Author's Note: Thanks for the support and such fantastic reviews. Really glad I'm not falling on my face here. Just wanted to mention that I know I'm taking some canonical G1 stuff and using it here. I figured since it's AU, might as well, heh? But didn't want anyone to get confused. Also, I may have given the wrong impression to a reviewer - this story will possibly have dubcon, not out-and-out noncon. It's a little hard to explain, but wanted to be clear since not everyone is into stories with graphic non-con scenes, which this story won't have. All right, thanks, as always for reading!
The station was just a little metal square on a cracked pillar. There were barely any lights, no energon dispensaries, no transport-chip offices, no other mechs. When the femme attendant pointed me toward the exit of the train, I thought she was mistaken, but KAON, written in sloppy Cybertronian script, was posted on a bent sign right above the little square.
Apparently, not a lot of traffic came through the area, and looking around at the wreckage, garbage and slag everywhere, it was easy to understand why.
I'd never thought much about Kaon. Neither had the rest of the planet. It was out-of-the-way, right on the aft-end of Cybertron. It didn't produce anything of value and it was Primus-awful ugly, too. And this was before the Decepticons had come. Now it was a wasteland, just stretches of dark, craggy terrain as far as the optic could see.
But that was all I saw, and that worried me. I'd been expecting someone to be waiting at the station to greet me. I didn't think my employer himself would come as he was obviously a busy mech, but I thought maybe a delegation or a convoy. Or even a Cybertronian cruiser that I could follow would have been nice. I didn't have a clue where his home was located, and standing there in that pitiful excuse for a train "station" made my spark wrench painfully. If I hadn't known the good reputation of the agency that had employed me, I would've thought that I was in the middle of some sort of stupid prank, one even Warp wouldn't touch.
"Maybe I'm early," I muttered to myself, scanning the area for any signs of … anything. No luck. I set my scanning sensors as high as they could go while in mech mode hoping to spot someone approaching. No luck. Feeling exposed and a little ridiculous, I transformed and took to the air to see if I could spot anything that looked like a mech or even a building where I could ask directions.
Directions? That's a brilliant plan – get directions a place that you have no designation for. While you're at it, why not inquire about the health of the employer whose given name you don't even know?
I circled slowly, scanning the topography and getting more of the same. Beginning to get frustrated, I climbed higher, spinning around so that I could see as much as the immediate vicinity as possible. My sensors were online, of course, but since I'd never been in this region, that didn't do me a lot of good. I took another loop around in desperation, heading over a deeply grooved hillside hoping to see something familiar on the other side. An actual city would have been nice.
I cleared the hill and cut my engines in shock. There was something on the other side. Familiar? Pit no. Disgusting was more like it. I transformed into mech mode and floated a little toward it, but careful to keep my distance. There was no mention of this in the datascreens I'd read on Kaon.
This was a large structure almost the size of a mid-size Cybertronian city. It was raised from the area around it on a base of twisted metal and other scraps, and spiraled up and out into a flat dome. It almost looked like a living thing, pulsing with a sort of grotesque energy from inside it; it was lit here and there and my instruments detected the presence of Cybertronians in and around the structure. I didn't even want to think about what sort of mechs would actually live in something like that, and I didn't want to have to ask them for directions, either.
There had been rumors that the Decepticons had built a fortified base in Kaon somewhere, but I'd just assumed it was underground since so many of the slagging Decepticons had worked in the mines vorns ago when the Quintessons were still on the planet. I turned back the way I'd come, looking over my shoulder at the citadel. Not even Megatron would be that twisted in the CPU to build something like that on purpose … would he?
I transformed back into my jet mode and was about to go in a different direction when my sensors picked up something moving near where I had left the train. I focused my scanners on the spot and saw that it was a femme, but that's all I could pick up. Relieved, I went back to mech mode and eased my way down.
The sound of my transformation startled her and she stared up at the sky with wide, gold optics, holding her hands over her audios. As I got closer, I noticed that this was an older femme, almost elderly. Her faceplates were warped in several places and her derma had a dusty gray cast to it that was common in mechs and femmes of a certain age. Her eyes were lively, though, and once she got over my sudden appearance, she stood back and looked me up and down as if she were appraising a new energon source.
"Are you here to collect a tutor?" I gave her what Warp called my 'charming,' manifold-melting smile. "I was beginning to think I'd been forgotten."
She stared at me so intently that if I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was being scanned. I relaxed, knowing that no consumer-designate had that sort of software.
