Author's Notes: For whatever reason this fic seems to be the one I've been the most reliable about updating lately. Don't know why that is, but either way this chapter is one I've been wanting to write for a while. It's nice when a story comes together. Thank you for reading, and please favorite and review :)
Chapter 11
Staring Into An Echo
Bitten had to go to the control room on the lower level to retrieve Waspinator's body, and when she finally found it carrying it was heavy, but she somehow managed to transport Waspinator's pieces to the CR chamber. She knew she could leave as soon as he was safely inside, but she decided to sit and wait for him anyway. Part of it was concern for his well being, and the other part was wanting to collect her debt. With those thoughts in mind her decision to stay with him was an easy one.
It took almost an hour for Waspinator to be restored, and Bitten was certain that she should have contacted Tigatron in that time, but she was afraid of being discovered. If he needed assistance he could contact her, so she was sure everything was fine. To occupy her time Bitten scanned through the database to see if she could find anything that would be useful to the Maximals.
As she perused the various sections of the unencrypted portions of the Darksyde's records she came across a history text called 'From Decepticons to Predacons: A History of Great Leaders'. Bitten remembered fondly how Honey Venom loved to read military history, and how sometimes Honey Venom could be convinced to read her books as a bedtime story to her fellow orphans. Bitten loved those quiet moments, and as she looked at the title of the text she felt a longing for those oppressive yet simpler times.
She opened the file and started reading. Of course it was no surprise that the first third of the text was about Megatron (the first one). Bitten didn't feel like reading this part since Honey Venom had read so much about the warlord to her already. So, she decided to find out who came after Megatron.
She had expected to see Starscream, but was surprised to find the seeker had been killed at his own coronation by a mech named Galvatron. It served Starscream right as far as Bitten was concerned. Starscream had murdered Skyfire, who was not only his former best friend but also Honey Venom's mentor. If Starscream had never done that then Honey Venom would have never sought revenge and been killed by Megatron.
The chapter on Galvatron detailed a sharp fall from grace for the Decepticons. The new leader had been powerful to a degree unmatched before him, but had also been driven insane by a corrupted hard drive. He would attack his own mechs indiscriminately, had an insatiable bloodlust, and a hatred for Autobots that was downright infamous. He apparently also had a drinking problem and had a bad habit of invading the personal space of others.
Bitten could find humor in this since Galvatron was long dead and the Decepticons were no more. He sounded like quite a character, and perhaps someone Bitten might study up on when she could find the time. She downloaded the file of the entire text for later and went to check on Waspinator.
When Bitten opened the door to the CR chamber Waspinator stumbled out and held his helm while moaning in pain. Once he managed to get his bearings he noticed that Bitten was staring at him intently. That stare was creepy enough to the Maximals, but it was twice as unsettling for a Predacon.
"Zo, what waz the favor?" Waspinator asked, sounding more confident than he felt about this unknown element.
"I need to go somewhere," Bitten explained, "I want you to fly me there, and tell no one of the location where we are going."
"That zounds like a Maximal trap!" Waspinator replied suspiciously.
"No, it is not," Bitten replied matter-of-factly, "In fact, the Maximals also must not know of this location. It is my secret, and it will soon be yours. Tell anyone my secret, and I will kill you. I don't want to. I've never killed before. However, this matter is of utmost importance."
"Then why truzt me?" Waspinator inquired in confusion.
"Because I doubt you would do anything to harm your own carrier," Bitten replied cryptically, "We should leave now, while both sides are distracted."
Waspinator didn't like the sound of this. He imagined a homicidal white kangaroo taking him someplace remote and then shooting him in the helm. Then again, she healed him. Why go to the trouble of saving him just to hurt him again? That sounded like the sort of insane thing Tarantulas would do, but that hardly seemed like Maximal reasoning.
Deciding that he didn't have all that much to lose, Waspinator agreed to fulfill his debt and fly Bitten to wherever it was she wanted to go. Besides, at this point he was curious to see what wa so special that even Optimus Primal would be denied such information.
