The reason this fic is getting an M-rating is because it will talk about dark topics (Not as dark as my fic Two Worlds One Spark... I hope) there will be abuse of many kinds, depression, torture, and various other things. The first few chapters won't have much if any at all, but I promise I will make a warning at the beginning of each chapter that does contain a topic that may need a warning. Also this WILL have romance, but not until MUCH later. I hope you guys all enjoy this. I am working on TWOS still, I promise I will finish that fic.
Primes (In order of receiving Matrix) :
Prima
Primon
Onyx
Vector
Megatronus
Solus
Alchemist
Amalgamous
Quintus
Micronus
Nexus
Sentinel
Alpha
Time Units (Found on Tf wiki):
Astro-second: .498 seconds
Breem: 8.3 minutes
Cycle: 1.25 hours
Deca-cycle: ~3 weeks
Groon: ~1 hour
Klik: 1.2 minutes
Meta-cycle: 13 months
Orbital cycle: ~1 month
Solar cycle/lunar cycle: 1 day/1 night
Stellar cycle:~7.5 months
Deci-vorn: 8.3 years
Vorn: 83 years
Ch. 5
There were so many pleasant sounds, the street lights were more for decoration rather than to light anything. The lights would change colors with the bass of every song and grew more intense with the brightness every high chord hit. Meister was in Helix with Alchemist, Backdraft and Turbolight trailing them, for the first time. He saw Polyhexians everywhere with horns of all shapes, sizes, amounts, and they were just amazing in his amber optics. The buildings were very different from the ones in Iacon. Unlike the thick Cybertonium buildings in Iacon, the homes were made out of steel and palladium and had no glass in the windows.
"Femmes and gentlemechs welcome tah Voltex's surprise concert! Please enjoy!" An orange Polyhexian with three horns near the back of his helm curved upwards like a slide. He had a microphone in his right servo and a strange object in his left servo. Meister dropped his helm so he could change his optic color before drawing closer to the outskirt of the crowd to see who this Voltex was. There was a total of five Polyhexians on stage, they all had matching white with black jagged stripes wrapping around their frame. The crowd reach nearly fifty before the mech with the microphone placed the object over his mouth, the item was a mask that had cylindrical rebreathers on the sides of the pointed mask.
One of the others had a gold ombre electro-bass, a femme was holding a brown cyber violin near her neck, another mech had microphone in his servo, and the final mech was sitting behind a set of an electro-drum set. The guitarist and violinist started playing first before soon being joined by the percussionist lightly tapping on the cymbals. Soon the remaining two joined in with the lyrics, Meister felt warmth somewhere in his frame at how elegant the individual sounds melded perfectly together.
"M- Meister? Meister where are you? Primus where is that mechanism?" Alchemist didn't notice that they were missing the AI until Turbolight awkwardly asked why there were no more ridiculous questions. Backdraft started back tracking, thinking the AI was foolishly distracted by a vendor. The Prime and his other guard were staying where the rest of their group would meet. Turbolight was calling out to the droid that had yet to respond to him. The mech didn't sign up for this, but that the AI was important to Alchemist in a personal manner.
Meister was so distracted by the music playing that he didn't see Turbolight until he jumped when someone grabbed his servo. He was ready to defend himself, but was quick to calm himself when he saw the guard. "Turbolight, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else. Helix allows musicians to play on the streets! Iacon doesn't allow such things without the proper authorization and licensing."
"That's nice kid, but you can't just leave without telling us. Boss is waiting, come on." The guard new that Meister was still a bit naïve, but he knew Helix was not the safest place to reside. Especially the Dead End. The AI looked back at the band with a disappointed look before reluctantly following the mech. Meister changed his optics back to normal as they walked away from the crowd. "They aren't afraid of ending you if you so much as look at their paint job wrong."
The droid frowned in a mix of disappointment and confusion, "Polyhexians are that aggressive? But only .5 percent off the population has the same CNA as Kaonions. Are they all aggressive?"
"No, but they don't like being told how to live. They are under the protection of the Council, but this place was built by rogues and killers." Turbolight explained to him. Meister looked around and saw a business transaction going on. He slowed his pace to see the customer get pissy, accusing the seller of scamming him, and the seller was getting angrier. They dropped the items in their servos and ram their helms together as they threw punches. Turbolight saw Meister standing again and he groaned with agitation. He wrapped his arm around the small frame, taking him to Alchemist.
The Prime saw the two mechs coming towards him and he was relieved to see that his young friend was safe. "Meister, are you alright?"
