The techno-organics
Chapter 20
Nikolai looked trough the window as he sat in Bumblebee's backseat. He didn't say anything after he humiliated Vincent in front of his friends. The colors of his hair and skin kept shifting as red sparkles crept over his skin. His fists were shaking, his brows were furrowed and now and then he took deep jagged breaths like he fought a violent urge. Wasp sat right beside him in case it would be necessary to use the boys powers. Wasp were only able to get an glimpse of what happened before Flash covered his eyes. He didn't know what Nikolai did but when Flash removed his hand, he saw the red haired human on the ground whimpering. He had asked what happened but no one wanted to answer. He asked Ally and Raphael as well but they had gotten the same treatment. Though it seemed like the small human knew anyway without needing to look. Raphael stuttered and looked away whenever Wasp asked.
"Why did you hurt that human?" Wasp asked and cooked his head to the side. Nikolai only shot a glance at him before turning his gaze out the window again.
"Because he made me angry." Was all he said as they entered the base. Nikolai was the first to get out of the vehicle with Wasp still following him. It irritated him but he said nothing as he knew Wasp was only following the instructions the others had given him.
"What is wrong with you?" Toni was normally very calm and composed, even in danger or in battle. But there were these special moments were she completely lost it and started to scream and curse in a way that would make a sailor uncomfortable. And the angrier she got the more her scottish accent revealed itself.
"Just because that human was a mother..." Toni started but made eye contact with Wasp. "...idiot, I meant, it doesn't mean you get to give him a free vasectomy!" The Autobots transformed and looked down at the humans, asking what happened that had made them return so soon.
"We ran into some of our classmates and," Jack started, but before he could continue Arcee rolled her eyes.
"Don't tell me they did something."
"Just Nikolai who attacked Vincent." Bulkhead leaned closer over Arcee's shoulder.
"The bully?" He scoffed, "I'm smart as a boulder, but I can figure out that he deserved it." Optimus walked up and joined the conversation. The techno-organics were all gathered at the other side of the base, watching as Toni scolded Nikolai.
"It doesn't matter what the human did to anger Nikolai, he shouldn't have let his emotions control him."
"But Optimus," Miko spoke, "Vincent was making fun of Flash." That new information made Arcee raise her gaze and spot Flash standing at the side. Slumped shoulders, squeezing his arms and looking down at the ground. He looked like a hurt child. "Do we really need to make this to a big deal, the kid had it coming anyway and I don't think he tried to kill the human." For once, she agreed with Bulkhead.
"We all wanted to beat him, but we were supposed to keep a low bloody profile. You don't get the right to take your frustration on strangers..." Nikolai finally got enough and slapped away the hand that was tapping him on the chest. This was ridiculous, he was the oldest, he helped raising all off them; yet he's being scolded like he was the youngest.
"You said that if I didn't feel better after the trip then I could go home." The doctors was also listening to the fight. Both of them was missing the wonderful silence that was present just a short while ago. Canary struggled to get into sitting position and turned to her side. Carefully, Rachel helped her sit up and let the lavender haired girl lean on her shoulder.
"What did you do this time, Nick?" Canary said with a tired smile on her face and a half knowing look.
"Not important." He then turned to Optimus. "Turn on the portal and send me back to London."
"It's called a spacebridge." Ratchet corrected.
"I don't care!" He snapped at the medic. "I just want to go home. Turn it on before I lose my patience." Red sparkles began to walk over his skin and steadily grew stronger. The lights that hung from the roof flickered and the same started to happen to the equipment.
"Stop what you're doing!" Optimus ordered but Nikolai didn't listen. Wasp gasped as he extended his wings, flew in front of the red head and blew a cloud of yellow spores into his face. Nikolai quickly covered his mouth and nose, but too late. Sounds got muffled, his sight got blurry and he was caught by Alabaster who had formed her hair into a big hand. The spores still lingered in the air and the humans covered their mouths as Bulkhead quickly picked them up.
"What just happened?" Ratchet asked.
"I can breath sedative spores." Wasp stuttered with a bad conscious. The only one he ever used his spores on was Valkyrie in order to calm her down. Her temper had increasingly gotten worse since she lost her brother and she would sometimes have panic attacks that Wasp helped her with. She liked to call him her emotional support bug.
'I miss Valkyrie.' Wasp thought as his chest got tighter. Ratchet turned on the bases ventilation in order to get rid of the spores. The yellow mass rose from the floor and elongated into thin rivers as they disappeared trough the ventilation.
"Care to give a warning next time." Arcee muttered before turning to Flash again who seemed to have crept closer into the corner in an attempt to isolate himself.
'What did Vincent do?' Arcee had promised to become a better mother to Flash but she still had no clue what to do. Especially emotional situations like this. She deeply wished she could make things better by beating the punk.