"What iz thiz thing?" Waspinator asked as he stared up at the large mangled heap before him.
Bitten and Waspinator had flown for over an hour to get to a peninsula that looked like it was almost ready to break apart from the rest of the continent. When Bitten ordered Waspinator to land he didn't know what to expect. He still wasn't sure what this was, only that it was black and grey, had decimated wings, and had crashed on this planet. It was probably a shuttle, but Waspinator wasn't sure if it was a mere transport or-
"AHHH!" Waspinator screamed as he came across what looked like a half-transformed face coming out of the crumpled vessel, "Wazzpinator not like thiz anymore! Wazzpinator wantz to go home!"
Bitten hopped around to where the giant green wasp was buzzing around. She looked into the lifeless faceplate, and her expression became distant. Waspinator noted how intimate this moment seemed for the kangaroo, and he realized that not only was this giant heap a Cybertronian, but it was someone Bitten knew.
"Who waz he?" Waspinator asked, trying to sound sympathetic.
"Her name was Tearjerker," Bitten replied mournfully, "She was my caretaker in the foundling home where I ended up after the murder of my parents. She is not why we are here."
"Then what are we doing here, Hoppy Bot?" Waspinator asked irritably.
"They are dying," Bitten said vaguely as she made her way to the nearest entrance and into the dead shuttle-former.
Bitten transformed before stepping inside Tearjerker's frame. Waspinator didn't want to go inside a dead body, but he also didn't want to be left outside alone. He had already defied Megatron by aiding a Maximal and didn't want to get caught by a fellow Predacon while helping the enemy. They might've officially had a truce, but Waspinator knew Megatron wanted the Maximals dead if an opportunity arose. Megatron would be so angry if he knew Waspinator was showing kindness to the marsupial femme. Reluctantly Waspinator flew into the open doorway to join Bitten.
Waspinator transformed into robot mode and looked for Bitten. The room was very dark since there were no windows, so Waspinator turned on his night vision. It proved to be unnecessary as Bitten found a flashlight under a console and turned it on. The light hurt Waspinator's optics with his night vision on, and he screamed in agony before turning it off.
"Not funny, Hoppy Bot!" Waspinator snapped once he was close enough to her.
Bitten wasn't paying attention to Waspinator, however. She was looking down at the mass on the floor in front of her. Waspinator wasn't sure what he was looking at for a few seconds, but then he saw more heads and limbs and it clicked. Cybertronians. There were four ancient Cybertronian femmes tangled together in a protective bundle; all in stasis lock. They were the size of a normal Predacon, but the designs were clearly old.
"Miniconz?" Waspinator guessed.
"Sparklings," Bitten corrected, "Their sparks are giving out under the pressure of their injuries. They are dying."
"How did you know?" Waspinator asked.
"Three of them are my sisters, more or less," Bitten told him, "We were all in the same orphan gang. That gold one is Honey Venom, the dark blue seeker is Quantum Boom, and the black and grey-blue car-former is Phobia."
"Who iz the white-?" Waspinator started to ask, but then he realized he already knew.
Waspinator turned to Bitten and looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. She said Quantum Boom was his carrier, but here she was, a sparkling. If Bitten could be in an orphan gang with ancients, that meant...
"You weren't alwayz a Maximal, were you?" Waspinator put the pieces together, "You were an ancient. Thiz zparkling iz you, izn't it? You are dying."
"I feel their pain in my spark," Bitten lamented, "I cannot save them. I do not know how. However, I will not let them die alone. We are family, and we shall die together. Thank you for bringing me here, Waspinator. I am sorry, but you will die too. No Q-Boom means no Waspinator."
"What!?" Waspinator exclaimed in shock, "Mommy Bot iz dying? But how!? She iz not from thiz world, wherever thiz world iz. She can't die! We muzt zave her!"
