This is going to be my standard opening from now on. There may be some interesting news added at a later date, that will come directly after this line however so that you can skip anything you're not interested in reading!
~~~So added another Beta reader to the team! Eowyn77 from Botosphere! My updates might start to lag a little but that is only because Eowyn77 has some awesome and wonderful tips that will help me make this story that much better! Hopefully you all agree. This is by no means me saying that FORD B. is not a wonderful Beta because he has been fantastic and will continue to be so!
Fair warning, this chapter is...different. ^_^ Both Beta's enjoyed it so I hope you all do too!
A forever thank you and credit for her ideas goes out to Litahatchee and her fic Night Fire. Go read it. It is WONDERFUL and she has permitted me to use some of her ideas in this story.
The term Carrying Hold and the act of carrying the way it is used here both came from the story 'Night Fire' and belong to Litahatchee. If you want to know more about it, read 'Night Fire.' DO NOT USE THESE IDEAS WITHOUT HER PERMISSION!! Please and thank you very much. I am using these ideas with her permission. She's had people 'borrow' her ideas before and use them in ways that...well, to say they were not nice is an understatement. One of those particular stories has been removed. So, as an author myself, I ask that if you like this idea and have any desire at all to use it, then you will need to ask Litahatchee first. Thank you.
Also a forever thank you to FORD B. my beta reader. You make writing easy! And welcome to my new beta reader Eowyn77 from Botosphere! My writing can only improve from this point. ^_~
Any further notes shall be posted at the end of the fic. Enjoi!
Hot showers are awesome. Especially when you feel so dirty that you're not even sure you have skin beneath all the grime and your muscles ache like you've just completed a triathlon in record time.
I let the water wash over me, washing away everything but something was bothering me. I couldn't remember actually getting into the shower. How had I gotten so filthy? Why did I hurt so bad? I must have stayed up way too late last night...that's why I couldn't remember. What time was it anyway?
Reveling in the cleansing shower, I tried to remember what had happened. I was way too sore for just a simple explanation like a hard work out but I really couldn't remember what I had done. Oh well, I would remember soon enough. Dismissing the pain for the pleasure that was hot water raining down on me I got the sneaking suspicion that it was something I wasn't going to enjoy remembering.
Stepping out of the shower I sought out my towel. I always left it sitting somewhere nearby, yep, there it was on the sink. What a strange color it was though, I thought all my towels were green but this one was blue. Bright blue. Hmm...strange. And had I left the TV on again? Peeking out the open door of my bathroom I could just see past the walls into the living room. I had been watching a movie apparently, something familiar. I could hear the voices bouncing off the walls down the hallway to me...it was a fight scene.
Drying off and wrapping a robe around me I meandered down the hall, only slightly intrigued by the sounds of the movie; it was probably something I had seen before because the voices sounded familiar so it wasn't so important. What was important however was food. My stomach hurt badly and I was pretty sure I was hungry.
In the kitchen with my head firmly buried in the refrigerator I thought I heard a strange noise, kind of a whirring, or a clicking noise. It was so weird and at the same time it made my heart skip a little with happiness. I liked this noise. Somehow it was familiar, comforting. So with a big smile I pulled some leftovers out of the fridge and set about making me a leftover sandwich, my personal favorite, and started humming a song to myself. I couldn't remember all the words but I know it had something to do with fireflies and dancing.
"Bee, I want to talk to you about the collage thing..." came from the TV drawing my attention for a moment. Transformers? Huh, not surprising, it was one of my favorite movies. Oh Hell! Wasn't I supposed to be at work?I checked the clock that hung on the wall in my living room, twelve seventeen. Hmm...maybe I had gone to lunch? And showered? I wonder if I blew something up at the lab again or maybe I electrocuted myself, that would explain a lot...I sighed with the thought. I really needed to be more careful of such things, a human body can only take so much.