"We're sorry for Nikolai." Alabaster interrupted. "He just misses Anastasia, we all do. Can you please open the groundbridge so we can send him home." Ratchet nodded before walking to the groundbridge control panel. He reused the coordinates they used when Miko followed Alabaster. It was logical to assume that they lived somewhere near those coordinates. Besides, they weren't yet at such good terms that they would show were they lived. The vortex opened and surprised the techno-organics with it's strong light. It was so different from Canary's portals and had them covering their eyes.
"Who wants to take Nikolai home?" Alabaster looked around and Flash stepped forward with his gaze lowered. He didn't say anything as he took Nikolai from Alabaster's grasp. Before Alabaster could say anything he had already sped trough the bridge.
"Maybe you should go home too, Wasp. I thinks it's already bedtime in England." Alabaster suggested to their youngest.
"I want to go home too," Widow said, "I have to feed my pets." She gave Toni a hug before taking Wasp's hand. Before they made it trough Bumblebee kneeled beside them and gently patted Wasp on the head with a finger.
"Let's play next time I come." The youngest techno-organic said excited and made the Autobot scout smile sweetly at him.
"I'll be sure to check on your pet too, Canary." Widow waved before they disappeared and the bridge went dark.
"We're so sorry for all the trouble we caused." Alabaster flew up to Optimus's eye level. He in turn put out his hand for her to land on.
"Apology accepted. I understand that this is a difficult time for all of you but I have to ask you to stay out of trouble."
"We won't," She said with her voice thick with sleep. There was about a 12 hour difference between Americas west coast and Great Britain. It was probably the middle of the night were they lived. But she didn't want to sleep, she wanted to be awake when Canary was well. So they all could go back to the spaceship and rescue their comrades. Nikolai was falling apart without his sister, Valkyrie needed Wasp and Alabaster needed Freedom.
"How long will it take before Canary is healed?" She asked the medics.
"Since we were able to stabilize her so quickly she won't get any lasting injuries. Thanks to Rachel's expertise and our combined effort, Canary will be able to leave in a few days, maybe less." It felt good for Rachel to receive praise from her original. She wouldn't deny that it was fun to work with him. Maybe having a parental figure wouldn't be so bad.
When Knock Out finally woke up he took his time remembering what had happened. The attack, the blue and red techno-organic and finally Anastasia who electrocuted him. When he thought back at her expression, she looked so serious, did she mean to kill her but failed or did she spare him on purpose? It was so odd, he somehow felt betrayed, like a part of himself attacked him. He rose up and looked at the machine that monitored his vitals. His sparkbeat was stable, his brainwaves looked normal and he didn't seem to suffer any serious damage despite being put into a coma. He rose up from the berth and disconnected the tube that was attached to his arm.
"Breakdown," He called trough the com-link, "Can you tell me how long I was in stasis?"
Valkyries hammer was left exactly were she left it, at the exact spot were she arrogantly decided to fight Breakdown. Megatron had made an order that the troops would bring it to their weapons storage. He hoped it would prove useful but no matter how many troopers that tried it wouldn't budge. Not even when using advanced tools or getting help from Breakdown, it sat like a mountain. Megatron finally had enough and decided to ask someone who might know what they were dealing with.
"Freedom!" His face lit up on a small screen on the wall in her quarters. She rose from the hard slab, trying not to look too drowsy, before making her way to the screen.
"You could give me a warning next time you decide to call. Humans, even half-humans, value their privacy." She said without caring to sound angry.
"I'll think about it next time. But I have need of information about a weapon your comrade left. My troops have spent hours trying to move it without any success." The corners of her lips turned up half amused when she understood what he was referring too.
"You must mean Valkyries hammer." She stated and put a curl of hair that was bothering her behind her ear. "Nikolai installed a safety mechanism on it shortly after we escaped our creators. Basically, when unused it magnetizes itself to the planets core but not so strongly that it breaks the surface it lays on. Only Nikolai, its maker, or someone of his choosing can deactivate it. Unless you have someone who can lift the weight of an entire planet, that baby won't move." There was a slight taunting in her voice. She enjoyed hearing how they struggled, it gave her hope that they weren't completely invincible.
"Thank you for your cooperation." He said plainly which surprised Freedom. She was expecting him to lose his temper or demand a solution. "You should get some rest, you look exhausted." He stated before turning off the screen. Arachnid stood behind him the whole time and listened to the conversation, hidden from the cameras view.
"Should we order the troops to draw back?" She suggested and put her hands on her hips, like she tried to make herself look bigger.
"Do that, we shouldn't waste our energy on trivial matters. Place guards around that hallway. If Valkyrie succeeds in escaping it's best not to let her reunite with her weapon."
"Is it really that important, it's just an hammer?" Megatron turned around and looked down on her almost pitying.