"I cannot treat people, only organics," Bitten replied ruefully.
"Wait, Wazzpinator haz an idea!" Waspinator exclaimed triumphantly despite nothing happening yet, "Your people knew nothing of zpark trazfusion, right?"
Bitten just looked at him in blank confusion.
"Well, we can uze our zparkz to revitalize the zparkz of the baby botz," Waspinator explained, "We juzt need a link cable and zomething to monitor our energy levelz."
Bitten didn't understand the exact science, but she understood Waspinator needed a link cable and a spark rate monitor. She could easily find the former within the dead shuttle, but the monitor was something she didn't have. She found the cable for Waspinator, but informed him that they had no way to tell if what they were doing was working.
"Well then, ztay cloze by," Waspinator instructed, "You zaid you could feel their zparkz, right?"
"Yes, Waspinator," Bitten nodded.
"Well then, you tell Wazzpinator if the tranzfusion is working," Waspinator ordered.
Bitten agreed and they started working on the first spark. Waspinator attached his spark to Q-Boom while Bitten attached her spark to Honey Venom. A more rational person probably would have saved their own past self first, but Bitten's devotion to her best friend remained despite the time and space that had passed. She only hoped that what she and Waspinator were doing was working.
Optimus Primal could not believe the position he was in, figuratively and literally. He was strapped to steel cables by his hands and feet and hanging from mid-air by a coil that had just popped up out of the floor. He was inside the alien structure they had found, and had ordered Rattrap and Airazor to leave it while he tried to broker peace between the Maximals and the aliens that ruled this mysterious planet.
The plan unfortunately wasn't going so well. Not only was Primal being held hostage by the aliens, but after they scanned him they showed themselves to him...more or less. They projected a large orange hologram of a Cybertronian historical figure that Primal would recognize; Unicron the unmaker. That was...less than comforting for the gorilla-former.
"If you've scanned me, then you know we did not come to this planet by choice," Optimus Primal tried to explain.
"And yet you are here," The Unicron hologram replied; its voice a deep ominous monotone.
"We mean no harm," Optimus assured the aliens, "To you or this planet."
"It is too late," Unicron rumbled, "You and your enemies have already contaminated the project. The harm has been done. That which does not become part of the one becomes void."
"No! Wait!" Optimus Primal pleaded, "We can fix whatever damage was done."
"We are not interested," Unicron replied dismissively, "The experiment will be sterilized."
"You can't do that!" Primal objected despite his compromising position, "There are living creatures here! You, with all your power, even you don't have the right!"
"We have no choice," The alien projection replied as it began to float away, "There is more danger than you know. Begin termination sequence."
The floating orange Unicron head then disappeared, leaving a countdown to destruction in its wake. Soon the planet and everyone on it, including the Maximals, would be destroyed.
"Noooo!" Optimus Primal let out a feral scream as he used every ounce of his strength to break his bonds, "Optimus Primal, Maximize!"
Now in robot mode, he had to go outside and warn the Maximals and Predacons waiting out there of the danger. They had to figure out a way to save the planet, and they didn't have much time. Every Cybertronian, every plant, and every animal was counting on them to stop this mass extinction.
With the first two sparks successfully restored, Waspinator and Bitten were working on the other two. Waspinator was connected to Terrabyte, and Bitten was connected to Phobia. She had wanted to donate part of her spark to herself, but Waspinator was too afraid to touch Phobia after he found out she was an energon leech.
Bitten was actually surprised that Predacons had any concept of energon leeches. Back on Cybertron in Bitten's era energon leeches were treated like parasites and often killed by those that didn't understand their abilities. They were called vampires, cannibals, and every other monstrous name one could think of. Due to frequently being the targets of fearful citizens, energon leeches were quite rare even in Terrabyte's day. Of course a leech could drain enough energon to kill a mech, but only as an adult. Even if Phobia were awake, there was no way she could actually kill Waspinator.