Looking around I found my laptop bag, quickly snatched it up in my free hand and headed to my love seat to make myself comfortable. Maybe I'd have an e-mail from work that would make things a little clearer. The upper management usually liked to send me a nice little demeaning note any time I messed up real bad and had to be sent home or to the hospital. Apparently they didn't like things that blew up unexpectedly or their employees trying to do impressions of a 'Lite Bright'.
A message popped up immediately once Ruby had rebooted, 'Are you okay?'. Huh, my messenger didn't usually start up right away. It must be Roger.
'I'm fine, what happened?' I typed back. 'I can't remember.'
'It's going to be alright, just hang on,' came back.
"What?" I asked aloud. 'Hang on to what? What happened?'
No response.
"...this is that awkward moment..." caught my attention. I looked up to see the familiar character of Sam Witwicky holding a box facing another young man in a small room. I didn't remember that in the movie...this had to be something else that Shia LaBeouf had played in. I wasn't all that interested.
'Roddi, what's going on?' I typed quickly, it bothered me that he wasn't responding.
Still nothing. Fine. If he wasn't going to chat with me, I wasn't going to bother. I set Ruby down on my coffee table and left the computer. I needed to get dressed anyway.
In my room I noticed a strange amount of disarray. I wasn't really a neat freak so to speak but I generally didn't leave things just laying around like this. 'What in the world is going on here?' I picked up some of the cloths and noticed their horrid condition, they were torn and stained. I stared at the stains. There was definitely blood there but there was also something blue - it almost glowed in its intensity. 'What the Hell is that?' I rubbed my thumb over the stain which drew my attention to my hand, it was covered in strange marks. Why hadn't I noticed them before? From the look of it they were burn scars but they had a strange pattern about them, almost like spiderwebs. I threw the cloth in my hands away from me; I just couldn't figure this out! What the Hell had happened that I had..three...yeah, three sets of clothes completely destroyed and covered with these strange stains? And where did these burn marks come from? They'd been there a while because they were mostly healed.
I knew Roger had to know something so I'd stormed back into the living room, still in my robe,and snatched up Ruby as I plopped back down on the love seat. Looking at the screen I saw several different message windows, all with the same text in them... 'Just hold on...'
If Roger had been the one messaging me in the first window, who were all these? I looked at each window for the sender ID, but there were just strange symbols there instead and I didn't know any of them. There were five of these windows and as I closed each one a new one popped up to replace it with some form of similar message in it, 'Don't let go.', 'You're going to be alright.', 'Hold on a little bit longer.', 'We have you now.' Okay, the last one creeped me out a lot to say the least.
'Who is this?' I typed back, not really wanting to know who was sending me the stalker-likemessage.
'Aurian?'
'Who else? Who are you?'
'How are you speaking with me?'
What the Hell? 'Same way you're talking to me? Messengers work both ways. WHO IS THIS?'
'Ironhide.'
"What?" I looked at the response for a long time, my brain going through all the people I knew wondering who went by that name. As I considered this the other windows went ballistic with messages, all demanding if I could 'hear' them.
Gently, I set Ruby down. I thought at that very moment I was losing my mind.
"...You recognize me, don't you boy?" Oh, that voice sent chills down my spine and snapped my eyes back to the TV. Megatron. This was Transformers...but it wasn't. I'd never seen this scene before.
"You're pissed. I get that, I would be too if someone tried to kill me..." My eyes were glued as I watched the show, this was undeniably a Transformers movie but it wasn't the movie I had watched and memorized. I watched helplessly as Megatron flung Sam through the air to land on some cement table and then pinned him there.
"Doctor, please examine the specimen." Okay, so to say the tiny little hairs all over my body were standing on edge would be a dramatic understatement. I had never seen Scalpel in his alt mode but the second I saw that little microscope begin to transform I knew who he was and I started screaming. I threw anything I could get my hands on at the TV demanding that the little beast leave Sam alone! That he keep his creepy little claws to himself! All for nothing of course because it was a movie and it just kept playing as if I had no affect on it what-so-ever because...well, it was a movie.
