Transformers: Fractal Web (section: 6)
By Waspinatrix (waspinatrix@hotmail.com)
Legalese: Transformers, Autobots, Decepticons, Cybertron, Energon, Vector Sigma, the Matrix, Primus, Metroplex, Springer, Rodimus Prime, Arcee, Galvatron, Cyclonus, Unicron (or Unicrom), Perceptor, Sweeps, StarScream, ThunderCracker, Charr, Prowl, the Arialbots, Spike Witwicky are all property of HasKen and are used without permission for the express purpose of entertainment without profit.
Buster Witwicky, Mutants (Homo Sapient Superior), and the Mutant Registration Act are properties of Marvel Comics and are used without permission for the express purpose of entertainment without profit.
Mara Benedict, Sarai Benedict, Anthony Benedict, Marcus Benedict, Charles "Charlie" Reagan, Lourdes Maria Maza, FlameDancer, WhirlBlade and NightShade are copyrighted to me 1992-2000. This story is not to be redistributed in whole or part without my permission. Nor are my characters to be used without my permission. Reviews, questions and critiques are always welcome. Happy bidding, er.. reading. :D
(Part 10)
Sarai checked her flight straps, patiently waiting for FlameDancer. The female Autobot was returning to Cybertron and Sarai had asked to join her. I just can't stay here anymore, Sarai thought, chafed by her sorrow. A ubiquitous sorrow made unbearably real when Buster had spoken to her. The poor man, how relieved he looked when he found that she didn't blame WhirlBlade for Mara's death.
Sarai touched her face with her prosthetic hand, sympathizing with her daughter. To be crushed, to have one's humanity wholly ripped form one's self, beyond recognition, without sight or hearing or touch or voice, to depend solely on machines for each life giving breath... Yes, part of her could understand Mara's choice to commit suicide.
A cold, unforgiving anger burned in her heart. Why didn't her brother, Anthony give Charlie permission to restore Mara? Why did Mara jump into the skirmish in the first place? Of all the people could blame for Mara's death, WhirlBlade would be the last. He had only tried to save the headstrong child from herself, and had paid for it, almost losing his own life. The blast he was shielding her from had knocked him back, accidentally paralyzing the one he strove to protect.
If the blame were to be placed on anyone's shoulders, let it be mine, Sarai thought. Plaguing herself with the phantoms of regret. If only she had retired when Mara was born... Then who knows what would have happened to Charlie, what atrocities would he have suffered by Decepticon hands in their attempt to enslave mankind?
This was her Monkey's Paw of anxiety. Where once there was unwavering purpose, now lay a confusion of mind-numbing possibilities which could never happen, but insisted on haunting her anyway. She needed space to sort out her feelings, a chance to breathe again. So, here she was, about to fly away to Cybertron, the farthest place she could get from Earth, and the pain she associated with it.
Looking out the shuttle window, Sarai watched FlameDancer saying good-bye to each other. Though she couldn't hear the words exchanged, the interaction of the couple said it all. In the weeks she had known FlameDancer, she had seen that she was different, distant with Springer. Sarai put two and two together.
The farewells said, FlameDancer boarded and sat at the helm. Running through the preflight check, she apologizes for the delay. Pausing as she saw Sarai's expression, she asked, "why do you look so worried? First time in space?"
"Do you love him?" Sarai asked, unable to figure out how such an enlightened being could be so incongruent.
The grin vanished. "What do you mean?"
"Are you attracted to him? Do you want him? Do you love him?" Sarai didn't know how else to explain it.
"Yes, I -- he's all I have left."
"Then you've settled?"
FlameDancer turned away, returning to the checklist. The situation had gotten too intense for her. The truth she had worked so hard to conceal from herself raised its ugly, festered head.
"You are being unfair to Springer..." Sarai continued.
"I know," FlameDancer sighed, as the checklist was completed. The computer prepared for launch. The retro-rockets engaged, lurching them forward.
"What about the one you truly love? How long has e been dead?" Sarai blushed, knowing she had been tactless.
"He didn't. I did, and he moved on."
The conversation, the dull thrum of the engines in the background had an edgy feel to it. There was no way to take back what had been said, and Sarai had no clue of how to proceed. FlameDancer took the initiative.
