Note: I don't own Beast Wars or Transformers, just my own characters and plots. Also, I apologize for the delay. Life knocked me around quite a bit, but I hope to update a lot more often.
Optima's optics quickly adjusted to the light of the chamber she found herself in. Her audio sensors would take longer though. All around her were clusters of bots of all shapes and sizes: animals large and small, some of the rare plant-type offenders. All the prisoners wore detention collars, the same as her. All were conversing under the wary eye of heavily-armed guards. Many guards and prisoners had turned to regard Optima, and what she saw in the optics of those bots made her wish for her confiscated weaponry. Growling lowly, and receiving coarse laughter for it, Optima padded boldly into the chamber, determined to take the measure of her fellow prisoners.
The chamber itself was a wide circle, carved from the rock and given a smooth floor. Metal doors were carved into the wall at evenly-spaced intervals. Above the doors were balconies where the guards, all animal-bots, paced and fingered their weapons. Optima's sensors picked up on the phosphorescent white moss that grew around the chamber as well as the light from the white floodlights spaced every twenty feet or so about the chamber. Optima padded softly, her hackles raised and her fangs bared, meeting murmurs of crude interest and the predatory, appraising looks with cold defiance and hauteur. It was inevitable that someone would come over.
"So baby, what did ya do to get your sweet little skidplate in here?" The cocky, oily voice came from a tall, imposing figure. The smug grin on the bot was out of place on his rowan-tree form. The bot's leering gaze took in Optima like one would a piece of meat, and he rested a branch arm on her shoulder with easy familiarity. The rough leaves scratched as Optima whirled on him, feeling her pent-up frustration pour out.
"None of your business weed! Now leave me be!" The growl in her voice came from more than her beast mode. She watched warily as the tree backed up a few paces on his roots and spread his branches, his grin growing wider.
"Well well well, what have we here? A feisty little wildcat, eh? Obviously, she doesn't know what a generous guy ol' Rowanen can be! Isn't that right, guys?" There were assorted chuckles and laughs from the prisoners hanging around.
"You tell her Ro!"
"You the bot!"
"Heh heh heh. Just hope she turns out to be equally...generous."
Optima's eyes took in the gathering crowd of bots, took in the leers and grins in the optics and the steps that shuffled towards her. Even a few guards were watching speculatively. She tensed...then suddenly relaxed. "Oh I'm generous Rowanen." A smile crept to her feline face, a dreamy one that matched her honeyed words.
Rowanen's optic arches went up as he came forward. "Really now? Well then..." He grinned widely, his audios picking up the supportive cheers of his supporters. He sauntered (as much as a tree can saunter) towards her, a branch arm extended and triumph in his optics. He never even saw the claw that ripped his right optic out of his head. All he could do was collapse, his scream echoing about the suddenly quiet chamber. His leaking left optic saw, in watery blurring, the smile on the ocelot's face turn feral.
"I'm generous with the amount of damage I'll do to any bot who even thinks about using me, for any purpose!" She whirled her head left and right. "Do I make myself clear!" She saw bots flinching under her sharp tone, saw the beginnings of fear and anger set in past the shock, then had to stifle the scream as her detention collar activated. The energon pulse drove her to the ground, but she did not scream, as Rowanen and the other bots did as their collars went active. She managed to express her pain as a small growl.
"That's enough! Prisoners, report to your cells!" Optima felt the cold guns prod at her as she gingerly got to her feet and made her way towards her cell. Still, she managed a small smile of triumph as she saw Rowanen getting hauled out by guardbots. It was a small start, but it was a start.
Optima was glad to finally be out of the enclosed cell and into the processed air of the Omicron exercise yard. She'd spent five days locked in her gloomy solitary cell after her assertion in the prison's main yard. In all that time she had been given food and water through a slit in the door and had been allowed no contact with anyone. Still, her mind had not been idle and now, as she looked over the barren rock field under the security dome that shielded the yard from the outside, she felt the cool excitement that she always had felt at the beginning of an endeavor. Now she took up the work of the Cause once again in earnest.
She noted that the other prisoners gave her a wide berth as she stalked across the broken black rock. A purr rose in her, unbidden. The beast within her enjoyed seeing the prey recognize the predator. But the rational part of her mind knew that she could not accomplish what she had in mind by herself. That part of her mind was scanning, evaluating her fellow prisoners for suitability. Finally she found one, working at the weight machines.
