Swift woke up with a crick in her neck struts, absolutely no idea where she was at that moment, and a pair of orange eyes - not optics, but organic vision sensors - peering directly into her face.
"Oh… hi," she murmured, not daring to twitch a servo. "Who are you?"
The creature - a beaked green animal with leathery wings and a bony crest - cocked its head and regarded her from its perch on her chestplate. Then it leaned in and pecked lightly at a seam in her armor.
"Hey," she scolded, and tried to shoo the critter away. "I'm not food, stop it."
Her unlikely visitor flapped its wings in reply, screeching.
"Snapper, are you making a pest of yourself again?"
At the sound of Terminus' voice, memory returned to Swift - the rally, the argument with her parents, the flight she'd taken to calm her circuits, the unexpected reunion with a mech she'd long thought dead. She wasn't at home - she was curled up on the couch in her father's apartment in Kaon. Not her adopted father, Blitzwing, but Terminus, the mech whose programming had formed her spark.
How did my life get so weird? she wondered. One morning I'm at home worrying about school, the next I'm in my long-lost father's living room with either his pet or some weird vermin waking me up. And that wasn't even counting the mess with the factionless movement and her relationship with Harmony… but she didn't want to think about THAT tangle yet.
The animal screeched again, then took off and landed on Terminus' shoulder. It nuzzled its beak against his cheek before folding its wings and regarding Swift with a wary expression.
"My apologies if she woke you up," he told her. "She has no manners. And I'm apparently hopeless at trying to train her."
"She's a pretty thing," Swift noted as she sat up from the couch. "I've never seen a flyt up close before. Aren't they rare?"
"Not as rare anymore." Terminus offered a morsel of some organic tidbit to Snapper, who pecked it delicately out of his fingers. "The flyt colonies were decimated during the war, but they've rebounded quite well. And they've even evolved to be better adapted to an entirely mechanical world."
Swift pushed herself up off the couch, wincing as she stretched joints stiff from staying in one position overnight. Terminus had offered her his room for the night, insisting that he could take the couch, but she had refused the offer. She didn't want to impose more than she already had, and turning him out of his own berth seemed rude.
"Good morning, Swift," he greeted, offering her a smile. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah," she replied, arching back to work the last kinks out of her spinal struts. "I didn't snore, did I?"
"Not that I heard," he assured her. "I have fuel ready for you. Um… you're still in school, right? I'm not sure what time your classes start, but I'm sure you can make it on time if you hurry."
Her tanks lurched at that. She hadn't even thought about school. And suddenly she realized that there was no way she could go back, at least not right now. Not just because her parents might be there waiting for her, but because she had no desire to face the other students after the rally had failed so spectacularly. Not only would she have to look at the disappointed expressions of her friends, but detractors like Sunburst and Valiant would have even more ammunition against her.
"I think… I'll be okay if I skip a day," she said at last. "Besides, we can use today to get to know each other a little better, right? Uh… unless you have to go to work…"
"I can take today off," Terminus replied. "It would mean we could spend some time together. I'd like to get to know my daughter better."
"And I'd like to get to know my father better." Swift took the cube he offered her. "It's not every day you get to meet a long-lost family member, right?"
Terminus chuckled. "This is true." He sat down on the couch Swift had just vacated, scooting over to make room for her. "I want to know everything about you. Your life, your interests, your family, your friends… there's so much we have to catch up on!"
"I'm not very exciting," Swift admitted, lifting her cube to take a sip. "I go to school, I write, I play video games, I sometimes go out for drinks with my friends… just simple stuff." She didn't bring up her involvement in the factionless movement, not yet - her father still wore a Decepticon symbol, and if he'd fought in the war he probably wouldn't have the best opinion of her political views.
"Even if it's 'simple stuff,' it's still interesting to me," Terminus told her. "Tell me about your family. You… you mentioned things are rough with them."
Her tanks churned as she stared down at her hands. "It's… nothing."
"It's not nothing if it's bothering you this much," Terminus insisted. "You fled home to escape it. Are they abusing you?"
"No!" Swift protested. "They're not hurting me. We just… had a bad fight. I love my p- my adopted parents. But I don't always agree with their views."
Terminus nodded slowly. "Do you think this difference in views will affect your relationship with them?"
