DISCLAIMER - I don't own Transformers. Duh. But I did created the characters of Artemis, Silica, Hypderdrive and Powerpack. Also, readers of a sensetive nature should be forewarned that this story WILL become disturbing and most likely upsetting in later chapters.
- - -
CHAPTER ONE
----------------------
"Wheelie!" Silica called out her son's name. "I've told you about that before!"
Wheelie looked across the landscape at his mother, frozen in place, with a slingshot held in one hand, the
elastic stretched out by the other. He was aiming at a row of battered oil cans, resting on a ridge a couple of
metres away.
"But mama," the small orange and grey robot said, "I'm just using cans!"
"But... I..." Silica tried to press the argument. Wheelie looked at her with big, puppy-dog optics, chewing
slightly on his lower lip component. "Oh, all right," Silica relented. "Just be careful!"
"I will, mama," Wheelie replied, and released the elastic, letting fly the fire stone he had loaded his
slingshot with. The small capsule burst into flame suddenly, and struck the can, knocking it off the ridge in a
little flash of light. Silica smiled at him, though he didn't notice - too busy with his marksmanship. The
female Autobot turned and walked back through the doorway into the family's domicile.
Rapping her knuckles on the door frame, Silica entered Artemis's study. Artemis looked up from his desk
at her. She was shorter than he was, her armour a pale orange in colour, in rather sharp contrast to his own
vibrant blue armour. Her Autobot insignia stood out clearly on her stomach. She rested a hand on his
shoulder. "It's not your fault," she said.
"Everyone always says that," Artemis said, duly toying with his moustache. It was something of a new look
for him - he hadn't had it back when he'd known Optimus Prime, before the launch of the Ark, and, indeed,
not for several years after that. It was when Optimus and his crew failed to return that he had forsaken a lot
of luxuries in his pursuit of locating them. Oh, he always had the time for his family, of course - Primus
forbid the day he'd ever overlook them - but not much else. He'd grown the moustache after endless cycles
worth of planning, scanning and calculating. He shuffled a few papers around on his desk. Silica bent over
his shoulder and looked down at them.
"Are these your spacecraft designs?" she asked.
"They're as near as I'm going to get to the final cut, yes," Artemis replied. "I've already got construction
started."
Silica was silent for a few kliks. "So... you're really going to do it?" she asked, standing up. "You're really
going to go looking for them?"
Artemis didn't reply. Words were unnecessary. He knew. She knew. He knew that she knew. That was all
there was to it.
"What about... us?" Silica asked, softly.
Artemis spun his swivel-chair around. "Come with me," he said, instantly.
Silica emitted a startled gasp. "Oh! But... but...!"
"Please, Silica," Artemis pleaded, taking her hand in his.
"But... what about Wheelie?" she asked again, turning her head, looking back, out through the door frame,
through the window on the other side of the domicile, as the little robot knocked down another can.
"He can come too," Artemis said. "It'll be good for him. He doesn't have any friends here..."
Silica grimaced.
"I'm sorry, my love," Artemis said, holding up his hands, "but it is the truth."
"But his upgrade..." she said. Wheelie was coming of the age where his superstructure required upgrading,
to move him into the next phase of his life. It was a common practice for all 'bots, but if they went
off-planet...
"I can do that," Artemis said. "I do know some things, you know." He grinned.
Silica couldn't help but grin back. "Oh, all right, all right," she said, at last, almost laughing. "We'll go."
Artemis jumped up from his chair. "Wonderful!" he cried. "I'll start working on some additional amenities
for the ship right now!" Spinning his chair, he went back to work, seizing the papers and a writing
implement, and sketching like crazy.
Silica silently went to the doorway, pausing to look back at her husband. She smiled, and shook her head at
his mild eccentricity, allowing a chuckle so soft to escape her lips that only she was able to perceive it. She
moved off, back into the main habitation area, and opening the window again. She leant out. "Wheelie!"
"Aw, mama!" Wheelie called back. "I'm being careful!"
"I know you are, sweetie," Silica replied. "But come back in for a little while... I need to tell you
something..."
