Chapter 9

Spark Song

Dinobot was worn out from sword training with Cheetor all morning in the hangar bay. Cheetor was decent with a gun, but the youngling's legs failed him time and again when he tried to dodge Dinobot's attacks. Dinobot had many years of experience, and his thrust was one of the best on Cybertron. He wished his Maximal comrades would learn how to better their own close combat techniques. In his opinion they relied far too heavily on their firearms.

As Dinobot entered his quarters he found himself drawn to the window, which held a perfect view of the animal sanctuary. Dinobot hated that his room was so close to those braying screeching animals, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. No one would trade quarters with him.

As Dinobot looked out the window he could see Bitten sitting beside an enclosure and petting Metronome, her beloved pet raven. He could barely see her, yet it was clear that she was content by her body language alone. She looked so young and so peaceful as she tenderly caressed her black bird. Dinobot found such a lack of awareness to be foolish. She could be attacked at any moment, yet she completely let her guard down!

Dinobot snorted as he walked away from the window and sat on his berth. Bitten was a foolish submissive femme with an unfathomable moral compass and an obsession with non-sentient animals. Her atitude was more like some mousy pre-war femme than the strong-willed soldiers of the Third Cybertronian War. He found her to be so infuriating, and yet...

It was impossible for Dinobot to deny that he had been thinking of her more ever since their awkward scouting mission together two weeks prior. Despite her passive nature she was a very powerful femme. She had a voice that could kill and spring-loaded legs that could break bones and struts alike. Her optics were both terrifying and mesmerizing; holding one's attention like the eyes of a cat or a cobra. Her voice was soft and soothing to Dinobot's war-weary audials, and her singing calmed him while at the same time annoying Rattrap. It was a perfect melody.

Dinobot shook his helm to try to banish the thoughts from his processor, but he just couldn't get rid of them. He couldn't deny that earth didn't exactly offer a wide range of femmes, and Dinobot also knew he was an outcast from Cybertron. In fact, it was very likely that he would never be able to return to his former home. He was a Predacon terrorist that had even abandoned his tiny sub-faction to join Maximals. No one would take him now. These Maximals were his only friends, and once they were able to return home he would be forced to remain alone forever on this mudball of a planet.

His pedes seemed to have a mind of their own as he was drawn once again to the window. Dinobot was surprised to find that Metronome was standing on the ledge of his window, and looking beyond the bird Dinobot could see that Bitten was holding her helm with her servo and opposite wrist; locked in a silent scream.

Dinobot jolted back, surprised that she looked so terrified. He couldn't tell if she was in pain or not, but he knew something was wrong. Without another thought he raced out of his room with sword in hand to see if he could help Bitten.

Dinobot made it outside and saw that Bitten was now lying flat on her back, still clutching her helm with her only servo and coolant streaming down her faceplates. She didn't even seem to notice him.

"Bitten! What's the matter with you?" Dinobot snapped, hiding his concern with forced anger.

Bitten didn't answer Dinobot, but she did turn her helm slightly to look at him. Her optics pleaded for help, but her vocalizer remained silent.

"Bitten! Get up! We need to get you to the CR chamber!" Dinobot insisted as he tried to lift her up.

Bitten screamed when he touched her, and Dinobot had to move away from her so her sonic blast didn't damage him. Thinking it over, Dinobot decided to try to lift her from behind so she couldn't aim her face at him. It was okay if his audials took a little damage as long as the blast itself wasn't aimed at him.

Dinobot lifted Bitten up by her armpits, but instead of the screaming he expected to hear it was only a light warble of pain. He lifted her legs up and carried her bridal style back to the ship. She didn't seem to respond, and he wondered what could've happened to her in such a short amount of time. She was fine a moment ago, but now she seemed almost catatonic.


Dinobot snarled and paced furiously as Rhinox checked the scans from the CR chamber. It would tell them what was wrong with Bitten and how long it would take to repair.

