DISCLAIMERS: I don't own Transformers. They just came over from Hasbro to visit and be general pains-in-the-aft. All the humans in the story are mine, as are Steelshot and Sola. Rating is T for now, may go up at anytime. Most of the "history" described by Hound in this story is taken from the Mechamorphosis source book from Fantasy Flight Games. I don't own it, just tweaked it a little to fit it into my growing AU. The Animech Guild mentioned in the history also belongs to them.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: These stories are character sketches I'm writing to get a feel for some of the NPCs in a Mechamorphosis game I'm creating. I started this to give myself some back-story and origins to the characters in my other Encounter fics. I'm following one of the tables from the 100situations challenge on LJ, which I'm planning on registering for real soon. As soon as I can figure out how to link that table… headdesk.
Special thanks go out to Okami-chan for beta reading these for me and finding my typos and grammar errors.
Lucy walked into the room, escorted by Capt John Hunt. On the other side of a rather heavy-looking table and set of chairs, a six-foot tall, green and silver robot stood there, looking out the window. She swallowed. She had been handpicked to work with the Exiles, but meeting an alien robot up close for the first time was a little nerve wracking.
He turned around when they entered and cocked his head with a friendly smile.
"Hound, this is Lucy Masters. She's going to be your partner. Miss Masters, meet Hound, Exile Explorer." Captain Hunt swept his arm from woman to robot as he introduced them.
Hound nodded his head in greeting. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Lucy Masters. I haven't had very much opportunity to speak to a human. You have a very beautiful planet."
Lucy took a deep breath and mentally kicked her voice into working. "It's very nice to meet you as well. Welcome to Earth. The Captain here tells me you have come a long way." She kicked herself. That was SO corny sounding. She hoped he didn't say 'Take me to your leader' or 'I come in peace' or something equally corny in response.
"Thank you, Lucy Masters." Hound seemed to appreciate her greeting and Captain Hunt just looked amused.
She supposed he was thankful that she was a lot more agreeable than that other woman she saw in the entrance room. She hoped that the woman's foul temper was just a side effect of her pregnancy, but sweet lord, what a mouth! Lucy was glad that the small woman's ire wasn't directed at her and thankful that the robot she was going to work with was much smaller than the red and yellow giants that had been in there as well.
Captain Hunt's voice snapped her out of her musings. "I'll leave you two to get acquainted," he said and walked out the door. It clicked shut behind him.
She felt both bereft of his company and glad he was gone. She was pretty easy going but Captain Hunt seemed to make it his mission to rub everyone the wrong way. She looked at the alien in the room with her. He stood and looked back at her. There was an awkward moment before he spoke.
"You are a different configuration than Gwen, Lucy Masters." His smooth, almost human-sounding, voice had a burr or some other sort of mechanical sound that she could hear if she paid attention.
She was silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond to that. She finally settled on, "Who's Gwen? And please, just Lucy is fine."
"Ah, sorry about that. I had assumed you had already met her. I heard her yelling at Captain Hunt again just before you came in. You and she have different physical configurations. Gwen shortens her designation as well." Judging from the bright 'eyes' and smile, Hound appeared to be amused by this Gwen, who was apparently the irate pregnant woman.
He was also fairly observant if he could tell the difference between the round belly pregnancy had bestowed on Gwen and her own somewhat round figure.
"Gwen is pregnant and I'm not. That's why we are shaped different." Lucy explained.
Hound mulled this over for a second, furrowing his 'eyebrows'. "What's 'pregnant'?"
"She's having a baby," Lucy replied. Then sighed at his still baffled expression. "Children. Offspring. She's making a little human."
That seemed to clear things up.
"I get it. That explains why Ratchet gave us a brief explanation on organic lifecycles. Not that it really explained anything. Most of his description went right over my head." Hound chuckled at the memory of that.
Lucy smiled, her nervousness dissipating quickly. Hound seemed very pleasant and seemed as laid back as she usually was.
Hound continued, "I guess we'll save 'Human Reproduction 101', as Ratchet called it, for another day. So, how did you come to be my guide? I hope you weren't 'shanghaied' into it like Gwen says she was."
Lucy shook her head. "No, nothing like that. I needed a job, preferably in my field of study and have been having a heck of a time finding one. I was actually filling out applications to fast food restaurants when I got the call for this. Though I'm not really sure how this relates to a major in Ecology."
Hound's face lit up. "Ecology?"
