Full Summary:
It's been seventeen months, two weeks and four days since Sam Witwicky had been taken hostage by Megatron. The hornet's nest has been kicked and NEST is out for blood, ready to bring back home their young prime.
A tip-off from the UN of an energon source brings out Optimus Prime and his soldiers to investigate the sight. Location: Mount Weather. What they find instead disturbs them beyond their wildest imaginations.
and...
Madi thought she had seen everything in her 137 years of being alive so far. Apparently she forgot to put "meeting and living with sentient mechanoid beings" on her bucket-list of must do's to check off.
Follow Madi's journey as she is thrust into an unknown world, courtesy of the anomaly, and may emotional rollercoasters, fluff, angst, new friendships, heart-breaking betrayals, Transformers, and humans, old and new, collide.
Notes:
Inspired by arabis's Signature series (if you haven't read it yet, and yes, it's still ongoing, go do this right now before continuing further. Signature (Part I) will set the stage for ARCANE and have similar parallels to Tribulations (Part II) moving forth into Schism (Part III). Arabis is such an amazing and inspiring writer and has allowed me to use their work to collide these two amazing fandoms together. I also love Madi from the 100, she is a doll and a badass young commander in her own way. Let's see how she survives in this new arcane world. I hope you enjoy!
(I also take inspiration from musical sources too, so this chapter's inspiration comes from AMARANTHE's "Mechanical Illusion")
Cliffjumper swore to himself as he watched the white blur scurry away like a bolt of lightning.
Seriously?
He was just about to scream bloody murder at the sight of a bunny—a very tiny, fluffy bunny.
Annoyed, he ex-vented through his intakes and thought to himself, Dear Primus, have mercy on his spark.
He made to step over a fairly large tree root when his audio receptors picked up a sound in the distance. Whipping his frame around, his search lights pierced the darkness of night as he tried to hone in on where he thought the source came from. As quietly as he could manage, he went that direction, sweeping the area with his infra-red scanners.
The scout made a mental note to stop watching the recommended "educational content" provided by a certain marine. He didn't think ill of him at all, his heart was in the right place but they probably needed to pipe down on the horror streak a lot more. The eerie silence of the forest coupled with the howling winds and endless rustling of the leaves from the canopy above made the sensors on his armor plates shiver in apprehension. They had no idea of what or who they were going to find here, but the scenic route felt no less ominous.
And by all means, he wasn't afraid to take on one of those Decepti-creeps. If anything, he'd be glad to. Even if it was a zombified version or two. (he seriously needed to stop watching the Walking Dead) However, the sinking feeling that lodged itself into his spark earlier that solar cycle had spread through his circuits like wildfire. He couldn't shake the twinge of unease the moment they crossed through the ground bridge.
Earlier that week they had been tipped off by an unknown source, courtesy of the US Ambassador. When they investigated further, an energon source was detected coming from the southeastern part of the United States along the range of the Appalachian Mountains. Recalling the debrief, Prowl had provided a layout of the region, mainly surrounding a man-made facility called Mount Weather. It was an underground bunker built into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in 1959, meant to safeguard leaders of the US during a nuclear attack. An unfortunate series of events left the facility decommissioned in 1975, the first event being a fatal airplane crash in 1974. The plane had crashed into Area A, the above-ground facilities, leaving it heavily damaged beyond repair and killing everyone on board, including those on the ground. Area B, the underground components, had remained largely unscathed but was left uninhabitable when a deadly radiation leak followed afterward. Besides being heavily guarded and patrolled against the public, and entry strictly permitted to authorized personnel only, it was largely left abandoned.
Barely two days ago when Wheeljack and Perceptor were performing another sweep, they picked up a distress signal coming from the same area. They couldn't identify who it was. It was too weak and fragile to decipher, but it was definitely Cybertronian.
When the United States government cleared them to enter American soil, NEST immediately went into full activation. Their orders were clear; investigate for Decepticon activity, search for any energon sources, and be ready for a possible search and rescue operation.
Distracted by his spinning thoughts, he jerked in surprise when Optimus' baritone crackled through the comms.