"Arachnid, you if anyone should have enough experience to know that we should not underestimate these creatures." His statement made her cringe as she remembered being attacked. All of these years being a hunter came back to bite her, the moment she finally understood how it felt to be hunted.
"Whatever experiments these hybrids went trough changed them dramatically to the point were they posses ability's their originals don't. Knock Out's twins are far stronger then him, my dear Freedom shoot fire from her bare hands. And Knock Out recently reported that the hybrid that infiltrated our mine came to rescue the twins, and wore the colors of Optimus Prime." A chill went trough her as the words settled in. It wasn't the news about this ones presence on the ship that scared her as much as the realization that she fought this creature. She fought it without reporting since she couldn't bare the shame of being defeated twice in one day. Soundwave walked over and the footage of Alabaster breaking into the lab played on his visors.
There, light as day, they saw Alabaster in her red and blue armor and her helmet who was strikingly similar to Optimus's. The guards shot at her but she absorbed their attacks with her blue gauntlets and hit her arms into a cross which sent a shock wave accompanied with a bright light. It knocked the guards out and when she couldn't open the locked door, she used her telekinetic powers to force them apart. The footage sped forward to the moment where Arachnid attacked her and then it paused. Megatron looked down at her without saying anything, letting her suffer as she tried to come up with a reason why she didn't report her encounter. Arachnids attention shifted between the warlord and the frozen image several times before she gave up.
"I'm sorry, my lord. I couldn't bear reporting my encounter with the techno-organic since I felt it would wound my pride." She admitted. Megatron leaned closer and screamed in her face, "I don't care about your pride!" The femme jerked backwards and raised her hands like a shield.
"Your pride could cost us valuable information. You can do whatever you want on your hunting trips but the Decepticons come first! Do you understand me?"
"Yes, lord Megatron." His attention was brought back to Soundwave who showed another footage. This one showing Canary and Flash in the computer room.
"She-she looks like Soundwave." Arachnid stuttered as she viewed the image of the faceless girl. Thou, she couldn't know that it was only a mask. Soundwave kept going by showing the Autobots, about to attack a group of Vehicons when they disappeared trough a dark portal. The portal then shifted 90 degrees and cut trough the troops like a blade. The video was then changed and showed the Autobots reappearing in the computer room with Canary and Flash.
"Do you see now why I don't want us to underestimate them, Arachnid?" Yes, she understood. And Megatron could see it because of the expression she wore right before she spoke.
"That didn't look like a space bridge. Spacebridges can't change angle or change location that way."
"They may have built a teleportation device of their own." He stated and faced Arachnid again. "One that could be used as a weapon as well as a way of transportation." Arachnid looked back at the footage. It was now she noticed the boy that was accompanying the faceless girl. He was wearing blue armor with pink details and a visor. He must be made from Arcee. Before she could ponder any longer on it Soundwave changed footage again of his techno-organic getting shot.
"Soundwave, gather our technical staff. We must use this opportunity to upgrade our cloaking technology when she's still injured. If anyone's powerful enough to track us it's your spawn." Soundwave didn't say anything else as he turned around and left to tend for his duties. Megatron turned back to Arachnid again.
"Have you found any of Nikolai's weapons?"
"I'm sorry, lord Megatron but it seems like he fled with his projects." Megatron bared his teeth angrily and dismissed the second in command. Arachnid left without saying another word as Megatron turned around to face the earth laying beneath his feet.
Freedom stared at the black screen, unsure of what to do she hesitantly turned to back to the metallic bed. Didn't he call it a berth? Whatever! How could she already feel so comfortable here, no, around him? He tried to kill her, he's holding her sisters hostage. He kidnapped the twins and now they're separated. She didn't even know how they were doing. Anastasia was for the first time alone without anyone to help her. Freedom needed to aid her, to comfort her. And Valkyrie had her anxiety issues. She relied on Wasp's sedative spores to calm her, to make sure she wouldn't get panic attacks. She didn't even have her hammer any longer. Oh gosh, she was without her hammer, it was like taking a beloved stuffed toy from a child.
Freedom crawled up on the berth and felt the metal under the skin of her arm wanting to break free. She had to free them, she wanted to go home, she wanted to hug Alabaster. She wanted to return to the warehouse in London, she wanted to see Widow scare Anastasia with her pet insects, to help Rock find new books to read and play with the homeless dogs and cats that visited them.
Why did their past need to come after them, one way or another? All they wanted was to live in peace without serving anybody but themselves. They were born as weapons, trained as weapons but they refused to live as weapons or die as weapons. Was she back in the position as a weapon, but under someone else's control? No, he tried to make her think that, but she saw trough his lie. Megatron wanted her to be his apprentice. But what the hell did that mean? She threw her fist into the wall and a dark clang sound echoed trough the room. She started to notice how her cheek suddenly got wet.
'Oh, I didn't notice that I cried.'