"Yes. Alchemist, Polyhexians use their horns to fight? They are sparked fighters like Kaonions?" The silver AI tilted his helm. He looked over his shoulder to see a pair of younglings running towards them, laughing as they played until they bumped into Backdraft.
"Sorry Mister!" One of them shouted before they took off. Meister tilted his helm and pointed at their retreating frames.
"They scanned your credit chip, Backdraft." The mech grabbed the chip that he had on his waist and saw his shocked expression turned to anger. He shouted for someone to stop them as he took off after the younglings. Alchemist snorted and ushered his assistant forward, wanting to see how this would go down. Turbolight groaned into his servo, he was the only one that was against coming to this pit hole.
Backdraft trapped the two in a corner and was demanding his credits back. Seeing the two reminded Meister that he had yet to tell Alchemist about the two AI that he had now hidden in his chambers. He found it oddly soothing to have them there. "Give me back the credits you stole from me you little heathens."
"We din't take nuffin' from us mister." The older looking Polyhexian had an accent that was much thicker than the band members had. They stubbornly held onto their credit chip, holding it away from the adult. It, however, was plucked from their servos and they whined as they looked behind them. "Hey!"
There was a black Polyhexian with tiny horns going around his helm. He wore a half-face red visor and had spurs on the back of his legs. "Now Ricochet, Zeno what did I tell you about swiping?" The three of them spike in unison, "if you're going to steal don't get caught."
The masked mech transferred the credits, but Backdraft looked even more angry. "I'm still missing three shanix."
"Call it payment for returnin' what they stole. Greetin's Alchemist Prime, are ya here for another business transaction?" The mech lifted the younglings into his arms. Meister peeked around Alchemist's large arm, getting his attention. "An AI? Thing's useless in dis city my mech."
The Prime shook his helm, "Wicker, I came here to ask if you'd be willing to teach Meister. He is a fast learner and he has something I believe you'd be interested. But not here, I don't want anyone seeing it."
"Hm, Ah suppose Ah could give dah thing a go. Ya two go play, and don't get caught." Wicker sat them down and nudged them towards the road. Meister was unsure what Alchemist could have possibly planned for him. The followed the mech to a rundown warehouse where there what were obviously guards stationed near the gated entrance. They had either full face or half face visors which confused Meister. "Dis is Mask territory, Ah run dis joint, and we have a partnership with dah Council. We're hitmechs and hackers. My crew are one of three big crew here in Helix, and we take our business serious."
"Mask? What are the other two crews, the servo and the ped?" Meister was quick to cover his mouth with his amber optics widening. The sly comments and jokes were something that would just happen whenever his systems sensed it was a good time for a joke.
Wicker stared with the other's in Meister's group extremely uncomfortable before the mech threw his helm back in laughter. The other three mechs laughed uncomfortably. "Good one. Din't know Gearshaft gave 'em a personality."
"AI do not have personalities." Meister kept his optics off the laughing mech. Wicker pulled the Polyhexian away from his code holder, taking him to the warehouse and right past the row of conveyer belts that were filled with red crystals. Wicker led them to a room that had the door open; it was very obvious it was an office just from the desk and chair facing the door.
The door shut when they were inside, "for someone tah not have personality, they can't have a sense of humor or obvious fear. What are ya? My crew couldn't find where ya kind are even made at. So, what makes ya so special?"
Meister looked over at Alchemist with a tilt of his helm. "Wicker has been trying to help figure out what Artificial Life is doing. You wanted to learn how to be a Polyhexian, he will be able to teach you a lot."
With that the AI looked at the mech and made himself a perfect the visored mech. Wicker looked shocked briefly before cat calling him. "Now Ah can see why Gearshaft wanted tah keep yer in his sights. Yer quite dah special lil' droid, ain't cha? What other tricks ya got, Sparkles?"
"Sparkles? I can copy voices as well as. What would Founder Gearshaft want with me?" Meister went back to normal with his helm still tilting to the side once again. Wicker gave the droid a look that told him what earned him that look. "Oh, not me but my kind. Founder Gearshaft spent seventy meta-cycles perfecting our coding, but because of positive reviews from his secret test group they speed up the process in order to release the first line."
"Alchemist, dis thing got a filter? He gonna spill dah oil if he keeps it up. And ya sparkled when ya changed; could be useful in my crew. AL took dah time tah make perfect frames, but couldn't be bothered tah give dah accents? Lazy work Ah say." Wicker took Meister's servos to examine them, "Haven't played any instruments have ya? Ah can tell, yet servos aren't scuffed and cut up."
