Chapter Eleven
Plenoptic
I wonder about the effects of mass updating on reviews. It's like "Oh, I'll just leave a big review at the end." NO! THAT SUCKS! I like lotsa reviews...(whimper)
My friend and I found the Japanese theme song for Kingdom Hearts on iTunes. Just search "Utada" and it's called "Passion" by Utada Hikaru. There's actually a lot of foreign music on iTunes…I sort of knew there was, I just had trouble finding it. Anyone know of any really good Japanese artists? I'd like to hear L'ArcenCiel's work.
Does anyone know how to get 'READY STEADY GO' from Full Metal Alchemist off of iTunes? The purity of my soul depends on it.
Pre War
Megatron, Optimus Prime
The transport was fast, screaming along Cybertron's vast underground networks, but its occupants were terrified enough to not feel it jolt and shudder along the rails. Optimus Prime, Elita One, Prowl, Rodimus, and Ultra Magnus sat together in an eerily perfect silence. Elita was curled in Optimus's lap, her small hands clutching him, her breath fogging his chest plates. He held her close, his arms wrapped around her petite form, his cheek resting against her helm and his luminous blue optics glaring at the opposing wall. The group was in full battle armor, weapons resting in holsters around their hips rather than in subspace--time would be a luxury they wouldn't have on the field.
Rodimus was rotating a small polished gem stone in his hand, muttering to himself; the stone was a bright pink--the same hue as Arcee's armor. Carrying it had become a sort of sub-conscious habit for him, and he was a bit embarrassed by it. But out there, on the field, he needed something to hold on to.
Ultra Magnus was talking to himself as well, cursing randomly under his breath, chewing on the inside of his mouth. He didn't like this mission at all. They were much better prepared this time, much more ready to face the rebels, but he still didn't like it. He didn't like the fact that Elita had insisted on coming, either; the sight of her curled in her lover's arms, her body twice its normal size due to the extensive battle armor, made his spark scream in fear. He just didn't like the thought of femmes getting hurt.
"Someone please talk," Rodimus blurted out, looking around at his companions. "Please? The tension's killlilng me, I swear."
"What do you want us to say?" Optimus inquired softly, looking up at his younger comrade. Rodimus felt a pang in his spark, remembering the words Megatron had spoken to him not so long ago: You're like the son he and Aerith weren't able to have…
"Anything," Rodimus said desperately, looking down at the gemstone still clutched in his hand. "Someone just tell me it'll all be okay."
"It'll all be okay," Elita whispered, and Rodimus drew his gaze up to meet her calm blue optics. She smiled confidently. "It's going to be alright, Rodimus. We'll get through this. We always do."
He bit his lip, willing his spark to believe her. She shuttered her optics and snuggled back into Optimus's chest with a soft sigh. He tightened his arms around her, his optics gazing affectionately down at her, the spark he'd fought so hard to capture. "Hey, Magnus."
Said mech looked up. "Yes, Optimus?"
Prime grinned at his friend, winking one optic. "When we get back, what do you say I get you hooked up?"
Magnus scowled darkly. "I can get femmes on my own, thank you very much. I don't need a chick magnet getting them for me."
"Hey, sounds fun," Rodimus said, a grin ripping his faceplates open. "We'll get Mags a femme, I'll bring Arcee to Iacon, Optimus and Lita can seal the deal, and we'll all go clubbing. Sound fun?"
"No," Ultra Magnus said flatly, ignoring his younger comrade when Rodimus tried to sway him. Optimus gently tightened his arms around his femme, tucking his head against hers; he'd felt the shiver of apprehension that tore through her at Rodimus's suggestion. She wasn't ready to "seal the deal" again. She and Megatron had "sealed the deal" and everything had promptly fallen apart. And she'd lost her sparkmate in the process.
"It's okay," he whispered, his arms and spark a fortress around her, blocking out the pain. "You come to me when you're ready."