"How is it that you find a sense of peace easier than I do? Given that we have similar situations."
Sarai gave a small, bitter laugh, "I don't have peace. I have acceptance, forced upon me by circumstance. Mara and Prowl are dead, and there's nothing I can do about it. That's the reality of my situation."
"What was Prowl to you anyway?" FlameDancer asked. She had heard odd stories and rumors of the couple, and wanted to understand their strange relationship.
"Prowl... He knew me for what I was and didn't fear me," Sarai said, alluding to her mutant nature, "I loved him," her voice began to waver, "yet even when he lived there was no in-between place we could meet. He had his world, I had mine." And where was Mara stuck? She wondered.
"I'm sorry, Sarai," FlameDancer sympathized.
"Me too.. But don't be. Se la vi, eh?" she said with a brave smile she didn't feel.
*
Springer, shielding his optics with his hand, watched the shuttle shrink into the distance. He had tried to speak with FlameDancer of the strange obsession he felt. The female Decepticon had become a succubus of phantasmagoric dreams, connected to him on a primal level, leaving him in wont.
Even as FlameDancer left, he had tried. But FlameDancer became ever distant from him emotionally, keeping him at bay. He could not reveal his inner-thoughts to a cold shoulder. So he had let her go, hoping that perhaps he could speak with her later.
***
(Part 11)
Charlie woke, startled by the icy grip of daggers on his shoulder. Turning over in the dark, a chill ran though him. A pair of luminescent blue eyes stared at him, unblinking. The grip released him. The silence was heavy, all he could hear was his own breathing. The eyes turned away from him. The sudden beep and hum of his computer booting up startled him. His hand darting up to calm his fear constricted chest.
He felt the weight of his glasses land softly in his lap. He put them on as the eyes backed away from him. They indicated his computer with a dipping motion. Obliging the shade, he moved to sit in front of his computer. The came to life, as the cursor began to scroll across it. "Hello Charlie..." it typed.
"Who are you?" he asked, turning to look at the twin orbs.
The cursor blinked as it paused... then resumed typing, "you know me Charlie."
"Mara?' he asked. It had to be her, but why wasn't she speaking? What had happened to her? How was she controlling his computer?
"I need your help, Uncle."
'You know I'd anything for you."
Mara studied the scrawny man with skepticism. He had betrayed her too often in the past for her to trust that statement, but he was her only hope for the Decepticons. Their declining, stagnate population needed help now! She continued remote typing, "I need plans for a solar collection satellite equipped with an energy broadcaster and a planet side receiving capacitor."
'Why?" he wasn't expecting such a request. His suspicions rose; what was she involved in?
"If you really care Charlie, let the question go unasked." the words scrolled across the dark screen, "it was always a prelude to your back-stabbing." Mara's comment cut him to the quick as she had calculated it to. Experience had shown her that if she allowed people to close to her they would derail her. The current issue was too important to her for her to allow that to happen.
"It'll take a while..."
"I have all night."
"Let me --" The light he was reaching for flickered on.
"Better?"
"Yes, I -- Ohmigod!" He gaped at Mara. Clearly robotic, more so than her mother ever was. Her eyes -- no, he corrected himself, her optics still glowing. His gaze fell to her chest, and his heart skipped a beat. The purple emblem, on the red plating of her breast, stuck out like a bruise. She was Decepticon. Charlie averted his eyes. Poor Sarai, How would she handle this? "Mara --"
"What Charlie, shocked by my appearance?" The cursor blinked at him, "don't be. It was inevitable that I would end up like my mother, one way or the other."
"I could have restored you."
"But you didn't."
"Anthony wouldn't let me. He had a court order."
The screen went blank, and the cursor seemed to blink in frustration, Mara's face twisting in anger. She knew her uncle was heartless, but to be that cruel? "Just give me what I need!" the screen-printed in vivid red.
Within the hour of tense silence, Charlie handed her the schematics. Wordlessly Mara accepted them and disappeared in a flash. Darkness rushed in to fill the room, the lamp and the computer inert as if what had transpired never took place. He felt cold. How could she be a part of them? The soulless creatures that had killed or destroyed everything that he loved? He faced his bed, and knew it would be a long time before he slept again.