"A Seeker? You can't be from the agency. They never send flyers here."
My smile deflated. Maybe this old girl didn't have any manifolds to melt.
"Well, they've sent me. I'm Starscream. I'm here to -"
"I know your name and I know why you're here." She frowned at me and looked slightly troubled. "Master said nothing about sending for a flyer."
"He might not have known. They didn't – er, it was left off my application. An oversight."
I tried the smile again. It didn't work any better the second time. She glared at me before exhaling loudly through her vents. I heard a slight rattle as she did so; it sounded like her original dentics had been replaced and hadn't been tightened properly.
"All right. I suppose you'll do. I am Eltronia." She bowed slightly. "I run the Master's household in his absence. I would have been here sooner, but was ... delayed. I hope you've not been waiting long. We have a long journey ahead of us, though I can't think how we'll make it. I assumed you were a grounded mechanism."
I twitched my wings. "Being a flyer, I can get to wherever we're going in a shorter amount of time than a ground mech."
"Yes, but since I cannot fly, I don't have that luxury, now do I?" she snapped. "And since I am the one who knows the location of Master's new compound, it is my speed you should be concerned with."
I wanted to ask her if her speed would get us to our destination some time this stellar cycle, but I held it back. I didn't like this femme, but it wouldn't be a good idea to slag her off before I'd even worked one orn.
"I could carry you and you could direct me."
"I don't like heights," she said shortly. "Can you track grounded forms from the air?"
"Of course. But -"
"Good. Then you will follow me from above. I will move as fast as I can, but my circuitry isn't what it used to be. We will be traveling northwest to begin with. After that, it gets … complicated, so keep me in your sights at all time."
Without another word, she pivoted and transformed into a small Cybertronian hovercraft. I tried not to show any surprise, but I'd never met a consumer-designate with a mobile alt-form before. I knew that some wealthy creators paid scientists to modify their sparklings, but those were usually military-designates – and mechs. I couldn't wrap my processor around why a femme whose family was rich enough and cared enough to modify her would be keeping house in a place like this. Such a thing was only logical if she were intimately tied to my employer in some way, but if she were his spark-mate or one of his codewriters, she probably would've said so.
I'd been in Kaon barely two kliks, and already everything was a mystery. I hated mysteries.
Shaking off my curiosity about Eltronia, I transformed, too, and hovered a bit above her. "A northwestern heading? We'll be going near that big … whatever it is on the other side of the cascades."
"Kolkular? Yes, we will be passing it. It is the capitol of Kaon," she said, her vocalizer sounding muffled. "I would suggest you stay out of its airspace unless you like being used for target practice. It houses a Decepticon-run fortress, and they don't like unexpected guests or interruptions."
She sped off, leaving me in a cloud of rust chips. I was annoyed, but I couldn't help but be somewhat impressed: She could move pretty fast for a glitchy, miserable old femme. Still, I knew I would be able to overtake her easily if I wanted, so I remained grounded to give her some lead time.
When I thought that enough time had passed that I would be able to track her at a comfortable cruising speed, I blasted into the air, set my instruments to course-correct whenever the ground vehicle did. She was just a blip on my scanning screen, and her speed stayed constant. Maybe she just looked old.
When I'd climbed and reached an optimal cruising speed, I put my guidance system more or less on auto-nav, and my thoughts wandered. I wondered what TC and Warp were doing right then, and if they missed me yet or were they too busy 'facing each other to really notice my absence. I tried tugging on the trine bond, but got nothing but static. Then I thought about Ratchet, and wondered if there were correspondence consoles at the Halcyon complex. I was sure that if I wrote to him, he'd remember me, since I saved him from going into stasis shock with that cube of energon. Besides, if he had studied the anatomy of Seekers, that meant might know about those special little valves over our wings, the ones that if you pulled just right …
My processor pinged and I snapped to attention, thinking I had drifted off course, but a quick check showed that I was still maintaining speed and heading, shadowing the ground vehicle. I probed the area with my sensors and dark spots popped up onto my screen. Moving dark spots. Usually that indicated other aircraft in the vicinity, but I would've heard engines or thrusters or something. I wondered if some kind of interference was fragging up my instruments, when I heard a low, humming sound.
Swinging in the direction of the noise, I almost lost altitude. I was in the shadow of Kolkular, close enough to see the melded cables and wires that snaked around the base. But that wasn't what catching my attention. I suddenly understood what those dark blots on my scanning screen were. They were mechs. Not flyers, ground mechs. Ground mechs with flight capabilities.