So instead, since I was out of ammo now and had no faith in my shaking limbs to be able to move, I watched in horror as the movie continued to play. It seemed to skip around at some points, making no sense to me, only a scant few lines drifting through or a scene here and there that would play clearly...one such scene had me completely broken down into tears, screaming my broken heart out. Optimus was dead...
Even as I watched the battle unfold before my disbelieving eyes, I saw someone I recognized. He hadn't been in the first movie but I knew him and my heart leapt a little at seeing him. "Sides?"
The character on the TV turned to face the screen, murder in his eyes. He reached up and tapped the screen, "Hey? Don't you think it's time to quit dreaming?" he asked softly before returning to the fight, his voice no match to the look in his eyes.
Again the images flitted by in a mix of nonsense to a point where Will was discussing something with Rob, something about Sam and there being a chance to bring Optimus back...
I really don't know why but I glanced at my laptop again only to find the screen full of messages, windows upon windows with more popping up every second. Many of them I didn't understand, they were in some strange text that didn't translate on my computer or something but there was one that drew my eye and held me... 'Hey? Don't you think it's time to quit dreaming?'
"Are you sure it was her?"
Ironhide glanced at the small figure that Ratchet was working so diligently on. "Not positive but it seemed to be." He looked over the response he had received to a reflexive message sent. 'Same way you're talking to me? Messengers work both ways. WHO IS THIS?' It was natural for Cybertronians to send out short burst messages to those around them but the human should not have been able to receive such a message, let alone responded. Or at least it seemed she had responded.
Optimus nodded. He, along with the others had tried to elicit a response from the woman as well. Much to their great disappointment she had not responded to anyone.
The reunion of the twins had been an unexpected development. Sideswipe had been completely torn between his elation for seeing his twin whole and unharmed and the overwhelming horror of seeing the limp form casually held in one of his brother's hands. Sunstreaker had handed the woman over to his anxious brother with great distaste and they had stood facing each other for a tense moment not saying a thing.
Ratchet had finally broken their silent conversation by taking the woman from Sideswipe. It had been mere kliks but it had felt like joors to everyone watching.
"Jolt? Report." Optimus turned to the second of their current problems. Barricade had been in stasis lock when they had arrived and his condition was grim. The discovery of a carrying hold had brought thousands of questions and an extra sense of urgency to the need of preserving the Decepticon's life. To have a carrying hold meant that he had a sparkmate somewhere and if he died so would she.
"Not good," Jolt answered. Even though this was a Decepticon he was trying to save he could feel the stress of failure looming. This was a life in his hands and he did not want to lose it, the fact that if this one faded there was another that would die as well did nothing to boost his confidence. "He's missing parts; I can't even reroute."
"Get him stable, we'll haul him back to base," Ratchet called to his young apprentice. Jolt was no novice but he was still in training. Dealing with such severe injuries was still rough on him.
"It's here!" Mudflap shouted as he and his twin came bounding back into the small clearing. "Th' plane's o'vr on da other side of dese hills."
"All right, we need to move out quickly. We do not know how many Decepticons may still be in the area," Optimus announced to everyone present. "I will stay with Jolt until Barricade is stable, the rest of you head to the plane."
Ironhide gave the mangled Decepticon a glare that might have set fire to a lesser substance. "I will stay with you," he stated flatly. Carrying hold or not, Barricade was still a Decepticon and not to be trusted.
"I hardly think that Barricade is of any threat to anyone right now Ironhide. Go with the others, protect Aurian." He knew that would reach through Ironhide's anger and was not surprised when the mech looked in the direction of the woman. Ratchet was holding her delicately in his hand, a grim look on his face as he headed in the direction the younger twins had indicated the plane to be. "There are still enemies unaccounted for and this is obviously territory they have become familiar with."