***
(Part 12)
Mara allowed herself a smile of satisfaction, as she watched the assembly of Decepticons. Their morale boosted as Galvatron spoke. Announcing the end of starvation, the end of degradation. A new, viable energy source was theirs now and forever. No more relying on organic slag for life.
"Loyalty is rewarded!" Galvatron asserted, as he brought forth ThunderCracker. Placing the Sweep in charge of the energon project. Mara withdrew, she had no taste for pomp and ceremony. It was enough to know that the Decepticons had improved her chances for survival, and that ThunderCracker had benefited.
Meandering away meeting hall, she walked the maze of corridors and within the vaults of her own head. Wondering what her mother would think of her consorting with the children of Baal. Mara held herself. That was something her uncle would have said of her activities. She had never known her mother, except in the context of hellfire and brimstone spewed by Anthony.
When she was younger, she had accepted Uncle Anthony's words as the absolute truth. Taught to pray to a Human's God, first for the forgiveness of her mother's soul, then later, when her own mutant powers surfaced, for her own salvation. God had turned a deaf ear and a hardened heart to her pleas. Mara's feelings were now mutual.
What little she knew of her mother was a mountain of information compared to what she knew of her father, which was nothing. For a long time she had clung to a desperate fantasy. Hoping that the nameless, faceless entity that was her father would suddenly burst through the door and rescue her from her uncle's righteous tyranny.
When her uncle learn of her stupid dream, he had laughed at her. Saying, "I've done more for you than your father ever did. The smartest thing he ever did was to wash his hands of you and Sarai." Devastated, Mara resolved never to deceive herself again. She was on her own, and no one would save her except herself.
She had set out several times to stand on her own two feet. Only Anthony, and the law didn't see it as such, labeling her a "runaway." Every time she made it to the streets, Charlie and that Autobot -- what was his name, Prong(?)-- would scoop her up. Inevitably dumping her back in the lab of purgatory. The first time this happened ended what little faith she had started to build for them.
Mara cycled back to her father. If Anthony could lie about her mother, why not her father too? Still, he had abandoned mother and daughter. What could have been prevented if he had just stuck around? Would her mother still be alive? Damn the nameless son of a bitch, she cursed.
***
By Waspinatrix (waspinatrix@hotmail.com)
Legalese: Transformers, Autobots, Decepticons, Cybertron, Energon, Vector Sigma, the Matrix, Primus, Metroplex, Springer, Rodimus Prime, Arcee, Galvatron, Cyclonus, Unicron (or Unicrom), Perceptor, Sweeps, StarScream, ThunderCracker, Charr, Prowl, the Arialbots, Spike Witwicky are all property of HasKen and are used without permission for the express purpose of entertainment without profit.
Buster Witwicky, Mutants (Homo Sapient Superior), and the Mutant Registration Act are properties of Marvel Comics and are used without permission for the express purpose of entertainment without profit.
Mara Benedict, Sarai Benedict, Anthony Benedict, Marcus Benedict, Charles "Charlie" Reagan, Lourdes Maria Maza, FlameDancer, WhirlBlade and NightShade are copyrighted to me 1992-2000. This story is not to be redistributed in whole or part without my permission. Nor are my characters to be used without my permission. Reviews, questions and critiques are always welcome. Happy bidding, er.. reading. :D
(Part 10)
Sarai checked her flight straps, patiently waiting for FlameDancer. The female Autobot was returning to Cybertron and Sarai had asked to join her. I just can't stay here anymore, Sarai thought, chafed by her sorrow. A ubiquitous sorrow made unbearably real when Buster had spoken to her. The poor man, how relieved he looked when he found that she didn't blame WhirlBlade for Mara's death.
Sarai touched her face with her prosthetic hand, sympathizing with her daughter. To be crushed, to have one's humanity wholly ripped form one's self, beyond recognition, without sight or hearing or touch or voice, to depend solely on machines for each life giving breath... Yes, part of her could understand Mara's choice to commit suicide.
A cold, unforgiving anger burned in her heart. Why didn't her brother, Anthony give Charlie permission to restore Mara? Why did Mara jump into the skirmish in the first place? Of all the people could blame for Mara's death, WhirlBlade would be the last. He had only tried to save the headstrong child from herself, and had paid for it, almost losing his own life. The blast he was shielding her from had knocked him back, accidentally paralyzing the one he strove to protect.