"Yeesh Chopperface, I haven't seen you this upset since I ate your last rack of ribs," Rattrap remarked in an effort to lighten the mood.

"Silence, rodent!" Dinobot growled dangerously, "I just don't understand. What happened to her? Have the Predacons invented a new long range weapon? Did she contract a virus? What is this!?"

Rhinox chose that moment to approach the group with his findings, but the look on his face was less than comforting. He looked utterly baffled.

"It's a weapon, isn't it?" Dinobot stated rather than asked.

"No," Rhinox replied, "I don't know what this is. According to the scan she's fine. Her spark is thrumming a little faster than usual, but that could just be a stress reaction. Her vitals are all normal and she has plenty of fuel in her systems. The CR won't activate because it doesn't detect anything wrong. We have to let her out."

"But that blasted machine didn't do anything!" Dinobot protested.

"Sorry, but until we know more we can't help her," Rhinox replied sadly.

Optimus Primal then opened the door to the CR chamber, and much to their surprise Bitten was able to walk out under her own power. She looked at each of them with a mildly curious expression, and that was the last straw for Dinobot.

"Argh! What is your malfunction, you glitch!?" Dinobot yelled at Bitten, "Do you have any idea how worried we all were about you? You're wasting our resources when there isn't even anything wrong with you!"

"I..." Bitten began, paused, and then said, "I did not ask you to bring me here."

"That is no excuse!" Dinobot bellowed at her, "If there is something wrong with you, then you tell us! Now, what happened out there!?"

"My spark was..." Bitten looked down at the ground before continuing, something that surprised Dinobot given how much she loved to stare at people, "...reaching out. My spark wanted to find others. My guardian, my sisters, my symbiotes...I could not help it. They are all gone, and it is hard."

"I understand," Optimus replied comfortingly, "The emptiness is putting a strain on your systems. Don't worry, we'll be here to help you in any way we can. Perhaps if you ate something and got some rest."

"Thank you," Bitten replied softly.

Without looking at any of them Bitten walked to the elevator and punched in the floor where her room was. Bitten couldn't handle being in the same room with anyone at the moment. She didn't want to tell them anything. She didn't really feel emptiness, that was a lie. She felt injuries. Very old, very familiar injuries emanating from three very familiar members of her spark bond. She would keep it to herself, however. No sense giving potential enemies leverage on her.


Dinobot tried to recharge that night, but the events from earlier that day were wearing him down. He had been afraid of losing Bitten when she seized on the ground like that, looking up at him with pleading optics and silent screams. His spark lurched at the thought of never seeing her again, and that was when he realized something he had been loathe to admit: he was falling in love with Bitten.

He wanted her in his life, but he didn't know the appropriate way to tell her. He wasn't a romantic type, and even if he were a Predacon's idea of romance would probably differ from hers. He needed to know more before he could proceed.

Dinobot went to his computer and decided to look up dating rituals of Polyhexians in the Golden Age of Cybertron. It wasn't the exact time period Bitten lived in, but it was close enough and more likely to have benign records than the Third Cybertronian War era. He only hoped his search history wasn't monitored by anyone else on the ship.

The results were not what Dinobot had been hoping for. Apparently when a cassette host fell in love they made their intentions known by either writing or selecting a song that expressed how they felt about their love interest, and then playing it on their radio or singing it themselves.

More singing... Dinobot thought bitterly. Why does every nice thing I try to do for this femme lead back to singing?

Dinobot growled softly to himself and wondered if finding a perfect song to describe Bitten was even worth the effort. When he imagined her hearing it, loving it, and then passionately kissing him he decided that yes, it was worth it.

A Polyhexian love song wasn't just a generic song saying they were love and it was wonderful. No, it would have to be something personal, something that expressed how Dinobot felt around Bitten and things that he admired about her. Polyhexian love songs were complex and detailed, usually going into everything from the first time a couple met to a psychological profile to the romantic partner's hobbies.