"This is Prime to all Autobots. Rendezvous to Ironhide at these coordinates. The entry point has been located."
Without a moment's hesitation, Cliff trekked his way through the darkness of night.
Upon arrival, Cliffjumper was greeted by the sight of NEST soldiers and various Autobots positioned in front of a steel bolted entrance. Imprinted on the border were bold letters that read MOUNT WEATHER COMPLEX. Distinctly remembering the description of the door being 'blast-proof', Cliff scoffed to himself. It probably wasn't Ironhide proof and even if it was, it wouldn't last long anyway.
Mindful of the humans, he made his way to stand beside Bumblebee. The yellow scout greeted him with a quick chirp before falling silent. Noticing the tenseness in his frame, Cliffjumper threw the other scout a questioning glance, his own azure optics bright with concern. Bumblebee merely shrugged and dismissed his behavior with a quick string of Cybertronian. Cliffjumper decided to leave him be, although he made a mental note to speak with him later.
Ironhide knelt down in front of the entrance door before activating a device attached to his arm. White sparks illuminated his frame as a laser beam cut through the thick metal, inching slowly from one end to the other. In a matter of minutes, a metal slab struck the earth with a plume of dust. Lennox signaled the other humans. The Special Ops team made their way inside, guns loaded. In addition to their standard uniform and gear, they were also equipped with infra-red ocular scanners.
Three of the smaller framed Autobots—Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, and Arcee—transformed into their alt modes, following right behind them, blasting the light of their headlights into the darkness.
Despite no longer being occupied by humans, the interior of the tunnel was a wide structured and looked surprisingly well-maintained, at least according to Cliff. It's width allowed for both Bumblebee and Cliffjumper to drive side by side, with Arcee leading the front. Wires and pipes ran alongside the upper parts of the walls, guiding them deeper inside. As they continued further in, they came upon a three-way split. When they reached the intersection point, Cliffjumper noticed a set of numbers engraved on each side of the individual tunnels—203, 402, and 502.
Arcee was the first to shift back into her bipedal mode. Holding her arm up, she activated a hologram of the facility's blueprint. Her optics narrowed as she gave it another once-over, faceplates scrunched discontentedly.
"These are not indicated here."
Lennox huffed beside her, equally annoyed. They had only been provided the original copy when it had been built in the late 1950's.
"If this was being maintained by the US government, the least they can do is waste one sheet of paper and some ink", Epps exasperated.
Beside him, Williams snorted. "My bet it's on something they don't want us knowing."
Lennox rolled his eyes, agreeing. It wouldn't be the first time.
Cliffjumper listened as the others figured out their next plan of action. Out of nowhere, he felt a whispy touch against his field. He whipped his head towards 402, the centermost tunnel. What in the Pits was that?
He swore there was something there, yet when he reached out with his mental presence, he was met with nothing but utter silence. Besides Arcee and Bee's spark signatures, the void was just as empty as space.
Suddenly, a movement caught his attention. There it was again. Cliffjumper quickly reached out and latched on right to it. The moment he made contact, everything happened instantaneously. His protocols went berserk. Fear, confusion, and an endless amount of hurt over-flooded his entire being. The maelstrom of emotion was almost too intense to handle all at once, but one he was unfamiliar with feeling overpowered the rest: possessiveness.
His frame began moving to its own accord. Shifting into his bipedal mode, he barely waited for the last piece to shift into place before the red-and-grey mech raced down tunnel 402, completely deaf to the others' shouts from behind.
Unbeknownst to him, the tunnel had more curvatures than the other routes Cliffjumper paid it no mind as he swerved his way around each corner at dangerously high speeds. He could hear the others trying to communicate with him through the comms. The only thing he could comprehend was a desperation to find and an intense want to protect.
Just as he neared his destination, the lights of his high beams revealed an upcoming archway. Atop the tunnel's end in large bold letters, it read AREA 402. Cliffjumper slammed on the breaks, transforming midway before he skidded on the ground into a stop. Optics wide, he in-vented and ex-vented hot air intermittently like a bull ready to charge. The steel door stared back, mocking him as it stood between him and the pull in his spark. It was just as large as the entrance outside, except this time its border read LIFE SUPPORT - HARVEST ROOM.