"Yes, it's a joint major of botany and zoology." Lucy explained. "I'm studying plants and animals and how they relate to each other."
"Well, that explains why we were put together. And I know Ratchet and Perceptor will love to talk with you as well." His eyes (or what seemed to pass as such) lit up in excitement from a soft yellow glow to a much brighter one.
"I'm sorry? How does that explain it?" Lucy furrowed her eyebrows, confused.
"You can tell us about this world. Like what those little flying creatures are or those 'fluffy poles' as Sideswipe calls them."
"Flying creatures? That one's easy, you are probably referring to birds. Give me more information and I could probably figure out which type. But, I'm sorry, fluffy poles?" Lucy had no idea about that one but it was so absurd she had to giggle.
Hound chuckled as well, sharing the joke. "Gwen says they are called trees. I've seen similar life forms on other worlds but our name for them is long and complex and hard for even us to pronounce. I don't think your species has the vocal ability to speak it."
Lucy giggled some more. "I have to meet this Sideswipe. Calling trees 'fluffy poles'. He sounds like a card."
Hound cocked his head. "Not sure what you mean by 'card' but he was the red mech out there with Gwen. Sunstreaker was the yellow one. Guess Captain Hunt figured you should meet them later. They are a little… intense."
"I guess I'll see when I meet them. So how do you say it in your language?" Lucy was more interested in some of the things Hound had said than in 'intense' mechs. If they were anything like some of the guys at the university, meeting them could definitely wait.
Hound blinked. It was rather interesting to watch. "Uhm… say what in my language?"
"Tree. You said it was long and complex and hard to pronounce. I'd like to hear it. Sounds like some of our scientific names for things. Do you mind if we sit?" She pulled out one of the chairs. It was as heavy as it looked but she assumed that was so it could hold the robot… er… mech that shared the room with her. She silently reminded herself to get the terms right as she sat down.
"Oh! All right. Like this." Hound sat down across from her and rattled off a strange but pleasant collection of whirs, beeps and clicks.
"I believe you. That is definitely beyond my vocal ability. Sounds nice though. Almost like singing." Lucy made herself comfortable in the chair. It definitely needed a cushion.
"Singing?" Hound's optics seemed to widen. She was amazed how expressive his face was.
"Yes. It sort of flows nicely and is very musical. You have a nice voice." Lucy grinned. If she didn't know better, she'd think she was embarrassing him. He definitely looked like he wanted to blush.
"Uhm thanks." Even Hound's voice seemed to blush.
Lucy decided to save him. "Captain Hunt said you were an explorer and you said you have been to other worlds."
"Well, I used to be an explorer. I was a ranking member in the Explorer Guild back on Mecha Terra. Back in the early days of the Tyrants rule." Hound seemed to sag a little and pull back. He glanced to the side and sighed.
"What's the matter?" Lucy was confused and concerned by the sudden change in his behavior.
"Nothing, just old memories. A lot has happened in a short time. It's a little overwhelming at times." Hound turned back to her and straightened, seeming to shove aside whatever was bothering him. He smiled, still a little sad. "I guess you could say I'm an explorer once again. I have a whole new world to discover."
"I know we just met Hound, but if you need a friendly shoulder or ear, you've got it. We are going to be working together, and I think you need it," Lucy offered, still concerned.
Hound tilted his head, leaning forward a little with his hands crossed on the table before him. He tapped one finger and considered her.
"This could take a little while. It's a long story. I'd have to explain a bit about my home world for you to understand it." Hound straightened up and leaned back in his chair.
"I've got time Hound," Lucy assured him. "Just let me get something to drink and maybe a pillow for this chair."
"Pillow?" Lucy thought that the way Hound's 'eyebrows' furrowed and mouth gaped slightly was endearing as he stared at her, baffled.
"Yes, these chairs were made with your size and weight in mind but they aren't too comfortable for me." Lucy stood and stretched, rubbing her sore backside.
Hound stood as well and walked to the door. "Come with me. We'll see if we can't find you a human chair. Const Viton insisted that there be some available, especially if Gwen was going to be working with us. Apparently, making her sit in a chair like these is tantamount to cruelty. I'm not sure I understand why, since most of the other humans don't have a problem with them. Is it a human femme requirement?"
"No, those are just really uncomfortable chairs for humans, especially if you are pregnant. I'm not entirely sure why, I just know that pregnant women have back problems and other such difficulties. Thank this constable when you get a chance. He probably saved someone from getting yelled at." Lucy followed him out the door. Looking around there was no sign of the big red and yellow mechs or the small human woman. Thankfully. It would give her time to speak more with Hound before meeting some of his more intense friends.