Decepticons.
And they were headed straight for me.
I consulted my tools and saw that there weren't that many – only five or six, and they flew like slag. They were uncoordinated and kept bumping into each other. I could easily outrun them, but if I overshot my escort in this terrain, I might get lost, and I didn't have enough fuel for a sustained flight. As much as I'd liked Ratchet, I was sorry now that I'd given him my extra energon.
I saw a flash of light come toward me and my processor went blank for a moment, but I rebooted immediately and all of my systems came online without difficulty. Still, I didn't feel quite right; I was tingling from helm to aft and my altitude had dropped slightly.
Deciding that my best bet was to fly a klik or two faster and just rely on my instruments to keep the femme on my scanning screen, I moved on as if I hadn't noticed anything unusual -
I frowned. I moved on as if I hadn't noticed anything unusual -
I wasn't moving on.
I did a quick scan of my systems. Everything checked out – my tanks were full enough to sustain flight, my thrusters were operational, my circuitry was fine, but I couldn't fragging move. I felt my vents whirring and my engines heating almost to the point of overload as I tried to increase speed enough to go somewhere – anywhere! A cold laugh washed over me and my scanner showed that I was now right in the center of a cloud of mechs.
"What's your hurry, Seeker? No time for a mech-to-mech talk?"
I was immobile, so I couldn't turn and see who was speaking. They must have realized that, because they surrounded me in a loose circle, moving around me so that I could get a look at all of them. There was no doubt that they were Decepticons. Their optics were Pit-red and they had those idiotic insignias etched into their chestplates. None of them was as tall as me in mech form, but not only could I not move, I couldn't transform out of my alternate mode. This was getting better and better.
I think that the one who spoke first was the one directly in front of me. He was dark with yellow accents, blue servos and wore a dark-red visor. He grinned before leaning on my helm and stroking my wings.
"A Seeker! Aren't you just as cute as all Pit? But you're headed the wrong way. The fortress and the recruiting station are behind you. We thought you were a little lost and figured we'd help set you straight."
"I know where I'm going, and it's not there."
I could sound pretty threatening in mech mode, but in jet form, my vocalizer was compressed and my voice came out almost as high-pitched as a femme's. The slagger giggled and let me go.
"This is your lucky orn, Seeker. We're sky-testing our newest weapon against the slag filth who question the supremacy of the Decepticons! It is a mechanism immobilizer – it locks a mech into whatever form he was in when caught by the rays and he stays there until we decide to free him. If we ever do. How are you enjoying being our guinea pigatron?"
He and the rest laughed loudly. I felt coolant beading up under my wings. If I stayed locked in jet mode, I'd burn through my surplus of energon very quickly. If I remained in jet form after my energon reserves had been depleted, my systems could suffer a major lockup or even shut down altogether. I thought briefly about the femme on the ground and wondered if she'd noticed I was gone yet. She had warned me to stay clear of this area, but part of me wondered if she'd known something like this might happen, and so insisted I fly instead of following her in mech mode. Maybe she thought I was after her job.
"Let's take you to Megatron," the mech said. "I'm sure he'd be happy to see you."
"Yessss," warbled a voice close to my aft. "He will be very pleased … pleased."
The first mech looked over in annoyance. "Shrapnel, no one was talking to you." He grabbed my wings again. "What do you say, Seeker? Join us! Come with us to meet the mighty Megatron and win glory as a Decepticon."
Although I couldn't move, it suddenly occurred to me that my systems were functioning normally, and so I possibly could activate some of my defense programming. I tried something small – an electronic shockpulse through the derma of my wings, and was rewarded with a shriek when the mech hastily let me go.
All the laughing stopped. The mech was clicking in pain, rubbing his servos. Cackling in triumph, I spread the electropulses to include my entire chassis.
"Unless you want more where that came from, you'll let me go before you're picking pieces of your helm out of your aft," I barked. "And you can tell Megatron to lick my ball bearings. I wouldn't join that fragger if he invited me to sip high-grade out of that bucket he calls a head!"
The mech groaned but glared at me, and I felt the rest closing in on my position.
"That was a mistake, Seeker," he growled. "We won't have our glorious leader insulted! In order to lick your ball bearings – as you put it – mighty Megatron will have to find them first. And perhaps he will let us help him in that task!"