He activated his cannons and fired at the offending structure. The first shot only made a dent. Firing again several more times, he effectively blew a hole in the wall. It took a moment for the smoke to clear before he crouched down and made his way past the threshold. The moment he stepped inside, a certain heaviness settled on his armor and burned the more sensitive portions of his exposed parts. He disregarded the warnings flashing across his HUD, instead whipping his head this way and that way, rabidly searching for it.
Cliffjumper was brought out of his cloud of desperation when a crunch reached his auditals, causing him to look down. He removed a pede from the blackened mass. Whatever it was, it was barely recognizable. Quickly scanned a sample of it, the results revealed a mixture of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. He studied the mass in closer detail, this time spotting a few fingers and half what looked like an arm. Spark nearly dropping out of his chassis, Cliffjumper reeled back and tried to avoid the other piles littered across the ground.
Something wavered in the corner of his optic before it shimmered to reveal a pulse, glowing lowly yet bright. He forced his holoform to appear and began navigating through the place. It led him towards a pile near the centermost part of the area.
Cliffjumper made to move apart some of the mass when it crumbled under his hands, revealing an upper body of what he thought at first was a human in-tact. Cliff pushed it, turning the body on its back. The head loll revealed a half-human half-Cybertronian face, the miniature pieces in the midst of changing from one being to another stopped in mid-transformation. A pretender.
Cliffjumper didn't recognize the Cybertronian, but his attention was pulled to the human it held against its chassis. There were angry welts and swollen bulges throughout her face and arms where the skin was exposed. Blood seeped from a gash on her forehead and from her nose. His brows furrowed in confusion. Was human blood supposed to be black?
Kneeling on the ground, Cliff removed her from the Cybertronian's grasp. He held her limp form in a tight embrace. A whimper escaped his lips when he felt her spark pulsing weakly against his, undulating with impossible brightness. Gently, he rocked her body back and forth, wrapping her presence with his. Desperate to quell the maelstrom of fear and confusion, he released wave after wave of calm reassurance, barely restraining the possessiveness overriding his system through their bond space. It felt like an eternity before the storm slowly faded away, morphing into a calm brilliance. It brushed against his own, caressing it. He tightened his hold on her, frightful she would disappear into a cloud of stardust.
Conflicted, Cliffjumper wasn't sure what to do. His logical protocols blared warningly, screaming at him that this was very wrong. The logic behind it was false; this had to be a mistake. However, Cliffjumper pushed past them, as he knew in his spark it this was right. He didn't care that this was a human. An organic. The only thing he understood was that this was his bonded. At that moment, his fear heightened tenfold from the knowledge elicited from the connection.
Shakily, he activated his comms.
"This is Cliffjumper. I'm sending coordinates to my location inside Mount Weather. I need Ratchet here. Primus, please, hurry."
As soon as Cliffjumper's message came through, the rest of them quickly mobilized. Ratchet led the front with Bumblebee. Arcee had taken one tunnel and Smokescreen the other. Lennox, Epps, Williams, and Anderson rode with Bee, nestled in his cabin. They sped down tunnel 402, Bee couldn't help but worry about Arcee. Although she hadn't voiced it, Bee had felt the concern in her electromagnetic field.
Out of all the millions of years Bumblebee knew Cliffjumper, the only time he had heard vocals so stricken was during their first battles in Iacon. He remembered clearly, it was the first time after a hard-earned win on the battlefield, they grieved their fallen comrades as the gravity of what the war really meant for their people dawned on them. It was so unlike the normally impulsive, supportive Autobot, and it only fueled him to get there faster.
Reports from the others came in on his secondary processor. All levels that had been cleared had no signs of human or human habitation or Decepticons for that matter. Arcee reported a storage unit holding nothing other than antiques like chinas and paintings on Level 501. A rundown medical lab was found on 304. According to Smokescreen, there were signs of recent usage too.