They found a chair and some coffee in what appeared to be a makeshift kitchen area. Lucy found a thermal pitcher and filled it with the coffee, after mixing it to the way she liked it. After putting a fresh pot on for everyone else, she and Hound made their way back to the room they met in. They saw a couple other mechs, tall and predominantly white ones whom Hound named as Jazz and Prowl, but they were in deep in conversation and didn't acknowledge them other than a nod from Prowl and a jaunty wave from Jazz.
Closing the door behind them, Lucy put her pitcher and mug on the table and turned to Hound. He had replaced her chair and moved back to his own seat.
"I'm glad I'm working with you, Hound. I'd get neck strain from working with the others. Are they all that big?" Lucy sat and gave him an impish grin.
"Most of them. Mirage is the same size as me. Jazz is the largest of us. Everyone else is around Prowl's height. You get used to the neck strain after a while." Hound said, and they both had a laugh at that.
Lucy poured herself a cup of coffee and settled comfortably into her chair. "Tell me about your home world."
Hound's face became serious, mouth forming a stern line and eyes narrowing a little. "Where do I start? Hmmmm. History before the Tyrants took over is kind of suspect at best. According to Aegis, they have done a lot of revising. I was created after all this so, I'm just relating it to you as it was told to me."
Lucy sipped her coffee and lowered the mug back to the table. "Their name, Tyrants, isn't the most encouraging sounding."
Hound nodded in agreement. "It's the closest English word we could find for them."
"I get the feeling they live up to it too," Lucy replied.
Hound nodded again and Lucy settled back in her chair with her mug, listening to his warm, smooth voice tell her of an alien world.
Our world is called Mecha Terra and we are called mechamorphs or mechs for short. I'm not sure where my people came from, as I said, the Tyrants have creatively revised our historical records to suit their whims. Some believe we were created by an unknown, alien species, who are now long gone. The Tyrants would have us believe we emerged whole from the Great Generator.
The Great Generator is or rather, was, the source of all energy and life on Mecha Terra before it shut down. I've heard stories of the fantastic things they used its power to achieve. To transform our world and its moons into a technological wonderland. A shame I think, because Mecha Terra used to be as varied and diverse as Earth is. It also supplied all the mechamorphs with the Nexus energy they required to live and function at peak efficiency.
Everything was wondrous; it was a golden age. And then the Great Generator shut down.
No one knows why it ceased to supply energy; even the greatest scientific minds among our people aren't really sure how it worked. And no one could fix it. Chaos ensued. Energy was at a premium. Power reserves were hoarded and those without would do just about anything to obtain them.
The Cynet ruled Mecha Terra and its colonies. It was a counsel formed by representatives from all the Guilds. When the Great Generator shut down and the Cynet couldn't handle the crisis, it started to lose its authority. Several conflicting Guilds seceded from the Cynet. We were on the brink of a civil war.
Then a new Guild stepped forward with an offer. They had large reserves of energy and were willing to share it, in exchange for being allowed to control pretty much everything. The Cynet, in its final resolution, acceded its authority to this Guild and the Tyrants took control of Mecha Terra.
At first, everything was good. The Tyrants provided each mech with a daily ration of energy and quelled the riots and conflicts and established peace. They sent out a call to all of the Guilds to provide a workforce to build and man a fleet of ships. These ships would be used to locate new, resource rich worlds and replenish the planet's reserves of energy. That was how my Guild came into being. The Explorer Guild.
The fleet was launched and some ships met with success. Energy and resource rich worlds were found. But space exploration is dangerous and most missions met with failure and all mechs were lost. Or so we were told. We had no reason to doubt it either.
My first missions had been successful. The worlds we discovered and studied were amazingly beautiful and lush with life. One even had a primitive society of insectoid creatures evolving on it. It dissipates my spark to think of what happened to them.
We had just returned from that particular mission, barely getting time to unwind and rest from the long journey when we were summoned to head out on another mission. And found out why the 'failed missions' always vanished without a trace.
Instead of being sent out on our ship, we were ambushed and taken to secret labs. I watched in horror as one by one, my friends and shipmates were taken, strapped to a table and drained dry of all their Nexus energy. They were then completely disassembled and reduced to spare parts. Then it was my turn.