"All the more reason for me to stay." Ironhide protested. He couldn't argue that he wanted to follow the others and assure that Aurian reached the plane safely; however, there were five mechs with her already. Optimus and Jolt could easily be outnumbered, especially if Barricade were to come back online and had any inclination to fight.
"It is not a request, Ironhide. Go."
Ironhide only hesitated a moment longer before following the others. Sometimes Optimus's orders confused the Pit out of him.
"Ya want we should hang around?" Skids offered somewhat reluctantly. "I mean, if ya needs some e'stra hands er somethin'?"
Optimus could not deny that at times the younger siblings were more trouble than they were worth, most times actually; however, they had good intentions and that made up for a lot. "No, go with the others." Messengers never were meant to do battle anyway, though they did well enough.
He watched his subordinates go. Mostly he watched Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. The twins had not spoken a word aloud to each other since they had come together, though Optimus knew they must be having a rather intense internal discussion. His spark relaxed with great relief when he saw Sunstreaker wrap his arm around his brother's shoulders in a show of affection. 'They will be all right.' He told himself.
'I really thought you might have deactivated on me.' Sunstreaker leaned on his brother a little.
'I probably would have.' Sideswipe gave his twin a look that solidified the seriousness of his tone. 'She's the reason I'm still active.' It wasn't a badge of honor for the woman, nor was it a bargaining token to try and sway his brother on his standings of this human. It was simple fact that he shared with his twin as insight to the current circumstance.
'How is that possible?'
'When I entered the atmosphere there was an electrical storm building. It disrupted my signal so the others didn't know I had arrived.' He sent burst images that his external sensors had recorded of the incident, of the woman talking to him, touching him... 'She alerted them, saving my life. I owe her for that.'
'Pit, Sides...' Sunstreaker wanted to tell his brother that his notions were foolish but he couldn't. He actually felt himself that he owed the woman for her small but pivotal actions.
'Sunny, I know you don't get it but she means a lot to me.' Knowing that using his brother's nick name over their bond was the only time Sunstreaker wouldn't lose his temper over it, Sideswipe took advantage of the softer version of his brother's name to show him just how serious he was. 'Thank you for saving her.'
'Don't. It's not like I could let those 'Con's kill her anyway. Even if she is a squishy little bag of organic matter, she's an Autobot.' The residual fear he had felt from the woman coursed through him, bringing back the image of what the small Decepticon had done. 'This isn't the first time they've gotten their claws on her, is it?'
Sideswipe was silent but the pure guilt that radiated through their bond was all the answer Sunstreaker needed. 'What did they do to her?'
'Horrible things.' Sideswipe didn't want to think about all the nightmares Aurian had suffered for her first visit with the Decepticons and could only imagine what this second trip would do to further those horrors.
Sunstreaker considered the condition of the human when he had first seen her crawling out of Barricade's carrying hold; that still disgusted him. That was to put aside the heinous condition that Barricade himself had been in... 'Why does she stand up for that 'Con?'
Waves of anger, frustration, hate, shock and appreciation all flooded Sunstreaker. His brother grumbled something verbally before responding through their bond, 'He protected her from the others.'
'It's just a ploy, you know that. He was probably waiting until it better suited his own needs to hand her over.'
'Normally I'd agree with you...and I even thought so right up until she sent me this...' he shared the images Aurian had sent him of Barricade being torn apart while she coward beneath the table watching his vital fluids pour around her like some dark waterfall. 'They knew he had her at that point. They were searching for her.'
Sunstreaker didn't know what to say. Since when had any Decepticon willingly suffered for anyone else what was undoubtedly a death sentence? They looked out for themselves first and foremost with the exception of a few who were unconditionally dedicated to Megatron, but this was neither. It was what seemed to be a completely selfless sacrifice for the sake of that one human.
'Listen, Sunny, I need to talk to you about her. I don't know how it happened or how it's even possible but..'