"I don't know." She picked at a loose flake of paint on her knuckle. "The fight was… pretty nasty. And… they're planning on having another sparkling, one drawn from their own sparks. Will they even want me back, when they have their own child to replace me?"
Terminus draped an arm around her shoulders, making Snapper squawk irritably as the movement disturbed her. "Swift… I may not know you as well as your adopted family, but I already know you're irreplaceable. And if your parents think that, or if they let your differences in opinion come between them, then they're idiots who don't deserve you. I don't care if you're a Decepticon, an Autobot, a factionless, or a Functionalist - though I may question your decisions if you follow that last philosophy. You're still my daughter, and I will love and accept you regardless."
Her spark quivered with emotion. "R-really? Even if… if I told you that the reason we had that fight was because… because I led that factionless rally yesterday?"
"Even if that were the case." He hugged her firmly. "And if you really did lead that rally, then you have far more courage than you realize. It takes bolts to stand up for what you believe in, especially when so many disagree with you." He cocked his head to one side. "Is that what caused the fight between you and your parents?"
She nodded. "They both fought on the front lines of the war, and Mom was Air Commander for a time. To them, faction is everything. And I was pretty much spitting in their faces and the faces of my entire family for trying to say that we should have the right to shed factions if we wanted to."
"Primus below," Terminu muttered. "I understand wanting to hold onto your faction - Pit knows I fought for the right to wear my own sigil - but for Primus' sake we fought an entire war to give mechs the chance to decide their own future. Glory and Blitzwing are even more idiotic than I thought."
Tears overflowed her optics, and she leaned against her father's shoulder as he held her. His unconditional love, his acceptance of her and her quirks and the cause she fought for, were exactly what she needed at this moment. Her spark still smarted from her mother's accusations and harsh words, but her father's words soothed that sting.
"If… if you feel your differences with your adopted parents are irreconcilable, then you're free to stay here long-term," Terminus offered. "I turned the spare room into a workshop, but it won't take much to convert it into a bedroom. And I'll ensure you make it to school every day… unless you chose to work instead. I'll support whatever you decide to do."
She drew in a shaky intake. "I… I need to think about that. But thank you. It's nice to have options."
"You're quite welcome," Terminus replied. "You mentioned you like to write… what sort of things do you write?"
Swift ducked her head, mumbling her answer. "Um… mostly… um… fan fiction. Stories about my favorite game series. Just silly stuff."
"Oh really?" He chuckled. "You know, some of my squad mates and I used to write stories about our favorite holofilm series during our down times. They were never anything serious, but it gave us something to talk and laugh about over drinks."
She blinked her optic shutters. "You… you wrote fanfic?"
"Well, we didn't call it that," he replied with a shrug. "I don't know if you've seen the Oil and Blades film series… and judging by your expression, you haven't. Well, they were before your time, I suppose. They were a dramatization of the Decepticon rebellion's birth in the gladiator pits of Kaon, and while I'm sure they were blatant propaganda, we still ate them up. And we would write our own stories about the characters to amuse ourselves."
Swift's spark burned with excitement. Her father had written fanfic! Did that tendency run in their family's programming, or was it just sheer luck? It didn't matter to her, though - all that mattered was that he not only sympathized with her, but he shared at least one of her interests.
"Did you keep any of those stories?" she asked.
Terminus shook his head. "I lost most of my writing during my moves between the colonies after the war. The rest I deleted myself. They were, quite honestly, terrible."
"I've probably read worse," Swift confessed. "If you read fanfic, you have to be prepared for at least three-quarters of it to be trash, if not more. But at least you had fun with it, right?"
"This is true," he confessed. "Perhaps… if you didn't mind… I could read one or two of them? I may not know who the characters are, but I'd love to see a sample of my daughter's work."
Swift almost said yes, but hesitated a moment. She hadn't even shared her writing with her parents, despite them asking to read her work multiple times. She'd told herself it was because they would just laugh and ridicule her for wanting to write romantic stories about her favorite video game characters… but she'd never even given them a chance. Was it really fair to let Terminus, a mech she'd barely met despite his relation to her, read her stories when she'd never allowed her parents to look at them?
In the end, she opted for a compromise. "They… really don't make a lot of sense unless you've played the games, or at least watched a playthrough. I left my console at home, but if you have a viewscreen that'll connect to the networks, we can watch some footage."