- - -
It was about two months later, when Artemis's craft was almost ready. Wheelie was understandably quite
excited. His mother and father had told him about Optimus Prime and the Ark over and over, at his own
request, but he still couldn't hear enough about the revered Autobot commander.
One day, his mother took him aside, and spoke to him.
"Wheelie," she had said, "today, you're going to learn how to do something really important."
"What, mama?" Wheelie asked, bouncing with excess energy.
"You're going to learn how to transform," she replied. It was normal that a 'bot of Wheelie's age would
learn to transform before undergoing an upgrade to their next stage of life, and Silica didn't deny the fact
that she had waited rather long to teach Wheelie.
Wheelie gasped. "Really, mama?" he asked. "Really?"
She nodded.
"Yaaaay!" Wheelie cheered. "I'll be just like all the other kids!"
Silica winced as he said that. He didn't notice. At least, she didn't think he did. "Now, Wheelie, watch me,
and do what I do." She stood up, and took a slow breath. Carefully, steadily, so Wheelie could see clearly
what she was doing, Silica transformed into her hover car mode. Floating gently in the air, she said: "Now
you try it."
Wheelie grunted and his face was noticeably strained as he tried to access his transformation programme.
"Don't force it to happen," Silica advised. "Just allow it to."
A little bead of coolant trickled down Wheelie's face. "It... it sorta hurts, mama...!" he said through
clenched teeth. Then, quite suddenly, his head turned inside out and shot inside his body, followed by his
arms and legs, as the grating sound of his gears and limbs rubbing against each other filled the air. With a
bump, he hit the ground, in his vehicle mode. "I... I did it!" Wheelie squeaked. Carefully, he began to drive
forward, moving around in a circle. As he got dizzy from circling, he began giggling, and Silica, still in her
hover car mode, drove up alongside him.
"Want to go for a spin?" she asked.
"Yeah!" Wheelie said, breaking off his circular motion and driving off with his mother at his side. They
raced across the landscape, weaving in and out of the natural metal formations on Cybertron's surface,
playing tag, laughing all the while.
With a squeal of tyres, Wheelie hid behind a large metal protrusion, as his mother raced past, searching for
him, in a game of hide and seek. Wheelie giggled to himself again as she went past, when, suddenly, a few
seconds later, something gently bumped his rear fender. Whipping about, he saw Silica there, laughing.
"Found you!" she said. Wheelie broke into a fit of hysterics, for no real reason other than that it felt good.
A little later, they went back home, and Silica transformed to robot mode. Wheelie's little buggy mode
quivered slightly as he tried the transformation again. "Just keep calm, and let it happen," Silica said. Her
words rang true, as Wheelie almost instantly shifted back to his stocky little robot mode. "Quite a day, huh?"
Silica said.
Wheelie ran up to her, and hugged her around the waist, resting her head on her stomach, staring into the
eyes of the Autobot symbol there. "You're the best mama ever," he said.
With a tear of oil in her eye, Silica picked Wheelie up in her arms, and hugged him tighter. He was still
clinging on to her as they both walked inside.
- - -
A week later, the craft was ready. Wheelie, having still not perfected the art of transformation, had packed
up his possessions and was ready for lift off long before the shuttle itself. Despite Silica's protestations, he
had insisted on bringing his slingshot and an overly large supply of fire stones - Silica didn't know quite
where he got them from, but she would swear he made them himself. On the day of the launch, Artemis met
his wife and son at the launch pad of his ship, the Indomitable.
"Hi daddy!" Wheelie squealed happily, running up to his dad, to be grabbed by his father's strong arms and
lifted high into the air and swung around.
"Hi, son," Artemis said, hugging Wheelie. He hadn't seen him for a day or two, and he prided himself on
being a family man, so he felt a need both to himself and to Wheelie and Silica to make up for his absence.
"Are we ready to go, daddy?" Wheelie asked, squirming in his father's arms. "Are we? Are we?"