A sharp, cruel grin stretched his faceplates. "Kickback, Shrapnel, Venom – stand by to secure him. Barrage, hand me that other weapon we're supposed to be testing: The null ray."
Null ray? I didn't like the sound of that. I still couldn't move, but I kept my surface electrified. The mech in charge saw this and chuckled nastily.
"You're wasting energon, Seeker. Your little tricks will be nicely neutralized by the null ray. Don't worry – we'll be there to catch you when your systems fail and your engines shut down completely. Perhaps after a reboot and a little … reformatting of your CPU, you'll be a little more friendly."
I said nothing, but my wiring was humming fitfully. If they were telling the truth, and that weapon would enable them to immobilize me, wipe my processor clean and reformat me to their will, I might wake up not only as a Decepticon, but without a trace of who I'd used to be. No more TC or Warp, no Science Academy -
I had to find a way out of there - I thought about possibly re-diverting all my energy sources to my thrusters. Maybe I could tear my way out -
Suddenly, I heard a loud humming in my audios. I thought it was a glitch related to this immobilizer I'd been subjected to, but a feedback loop lanced pain across my processors and I suddenly heard a voice directly in my audios:
Knell Manor. Say it. Now.
The intense pain faded, but the crackling sounds remained, and my CPU felt as if it were physically being poked and squeezed. The voice came again louder, more urgent:
Knell Manor. Say it. Now.
I shuddered. What new slag was this? It wasn't enough that they were torturing me, but they were playing with my frequency modulator, too?
"What? Who is that speaking? Who's there? What are you saying?"
The mech in front of me grinned and pushed on my wing. "Trying to pretend your processor's suddenly glitchy, eh? We've seen that trick before. Oh, you're perfectly fit to be a Decepticon. Barrage, what is taking so long? You did charge the ray before we left base, didn't you?"
"Sure I did, Bombshell, but nobody mentioned having to assemble it!" There was some cursing and grumbling, and then: "Okay, there. The pins are in place. Here."
I felt something pass over my wing and the mech called Bombshell floated in front of me, armed with a slender shoulder-mounted laser. I saw the edge of the weapon sparkling dangerously and that same feedback loop scraped across my processor and the voice came again, louder and almost angry:
Knell Manor! Say it. Now.
"Knell Manor?" I repeated in a daze. "Knell Manor -"
Bombshell squinted at me and lowered the weapon slightly. "What was that you said, Seeker?"
Knell Manor.
"Knell Manor." My vocalizer crackled. I wasn't sure where the voice was coming from, but this wasn't the time or place for those sort of questions. "Knell Manor!"
I saw Bombshell glance to the side, where Kolkular was located. His companions were buzzing amongst themselves, and I could detect some doubt there. He lowered the null ray just a little more and studied me closer.
"What do you know about Knell Manor, Seeker?"
That was a good question. I was about to pull an excuse of out of my aft when my processor throbbed, and I heard:
Tell him: You are expected there. Search drones will be deployed if you have not arrived within three megacycles.
"I … am a guest at Knell Manor," I said, wishing that I were in mech form so that these slaggers could see me scowl. I looked terrifying when I scowled. "If I don't show my faceplates there in the next two megacycles, and if there's so much as a scratch on me, you'll be prying these toys of yours out of your valves once the search drones are done with you!"
The buzzing around me turned into garbled murmurs, and I could see the mech starting to look a little uncertain.
"Bombshell, maybe we should release him," the slagger named Barrage said nervously. "If he really is supposed to be there -"
"No. He's lying." Bombshell brought the weapon up again and pressed it right against the underside of my cockpit. "If he were really going to Knell Manor, he wouldn't have come this way. Some loose lip-plated fool mentioned the name somewhere and the Seeker overheard it and is trying to confuse us."
The pulsing returned, and then there was:
Mention: The raid on this area six orns ago necessitated an alteration in route.
"The raid here was barely six orns ago and you expect me to take a direct route?" I snapped at Bombshell, trying to seem as if the muzzle digging into the plating of my cockpit was the least of my concerns. "Are your transistors where your exhaust valve should be or are you simply incompetent? Oh, the mighty Megatron must love your intellect!"
Bombshell gasped and fell away from me. "Kickback – turn off the immobilizer immediately!"
The numbness I felt in my frame disappeared almost at once and I was able to move again. I immediately transformed into mech mode and grabbed Bombshell by his throat, squeezing into the delicate plating. Behind him were his friends, all of them colored in some variation of the gray-yellow-blue theme, some with visors, some without. None of them seemed so menacing now that I could look them in the optics. I snatched the weapon from Bombshell's servos and jammed it right into his fragging diodes.