Meister looked at his servos and took Wicker's to look at his. He saw the insides of the black mech's servos were riddled in cuts and scuff marks. "I know how to because it's what I was built for, but there are no instruments easily accessible to me. We adopt our code holder's dialect so we can better help." He looked at the two with a look. "Is that a preferable amount of information given?"
"Yes Meister, that's perfect. Remember, there a few things to think about before giving information; are you in a secure location? Can the bot you are speaking to be trusted? Is the information you have life-threatening?" Alchemist explained to the droid as he sat down on the couch that was up against the window with a groan.
The silver Polyhexian nodded and logged that away for further examination. He pulled his servos away to give them another look. "I wish to help the Council and learn from you."
"Well perfect! We'll start tomorrow." He clapped his servos with excitement before going over to the desk, and pulled out a data slug and tossed it to the Meister. "Helix's commandments, better study up Sparkles."
"Alchemist is this friendly name calling?" Meister looked at his code holder with confusion.
"It's playful teasing." Turbolight answered for the Prime. The droid looked even more confused, but let the subject drop. He looked at the data slug in his servo with his optics going up to Wicker.
Meister changed servos but looked even more unsure. "This slug is empty."
"Fascinatin'. Ya don't have tah use your data port tah transfer data?" Wicker walked over to AI and took the slug, and placed it in his data port before handing it back to Meister. "As ya can imagine, Ah can't afford anythin' like ya."
"We do not have data ports. When we hold discs or data slugs it wirelessly transfers the files. Data pads and terminals we use cables to get the information." He explained while the files transferred to his storage. "It will take about twenty kliks for me to review and memorize the commandments."
Meister looked over at Alchemist with a concerned expression. He went to the Prime and helped him up, "Primus, Wicker you need furniture that doesn't swallow a mech whole."
"Where's dah fun in dat?" Wicker laughed while going for the door and opened it. The mechs were filing out before Wicker grabbed Meister's servo and whispered softly into his auditory horn. "File: Enlightenment." Meister gave him a confused look, but didn't say anything as he followed the three Iaconians down the stairs. He didn't know what the Polyhexian could have meant as nothing with that file name was in his systems or in the files he got from the slug.
For solar cycles, Meister would be summoned by Wicker via a sloppy note scribbled on a datapad being stuck to his window. He would make sure Star and Saber were okay before letting his code holder he would be away. While under Wicker's guidance, he helped teach Meister how to speak like them and how to carry himself like a Polyhexian. Wicker even took the droid to a few different types of concerts that played a wide spectrum of music. Meister's new visors were in the middle of production, and the droid was excited about it for some reason.
"Yo Sparkles, come 'ere. Ah got somethin' for ya." Wicker was leaning over the walkway with a large chunk of the red crystals. After being with Wicker's crew for only a few solar cycles, Meister new exactly what they dealt in besides hacking and assassinating. It was a new drug called Chrysmagnetal, and it was a wonder how the Council could work with someone who dealt in substances.
Meister rushed up the stairs to see what the mech wanted and had the chunk dropped in his servo. "Wicker, what am- what am Ah supposed tah do with dis?" That's correct, right?
"Dat's for Alchem. He said he wanted tah study it. So, how'd day job go?" Meister nodded solemnly at the reminder of the job. Wicker wanted to get Meister's servos dirty.
The droid opened his subspace and pulled out a lock box, "isn't stealing wrong? Alchemist says the Council is supposed to stop those that want to do harm."
"Sparkles, 'member dat in Helix anythin' goes. They owed meh for takin' out half my production. Council may preach about equality, but out here in dah real world it's survival of dah fittest. We steal only what we need tah survive. Ya dig?" Wicker opened the lock box and started running his digits through the small hill of credits.
"Steal only when needed. How do you know when it's okay to steal?" Meister was too busy with learning and getting things straightened out to use the accent.
The visored mech sighed with his shoulders drooping. "Have ya ever had barely enough fuel tah get by? Limbs fallin' off? So many viruses dat medics tell ya tah just snuff yerself early?" Meister shook his helm, "when Ah was younger Ah stole energon tah keep meh online. Had tah do all sorts of things in order tag get parts Ah needed. We, Polyhexians, are proud and don't lie down for any and every one. Got it?"