If the blame were to be placed on anyone's shoulders, let it be mine, Sarai thought. Plaguing herself with the phantoms of regret. If only she had retired when Mara was born... Then who knows what would have happened to Charlie, what atrocities would he have suffered by Decepticon hands in their attempt to enslave mankind?
This was her Monkey's Paw of anxiety. Where once there was unwavering purpose, now lay a confusion of mind-numbing possibilities which could never happen, but insisted on haunting her anyway. She needed space to sort out her feelings, a chance to breathe again. So, here she was, about to fly away to Cybertron, the farthest place she could get from Earth, and the pain she associated with it.
Looking out the shuttle window, Sarai watched FlameDancer saying good-bye to each other. Though she couldn't hear the words exchanged, the interaction of the couple said it all. In the weeks she had known FlameDancer, she had seen that she was different, distant with Springer. Sarai put two and two together.
The farewells said, FlameDancer boarded and sat at the helm. Running through the preflight check, she apologizes for the delay. Pausing as she saw Sarai's expression, she asked, "why do you look so worried? First time in space?"
"Do you love him?" Sarai asked, unable to figure out how such an enlightened being could be so incongruent.
The grin vanished. "What do you mean?"
"Are you attracted to him? Do you want him? Do you love him?" Sarai didn't know how else to explain it.
"Yes, I -- he's all I have left."
"Then you've settled?"
FlameDancer turned away, returning to the checklist. The situation had gotten too intense for her. The truth she had worked so hard to conceal from herself raised its ugly, festered head.
"You are being unfair to Springer..." Sarai continued.
"I know," FlameDancer sighed, as the checklist was completed. The computer prepared for launch. The retro-rockets engaged, lurching them forward.
"What about the one you truly love? How long has e been dead?" Sarai blushed, knowing she had been tactless.
"He didn't. I did, and he moved on."
The conversation, the dull thrum of the engines in the background had an edgy feel to it. There was no way to take back what had been said, and Sarai had no clue of how to proceed. FlameDancer took the initiative.
"How is it that you find a sense of peace easier than I do? Given that we have similar situations."
Sarai gave a small, bitter laugh, "I don't have peace. I have acceptance, forced upon me by circumstance. Mara and Prowl are dead, and there's nothing I can do about it. That's the reality of my situation."
"What was Prowl to you anyway?" FlameDancer asked. She had heard odd stories and rumors of the couple, and wanted to understand their strange relationship.
"Prowl... He knew me for what I was and didn't fear me," Sarai said, alluding to her mutant nature, "I loved him," her voice began to waver, "yet even when he lived there was no in-between place we could meet. He had his world, I had mine." And where was Mara stuck? She wondered.
"I'm sorry, Sarai," FlameDancer sympathized.
"Me too.. But don't be. Se la vi, eh?" she said with a brave smile she didn't feel.
*
Springer, shielding his optics with his hand, watched the shuttle shrink into the distance. He had tried to speak with FlameDancer of the strange obsession he felt. The female Decepticon had become a succubus of phantasmagoric dreams, connected to him on a primal level, leaving him in wont.
Even as FlameDancer left, he had tried. But FlameDancer became ever distant from him emotionally, keeping him at bay. He could not reveal his inner-thoughts to a cold shoulder. So he had let her go, hoping that perhaps he could speak with her later.
***
(Part 11)
Charlie woke, startled by the icy grip of daggers on his shoulder. Turning over in the dark, a chill ran though him. A pair of luminescent blue eyes stared at him, unblinking. The grip released him. The silence was heavy, all he could hear was his own breathing. The eyes turned away from him. The sudden beep and hum of his computer booting up startled him. His hand darting up to calm his fear constricted chest.
He felt the weight of his glasses land softly in his lap. He put them on as the eyes backed away from him. They indicated his computer with a dipping motion. Obliging the shade, he moved to sit in front of his computer. The came to life, as the cursor began to scroll across it. "Hello Charlie..." it typed.
"Who are you?" he asked, turning to look at the twin orbs.
The cursor blinked as it paused... then resumed typing, "you know me Charlie."
"Mara?' he asked. It had to be her, but why wasn't she speaking? What had happened to her? How was she controlling his computer?