She chewed her lip. "Does that mean you want to bond?"
He nodded slowly, stroking her cheek affectionately. The three other occupants in the transport were wise enough to continue with their pointless bickering, giving the lovers a moment of privacy, emotionally if not physically. "I know what it feels like to be unable to bond with the one you love. I don't want to feel it again. It hurts too much, Lita. And I don't want to hurt around you. I don't want to cause you any more pain."
She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him close. His selfless words made her throat ache. She wanted so desperately to love him. She wanted to give him pleasure and relief and comfort whenever he needed it. He hadn't had anyone to lean on in two vorns; he was overdue for a savior. He had been broken and bleeding for two long, cold vorns--wasn't it time for Primus to let him be healed?
The transport jerked to an abrupt stop, throwing five very confused bots from their seats. Elita was launched from Optimus's arms, and was caught quickly by Rodimus; Optimus and Ultra Magnus sprawled over one another, and Prowl's face hit the floor with a clang.
"Ow," he grumbled, sitting up and clutching his leaking noseplates. "Pit, that hurt…everyone okay?"
"I think we're good," Optimus rumbled, sitting up. His optics blinked in the sudden darkness, and he swore; the lights had fizzled out. "What's happening?"
"No idea," Rodimus replied, gentlemanly guiding Elita back into Optimus's safe embrace (as much as he enjoyed having a sexy femme laid out in his lap, but he had Arcee for that, and she was a lot less likely to shoot off his interface than Elita was). "Prowly, you okay over there? I heard something go splat."
"Don't call me Prowly!"
"Yeah, he's okay," Ultra Magnus said smoothly, his hands running over the walls surrounding the door. "Someone help me find the--ah, there we go." He ripped open the control panel and felt around for another moment before guessing on a switch; miraculously, the emergency lights came on. Elita yelped and squirmed over the confused mechs on the floor to lean towards Prowl; energon was leaking out of his smashed noseplates.
"Let's get outside," Optimus advised, helping Rodimus out and carefully feeling the crack between the doors. They'd been jarred slightly, leaving a tiny amount of space between them, which he slotted his fingers into with some difficulty. With a grunt he pulled, and the doors swung to the sides on their rails in a shower of sparks. Optimus stepped out, accompanied by the others, to survey the damage outside--only to find that there was none. The railcar had simply stopped seemingly of its own accord.
"What the Pit?" Rodimus said, placing his hands on his hips. "This is weird. And I hate it here, by the way."
Elita wrinkled up her noseplates; she hated it too. The tunnel in which the rails ran was dark and wet, and the odor was horrendous. Her head suddenly snapped around, in the direction their car had come, and her optics narrowed. "Listen," she hissed, and her debating companions fell silent at once. From further down the tunnel came a very slight whistling sound--something moving towards them, fast.
"Frag!" Optimus swore, abruptly scooping her into his arms and retreating towards the far wall. "That's the other car! Move, all of you!"
The other three rushed towards them, and Optimus turned to pin Elita between himself and the wall just as the second car whipped around the corner. It collided with theirs in an explosion of sparks and shrieking metal; Optimus angled his shoulders to shield Elita as debris erupted in all directions. On instinct he reached out with one arm and seized Rodimus by the shoulder, dragging him closer to cover his protégé alongside Elita. Rodimus yelped at abruptly being dragged so close to the shaken femme.
Optimus flinched; hot shards of metal were hitting his back, sending little shivers of pain through his neural system. A big one would impale him if he wasn't careful. An explosion of pain ripped through his right shoulder, and he gritted his dental plates.
The debris settled at last, and Optimus risked uncovering his charges to glance over his uninjured shoulder, squinting through the dark to view the wreckage. The second car had rear-ended theirs, smashing partially through and crushing itself out of shape in the process. Small flames licked up from the damp floor of the tunnel, casting soft light upon the unfortunate vehicles.