"I believe so. Can I go or did you have something else for me to do?" Meister was getting better at causal conversations; at one point he walked up behind a visitor at the Prime towers, who was admiring one of the pieces of artwork, and they talked about their opinions on the Primes before the bot turned to see that they were talking with a droid. Then the attitude quickly changed and the bot left with a sour attitude.
"Naw ya can head home." Wicker lazily waved the droid off. When Meister was half way down the stairs he called out, "hey Sparkles! Give yerself some color, gray is so Prima-era!"
The droid looked down at his frame with a confused expression. He activated his mod and his silver frame was washed away by a milky white with black starting from his servos and ending mid-forearm, his peds were black stopped mid-shin, and finally his helm was black. "Is this better?"
"Hm, it'll do. Use dat while yer here! We can't have dah Prime's assistant bein' seen without him, now can we?" Meister assumed it was some form of playing, but with a mech like Wicker it was difficult. He logged in the request on the disguise and headed back to Iacon, which was a rather long drive.
When the AI returned to the manor, he was greeted by a pair of younglings running out the door with smiles on their faces. His helm twitched and his optics cut out briefly when he didn't understand why they were out here. "Star, Saber what are you two doing out of the room?"
"I suppose Maccadam was right once again about guests." Alchemist was standing in the doorway with an amused look in his optics. Meister on the other servo didn't think it was funny. He put them behind him and used his arms as shields. "Meister, you're not in trouble and I'm not going to hurt them. They told me about what you did. Come inside so we can talk."
"They hurt them," Meister looked at them with a slight frown.
Alchemist stepped back inside and gestured for them to come back inside. Meister took their servos as they walked inside silently. He deactivated his mod as they gathered in the lounge. The Prime closed the doors before sitting on the table to look less threatening to his friend.
"Now, why don't we start by asking why you are so defensive? I would never hurt younglings regardless if they are AI or not." Alchemist put one of his servos on Meister's, hoping the contact would help.
The AI looked down with his servos folded in his lap. "The very first solar cycle of me being here, you told me that all life was worth protecting. Especially younglings; their code holders hurt them and they can't protect themselves. It is against their coding to hurt their creators as that's how younglings are supposed to be." Meister bowed his helm with his servos curling tightly. "How can someone who wishes to be a creator hurt their creations? They may not be Cybertronians like you, but they are still younglings. It goes against what the Council believes in. I may not be a household AI, but I want to protect them."
"Sometimes Cybertronians don't appreciate life the same as others. Your new friends are safe with me, I promise nothing will happen to them. But next time please tell me before bringing others to the estate." Alchemist looked into the three pairs of amber optics. "Have you shown them around the property?"
"I did not want risking anyone finding them." Meister looked at Saber thoughtfully and then back at his code holder. "You wanted to see how my kind communicated, would you like to see?"
"If you three want to." Alchemist wanted to see, but he also didn't want to push them into doing something that would make them uncomfortable.
Saber hopped to his peds with Star doing the same thing. "Meister said you wanted to know about us. We want to help." The bigger of the two told the Prime before looking at his servo and then placed it on his brother's chest. Star did the same thing and his servo glowed too.
"Fascinating." Alchemist went to touch them, but Meister was quick to grab the servo.
"It is dangerous to touch when connection is made. This is how we see memories, trade information, and converse without disturbing anyone. Another way we communicate is similar to Cybertronian spark merging, we merge the energy from the chips." Meister explained while the younglings pulled their servos away from each other. "Would you like to see what we see?"
The Prime was both fascinated and horrified at how similar the AI were to his kind, even the way they spoke through their sparks or whatever it was that was contained in their chest was called, was like a bond. "Didn't you just say it was dangerous?"
"A two-way connection is, but we can bypass it. When we have a two-way connection it's like a small bomb." Meister didn't want to scare his friend, but he wanted to be honest. He held his servo out to his friend with a smile on his face. "Trust me."
The large silver mech took the smaller servo before Meister placed his servo on Saber's chest. It was almost immediate when the Matrix bearer saw coding and memories that were not his own. He saw some of Meister's before seeing a femme and mech that he did not recognize. In Meister's memory it was like looking through the bottom of a bottle, everything was blurry. He was placed inside a container and restrained before the container closed him inside.
That is what I saw before being shipped off to the distributor.
The memory of the couple scolding who Alchemist assumed was Saber. They were mad at him for running around the house and broke a valuable piece of art. He could feel how bad the youngling felt for breaking it, but it was in his core coding to act like a youngling.
I didn't mean to break it. Star and I were playing.