'We're bonded to her. I know.'
'...You?'
'What do you think brought me here? Guess I owe her one too.'
Sideswipe stopped walking at that point, 'She reached you?'
'Guess so.'
'She didn't tell me that...'
Sunstreaker turned to look at his twin. It obviously bothered him that the woman had not told him that she had reached his brother but then again, given the human's demeanor... 'Did you ask?'
'No.'
Shrugging dismissively Sunstreaker turned back in the direction they had been heading. 'Some things are universal, Sides. You can't expect everyone to just tell you everything.'
Curled up in my bed I begged for sleep to come. Today had just been too weird for my liking and I wanted to sleep more than anything. I felt like battered, refried Hell in lava sauce. My whole body burned like the worst sunburn I could remember ever having only it was on the inside. My mind struggled to come up with some explanation as to why I felt this way but there was nothing and that scared me. Whatever had happened must have knocked me around good.
I had brought my laptop with me for some reason. It was strange but it kind of felt like having Ruby nearby helped me feel a little less insane, even though Ruby was half the reason I was feeling crazy in the first place! Those odd little messenger windows kept popping up endlessly, though one always remained on top of all the others. I had been tempted to respond to that particular one several times but I was afraid that if I did my level of crazy would rise phenomenally, but now, laying in my bed buried beneath every blanket I could find with my insides blazing brighter then the hottest smelter, I found my heart begging my mind to just give in and talk to that...person?... on the other end of that window.
Reaching out a trembling hand, I poked out the letters to spell out a casual greeting. 'Hey.'
'Aurian? Primus are you alright? Ratchet won't let me near you.'
Okay...Primus? Ratchet? That was the signal of rising insanity. 'Who is this?' There was no response for a long, long time and I kept having this guilty feeling I'd just told my mother that I didn't think I was her child.
'You don't know me?'
Dang, that simple response hurt worse than the burning inside me. 'I can't tell who anyone is.' I tried to explain, 'All my ID's are messed up or something...I can't read them.'
There was a strange feeling inside me, pushing the burning aside to wrap my heart in a calming sensation that I had apparently longed for because as I felt it I could just feel the stress melt from me. I knew that feeling. I knew that being. "Sideswipe?" I spoke out loud for some unknown reason to me.
Imagine my shock when I looked up and on my screen was, 'There you go. Come back to me, Aurian.'
My first thought was 'Come back where?' but as I continued to sense that soft, soothing feeling in my chest I knew I had to go toward it. 'I don't know how,' I typed out.
'Just follow me.'
The soothing feeling turned into a tugging sensation, urging me to abandon the cocoon of my bed to follow. I wanted to go, really I did, yet every nerve and muscle and rational thought screamed 'NO'. Wherever this feeling was pulling me was somewhere I wasn't going to like. My heart began to pound painfully in my chest and my hands trembled violently. The more I tried to move the more the burning inside me grew and so did the anxiety of whatever it was that I couldn't remember. 'I can't.' I finally typed out, giving up on trying to force my unwilling body into action and pushing away the tugging sensation.
I could feel tears begin to sting at my eyes as fear rolled over me, replacing the soothing feeling, the pulling turning into a grabbing sensation. A faint thought in the back of my head kept pushing 'no, no, no' through my mind.
'Don't let go!' Popped up in the message window, 'Just hold on!'
"Why does it hurt so much?" I demanded of the silence around me.
'It's okay to hurt Aurian, just don't let go. I'm sorry I let this happen to you and I swear that as long as you come back to me, I'll never let it happen again!' The grabbing sensation grew stronger, 'Scrap Ratchet. I'm coming. I'll be right beside you when you open your eyes, okay?'
Open my eyes? They were open...but the words seemed somehow reassuring, 'Okay.' I typed back, "I'm so confused." I said aloud.
'I know. You're not alone.'
So, questions? Comments? Concerns? Lemme know! ^_~