a bit more stable or else transport might do as much harm as good. "You need medical attention." He said, the engine rumbled melodically as he rolled over to the distraught little thing.

Her head tilted up, eyes widening as her mind still clouded but registered that the car she had just seen destroyed was now pristine in front of her again. "Heph... Sweetheart!" She crawled forward, collapsing against the quarter panel. But then she spotted the debris from her automobile and pushed a bit away from the unsullied copy.

"No, I believe the detritus around us is the 'Heph' you mean. I am an autonomous robotic life form from the planet Cybertron, my designation is Tracks." She fell backwards, eyes wide. It... It had just spoken? That meant it was in fact sentient, culpable.

That silent shock didn't last long though. "You sound pretty high tech."

A confirming noise came from within the pseudo-car.

"Then why the hell can't you have landed a few yards either way? Fucking high tech my ass!" She leaned forward and beat her fists on the decidedly more sturdy and not fibreglass quarter panel. She wasn't going to give this 'Tracks' a moment to interject.

"You've obliterated my Hephaestus!" She slammed her fists on him again.

"Seven years of my life down the drain!" Smack!

"And now I'm completely stranded!" Slam!

She couldn't help but break into tears again, collapsing once more against the alien posing as a Corvette.


"I am truly sorry about what has happened to your automobile, perhaps I can assist in transporting you and your vehicle's remains to your residence?" He should have been more careful in his approach of the planet, and he could delay in finding Optimus Prime to help out a local whom he had troubled in the first place. The transmission had said the Decepticons had been defeated, and if this was going to be their new home, temporary or otherwise, it would do well to interact in a positive way with the local inhabitants.

The small human stood up, shaky but able to. A good sign as to its chances of survival. "Oh, then what?" Her voice was very high in tone and just as unstable as her legs seemed to be. "I'll be stranded there not even able to fetch replacement parts for the repair work! If I'm even going to be able to repair this mess!"

Surely the most basic of repairs to get her vehicle road worthy would not take more than a few solar cycles. Even this scattered jigsaw puzzle wasn't that much of a mess to Tracks, and he didn't even specialize in repair work. "I am completely willing to assist with that for as long as it takes to get your vehicle into basic working order again." Tracks said, hoping his calm demeanor would spread to her.

It seemed to. She was looking at him with widened eyes, her voice small in her reply, "Really?"

He gently revved the engine of his new earth form as an affirmative.

"That's a stand up thing to do Tracks." She said after a moment, shakily standing and dusting herself off. "I guess the first thing to do would be to transport as much of this mess back to my house as we can. I can't afford to replace everything." She surveyed the open area where everything was scattered, and let out a low whistle. Her mouth shifted into a new expression, a smile his search told him. "And I bet meteors fall into the Act of God clause of my insurance."

Her words puzzled him but if nothing else she seemed in a better condition than she had previously been. It was a start.