Terminus nodded. "Thank you. I'm sure the context will help greatly."
Swift smiled. Perhaps this wasn't the quality time Terminus had hoped to share with his daughter, but she was delighted, at least. And she hoped he would be too.
They were over ten hours into a playthrough of the first Cityspeakers game, watching as Calypso battled the terrible biomechanical mecha of the Alternian army, when a message titled URGENT flashed on Swift's HUD. Frowning, she checked the sender… and opened it upon seeing it was Firebolt. Had it been from her parents, she might have wiped it along with the countless other messages they'd sent her, but she trusted messages from her friends. Had something happened regarding the rally? Had they all been suspended for their involvement? If that were the case, she'd call off the entire movement - it wasn't worth ruining their futures, was it?
Swift, where the frag are you? No one's seen you since the rally and we're all super worried! Are you okay?
She grimaced. Had her parents put Firebolt up to this? Were they using her friends to try to drive her back home? But Firebolt's follow-up message squashed that suspicion.
Did your parents ground you or something? Never thought they'd ground you from school, of all things, but you always liked school, so maybe they thought it was fitting. Do we all need to come to your place and stage a jailbreak? Terror-Byte - that's Ricochet's new name, it's awful, isn't it? - is offering to tear open a window to get you out, but Stardust says that's silly and'll just get us in trouble…
"Is everything all right?" Terminus asked.
"Yeah," she assured him. "I just got a call from a friend. She's worried."
"I see." He paused the playthrough. "Go ahead and talk to her. This can wait."
"Thanks." She fired off a quick reply. I'm okay. Just taking a day off.
You NEVER cut school, Firebolt retorted. You even came to school with a case of rust fever. They had to quarantine you in an empty classroom because you refused to go home until you'd finished your work, remember?
Don't remind me. It's complicated, okay?
Uh-oh… did they find out about you and Harmony? Is this like that Rodeo and Julius play the humans love so much? Don't do that, by the way, everyone died in that play!
It's called Romeo and Juliet, and no, they didn't find out. They just yelled at me for disrespecting the Decepticon badge. Apparently I'm a disgrace to the family, especially since Mom's family all died in the war.
Ouch. If it makes you feel any better, Uncle Onslaught read me and Hornet the riot act too. Swindle says he's proud of us, though. So are you grounded?
Probably… I don't know for sure. I… I lost my temper and yelled back at them, and flew off.
You WHAT? You actually yelled at someone? I'm so PROUD of you, Swift! Hey, you didn't sleep in an alley, did you? You could have crashed at my place, you know.
I… promise not to freak out?
…okay, I'm already low-key freaking out here. You don't say that unless the answer's freak-out worthy.
Just don't tell my parents, okay? Please?
Okay, okay, but no promises that I won't tell Dad or Soundwave or someone if it's serious.
Swift took a deep intake, then released it. I'm at my father's house. Not Blitzwing's - my spark-parent's house.
It took Firebolt several minutes to reply. HOLY FRAGGIN' PRIMUS-DAMNED SLAG, GIRL! You're joking, right?
I'm not joking. His name is Terminus, and he's been alive all this time. We're both taking a day off from school and work to get to know each other.
Holy Pit, Swift… are you sure he's your dad? Not just some creepy rando?
I'm sure. He showed me the spark scans. And we have more in common than I thought we would.
Just be careful, all right? He might be your dad, but you just barely met him. Just make sure he really wants to get to know you and isn't in it for money or a parts transplant or something.
You watch too many dramas.
So what if I do? Please be careful, okay?
I will. Um… you guys aren't in trouble for the rally, are you?
Nah. The professors seem like they want to just ignore it. Everyone else is talking about it, though, and Sunburst has been really snarky about it. But I think the publicity actually helped us - most people are on our side, and we got a ton of people in the chat channel asking more questions.
A clamp on Swift's spark loosened at that. Perhaps the rally hadn't been such a failure after all. Has Valiant been giving you grief?
He's been really quiet, actually. Hasn't hassled us, hasn't talked to us. Dunno what's going through that processor of his.
Keep me updated, all right?
Will do. See you at school tomorrow?
