Mixed-Up
Chapter 6: Questions & Answers
Much to Optimus's relief they didn't die but made it safely to the base. Once on the ground they immediately climbed off the Seekers' who transformed back into robot mode before going inside. They all found places to sit in the living room to sit while Bumblebee disappeared only to return seconds later carrying an armful of medical tools which he placed in front of Ratchet. The medic made no attempt to hide his disgust of the tools, however, he said nothing, choosing instead to pick one up and, grabbing Skywarp, began to repair him.
"Now," Bumblebee began as he sat on the floor, crossing his legs much like Prowl did while meditating. "I assume that you have some questions that you'd like to ask so ask away and I will do my best to answer."
"Okay," Optimus said. "Where's Megatron?"
Bumblebee's optics lit up and his shoulder struts began shaking as he tried to suppress his laughter. "Lugnut," Bumblebee gasped. "After Sentinel beat Megatron in one particularly viscous battle he ordered Megatron to surrender. When he actually did surrender Lugnut lost it. I think he had a mental breakdown of sorts and anyway he just went crazy, started shooting at everybody. Sentinel's soldiers finally stopped him but by then it was too later; Megatron was hurt so badly that he only lasted for a few hours before he off-lined."
Optimus could see the humor in that; after all Lugnut was the one Decepticon that was never likely to betray Megatron, yet he was the bot responsible for his leader's demise. Apparently Primus had a sense of humor after all. "Why is everyone on Earth?"
Immediately all of them stopped laughing, sadness and devastation replacing the amused looks on their faceplates. "Shockwave was on Cybertron and the one that Sentinel blamed for Ultra Magnus's death. Sentinel managed to capture Soundwave but Shockwave broke him out and they tried to leave the planet. Sentinel stopped them but instead of surrendering they combined their powers; Shockwave's punch that was five times more powerful than Lugnut's and Soundwave's ability to control bots with his sounds."
Optimus already knew about the Decepticon's abilities having learned all about them during school but sense that bumblebee was having a difficult time explaining and was trying to stall so he said nothing.
"Their powers combined would have been enough to destroy half of Cybertron but they, or more accurately Shockwave had stolen Ultra Magnus's hammer and they used it at the exact same time as they combined their powers and well…I guess you can imagine what happened next."
While he had been talking Optimus, Prowl, Ratchet, and Bulkhead had steadily been growing paler by the second until at last their faceplates were drained entirely of color. Identical looks of horror stared at Bumblebee. It took a while but Optimus finally found his voice and managed, with a voice filled with disbelief, to whisper, "Cybertron is gone?"
Bumblebee merely nodded; content to let the facial expressions of him and his Neutrals do the talking for now. They stayed quiet for almost an hour, each bot silently mourning the loss of their home.
"Where are the humans?" Bulkhead asked, in a desperate attempt to lighten the mood.
If anything Bumblebee looked even more sad. "After the rest of us, at least those of us who survived the destruction of Cybertron, arrived on Earth the humans were a little overwhelmed but they agreed to let us stay. One day, not that long before Megatron's death, we were fighting him when Sentinel decided to use an energon bomb."
Optimus could already tell that this conversation was not going to end well either. Energon was harmful and potentially fatal to Transformers if processed a certain way, let along humans who didn't have protective armor. Not to mention, according to Ratchet, energon bombs produced a gas that was fatal to humans, killing those who got only a whiff of it.
"Besides the energon bombs, more than one was used, quite a few humans were killed in the crossfire and they all died out eventually. I used to go looking for them but I gave up about six million years ago." Bumblebee stopped again and let them absorb the news before asking, "Anything else?"
"Why is Sentinel so…?" Optimus hesitated, unwilling to say anything bad about his nemesis despite the fact that he had tried to have them killed.
"Evil?" Bumblebee finished then smiled when Optimus reluctantly nodded. "You're still the same Optimus that I remember," he said, a fond look on his faceplate then it disappeared as he began to explain, "Sentinel was the bot who managed to retrieve the hammer before Cybertron was destroyed. In my opinion he and the majority of the Autobot army were brainwashed by Soundwave right before he was off-lined."
"Can't you de-program him?" Prowl's voice floated down from the ceiling where he was perched on one of the rafters.
Bumblebee shook his head but Black Arachnia answered instead. "No. Since Sentinel wanted power anyway and was always a bit of an aft it didn't take him long to succumb to the brainwashing. It's been so long now that his processor and those of his soldiers have re-written themselves. It's virtually impossible to re-program any of the Autobots now without killing any of them," she explained.
"Well that's interesting and everything but it doesn't explain why you," Ratchet waved his servo, indicating Bumblebee and the Decepticons, "became Neutrals and are trying to take down the Autobots."
The Neutrals exchanged glances then Blitzwing said, "Ve vere captured by Sentinel and tortured for several veeks. Starscream's clones were off-lined in front of his optics one-by-one, very slowly and painfully. Barricade raped Slipstream over and over until she was begging him to kill her but he refused. That vas vhen Bumblebee came in and stopped him. So Barricade killed Slipstream and vould have killed Skywarp too but Starscream leapt in front of him. It is only because of Bumblebee that ve are all still on-line. He broke us out of prison and ve decided that ve didn't vant Sentinel in charge anymo0re so ve became Neutrals."
Silence fell over them once more then, abruptly, Bumblebee rose and said, "I need some air." Turning, he ran out of the room, the sound of his tires screeching fading away.
A/N: 5 reviews.
A/N/N; I will try to answer some more questions in the next chapter.
A/N/N/N: Anonybot did a wonderful illustration for 'Mixed-Up'. The link can be found on my profile page.
A/N/N/N/N: Don't forget to vote! Or tell me in either a private message or review which story you want done first. If you have already voted but changed your mind let me know and I will count that as a vote also.