The bot was big, that was the first thing she noticed. Even lying down to lift the three-ton weights in his broad fingers he was bigger than she. His transformed body was jet black along its' entire length, save for golden bands about the upper arms, wrists, above the ankles, a golden arch that formed a helmet-like ridge across his forehead, and gold that lined his wide feet. The head of a great bull completely covered his wide torso. As Optima approached, the bullbot turned wary red optics on her without ever stopping his repetitions.
"You're the new girl everyone's taking about, aren't you? The Plebicon general who took out a couple of guards on her transport and Rowanen's optic?" The voice was deep and somehow sonorous. The questions came out as statements. "Whaddya want?"
Optima's optic ridges came up. "Well-informed, aren't you? How did you know about the guards?"
The bot shrugged and lifted. "Word travels fast, 'specially when we get a high-profile newbie. 'Sides, most femmes we get knuckle under real quick when the tough guys like Rowanen come after 'em. A few fight, but life here breaks 'em. None of the fighters ever managed to really hurt one of the boss gangsters 'round here though, account of the gang members bein' too many and too nasty. Makes ya stand out. Like I said, whaddya want?" The weight came down again and went up again.
Optima considered carefully before she spoke. So far this bullbot had proven perceptive and focused on the point. The fiery passion she felt in her heart for her cause would not appeal to such a one. When she spoke, it was quietly.
"What are you here for...I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"
Lift and drop. "Name's Torotron. Bot named Zanon tried to make my little sister his pleasure slave against her will." A shrug, the weights came up. "I tore out his spark." He didn't stop his repetitions at Optima's gasp.
"Zanon! As in...Lord Zanon of the Council of the People!" Optima remembered him. He'd been a powerful Aristocon noble, known for his iron grip over his region of space. The Plebicons had made little headway in recruiting people and planets in his region because people had been so terrified of him. Then he'd vanished under mysterious circumstances during a visit to a fellow noble's domain and Zanon's sector had switched sides so fast it had made the collective heads of the Plebicon Command spin.
Torotron shrugged. "I guess. He had a bunch of bots and some fancy cruisers with him when he came for my sister. Slagged the lot but I got caught later." A grunt. "Took out some of those bots before I got netted. At least li'l sis is out of harm's way. Made sure o' that." Lift and drop. A wrinkle of optic arches. "Miss her though."
Optima was quick to pick up on the sudden sadness in his tone. There was her opening. "Torotron, do you think it's fair that you're in here just for trying to protect your sister? I mean, what bot wouldn't try to protect their own, right?" She kept her voice quiet, compassionate. And she watched as the bullbot shook his head and didn't turn away. "And why did you have to protect her in the first place?"
"Told ya." A grunt and a lift of the weights. "Zanon tried to make her his pleasure slave."
"But what gave him the right? Why should Zanon or anyone tell your sister that she has to be his slave?" Optima had to keep a very tight rein on her emotion processors. Stories like Torotron's were why she had joined the Plebicons in the first place. Even now she could feel the angry fire burning in her spark. "Why should she be taken from her home, from her family, from her life, at whim!"
Torotron was silent and still for a long few cycles. Then he looked back at her. "What are ya driving at here? You trying to get me to be a Pleb, that it? And if I was what would it matter? We're both stuck on this rock." The voice had returned to toneless neutrality but Optima would not give up so easily.
"I'm trying to get you to see that your life is yours to decide, not some Aristocon's! You did what was right and you were locked up for it!" The passion was rising from her, she couldn't help the way it heightened her voice. "You're a bot of conviction! You stood up to the tyrants! Don't you see that that strength, of body and of spark, could be used to set others free! There doesn't need to be any more Zanons! No one else's sister need be taken! Will you let them break you! Will you let them cage you, while they prey on the innocent! Are you that weak Torotron?" Optima's voice had become a shout and her fur bristled as she confronted the other bot.
Torotron looked at her expressionlessly for what felt like megacycles before the weights came up and were carefully set in place with a clank. Ignoring the other bots who had looked over at Optima's shout, he sat up and turned to face the catbot. "I'll think about what you've said." He swung a leg around and stood, stretching with a series of gear-popping clicks, before being consumed in light. Where the bot had stood the bull now trod off, a thoughtful look in his optics.
The jade-fire optics of the ocelot watched him go.
Four days after Optima's conversation with Torotron and still no word from the bullbot.
She'd been assigned to the general population and an assignment forging hull plating for starships. It had galled her that the parts she was making were destined for Aristocon vessels but she had taken advantage of the time spent on the lines to try to convince other prisoners of the rightness of the Plebicon cause. So far there were few takers. Most of the prisoners were more interested in immediate safety and survival, with little interest in the larger galactic good. Of those who were interested, Optima had doubts about the suitability of several of them. There were few gems in this junkyard it seemed. It was while she was talking up one promising potential that trouble struck.