The door of the destroyed transport was abruptly blown out, narrowly missing the stunned threesome huddled against the wall. From the car stepped Ironhide, looking disgruntled and furious, his blue optics blinking around in the dim light.
"What the Pit just happened?!" he demanded in a roar. Optimus breathed a sigh of relief and released Rodimus and Elita, clutching at his searing shoulder. He could feel hot energon trickling down his back.
"Is everone alright?" Prowl demanded, rushing forward to the second car. Its occupants were stumbling out the destroyed doorway at Ironhide's less-than-gentle urging. Relief flooded Optimus when he recognized the car as the one carrying another portion of his inner circle.
"Oy! Rodimus!" Springer shouted, stumbling from the car and carefully avoiding Ironhide's shoving hands. "Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah, yeah--we were out of the car before you hit us," Rodimus replied, moving forward to greet his friend. "Dude, are you okay?"
"Ya, I'm fine," Springer replied, rubbing his helm. "Pit, what's happening? Why'd your car stop?"
"We haven't the slightest idea," Magnus replied, joining his younger comrades. "It jolted to a stop all of the sudden. Smashed Prowl's face in, too. Aren't there other cars coming?"
"Yeah, tons," Springer said, frowning. "Pit. We were gonna use this rail to transport almost a fourth of the troops to Polyhex to keep the rebels from getting too suspicious. Now what?"
"We have to find a way to stop the cars from coming," Magnus said, rubbing his chin. "Optimus! Any ideas? Hey--whoa! Optimus, what's wrong?"
Rodimus and Springer turned to find their leader crouched on one knee, his faceplates twisted in pain and his hand clutching at his right shoulder. "Shrapnel," the commander grunted weakly. "It's lodged in the joint…hit my neural receptors, I think…"
"Ow," Springer grimaced as they knelt beside him. "Hey, Ironhide! Is Ratch on that car?"
"Nah," the weapons specialist replied, guiding Chromia away from the car. "Why? Someone hurt?"
"Ya…Optimus got--"
Ironhide shoved the Triple Changer out of the way (Springer squawked) and seized Optimus's chin in one hand, tilting his friend's head towards him. "Are you conscious?" he demanded, and Prime nodded, the movement somewhat restricted by Ironhide's colossal hand. "Can you speak?"
"Yes," Optimus said clearly, and Ironhide breathed a sigh of relief.
"Okay, okay. Where's it hurt?"
Optimus grimaced as Ironhide's hand brushed over the open, bleeding wound in his back. "It's inside my shoulder, and…all throughout here…" He made a sweeping motion over his chest and across his left shoulder.
Ironhide nodded gruffly, helping Optimus to his feet. "Yeah, it hit a neural passage. We're gonna try to get it out, okay? Elita, Chromia! C'mere…"
Said femmes rushed over, and Elita's optics widened at Optimus's sagging form. "What the--? Optimus? What's wrong?"
"Shrapnel wound," Ironhide said, tugging his ailing leader towards the femmes. "You two have the smallest fingers, you might be able to get in and pull it out. We can fill the wound with porous gel, it'll ease the neural transmitters, and wrap it up with mesh or something. Best we can do without the Hatchet here.Optimus, sit down and bend forward, atta boy. Elita, could you hold on to him or something? It's gonna hurt. Right, Chromia…"
Elita knelt before her lover and wrapped her arms around his chest, cradling his head in the gap between her neck and shoulder. "It's only going to hurt for a second," she assured him in a whisper, softly kissing his cheek. "Here, you know what? Hold my hand, and just squeeze as hard as it hurts, okay?"
He nodded slowly; she could feel him bracing himself. Chromia, meanwhile, was leaning over him, her fingers brushing oozing energon from his wound. It was going to be tough; the shrapnel had entered at an angle, so the injury was partially covered by his shoulder blade armor.