Artemis couldn't help but laugh. "We certainly are." He carefully set the beaming Wheelie down again, and
turned to look at the ship. Small, compared the Ark, but then, most everything was. Two Autobots were
scurrying around at its base, tapping panels and adjusting circuits. Artemis beckoned for Silica and Wheelie
to follow him over to them. He tapped one robot, with red and silver armour, on the shoulder, causing him
to jump about a foot into the air in surprise. Jerking around, he recognised Artemis, and was about to offer
greetings, when he realised he'd made himself dizzy from spinning around like that, and he really needed to
sit down. Of course, the fact that there weren't any seats nearby didn't matter to him, as he unceremoniously
flopped down onto the ground with a clatter of parts.
Wheelie peered at the sitting robot, scrutinising him, as Artemis helped him up. "Silica, Wheelie, this is
Hyperdrive. He'll be our engineer."
"A pleasure, I'm sure," Silica said, with a hint of disbelief in her voice that neither Artemis nor Hyperdrive
chose to pick up on, if they even detected it.
Wheelie, who came up to Hyperdrive's thigh, peered up at his face. Blue optic circuits darted this way and
that, as his faceplate, akin to that of Optimus Prime's, Wheelie reckoned, jiggled up and down
uncontrollably. "You're funny," Wheelie said, at last, with a big smile.
"You think so?" Hyperdrive said, quickly, the words spilling out of his mouth. "I never really thought of
myself as funny, you know, but my friends always tell me that I'm funny but I don't see what they're talking
about, I mean, what did I really do there that was funny, I just sat down, sure I got dizzy, but that happens
to everyone at some time or another, so I mean what's so funny about it, huh?"
Silica arched an optic ridge. The other robot who had been working on the ship, a large, burly green figure,
came over, and planted his hand on Hyperdrive's shoulder, causing him to scream, before looking around
and seeing who it was.
"Calm down, Hype," the green robot said. He reached his arm past Hyperdrive, and shook Silica's hand.
"Nice to meet you, ma'am. I feel I know you already, the boss never stops talkin' about you." He jerked his
head to indicate Artemis. "I'm Powerpack."
Silica smiled back. This one seemed normal. Powerpack turned his attention to the small orange robot who
stood by Silica, kneeling down to meet his eye level. "So, you must be Wheelie, huh?" he asked.
"Yeah!" Wheelie replied.
"Well, put 'er there, Wheelie," Powerpack said, offering Wheelie his hand to shake. Wheelie admittedly had
a little difficulty performing the shake, as Powerpack's hand was the size of Wheelie's head, but he
accomplished it reasonably well.
"We're all set and ready to go-go-go, Artemis, sir, boss, chief!" Hyperdrive proclaimed, saluting clumsily
and nearly poking his optic out. Artemis waved his hand to indicate that Hyperdrive's salute was
unnecessary. He wanted his crew members to have the sort of relationship with him that he had wished he
had with Optimus Prime. "Ready any time you are!" Hyperdrive said, rubbing his optic.
"You two, go and start routine launch procedures," Artemis instructed. With a nod, Powerpack led the
half-blinded Hyperdrive away, into the elevator mounted in the gantry. Artemis watched them go, and stared
up at the Indomitable silently. The data on the probable course heading of the Ark had been entered into its
computer already, which was plotting out numerous possible locations for the majestic ship's resting place.
He felt Silica touch his arm.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing," Artemis replied, absently. "Just thinking."
"Come on, come on!" they heard Wheelie say, and turned to see him jumping up and down in place. "Let's
go, daddy!"
Artemis and Silica looked at each other for a moment, then Artemis bent down in front of Wheelie, and
held him by the shoulders. "Now, Wheelie," he started, "this trip is going to be a long one, you understand?
It might even be dangerous. Are you sure you want to come?"
"Yeah, yeah!" Wheelie squeaked. "It's gonna be great! You can find Optimus, daddy, I know you can!"
Artemis smiled, and hugged Wheelie. "Nice to know you have a little faith in your old man, son," he said,
softly. Then, he stood up, carrying Wheelie in one arm. "Well, let's go, then!"
Silica kissed her husband on the cheek, as he put his arm around her waist. Together, the family walked to
the gantry, stepped into the elevator, and moved ever closer to their destiny.