If Dinobot was going to bother finding a love song for Bitten then he would need to know more about her. The other Maximals had given up trying to figure out who she was months ago, so Dinobot would have to pick up where they left off. He started by typing in Bitten's name into the Third War era database.

Nothing. There was nothing there, no femme named Bitten. Dinobot clenched his fist, but he couldn't exactly say he was surprised. She seemed like the kind of femme that would give a fake name to her rescuers. So, what did he actually know about her?

He knew that Bitten was quiet, that she loved animals, that she had close ties to some famous historical Autobots as well as first hand knowledge of the creation of the Maximals-

That was it. Bitten had given a name of someone she used to know! Dinobot remembered her story about her best friend Honey Venom. Perhaps if Dinobot could find Honey Venom in the historical records, then he could find the true identity of Bitten and therefore know how best to get her to fall for him.

Dinobot typed in the name Honey Venom, but what he found was surprisingly little. According to the records, Honey Venom was an Autobot and the adopted daughter of a scientist named Skyfire. She had been reported as killed after a failed battle against the Decepticons aboard the Nemesis 1. She was logged as a beast-former and there were no photos available in the public record. For someone that supposedly ushered in the beast age, she sure didn't get any recognition for her efforts.

Dinobot felt that he had hit a wall, but if Honey Venom was real then he had to be on the right trail. He searched for other family members of Honey Venom and Skyfire. Skyfire had creators in the Golden Age, but neither one survived past the beginning of the war. Honey Venom had no known relatives.

Thinking harder about this, Dinobot decided to search for records of the battle where Honey Venom was killed and see if Bitten had been there. Apparently it wasn't so much an official battleground as it was Honey Venom and two other Autobots infiltrating the Nemesis against Optimus Prime's orders. According to the records a seeker named Quantum Boom had lost her frame in the attack, but her spark had ghosted outside the atmosphere until her frame was replaced.

"Quantum Boom..." Dinobot whispered, "Q-Boom. Bitten had mentioned this name. That was the frame she handed over to Waspinator. So, these two femmes were friends of Bitten. I'm getting closer..."

He continued reading, and found out besides Honey Venom there had been one other casualty; a sparkling femme named Terrabyte. Dinobot wondered why an adult femme would take a sparkling into battle, and decided to do some research on Terrabyte.

Terrabyte had been the adopted daughter of a famous Autobot frontliner named Sunstreaker, one half of the notorious "twins"; a set of split sparks that somehow made it to adulthood. Terrabyte had been the daughter of known Decepticon saboteur Zetabyte and a Decepticon grunt officer named Tug. Besides her adoption and death not much was known about this femmeling. Dinobot searched for photos of the sparkling, and he found that only two existed in the public record.

The first one he clicked on wasn't a photo at all, but rather a painting that hung in the Iacon Museum of Classical Art. It was from their Third Era exhibit, a black and white charcoal piece painted by Sunstreaker during his post-war period. It was a sad looking little femme holding a dead rose to her chest as wind whipped around her still frame. What caught Dinobot's attention however wasn't just the haunting gaze of the subject, but the one place where it wasn't drawn in charcoal. The optics, large and glittery yellow, had apparently been painted using Sunstreaker's own body paint. Those optics looked just like Bitten's.

Dinobot felt a chill as he read the description. The artwork had apparently been drawn when Sunstreaker had gone through a depression following the murder of his sparkling at Megatron's servos. The dead rose represented their broken spark bond, and Sunstreaker was quoted as saying he would have nightmares of the sparkling staring at him from beyond the grave. According to records the twins never fought again, and eventually Sunstreaker and Sideswipe offlined due to starvation from lack of energon on the planet Gorr.

Despite the cold chill Dinobot felt at reading those words, he still clicked on the second known reference to Terrabyte. It was a private family photo that was in the public domain after the death of the twins. In the photo the sparkling stared at the camera while sitting in Sunstreaker's lap. Sunstreaker was yelling at Sideswipe, who was off to the side of the shot sticking his glossa out and wiggling his digits. Overall it looked chaotic, all except for the passive almost sad looking sparkling looking at the camera and thus the viewer.