The connection broke and to say that being in connected to an AI in such a way didn't feel fragging weird would be an understatement. Alchemist looked at Meister with a sympathetic expression. He may have only been able to see his memory briefly, but he felt his fear. "I will never allow any harm to come to any of you, I promise. Even if I don't live to see it, I will have your people free."
Meister looked at the other two AI thoughtfully and then up at Alchemist. "I trust you, Alch."
"Does Artificial Life put modifications in youngling frames?" The Prime asked Meister later in the lunar cycle. He had given up his berth so the younglings could have as much space as they wanted. They were in the conservatory doing some tests on fuel again.
The droid nodded, "upon request. They still act as true younglings, so giving them mods can be dangerous. Saber and Star's code holders had mods placed in them, but they won't tell me what they are."
"They're scared, which is completely normal after what they went through. Okay, let's try your artificial energon with a bit of amethyst flavored energon." The chemist mixed the energon and amethyst together before dropping a couple drops of Meister's into it. There was an instant reaction, the energon started crystallizing into a weird purple, blue, and black. "Oddly pretty, but not what we're looking for."
Meister had offered to take notes for Alchemist while he experimented. "May I suggest when call our life energon Synth-En or engex? I just would rather not be associated with Artificial Life any more than I already am."
"Synth-En? Alright, what I've been able to gather from examining and studying it, your Synth-En contains only .001% of actual energon. When something that low comes into contact with energon of anything higher it reacts to it. I would imagine if we replaced all of your frame's parts with ones of a Cybertronian, then you would be able to consume actual energon. We know what happens when it's exposed to pure energon." Alchemist looked over at the black mark on the floor from the acidic energon.
The AI crossed his arms as he examined the situation. "Pure energon and Synth-En causes an acidic effect and different minerals cause different reactions. In that mixture I tried, I did react in a way that would be seen in overcharged Cybertronians. What if we adjusted the amounts?"
"Hm, perhaps, but volcanic ash is hard to come by and Dark Mount doesn't go off very often." Alchemist went over to his cabinets to see if he had any left. He pulled out the container that stored the gray-purple ash. "And unfortunately, it looks like we are out."
"What if I asked Wicker for access to the black market? Surely they can get us some." Meister was actually enjoying himself, learning about his kind as well as being free to express himself and speak his mind. My reserves are getting low. After that thought an idea came to mind, and Meister looked up with excitement. "Cybertronians have oil in their systems and can safely consume oil. What if we tried that plus Synth-En and energon?"
Alchemist rubbed his chin in thought before his optics lit up. "Excellent idea Meister! I will order in a small shipment of every type of oil for us to try. You are brilliant, absolutely brilliant!" He closed the space between them and picked the droid up in a crushing hug.
The droid grunted from the hug, "A… Alc…-emist. Too. Tight!"
"Oh!" He sat the smaller frame down and dusted his shoulders off. "My apologies."
Meister smiled and shook his helm, "you are an excited spirit when it comes to experimenting. It is a nice feeling to my coding."
The pair finished up the cycle cleaning up the mess before refueling. Meister went into his chambers to see that there was a large bump in the middle of the berth and a light coming from it. He tilted his helm with a smile at the sight, not exactly sure what about it made him smile, but regardless it did. "You two were supposed to be in stasis."
They pulled the blanket off of them with their amber optics looking at Meister. Saber looked at the datapad that was in his servos. The Polyhexian joined them, getting forced into the middle of them. "We want you to read this to us."
"Yeah!" Star shouted excitedly and snuggled closer to the large frame. "Meister, we can stay with you?"
"Alchemist has allowed it for the time being." He scrolled through the datapad that the youngling AI wanted to read. The older AI looked at them in surprise at the fact they were wanting him to read one of the encyclopedias. The drones all knew that it would be easier to get the information if they connected to each other, but Meister knew that it was more fun to learn the way Cybertronians did.
Meister started reading the datapad from the beginning and when they came upon a mechanimal, the drone would change into it to give the two younglings a closer look. It was odd to the larger AI to be doing something that wasn't a part of his coding or what he was built for, but it was also nice to have something different that wasn't entirely on his code holder's shoulders. Even though he was not coded to tend to the youth, Meister did lots of research on how to care for younglings. He noticed that Saber and Star had fallen in stasis when he reached the middle of the datapad. The droid carefully switched spots with Star and wrapped an arm around them. When Meister looked at the small frames he smiled when something happened again in his chest.
What is that?
Let me know what your thoughts are :) If you'd like more let me know down in the comments :)