Maybe. Tell the others I'm okay. Tell Harmony too, all right? I haven't heard from her since right after the rally.
It's only been a day, lovebird. You two are cute. Take care.
Terminus chuckled as Swift ended the conversation. "You're blushing, dear. Was that more than a friend you were talking to?"
"No, she was just teasing me about my actual girlfriend," Swift replied. "Everything's okay, she just wanted to make sure I was all right."
Terminus nodded. "I'm glad you have such caring friends. Perhaps I can meet them someday."
"I hope so." She nodded at the paused video. "So what do you think about this game so far?"
"I'm more confused than anything else," Terminus admitted. "An organic alien race is trying to take over Cybertron, and the solution isn't to mobilize our fleet or blow them out of the sky but to give magic weapons to the city-speakers and send them on solo missions against them? It makes no sense."
"It makes sense in context," Swift assured him. "The Alternians may be organic, but they have a strong command of arcane powers and traditional weaponry doesn't affect them. Sumanis the Weaponssmith had to craft special weapons powered by energy-saturated gemstones to combat them. The Amethyst Sword, the Garnet Axe, the Amber Spear, the Jade Daggers, the Malachite Bow… they're special, and the only things that can take down the Alternians."
"Then why not mass-produce these weapons and give them to every soldier, instead of a select few?" Terminus demanded.
"Because their power is so strong it overwhelms most mechs," Swift explained. "Only those who are already accustomed to dealing with huge data loads, such as city-speakers, can wield them without losing their minds. In some of the later games other mechs like combiner-team leaders and Primes are able to use them, but city-speakers are still the best fighters."
Terminus shook his head. "I still don't see the logic. It goes against all the military tactics I know."
"I guess they figure realistic military tactics are boring," Swift replied with a laugh. "Want to keep watching?"
Terminus shrugged. "I might as well. As much as it confuses me, I want to know more. Who IS Sumanis anyhow, and is Calypso going to be able to rescue him before that superweapon is unleashed?"
Swift laughed. "I warned you that the story sucks you in," she noted, and unpaused the video. She knew full well that Sumanis would be rescued, and that Gaia and Hyperion would manage to destroy the Ragnarok Cannon before it went off, Hyperion giving his life to do so. And while Sumanis' true identity as a descendent of Solus Prime wouldn't be revealed until the end of the second game, the post-credits scene would drop a tantalizing clue. But she had no desire to spoil any of that for him.
A rap on the door interrupted the quiet, almost melancholy music that played over the Cityspeakers end credits. Swift glanced up, shocked out of the swell of emotion that always came over her when she watched the ending of the game.
"Huh," Terminus noted. "I'm not expecting anyone. Did you invite your friends here?"
"No," Swift replied, frowning. "I didn't even tell them where you lived."
"Wait here," he told her, squeezing her shoulder. "It could be my landlord or a neighbor. If it's your adopted parents… well, I'll leave it up to you whether you want to invite them in or not."
Swift clenched her fists as her father rose from the couch and went to the door. How could her parents have found her? Had Glory had someone follow her when she'd fled the apartment? If that were the case, though, wouldn't her parents have burst in earlier? Or called the police? Slag, if they had and there were officers at the door waiting to arrest Terminus for kidnapping, she'd never forgive herself…
Terminus cracked the door open. "May I help you?"
"Swift, I know you're in there!"
"Excuse me, this is my apartment. You're not to come in without my permi-"
"Swift, tell the Megatron wannabe to let me in! I swear if he's got you tied up in there…"
"Harmony!" Swift shot to her feet. "Let her in, Dad. She's a friend."
Terminus stepped back, and the black carformer bolted into the apartment and wrapped her arms around Swift's waist. Swift started at the show of affection but reached down to pat her back.
"Frag it all to the Pit, Swift, next time you disappear at least tell me where you're going," Harmony scolded. "I was worried about you."
"How did you find me?" she asked. "I didn't give anyone this address."
Harmony released her and stepped away with a smirk. "Echo traced your call with Firebolt. Your friends debated for awhile on who to send to check on you, and in the end they called me. They figured you'd be more likely to let me in than any of them."
"I would have let them in," she protested. "And I told Firebolt I was all right. She didn't have to send anyone to check on me."
"You spent the night with a complete stranger," Harmony retorted. "Even if he is your long-lost father, that's enough to make everyone worry about you."