"Roll your right shoulder forward," she instructed, and a grimacing Optimus did as he was told, his fingers tightening around Elita's. "There we go, that's a lot better…do we have a tool or something?"
Optimus groaned when Sunstreaker eagerly answered, coming forth with a scalpel-like tool he used in his sculpting. Chromia accepted it with a quick thank you before turning back to Optimus. "Sorry about this," she muttered, using it to carefully pry away damaged, bleeding wiring. "I'm no Ratchet."
"I can tell," Optimus grunted; her poking and prodding hurt just as much as the wound itself. "Ouch! Can you please just do it quickly?"
"Do we have pliers?" she shouted over her shoulder, and Optimus gritted his dental plates, feeling betrayed by Jetfire and Starscream's quick answer. The scalpel returned to its prodding, and Optimus found himself clutching Elita for support. He was usually offline when Ratchet had to go poking around in his wounds, and Chromia's inexperienced hands weren't making the situation any more durable. On the other hand, he liked being able to hold Elita. Her lithe warm body felt good against his, in spite of all the battle armor they wore. He felt a sort of arousal in the back of his processor, but it was forgotten when the pliers abruptly went in, and he heard a click when they latched carefully around the damnable piece of metal in his shoulder.
"Got it," Chromia muttered, her optics crossed with concentration. How did she do this? Just pull the little bugger out? She considered wriggling it around a little bit, but thought better of doing so; that would probably hurt a lot. Inhaling deeply and silently apologizing to Optimus, she pulled back, beginning to ease the shrapnel free.
He gasped, his arm tightening around Elita's waist, and his fingers squeezed hers so hard she winced. She didn't pull away for a moment, however; he'd obtained the wound protecting her, and Pit take her if she wasn't there for him now.
"Ha," Chromia murmured, a slow grin spreading across her face. "Almost there, almost there…just hang on a moment longer, Optimus, I know it--Oh! Got it!"
She dropped the pliers, and the innocent-looking shard of metal clicked to the floor. Optimus moaned, feeling the fresh rush of energon down his back; the wound was on fire, searing him with pain. Ironhide came forward quickly, unloading basic medical supplies from his subspace. The gel he squeezed into the wound helped, easing the burning pain, and Optimus felt relief across his chest as well as the circuitry calmed down. Elita sat him up gently as Ironhide wrapped the wound with mesh, relief flooding her systems when Optimus grinned weakly at her.
"Not bad for my first surgery," Chromia chirped, grinning like a madman. "Ha! I rock! You okay there, big guy?"
"I'm fine," he replied, then scowled. "As for your surgery, I think you could use a little training…"
"I'd like to see you do better," she chided, but she smiled and hugged him all the same.
"We've got to keep the other cars from coming," Prowl told the assembled troops, as they had gathered around him and their recuperating leader. "We'll have a mass accident if we don't, and we can't afford to get uncoordinated now. We were lucky to escape this crash with only one casualty…"
"We would have been lucky to get off with no casualties at all," Elita said pointedly, scowling at Prowl. "I don't think we're lucky at all to have Optimus get hurt."
"It could have been much worse," Prowl said coolly, meeting her gaze confidently. "What if Optimus had been behind our car, trying to push it?"
"I'm not that stupid," Optimus grumped, and a nervous sort of laugh ran through the assembled troops; even the very tense Prowl and Elita relaxed once more, shooting one another apologetic glances. They were both the type to get snappish under pressure.
"We still need a plan," Ultra Magnus said, reiging in the group. "Let's start with some explanations. Jetfire, Starscream. Why did our car stop so suddenly, at none of our discretion?"
"Mag field," Starscream chirped easily, and Jetfire scowled, beaten to the punch. "The rebels are probably broadcasting one from the surface. They shoot out this non-localized magnetic field--sort of like an anti-tech wall--and it short-circuits any electrical device that hits it by scrambling the electron flow with a high-concentration of protons."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Elita said, frowning. "If it disrupts electron flow, some of our primary functions would be taken out, wouldn't they?"
