Hello! It's Princess Marigold back at y'all again! Hope y'all enjoy the story, and remember I do NOT in fact own Transformers. :)
Silverbolt looks out over the plains from his seat upon the Ark's thrusters.
He's still furious at his brothers, and doesn't even notice the menacing clouds gathering nearby.
"What happened?" Surprisingly, Mirage is the one to ask the question.
Silverbolt had never actually been introduced to the spy, but the invisibility-able speedster has a reputation.
Mirage is ridiculously tiny compared to Silverbolt, even with Silverbolt's t-cog dropping his height forty feet, because a hundred and sixty feet is still gigantic compared to twenty.
"... Where do I even begin!? Air Raid duct taped by the aft to the ceiling, Skydive crashing into a canyon after trying to replicate some bird, Fireflight nearly taking out the closest forest, Slingshot... Don't even start me on Slingshot!" Silverbolt buries his face in his servos, his frame slumping miserably.
"Duct taped to the-?" Mirage gives one of his rare smiles at that thought.
"Well... The twins..." Silverbolt just cycles his intakes, still unsure where to begin.
Mirage doesn't say anything else, waiting to see if Silverbolt will elaborate.
It's so hard to remember most of the time that the Aerialbots are just barely a couple of weeks old. Well, for the other Aerialbots it's a lot easier. Silverbolt seems to have knowledge far beyond his years, and seems to never get a break with everything going on.
Mirage would almost pity the gestalt commander, if there wasn't a war going on. Though if there wasn't a war going on, nobody on the Ark would be in this predicament in the first place.
"Air Raid got the amazing idea to insult Sunstreaker's alt mode, landing him in the medbay, missing several parts, and... his aft in the... ceiling." Silverbolt falters at the gruesome image.
"Oh." Mirage had been expecting something more lighthearted than that.
"So now all of my brothers are in the med bay. And they're whiny." Silverbolt says, even as Slingshot insists through the spark bond, that he, in fact, is not whiny, and Silverbolt needs to get his scanners rechecked.
"Hm... Well that's unfortunate." Silverbolt looks over at Mirage uncertainly, before looking away again.
The clouds lighten up somewhat as Silverbolt forces himself to change topic, still not a paying a byte of attention to the weather, not realizing it was important in any way.
"We supposed to go to a high school in Texas tomorrow, to tell the humans attending what to do in case of a Decepticon attack, but now... I guess I'm on my own." Silverbolt sounds uneasy.
"You seem to be fine on your own." Mirage ventures.
"I am... I had just counted on them being there. They messed up my speech."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, but I guess I'll be fine." Silverbolt sounds so much like a youngling in that moment it takes everything in Mirage's power not to affectionately cuddle and assure Silverbolt.
No wonder Skyfire's basically taken them in as his own. The Aerialbots seem to somehow (re in some situations) activate long-forgotten carrier programming.
"I'm sure you will be." Mirage keeps his heavily guarded expression, but he can't do anything to keep away the sparkle in his optics.
"Hm." The two sit in silence for a while, before Silverbolt shifts and decides to speak up again.
"So... What's it like? Having a special power I mean."
"My invisibility? Hmm... I can't say."
"I mean... People respect you for it, right? Nobody... Discarded you because..."
"Primus no!" Mirage exclaims, not sure whether he should be offended or laugh or cry.
"Okay."
"What brought that obscure thought to mind?"
"I... I don't know." Silverbolt responds honestly, sunlight finally peeking through the clouds, as bright as the shame burning on Silverbolt's cheeks.
"Hah, well, Hound is dragging me on one of his "adventures" this afternoon, so I must bid you farewell." Mirage says smoothly, not bothering to hide his disgust at the prospects of his off time.
"I hope you have a good time." Silverbolt grins hopefully.
"I won't, but thank you anyways." Usually Mirage would have said that dripping with sarcasm, but with someone so young and naive, he can't even be rude.
Oh how he misses his little brother...
#$%&
Silverbolt transforms and lands with a thud in the wide expanse of parking lot before walking towards the football field.
According to what Powerglide had said, the football field had been built too small to house all of the fans of the school's well known football team, only having one side of bleachers.
In the meantime, marching band uses it for practice, as do the football players, and there's a well used track that circles the field.
One team is using the track right now, and stops to state at him as he carefully makes gid way over, trying his best not to smoosh anything.
He offers a small smile and wave as he continues to ease his way over.
In order for there to be enough room, he'll be sitting in the football field to give his speech.
He's ten minutes early, just as he had planned, so he makes himself comfortable as the coach yells at the teens to start running again.
His optics offline as he searches for his brothers, making sure to keep his other sensors on in case if anyone wanting to "make sure it's alive". That had been an unfortunate incident.
Fireflight's doing puzzles, Slingshot's complaining, Air Raid is trying to sneak out to no success, and Skydive's reading. Silverbolt let's the words his brother is processing wash over him, seeing exactly what Skydive is.
It's an interesting story apparently about two women in Scotland, obviously somewhere eighteen hundreds. They had lost their husbands due to them fighting for the "rightful" king instead of the current one, and had been wealthy, but now are penniless and depending upon the mother-in-law's cousin, Anne, to take them in.
Suddenly the bell rings and he refocuses his optics. Kids flood the field and stare like fish, eyes and mouths wide.
He doesn't bother to acknowledge them, instead rereading his speech.
Teachers prod students on to find places to sit, and Kaos reigns.
Suddenly one student makes eye contact with him, before glancing away and blushing, holding her sketchbook close to her chest as she sits next to a blonde boy much shorter than her.
He scans her and files away her data to look for later, before starting.
#$%&
Nobody had counted on the actual Decepticon attack. It was a good thing Silverbolt had finished instructing them on what to do.
But when the Decepticons mercilessly killed a girl, picking her up and messing her up.
Her bloody broken body will forever be burned into Silverbolt's optics. The lost scream. The last moment of panic. Her last breath. Never to make another memory. Never to return hone to a waiting family. Their agony when they receive the news.
Skywarp picks up another girl, most definitely breaking bones with the harshness of the action.
Before Slywarp can do anything else, Silverbolt sees red.
#$%&
"Wh-where am I?" Silverbolt questions groggily.
"Wow doc must gave the good dampeners on." A distant voice comments.
"Wh-what happened?"
"Just wake up a little Silverbolt." A calm voice assures him as a comforting servo is placed on his shoulder.
Suddenly everything floods in and he sits up rigidly.
Then he buries his face in his servos and wails, agony and regret eating away at him from the inside-out.
Tears roll down his cheeks, his arms, dripping onto golden thighs.
A tiny body presses into him, an even tinier face pressing into the area between his midsection and chassis.
His crying slowly calms, down to where he just can't cry any more. He feels exhausted.
"You saved me." The girl in his lap says as she looks up into his optics again, but this time not looking away.
Those three little words had so much emotion, so much meaning, Silverbolt just breaks again, his processor finding another resovoir of tears somewhere hidden in the depths of his spark.
Everything he's felt since creation just spills out, his spark too tired to hold it any more.
And there he sits for another hour, not realizing the significance of what happened.
The charred lifeless bodies left in his wake, electrocuted mercilessly, still spasming wildly in his unrelenting grip after death, the body just involuntarily reacting.
Optimus had decided the four people that know are not to tell him, just like last time, so again they erased parts of his memory.
Leaving Silverbolt to never know the true nature if his name.
Who's the girl? Me? You? Your best friend? We'll never know I guess. ;)