- - -
Pretty please write a review? Pretty Pretty Please? :)
- - -
CHAPTER ONE
----------------------
"Wheelie!" Silica called out her son's name. "I've told you about that before!"
Wheelie looked across the landscape at his mother, frozen in place, with a slingshot held in one hand, the
elastic stretched out by the other. He was aiming at a row of battered oil cans, resting on a ridge a couple of
metres away.
"But mama," the small orange and grey robot said, "I'm just using cans!"
"But... I..." Silica tried to press the argument. Wheelie looked at her with big, puppy-dog optics, chewing
slightly on his lower lip component. "Oh, all right," Silica relented. "Just be careful!"
"I will, mama," Wheelie replied, and released the elastic, letting fly the fire stone he had loaded his
slingshot with. The small capsule burst into flame suddenly, and struck the can, knocking it off the ridge in a
little flash of light. Silica smiled at him, though he didn't notice - too busy with his marksmanship. The
female Autobot turned and walked back through the doorway into the family's domicile.
Rapping her knuckles on the door frame, Silica entered Artemis's study. Artemis looked up from his desk
at her. She was shorter than he was, her armour a pale orange in colour, in rather sharp contrast to his own
vibrant blue armour. Her Autobot insignia stood out clearly on her stomach. She rested a hand on his
shoulder. "It's not your fault," she said.
"Everyone always says that," Artemis said, duly toying with his moustache. It was something of a new look
for him - he hadn't had it back when he'd known Optimus Prime, before the launch of the Ark, and, indeed,
not for several years after that. It was when Optimus and his crew failed to return that he had forsaken a lot
of luxuries in his pursuit of locating them. Oh, he always had the time for his family, of course - Primus
forbid the day he'd ever overlook them - but not much else. He'd grown the moustache after endless cycles
worth of planning, scanning and calculating. He shuffled a few papers around on his desk. Silica bent over
his shoulder and looked down at them.
"Are these your spacecraft designs?" she asked.
"They're as near as I'm going to get to the final cut, yes," Artemis replied. "I've already got construction
started."
Silica was silent for a few kliks. "So... you're really going to do it?" she asked, standing up. "You're really
going to go looking for them?"
Artemis didn't reply. Words were unnecessary. He knew. She knew. He knew that she knew. That was all
there was to it.
"What about... us?" Silica asked, softly.
Artemis spun his swivel-chair around. "Come with me," he said, instantly.
Silica emitted a startled gasp. "Oh! But... but...!"
"Please, Silica," Artemis pleaded, taking her hand in his.
"But... what about Wheelie?" she asked again, turning her head, looking back, out through the door frame,
through the window on the other side of the domicile, as the little robot knocked down another can.
"He can come too," Artemis said. "It'll be good for him. He doesn't have any friends here..."
Silica grimaced.
"I'm sorry, my love," Artemis said, holding up his hands, "but it is the truth."
"But his upgrade..." she said. Wheelie was coming of the age where his superstructure required upgrading,
to move him into the next phase of his life. It was a common practice for all 'bots, but if they went
off-planet...
"I can do that," Artemis said. "I do know some things, you know." He grinned.
Silica couldn't help but grin back. "Oh, all right, all right," she said, at last, almost laughing. "We'll go."
Artemis jumped up from his chair. "Wonderful!" he cried. "I'll start working on some additional amenities
for the ship right now!" Spinning his chair, he went back to work, seizing the papers and a writing
implement, and sketching like crazy.
Silica silently went to the doorway, pausing to look back at her husband. She smiled, and shook her head at
his mild eccentricity, allowing a chuckle so soft to escape her lips that only she was able to perceive it. She
moved off, back into the main habitation area, and opening the window again. She leant out. "Wheelie!"
"Aw, mama!" Wheelie called back. "I'm being careful!"
"I know you are, sweetie," Silica replied. "But come back in for a little while... I need to tell you
something..."
- - -
It was about two months later, when Artemis's craft was almost ready. Wheelie was understandably quite
excited. His mother and father had told him about Optimus Prime and the Ark over and over, at his own
request, but he still couldn't hear enough about the revered Autobot commander.