"Sure, but like Screamer said, the broadcast is coming from the surface," Jetfire quipped. "It's too far away, it'll only hit the really prominent flows. We have only minute electron streams buried within our circuitry, so we got out unaffected."
"So we can't take the monorail past here," Prowl said, frowning. "Do we take the rest on foot?"
"No way," Starscream said dismissively. "These underground rails are spread all throughout Cybertron--who knows where we might wind up?"
"We need a plan," Optimus rumbled, rubbing the bridge of his noseplates. "I don't care what it is, I don't care how drastic. We have to stop those other cars from arriving. We have to get out of here. How can we do both without getting ourselves killed?"
Starscream and Jetfire looked at one another, obviously searching for answers in one anothers' optics. The rest of the group sat in silence, tense and scared; the scientists were the only ones capable of figuring this out. And they were running out of time.
"How many more cars are coming?" Starscream asked, looking at Prowl.
The tactician frowned. "Um…around ten? Fifteen? I'm not sure, Jazz planned it."
Jetfire snorted. "Good thinking. Let Jazz plan it."
Prowl stiffened. "Jazz, though blatantly immature at times, is a highly efficient officer, Jetfire," he said coolly. "He also outranks you. I'll anticipate a little more respect from you in the future."
There was a long silence. Elita swallowed nervously, hoping against hope that they weren't going to fight. They had bigger problems…
"Aw, shucks, Prowly. Didn't know ya cared that much."
Prowl whipped around so fast he nearly fell over, and Jetfire and Starscream's mouths dropped open. Jazz was striding towards them, arms folded over his chest, a smug grin claiming his face.
"And I am not immature," he added, then promptly stuck his glossa out at Prowl. "Pooface."
"…Jazz?"
"Jazz?!"
"What the Pit are you doing here?!"
The saboteur looked hurt. "What? You guys don't want me here?"
"That's not it!" Prowl said quickly, reaching out and seizing the saboteur's arm when he turned away. "Stop fragging around! How did you get here?"
"Took a monorail, duh," Jazz snorted, cocking an optic ridge. "What else?"
"No, I mean--you didn't crash into our stopped cars?"
"Um, no. Should we have? I don't get how that would help the mission, Prowly."
"Don't call me that!"
"Whatever, Prowler."
"That's not any better!!"
"Well, make up your mind, already!"
"Jazz," Optimus cut in, getting to his feet and striding towards the short mech. "Please tell us what's going on. Did you find out about the mag field?"
Jazz grinned. "Yup. See, when I was planning this mission, I had Wheeljack do a little updating on the cars we'd be taking. He put motion sensors in all of them. When I saw that two cars had stopped moving, I assumed the worst and stopped ours at a safe distance. Then I just popped my cute little aft out and started walking. Pretty smart, though, huh?"
"You had Wheeljack do it?" Jetfire blurted.
"What's wrong with us?" Starscreamer added.
Jazz snorted. "I don't trust you two, quite frankly. You argue too much over your experiments. Jack just knows how to get stuff done, ya know?"
Starscream and Jetfire looked at one another, aghast, and Prowl felt a small twinge of triumph; the scientists had been overdue for a little ego deflation.
"So, anyway," Jazz went on, waving one dismissive hand. "I went ahead and sent transmissions to all of the other cars. They've all stopped, their occupants will be joining us by foot. Until then, I suggest we all get some rest, eh…?"
In the sleep that enveloped her, wrapped so securely in her lover's arms, Elita dreamed for the first time in a long time…maybe hearing so much of Optimus's past had made her want to take a second look at her own…
Next chapter…flashback looks at Elita's past. We've heard all about Optimus and Aerith, hints at Bumblebee…I figured it was time to explain Lita's relationship with Trion and how she came to know the royal twins.
If ya enjoyed, please drop a review. Many thanks!