"It's her," Dinobot whispered to himself, "That has to be Bitten. No one else looks that haunted, that piercing."

He finally knew who she really was, but he didn't really know what to do with that information. Everything he learned about Bitten felt less like a love song and more like a dirge. Everyone in her own time period assumed she had died, and there was no way to tell them otherwise. These were events from his past, yet this planet's future. Was it set in stone, or could Bitten change her destiny? Even if she could, did he want her to? Could they even be lovers if she tried to get back to her own time? He doubted it.


The next day Dinobot still felt confused and tired from the previous night's research. All he wanted was a song to court that blasted kangaroo, and instead he finds a tale of loss and spark break. The painting he had seen had been despairing and dark, yet the one that haunted Dinobot more was the supposedly happy family photo. Even there Bitten, no Terrabyte, had looked so...haunted. She looked resigned to a fate she didn't want, and yet Dinobot didn't understand what that meant.

As Dinobot made his way to the elevator he noticed that Bitten was standing there waiting for the same lift. She saw him coming, and started walking toward him. He wondered if she could read the apprehension on his face.

"Dinobot," Bitten addressed him with the same detachment as always, but her look was intense, "I have something for you."

"You got me a gift?" Dinobot asked, "It better not be a pet. I'm not taking on your responsibilities."

"No. I found a song in the earth archives," Bitten replied stoically, "I want you to listen to it, and tell me what you think."

Dinobot raised an optic ridge, intrigued. He wondered if this meant what he thought it meant. Perhaps her lust was starting to turn into something...deeper. Then again it could be nothing of the sort. He would just have to find out for himself.

Dinobot took the sound chip from Bitten to listen to what song she wanted him to hear, but much to his dismay it was an archaic earth pop song.

If you wanna be with me

Baby there's a price to pay

I'm a genie in a bottle

You gotta rub me the right way

If you wanna be with me

I can make your wish come true

Just come and set me free baby

And I'll be with you

"Yuck!" Dinobot exclaimed sourly, "You actually like this garbage?"

"No, I don't," Bitten replied unperturbed, "That's not the point. It's my spark song."

Spark song? Dinobot had seen that phrase pop up during his research on Polyhexians. This was what Dinobot had been trying to come up with all night, and as it turned out Bitten had the same idea. He listened to the lyrics again, and began to understand. A genie was a powerful being in mythology that was at the beckon call of whoever was able to release them from their prison. This song likened that myth to a conditional sort of romantic love. So that meant...

"You're saying this song is our song?" Dinobot asked for clarification.

"If you want it to be," Bitten replied bashfully.

"Why did you choose this one?" Dinobot asked, though he felt like he probably already knew.

"Because I feel more than love for you, I feel loyalty," Bitten replied, "You earned that loyalty by your actions and your honesty. You don't say you care about me, you just do. So...is this...our song?"

Dinobot couldn't hold back anymore. He scooped her up in his arms and sniffed her helm. She stiffened for a moment, and he feared he had misjudged the situation, but then he felt her arms wrap around him and her helm rest on his chassis. He breathed in her scent and worked the tips of his claws into the seams of her lower spinal strut's armor.

He knew her secrets, and he knew her weaknesses. In that moment however that knowledge felt irrelevant. For the first time in ages he was in the company of an honorable femme that wanted him as much as he wanted her, and he was going to allow himself to enjoy this moment.


Author's Notes: This time I decided to put the author's notes on the bottom. Anyway, this chapter had some vague planning, though I think some of the better parts of it were spontaneous. I have big plans for this story, though admittedly I think it's been a slow climb so far. Not to worry though, we'll get back on track in the next chapter. Also, I actually do dislike that song up there, but it fit Bitten's character and the timeframe she was on earth too well to not use. Also, the family portrait mentioned in the fic really exists on deviantart, but I'm not guaranteeing it's good ^_^'