One day, his mother took him aside, and spoke to him.
"Wheelie," she had said, "today, you're going to learn how to do something really important."
"What, mama?" Wheelie asked, bouncing with excess energy.
"You're going to learn how to transform," she replied. It was normal that a 'bot of Wheelie's age would
learn to transform before undergoing an upgrade to their next stage of life, and Silica didn't deny the fact
that she had waited rather long to teach Wheelie.
Wheelie gasped. "Really, mama?" he asked. "Really?"
She nodded.
"Yaaaay!" Wheelie cheered. "I'll be just like all the other kids!"
Silica winced as he said that. He didn't notice. At least, she didn't think he did. "Now, Wheelie, watch me,
and do what I do." She stood up, and took a slow breath. Carefully, steadily, so Wheelie could see clearly
what she was doing, Silica transformed into her hover car mode. Floating gently in the air, she said: "Now
you try it."
Wheelie grunted and his face was noticeably strained as he tried to access his transformation programme.
"Don't force it to happen," Silica advised. "Just allow it to."
A little bead of coolant trickled down Wheelie's face. "It... it sorta hurts, mama...!" he said through
clenched teeth. Then, quite suddenly, his head turned inside out and shot inside his body, followed by his
arms and legs, as the grating sound of his gears and limbs rubbing against each other filled the air. With a
bump, he hit the ground, in his vehicle mode. "I... I did it!" Wheelie squeaked. Carefully, he began to drive
forward, moving around in a circle. As he got dizzy from circling, he began giggling, and Silica, still in her
hover car mode, drove up alongside him.
"Want to go for a spin?" she asked.
"Yeah!" Wheelie said, breaking off his circular motion and driving off with his mother at his side. They
raced across the landscape, weaving in and out of the natural metal formations on Cybertron's surface,
playing tag, laughing all the while.
With a squeal of tyres, Wheelie hid behind a large metal protrusion, as his mother raced past, searching for
him, in a game of hide and seek. Wheelie giggled to himself again as she went past, when, suddenly, a few
seconds later, something gently bumped his rear fender. Whipping about, he saw Silica there, laughing.
"Found you!" she said. Wheelie broke into a fit of hysterics, for no real reason other than that it felt good.
A little later, they went back home, and Silica transformed to robot mode. Wheelie's little buggy mode
quivered slightly as he tried the transformation again. "Just keep calm, and let it happen," Silica said. Her
words rang true, as Wheelie almost instantly shifted back to his stocky little robot mode. "Quite a day, huh?"
Silica said.
Wheelie ran up to her, and hugged her around the waist, resting her head on her stomach, staring into the
eyes of the Autobot symbol there. "You're the best mama ever," he said.
With a tear of oil in her eye, Silica picked Wheelie up in her arms, and hugged him tighter. He was still
clinging on to her as they both walked inside.
- - -
A week later, the craft was ready. Wheelie, having still not perfected the art of transformation, had packed
up his possessions and was ready for lift off long before the shuttle itself. Despite Silica's protestations, he
had insisted on bringing his slingshot and an overly large supply of fire stones - Silica didn't know quite
where he got them from, but she would swear he made them himself. On the day of the launch, Artemis met
his wife and son at the launch pad of his ship, the Indomitable.
"Hi daddy!" Wheelie squealed happily, running up to his dad, to be grabbed by his father's strong arms and
lifted high into the air and swung around.
"Hi, son," Artemis said, hugging Wheelie. He hadn't seen him for a day or two, and he prided himself on
being a family man, so he felt a need both to himself and to Wheelie and Silica to make up for his absence.
"Are we ready to go, daddy?" Wheelie asked, squirming in his father's arms. "Are we? Are we?"