"A friend of yours?" Terminus asked, arching an optic ridge.
"Um… Dad, this is Harmony of Unitrex, my girlfriend," Swift introduced. "Harmony, this is Terminus of Kaon, my spark-father."
Harmony looked Terminus up and down, then stuck out a hand. "Charmed, sir."
Terminus took her hand and shook it. "A pleasure. Any friend of Swift's is a friend of mine."
"Right." Harmony studied him a moment longer, then turned back to Swift. "So your creepy stalker turned out to be your long-lost dad, huh?"
Swift nodded. "I guess he was just trying to hunt me down so he could talk to me. Wild, isn't it?"
"That's one word for it." Her gaze moved back to Terminus, optics narrowing. "Is there a private spot where I can talk to her? Couple talk?"
Terminus frowned but nodded. "You can step into my workshop if you like. I'll prepare drinks for when you're done."
"Thanks, sir." She steered Swift into the workshop, a room dominated by an age-pitted workbench and cluttered with computer parts, soldering tools, and datapads.
"Harmony, I'm okay," she assured her. "And cut him some slack, okay? He just wanted to talk."
"This isn't about him, okay?" Harmony retorted. "This is about you."
Her tanks clenched. Had her parents somehow managed to get to Harmony? Was she here to lecture her and tell her to go home and make things up with them? If that was the case, she was sorely tempted to tell Harmony to go home…
"Swift… are you okay? You vanished so suddenly that it scared me. And when even your parents didn't know where you'd gone… I panicked. I shouldn't have had Firebolt and Echo do what they did, but I was so worried about you."
A different emotion swirled through her tanks at that. To know Harmony cared that much that she would stoop to subterfuge and hacking to find and check on her should have aggravated her, but instead it warmed her spark.
"I'm… okay," she replied, her voice soft. "Mostly."
"Mostly?" Harmony cocked her head. "It's more than just what happened at the rally, isn't it? Something's really bothering you."
She sighed, and she told Harmony the full story - her parents' obsession with creating a new sparkling that she feared would replace her, the blowup they'd had after the rally, her worry that the riot at the rally would harm their cause, even the very real fear that her parents would try to interfere with her relationship with Harmony. The carformer listened closely, nodding every now and again, her optics flashing occasionally as something Swift said sparked her temper.
"Well, slag," she said at last once Swift had finished. "Here I thought Mom disapproving of me going to medical school was bad."
"I didn't mean to-" Swift began.
"Aw, nah, I know you didn't mean all this to one-up me," Harmony assured her. "Suffering isn't a competition, after all. And hey… I'm glad you told me. It must have been awful carrying all this around."
"It was," she admitted. "And I'll be honest… it even felt good blowing up to my parents, at least for a moment or two. Like I'd released a ton of pressure."
"I bet." Harmony squeezed her hand. "For what it's worth, though… I think the whole mess with the rally actually helped our cause. It's got people talking about it even more, and even though some mechs in charge are trying to pin the blame for the riot on the factionless cause, the media's in our favor. Helps that there's actual footage of the crowd starting the riot by chucking things at us."
"That's good, at least. I'm still sorry you got hurt, though. And grounded."
"Eh… I'm fine now. And Mom's probably going to strip my paint for sneaking out, but you're worth it."
Her spark flared at those words, and she squeezed Harmony's hand. "That… means a lot to me. You're worth a lot to me too, Harmony. I… I love you."
Harmony smiled up at her. "I love you too, Swift. So does this make me Calypso to your Gaia?"
Swift laughed. "I'm not nearly as awesome as Gaia."
"Hey, you fight for what you believe is right. That makes you a pretty awesome Gaia in my book." She reached up and hooked her fingers into the armor of Swift's chest, tugging her down. "C'mere."
Swift had to bend down to kiss the smaller femme, but she didn't mind. And perhaps their first kiss wasn't as explosive or dazzlingly wonderful as the kisses she'd written about in her fanfics. But it was still sweet, and warm enough to melt away some of the worry in her spark.
"Thank you for coming to find me," Swift murmured.
"Anything for you, my Gaia," Harmony whispered.
Swift blushed. "My Calypso." And she hugged her tightly, content to steal a moment of closeness with her.