It was probably for the best anyway. Bitten felt weird looking at the younger version of herself. For one thing she was only a couple feet taller, which didn't seem fair. Also, just the idea of looking at one's self is rather disturbing on a psychological level. Bitten had always seen herself in a mirror, and had never been able to see herself the way the rest of the world saw her. It looked...backwards.
Bitten took a look at Waspinator siphoning his own spark just to save her life, and she saw the Predacon in a new light. Sure, they were technically in a truce, but Bitten had no illusions that the other Predacons would kill her if given the chance. She could see that there was actually a sliver of decency in Waspinator though, and she wondered if he would someday defect like Dinobot. Then again, who said he had to? Who was to say that all Predacons were evil like Megatron? Bitten didn't know, and felt guilty about judging a situation she had yet to fully understand.
She also watched her younger self as she was unknowingly having her spark salvaged by Q-Boom's descendant. Poor innocent Terrabyte, Bitten couldn't help but think. There was a femmeling whose life was uncomplicated by feelings of love/lust, who has yet to be adopted by Sunstreaker, and who has yet to learn about just how complex life can be. Bitten envied that little cassette carrier femme.
"I am finished," Bitten announced as she closed up Phobia's chassis, "They will most likely survive long enough to be rescued now."
"Zo theze are ancients from your time?" Waspinator asked.
"Yes, they are myself and my Sigma sisters," Bitten replied.
"Zigma zizters? What iz that?" Waspinator asked curiously.
"Sigma Sisters was the name of my orphan gang," Bitten replied stoically, "We lived in Altihex, and had to rely on each other for survival. It made us very close."
"Indeed," Waspinator muttered, "If thiz iz you, then do you remember thiz inzident?" Waspinator asked intently, "Do you know what planet we're on?"
"Don't you know?" Bitten asked innocently.
"No," Waspinator admitted, "Predaconz got lozzt."
"This planet is-" Bitten started to say, but then stopped herself, "Wait. This planet has two moons."
"Zo?" Waspinator asked impatiently.
Bitten didn't reply, but rather ran outside to see if she had seen things. This planet had two moons, but the Sigmas crashed on earth, and earth only had one moon. This didn't add up. Bitten had to try to make sense of it all.
She looked up at the sky, and sure enough there were two moons. Bitten stared up at them to examine each one, to see if one looked like earth's moon. She didn't know if a planet could lose a moon and be okay, but that must've been what happened in order for this to be earth...unless it wasn't. Maybe she was wrong, and this wasn't earth at all. No, the land mass was right where she calculated it would be! This had to be earth. So why-?
The thought went unfinished as Bitten noticed a light beam shooting out of the ground and into the atmosphere. It landed on one of the moons, and suddenly the moon opened up to reveal a weapon the size of a small planetoid!
"Hoppy Bot, what'z gotten into you?" Waspinator asked as he stepped outside.
"Look," Bitten uttered softly as she helplessly pointed to the sky, "This planet will be destroyed. We are all going to die."
Waspinator gasped as he looked up at the evidence in the sky. Light swirled around it, and even the air of the planet felt like it was pulling upward. Suddenly there was an earthquake all around them, and both Cybertronians fell over and looked at each other.
"Get inside," Bitten ordered, "Tearjerker is a space shuttle, designed for harsh reentry. If this planet is destroyed, her body might be able to withstand the impact."
Waspinator then ran inside without comment, and Bitten struggled to stand up and follow him. Sure he didn't help her up, but at this point she was just grateful he left the door open for her at all.
Inside the shuttle everything rattled and anything that wasn't nailed down was falling or sliding across the floor. The unconscious bodies of the sparklings were shaking along with everything else, so Bitten positioned herself over them to protect them. Waspinator saw what she was doing and held onto Bitten so he could help steady the sparklings too. The world was crumbling all around them and all the unlikely pair could do was hope the shuttle held when the laser pierced the world.