Artemis couldn't help but laugh. "We certainly are." He carefully set the beaming Wheelie down again, and
turned to look at the ship. Small, compared the Ark, but then, most everything was. Two Autobots were
scurrying around at its base, tapping panels and adjusting circuits. Artemis beckoned for Silica and Wheelie
to follow him over to them. He tapped one robot, with red and silver armour, on the shoulder, causing him
to jump about a foot into the air in surprise. Jerking around, he recognised Artemis, and was about to offer
greetings, when he realised he'd made himself dizzy from spinning around like that, and he really needed to
sit down. Of course, the fact that there weren't any seats nearby didn't matter to him, as he unceremoniously
flopped down onto the ground with a clatter of parts.
Wheelie peered at the sitting robot, scrutinising him, as Artemis helped him up. "Silica, Wheelie, this is
Hyperdrive. He'll be our engineer."
"A pleasure, I'm sure," Silica said, with a hint of disbelief in her voice that neither Artemis nor Hyperdrive
chose to pick up on, if they even detected it.
Wheelie, who came up to Hyperdrive's thigh, peered up at his face. Blue optic circuits darted this way and
that, as his faceplate, akin to that of Optimus Prime's, Wheelie reckoned, jiggled up and down
uncontrollably. "You're funny," Wheelie said, at last, with a big smile.
"You think so?" Hyperdrive said, quickly, the words spilling out of his mouth. "I never really thought of
myself as funny, you know, but my friends always tell me that I'm funny but I don't see what they're talking
about, I mean, what did I really do there that was funny, I just sat down, sure I got dizzy, but that happens
to everyone at some time or another, so I mean what's so funny about it, huh?"
Silica arched an optic ridge. The other robot who had been working on the ship, a large, burly green figure,
came over, and planted his hand on Hyperdrive's shoulder, causing him to scream, before looking around
and seeing who it was.
"Calm down, Hype," the green robot said. He reached his arm past Hyperdrive, and shook Silica's hand.
"Nice to meet you, ma'am. I feel I know you already, the boss never stops talkin' about you." He jerked his
head to indicate Artemis. "I'm Powerpack."
Silica smiled back. This one seemed normal. Powerpack turned his attention to the small orange robot who
stood by Silica, kneeling down to meet his eye level. "So, you must be Wheelie, huh?" he asked.
"Yeah!" Wheelie replied.
"Well, put 'er there, Wheelie," Powerpack said, offering Wheelie his hand to shake. Wheelie admittedly had
a little difficulty performing the shake, as Powerpack's hand was the size of Wheelie's head, but he
accomplished it reasonably well.
"We're all set and ready to go-go-go, Artemis, sir, boss, chief!" Hyperdrive proclaimed, saluting clumsily
and nearly poking his optic out. Artemis waved his hand to indicate that Hyperdrive's salute was
unnecessary. He wanted his crew members to have the sort of relationship with him that he had wished he
had with Optimus Prime. "Ready any time you are!" Hyperdrive said, rubbing his optic.
"You two, go and start routine launch procedures," Artemis instructed. With a nod, Powerpack led the
half-blinded Hyperdrive away, into the elevator mounted in the gantry. Artemis watched them go, and stared
up at the Indomitable silently. The data on the probable course heading of the Ark had been entered into its
computer already, which was plotting out numerous possible locations for the majestic ship's resting place.
He felt Silica touch his arm.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing," Artemis replied, absently. "Just thinking."
"Come on, come on!" they heard Wheelie say, and turned to see him jumping up and down in place. "Let's
go, daddy!"
Artemis and Silica looked at each other for a moment, then Artemis bent down in front of Wheelie, and
held him by the shoulders. "Now, Wheelie," he started, "this trip is going to be a long one, you understand?
It might even be dangerous. Are you sure you want to come?"
"Yeah, yeah!" Wheelie squeaked. "It's gonna be great! You can find Optimus, daddy, I know you can!"
Artemis smiled, and hugged Wheelie. "Nice to know you have a little faith in your old man, son," he said,
softly. Then, he stood up, carrying Wheelie in one arm. "Well, let's go, then!"
Silica kissed her husband on the cheek, as he put his arm around her waist. Together, the family walked to
the gantry, stepped into the elevator, and moved ever closer to their destiny.
- - -
Pretty please write a review? Pretty Pretty Please? :)