As they swerved around the curvatures with practiced ease, Ratchet and Bumblebee came upon a large hole clearly blasted open, surrounded by metal and rock debris. The humans peered through his windshield, equal looks of shock written on their faces.
"What in Christ's name happened here?"
Bumblebee stopped several hundred meters away as Ratchet drove forward. Lennox made to open the driver's side door, only to find it locked. "Bumblebee, can you unlock it?"
The scout spoke through his radio. "Sorry, Captain, no can do. Ratchet's orders." "Huh? What's going on?"
This time, Ratchet's voice responded back. "There is an extremely potent amount of radiation coming from this area. I have ordered Bumblebee to take you back to the surface at once. Prime has already been informed."
Epps scoffed. "We just hauled ass here!" he exclaimed.
"Your sentiment is valid, Sergeant Epps. However, we cannot take this risk. I will handle this with Cliffjumper for now. Bumblebee and the other Autobots will join me once all of you have been secured."
Epps tsked, but relented nonetheless. It wasn't like they had a choice anyway.
Lennox looked at Ratchet's transforming frame through the windshield. "Be careful, Ratchet." "I appreciate the concern, Major. Bee, go."
Bumblebee revved his engine affirmative before he reversed around and disappeared back up. The medic didn't bother looking after their departure. He stepped through the threshold, optics widened when he felt the pulse. A ping brought his attention to the scout's still frame on one side of the room, faceplates devoid of any expression. Ratchet followed his line of sight and found Cliffjumper's holoform several meters. He activated his own, shimmering to life next to the scout.
Normally Cliffjumper would jump at the sight of something suddenly appearing beside him, especially in his current state of mind. Instead, he sagged with relief the moment he saw Ratchet.
"Thank Primus you're here. Please, help her."
Ratchet knelt next to them, scanning her as he checked the girl's vitals. Just based on appearance, she couldn't have been any older than twelve or thirteen years old. His spark clenched at the thought of someone so young entangled in a situation like this.
"She has signs of dehydration and malnutrition. There is a fracture on her hipbone and wrists too." He inspected the gash on her forehead. "The other wounds are superficial, but this will scar."
A warning popped up on his HUD when he completed the scan. His eyebrows furrowed, reading the contents a second time.
"Primus, how is this possible?"
Cliffjumper looked to him, eyes wide. "What is it, Ratchet?"
Unsure of how to articulate his findings, he decided to perform a secondary scan, this time using his most sophisticated sensor sweep. "I need to be sure of this. Hold her steady."
They stayed like that for several minutes. The seconds felt like years as they waited for the results to generate. When he reviewed the secondary scan, this time going to the genomic level, Ratchet swore the universe was mocking him.
"Unbelievable. How is this possible?!"
Anxious, the scout questioned him desperately. "Ratchet, please tell me what is going on?! Will she survive?!"
The medic held Cliffjumper's gaze for a moment bringing his attention back to her resting face. "She will be more than fine. There is Allspark signature radiating from her cells, which is not undergoing senescence. Her black blood must be the result of a mutation, possibly from a genetic level or forced conversion—which I am not sure of. Regardless, it's keeping her alive."
Pausing, he watched the influx of data on her vitals closely. He made a sound of disbelief, shaking his head. His voice was but a whisper.
"Her body...it's digesting over twenty thousand millisieverts of radiation as we speak."
Cliffjumper slowly processed the information. He privately accessed the world wide web to understand and validate the medic's analysis. It wasn't that he didn't trust Ratchet, but he wanted to make sure of it.
Fast as lightning, he went through millions of articles and documents on the internet. Shock barely described how he felt when it dawned on him a regular human would have died in several days exposed to ten thousand millisieverts. The current conditions were enough to kill a whole healthy human within a day or two, if not a few hours.
Despite the fact that he was beyond relieved she would survive, his hold on her tightened at the thought of the changes done to her and if she even knew. If there had not been any consent up to his point, he thought to himself dreadfully—and rightfully so—how she would react to the spark bond?
"What do we do now?" he timidly asked the medic.
Ratchet's facial expression softened. He grasped Cliffjumper's shoulder, squeezing it tight. "What we have to do."