"What did you call this, Bombshell? A 'null ray'? Well, I have a guess on what it does and how it might affect a mechanism's functions, but I could be wrong." My digit tightened around the trigger. "Let's see how close to the mark I am -"
I winced slightly as the feedback loop returned and scrambled my processor for a few kliks.
No. Release him. Continue your journey. Maintain heading and increase speed: 10 tetravoles. You will overtake the femme in three mega-kliks.
I grunted, but didn't let go of the Decepticon. There was no way in Pit I was going to let this slagger off so easily. He'd wasted some of my time, so it seemed only fair to me that I got to waste some of his - and a few of his transistors, too. Another painful feedback loop lashed my processor and I had to fight not to show that I was in pain.
That was not a request. Release him: immediately.
I was about to tell whoever it was to frag off, when I felt the weapon start to heat up in my servos, warming my digits a little bit more than was comfortable. I wasn't sure what ... whoever it this was thought he was trying to pull, but there was nothing he could say that would persuade me to let the slaghead go.
The ray will overload in 2 kliks if you do not release Bombshell now and return the weapon to him. Result of overload: severing of digits.
Okay, so he'd found an argument to convince me. He'd gotten lucky. I grit my dentics and opened my servo to release my grip. Bombshell coughed weakly and rubbed his throat. The rest scurried behind him, staring at me with wavering optics.
Return the weapon to Bombshell. Status: Deactivated. Threat to you: nonexistent.
"Great timing," I muttered. Bombshell gave me a puzzled look, but went on massaging his damaged plating.
"I apologize," he said in a tone that could only come from a slightly dented vocal processor. "We were only doing as commanded -"
"You're lucky I'm in a hurry," I growled as I tossed the null ray at him. "Get away from me before I decide that punctuality is beside the point."
Bombshell gave me a fearful look and they washed away from me, flying unsteadily back to the fortress. Several of them glanced back as they flew, and I remained in mech mode, arms crossed, watching them until they were mere dots against the backdrop of the towering dome.
I kept my menacing expression on, but I was shaken and stunned by what had happened. Not so much the almost-being-blasted-into-components part, though that wouldn't have been good. But the voice. It was more than just a whisper in my audios - it had filled my frame from helm to servos, echoing through my processor and right down to my very spark. I'd never experienced anything like it.
I couldn't imagine who or what it could've been – the great god of Cybertron, maybe? But then what would Primus be doing in a slaghole like Kaon? And even if he had been around, didn't a being as great as he was have better things to do than save a random Seeker's aft? And just what was Knell Manor, anyway?
The crackling started in my audios again, making me jump. An image scrolled in my CPU of a sprawling, guarded compound with gleaming spires and firelakes nearby. Before I could truly grasp the information, the image was gone.
Knell Manor: It is your destination. Go. The femme: is not aware of your deviation. Do not tell her.
"Primus? Is that you?" I whispered hesitantly, spinning around. There was static and then a sound that I couldn't identify at first – and then I did.
It was laughter. Uproarious, tank-shaking laughter. Then it stopped abruptly, and the pressure I felt in my processor was gone.
I floated for several mega-kliks, looking into the horizon, but nothing happened. The voice had faded from my sensory net and I knew without knowing how I knew, that the voice had gone back to wherever it came from and would not be back again unless I did something to frag it off.
I also knew something else – whoever it was who'd spoken to me was not Primus. Primus might be able to invade my entire frame, but he would not have laughed … not like that. Whoever it was, was an ordinary mech. Well, maybe not so ordinary – I'd never met any mech who'd been able to do that. I wasn't going to examine it too closely. Something told me that if I tried, I wouldn't understand it, and more to the point, I probably wouldn't like it too much.
I glanced again at the fortress and saw that the mechs that had held me captive had disappeared from view. Gazing at the citadel and the blinking lights that winked along the bulbous roof, I couldn't get over the strange sensation that I was being watched. It was hard to turn away from Kolkular. I found it repulsive, but strangely compelling. I gasped when I felt my processor being seized again:
Starscream: Welcome to Kaon. You will see the inside of Kolkular soon enough.
My optics bulged in their sockets, and almost before I'd completely transformed back to jet mode, I was speeding away from that slagging place with that voice still ringing in my audios.