I'm not really sure how I survived. I almost didn't. I do remember that the pain of having my life energy forcibly drained was the most excruciating I've ever experienced. And I am not the same mech I once was. All I know is somehow Jazz was able to rescue what remained of me and have me rebuilt into a much smaller form. I was once as large as Prowl or Sideswipe, but my damage and the state of my spark after being drained prevented me from occupying a form that size again. Jazz had me rebuilt and passed me off as a newly created companion of his, even though there is no actual link between us. I'll always be grateful to him for that. Even though I had to pretend I was a barely sentient Controller companion, those were some of the happiest times of my life.
I found out later, that my crew was one of the last to be killed that way by the Tyrants. The spare parts that they had reduced everyone to, was the clue that gave them away. The Animech Guild, the mechs responsible for animating new mechs and rebuilding mechs that had been shutdown or destroyed. They had been given the parts to use at their discretion. They recognized some of the parts and investigated. They discovered that those parts belonged to Explorer mechs thought lost in space. They confronted the Tyrants on this and were given the choice: submit to the energy drain themselves or leave Mecha Terra. They would not be allowed to remain with such dangerous knowledge. They chose to leave.
The Tyrants broke their half of the agreement though and some of them chased the Animechs into space. Both their ships ended up too close to the White Hole. That's a spatial anomaly that is supposed to be the direct opposite of a Black Hole. It is an extremely bright point in space, unstable energy and gravity wells marking its event horizon. Not a fun thing to be around, let me tell you. That's how we got to Earth. Don't know where the Animechs and their Tyrant pursuers ended up, if they survived at all.
After the Animechs left, things went downhill on Mecha Terra. The remaining Tyrants increased their control and stricter rationing of energy began. The other Guilds started to protest the draconian methods the Tyrants were employing. Those that disagreed too loudly had scandals and charges trumped up against them. They were sentenced to death or enslavement. I'm not sure which was the worse punishment.
Underground groups started to spring up. They consisted of mechs dissatisfied with the Tyrant rule, on the run from their Enforcers or escaped from their clutches. Or all three, in the case of some of our group here. That's what we were, an underground group, led by Aegis. Most of these groups were found out and the mechs were killed, either outright or sentenced to fight to the death in the Arena.
The Arena is another story all together. If you want the gory, and I mean gory, details, best to ask Sideswipe or Sunstreaker. They were gladiators there. But the short of it was, mechs fought each other, sometimes to the death, for the entertainment of the masses. It was incredibly popular and incredibly brutal. It was also an easy way to dispose of inconvenient mechs. The poor mech would be given weapons and tossed into the ring with an Arena champion for a fight to the death. If, by some miracle, they managed to defeat their gladiator opponent, they could go free, all crimes forgiven. Bet you can guess how often that happened?
I don't know how, but our group had been found out. We were attacked. Aegis got most of us into ships we'd been preparing for this possibility and we escaped. But only for the moment. Tyrant warships pursued us. And like the Animechs before us, we tried to use the White Hole to escape our pursuers. Only to be drawn in. Five ships left Mecha Terra with all that had time to board. One made it to Earth. Most of the crew that survived the journey through the White Hole, died when we crashed into the ocean. The ten of us here are all that are left.
Hound leaned back in his seat, drained from reliving the memories.
Lucy clutched her mug of coffee, long grown cold. She blinked and set it down. She felt horrible for Hound, for having suffered and lost so much. She stood and walked over to the green mech that looked up, confused by her action. He was even more confused when she put her arms around him and gave him a hug.
"What are you doing?" Hound tried to twist around to look her in the face without hurting her with his alt form kibble. Wide optics stared up at her, disconcerted frown on his face, as though everything he thought he knew had just been blown out of the water.
"Giving you a hug, silly. It's what we do on Earth to show someone we care." Lucy released him and stood by his chair.
Hound looked up at the human femme watching him with concern and gave her a small smile. "Thank you. For the hug and for listening. As hard as it was to say some of that, I feel better not having to hide it anymore." His smile widened and he straightened up, looking like a huge weight had been lifted off of him.
Lucy couldn't help but smile too. Hound was amazing; to have gone through so much and still be so positive, it boggled her mind.
"Now that I've told you my life story, tell me yours. Fair's fair." Hound waved her back over to her chair, chuckling at the momentary look of horror that crossed her face.
"You've got me there, Hound. All right. But it's not even close to being as exciting as yours," Lucy conceded.
"Excitement is overrated. Trust me," Hound replied as he leaned forward to listen eagerly to the description of a life unlike anything he's ever known.