A rough hand grasped her shoulder and flung her back from her bench. She landed on her feet, cat reflexes kicking in even in her robot mode, and looked up to behold one nasty-looking hawk-bot glaring down at her. He was at least a meter taller than she, with scars and marks across his torso. He snarled at her. "Boss says he wants words with ya. Tonight. 1400 cycles in the exercise yard. You come or we pound your pretty little skidplate in." Without a word, he was gone. Optima snarled at his retreating back, a part of her noting that the guards had done nothing to stop this assault.
Rowanen, has to be. Tree-boy's come out of hiding at last. The beast within was pleased. She wanted to claw and rip that tree for the attack upon her dignity. The robot was cautious. She was at the disadvantage here and she knew it. She had no idea how she would make such a rendezvous since lights-out came at 1100 cycles, but even if she could have she was smart enough not to walk into a trap like that. So 1400 cycles came and went, with her in the safety of her cell, planning. The next solar cycle is when the slag hit the fan.
At morning meal she was "bumped" and had her meal snatched from under her. An attempt to give chase was rewarded with a shock from the collar. On the line to the assembly chamber she was shoved from her place by unknown hands and forced to go to the back of the line. The front of the line, where she had raced to, was such a premium spot because those prisoners who appeared "eager" for work got the choicest assignments, the ones with the least physical labor. It was there that she had been chatting up potential recruits. Laggards at the back of the line got the really stinking slag assignments like hauling the raw material up from the prison supply yard to the workshop or cleaning out the latrines of the "good workers". Naturally, she got picked to haul space junk up from the supply yard. The guards took every chance they could to pick with the mighty Plebicon general, including eating part of her meals for her.
The prison supply yard was somebot's half-skidplated job at making some quick credits. The native rock of Omicron had been smoothed, but that was all. Four walls, some blast doors at either end, some shaky lighting (reinforced by large floodlights), a catwalk for the guards to pace, and row after row of dingy giga-ton bins filled with garbage...ahem..."useful materials" from all over Transformer space completed the space. Naturally, ramps and hovers weren't allowed. No, prisoners had to get the full slaggin' experience by hauling the junk in their hands or on their backs all the way up to the workshop. Complainers and slow people got extra duty. Optima had sighed and begun the thankless chore. She'd gotten her hands around one large piece of scrap...then she was on the floor suddenly, looking up at the bulky form that blocked the intermittent lighting. She didn't even have time to gasp before the form clamped a hand on her mouth and dragged her away behind the bins.
The gears in her back protested as she was dumped on her skidplate in a patch between bins. Immediately, she looked up and saw the ten forms gathered around her. She also saw that no guards were patrolling this remote part of the supply yard. She started to twist to her feet but slammed straight on her chin thanks to someone's foot. Coarse laughter rang about her. She glared up, ignoring the throbbing pain in her jaw, and beheld the light-bathed figure for a moment by a flickering floodlight.
Tall and lithe, with a willow frame, the bot had a small, silver, ball-like head shielded by a long,spiky wooden growth that rose behind it, encircling it by armored ridges that stretched down around the neck. The bot's chestplate, shoulder plating, gauntlets, legs and feet were all a mottled green, leaving the torso and upper arms, a brown and tangled mass of techno-organic roots, exposed. Optima was not surprised to hear the slimy, easy-going voice of Rowanen come from the bot's vocals.
"Hey baby. Fancy meeting you here." Talon-like fingers reached for her, caressing her leg. She kicked and one of the other bots cuffed her aching jaw. Hard. Rowanen chuckled. "I think I owe you something for the other day, pet." He stepped forward and now Optima saw what the light had obscured. One pale-green optic was gone, covered by a sharp claw-mark. He chuckled when he saw her stare. "The medics said you tore something in my organics, something they couldn't fix. Now I figure, you gave me a mark I can never get rid of, its' only fair I return the favor." He leered with his one good optic and his smile went nasty. "And of course, my friends here deserve a little something for standing by me in my cycle of need. Isn't that right?" The laughter of many bots reached his audios. His voice turned cold. "Get her up."