"I need your help, Uncle."
'You know I'd anything for you."
Mara studied the scrawny man with skepticism. He had betrayed her too often in the past for her to trust that statement, but he was her only hope for the Decepticons. Their declining, stagnate population needed help now! She continued remote typing, "I need plans for a solar collection satellite equipped with an energy broadcaster and a planet side receiving capacitor."
'Why?" he wasn't expecting such a request. His suspicions rose; what was she involved in?
"If you really care Charlie, let the question go unasked." the words scrolled across the dark screen, "it was always a prelude to your back-stabbing." Mara's comment cut him to the quick as she had calculated it to. Experience had shown her that if she allowed people to close to her they would derail her. The current issue was too important to her for her to allow that to happen.
"It'll take a while..."
"I have all night."
"Let me --" The light he was reaching for flickered on.
"Better?"
"Yes, I -- Ohmigod!" He gaped at Mara. Clearly robotic, more so than her mother ever was. Her eyes -- no, he corrected himself, her optics still glowing. His gaze fell to her chest, and his heart skipped a beat. The purple emblem, on the red plating of her breast, stuck out like a bruise. She was Decepticon. Charlie averted his eyes. Poor Sarai, How would she handle this? "Mara --"
"What Charlie, shocked by my appearance?" The cursor blinked at him, "don't be. It was inevitable that I would end up like my mother, one way or the other."
"I could have restored you."
"But you didn't."
"Anthony wouldn't let me. He had a court order."
The screen went blank, and the cursor seemed to blink in frustration, Mara's face twisting in anger. She knew her uncle was heartless, but to be that cruel? "Just give me what I need!" the screen-printed in vivid red.
Within the hour of tense silence, Charlie handed her the schematics. Wordlessly Mara accepted them and disappeared in a flash. Darkness rushed in to fill the room, the lamp and the computer inert as if what had transpired never took place. He felt cold. How could she be a part of them? The soulless creatures that had killed or destroyed everything that he loved? He faced his bed, and knew it would be a long time before he slept again.
***
(Part 12)
Mara allowed herself a smile of satisfaction, as she watched the assembly of Decepticons. Their morale boosted as Galvatron spoke. Announcing the end of starvation, the end of degradation. A new, viable energy source was theirs now and forever. No more relying on organic slag for life.
"Loyalty is rewarded!" Galvatron asserted, as he brought forth ThunderCracker. Placing the Sweep in charge of the energon project. Mara withdrew, she had no taste for pomp and ceremony. It was enough to know that the Decepticons had improved her chances for survival, and that ThunderCracker had benefited.
Meandering away meeting hall, she walked the maze of corridors and within the vaults of her own head. Wondering what her mother would think of her consorting with the children of Baal. Mara held herself. That was something her uncle would have said of her activities. She had never known her mother, except in the context of hellfire and brimstone spewed by Anthony.
When she was younger, she had accepted Uncle Anthony's words as the absolute truth. Taught to pray to a Human's God, first for the forgiveness of her mother's soul, then later, when her own mutant powers surfaced, for her own salvation. God had turned a deaf ear and a hardened heart to her pleas. Mara's feelings were now mutual.
What little she knew of her mother was a mountain of information compared to what she knew of her father, which was nothing. For a long time she had clung to a desperate fantasy. Hoping that the nameless, faceless entity that was her father would suddenly burst through the door and rescue her from her uncle's righteous tyranny.
When her uncle learn of her stupid dream, he had laughed at her. Saying, "I've done more for you than your father ever did. The smartest thing he ever did was to wash his hands of you and Sarai." Devastated, Mara resolved never to deceive herself again. She was on her own, and no one would save her except herself.
She had set out several times to stand on her own two feet. Only Anthony, and the law didn't see it as such, labeling her a "runaway." Every time she made it to the streets, Charlie and that Autobot -- what was his name, Prong(?)-- would scoop her up. Inevitably dumping her back in the lab of purgatory. The first time this happened ended what little faith she had started to build for them.
Mara cycled back to her father. If Anthony could lie about her mother, why not her father too? Still, he had abandoned mother and daughter. What could have been prevented if he had just stuck around? Would her mother still be alive? Damn the nameless son of a bitch, she cursed.
***