Optima found herself dragged to her feet, twisting and turning as best she could to free herself. She tried to scream for the guards but a hand clamped over her mouth. Optima saw the bots close in and her optics narrowed. She bit, her ocelot fangs tearing through the hand on her mouth. As the thugbot yowled, she twisted. One of her captors fell forward and she got her left arm and leg free. A headbutt and a shove got the hawkbot off her and her right arm free. Can't switch forms! She bucked and twisted, kicking off the bot holding her right leg. Then it became a free-for-all as she employed every trick of fighting she'd ever learned to weave, duck, bite, and claw her way out of this crowd. The struggle could have continued for nanocycles or stellar cycles for all she knew, but eventually a thick root wrapped around her left leg and pulled her off-balance. She hit the rock hard, jarring her internal servos almost as bad as the pummeling she was continuing to take from the vindictive fists and feet of the enraged gangsters. Her organics were beginning to bleed and her cybernetics were protesting the beating when the floor began to shake.
The gangbots above her continued to punch and stomp for a moment, then they suddenly stopped. She looked up and her bruised optics widened painfully. She couldn't believe the sight before her.
Nor could Rowanen, who could only watch helplessly as his bots were bowled over helplessly by the wild bull stampeding through their ranks. He barely avoided impalement and could only fume as Optima grabbed the beast's back with one hand and was dragged along until she could haul a leg over its' back.
"Torotron! How? Why?" For once, the firebrand of the Plebicons was speechless. She clung to his back and stared in shock as the black bull snorted.
"Don't like seeing the innocent preyed on." Was it her or did she hear a smile in his voice?
"Get after them!"
Both heads turned as Rowanen's shout carried across the chamber. Behind them, the disorganized gang started to pick themselves up. Torotron wheeled, stopped, and set himself, snorting and tossing his head. "Better get down. I'll take 'em." He was surprised at Optima's firm denial.
"No. We'll take them together. Get me to Rowanen." The steel in her voice would have made fine starship plating, and Torotron didn't question it. He charged back the way he came, his sharp horns slicing into any bot who was fool enough to stand in his way. Few were. Optima leaped from his back onto a stunned Rowanen, her claws emerging from the elongated and human-like hands Optima sported in her robot mode. Before the gang boss could do anything, three deep, criss-crossing gashes were cut in his torso. Fluids leaked as he screamed. He looked up in time to see Optima's face, deceptively soft and feminine even with the feline features and ears. Her fiery green optics blazed hate as she slammed him against a bin and bit into his neck with her fangs, while her claws sliced into his leaking stomach. She hardly felt the flailing limbs batter at her, or heard the sounds behind her as a transformed Torotron liberally pummeled, head-butted, and tossed gangbots around with devastating effect. She felt nothing but the urge to rip apart this threat, as she could not her Aristocon enemies. She didn't even notice when the beast reasserted herself as she lost her transformed state. All she saw was Rowanen, clutching feebly at her and gurgling something as she savaged him.
It was Torotron who stopped her before she delivered the final slash. Her audios had picked up on the strange silence about her, but she'd paid it no mind in her rage. She whirled, fangs bared and leaking Rowanen's life fluids, prepared to strike...then she'd seen the disapproval in the red optics of the bullbot and suddenly came back to herself. "Toro..wha...what?" It was hard to see through the lifting red haze but as she blinked her vision clear it was impossible to miss the broken, battered bots lying about in ungainly heaps on the floor behind them.
"Way I heard it, you got sent here 'cause you lost a fight. You trying to make it up by slagging him?" He pointed to Rowanen, lying torn and helpless on the floor. "Ya wanna let the Aristos prove you Plebs are savage monsters?"
"N-no. I..."
"Ta unleash the warrior within, ya gotta tame the beast without." He watched impassively as the hot rush of resentment fade quickly into shame. Of course. The ancient words, spoken by her inspiration more than eight hundred years ago came back. "Ya gonna let the beast tame ya, Optima Primal, or the other way around?" She shook her head.
"No. No I'm not, and thank you Torotron." She looked at the defeated gangbots and realized with a start that they were still moving, if feebly. "You didn't..."
He shook his head. "Took a vow after I killed Zanon and his people. I don't kill no more. Too easy to kill. No way to bring a bot back." He looked away and did not see the look of mixed compassion and regret in Optima's optics.
"Toro..."
"EVERYBODY FREEZE!" Both of them looked up to see the guards that were rushing towards them, guns drawn. They had a moment of stunned recognition before the slavers activated and forced both of them to the ground. Around them, Rowanen and his people also seized up in pain, as did other bots who'd been nowhere near the fight. Once all the prisoners were down, the guards moved in fast and began stasis-cuffing people, then force-marching them towards the cells. Through the pain, Optima managed a feline smile at Torotron as was rewarded by a smile of the bullbot's own.
It was good to have an ally in this friendless place.