Heeeey, everybody! I'm back! This picks up right where I left off at the end of the main fic. The chapters are going to relatively shorter because I don't have much of a frame to work from. But if you guys have any requests of anything you might like to see, feel free to comment or message me and I'll see what I can do. I already had someone ask for dinobots while I was working on the main fic so I'll be putting them in the epilogue.
Anyway, enjoy and I hope we'll have fun this time around as well.
Leecher returned to the Nemesis after a short chat with Charlie. After that, they returned to Earth.
All the planning and organizing was left in AA-00's capable servos. Ucon remained behind as their assistant. Obviously, Whiskey stayed too. Echo also remained on the Nemesis to handle communications. Mike and Nova were called up to help with the mining details.
Bravo, on the other hand, returned to the base. He had a lot of work to do. A another, larger Spark Detection System had to be built for them to use on Cybertron. And that was only the top of the list. X-ray could help him with part of it. And some of it could wait until they actually went back to Cybertron. Then, he could utilize the vehicons. He already had his optic on a few of them that showed exceptional talent for engineering while they were building the Lock. But he'd have to bring that up with the commanders later.
Leecher returned to the base as well. It was agreed that they would wait until it was time to go back to Cybertron to wake up all the vehicons that the CRC were keeping in stasis. But there was one person that Liliy didn't want to wait for. And she wasn't going to let AA-00 'have a say' about it either. She was going to wake him up now.
Going down to the catacombs, Leecher bypassed all the normal sized stasis pods and went to the other room. They entered and went straight for Predaking's stasis pod. After inputting the deactivation code, Leecher stepped back. The stasis pod hissed as the seal broke and the hatch slid open, exposing Predaking to the outside air. Liliy slipped out of Leecher's helm and plopped down on their shoulder to wait. It took a minute or two, but Predaking was slowly coming back online.
"Morning, sleeping beauty. Did you have a nice rest?" Liliy asked once he seemed coherent enough to understand.
Predaking blinked down at her. "Little one?"
"Yeah. It's me. How do you feel? Can you move?"
Predaking lifted a servo and made a fist. He shifted his weight and tested his legs. They seemed fine so he carefully climbed out of the stasis pod.
"Where are we?" he asked, looking around at the other stasis pods.
"A place we affectionately call 'the catacombs', just because it's silent as a tomb despite being full of living people. The CRC base is above us."
"What happened? How long was I out?"
"After we picked you up, we brought you back to base for repairs and then put you down here. It's only been a few weeks but seems like it's been longer than that with everything that happened. Uh, let's see. Long story short, we took down Megatron and revived Cybertron."
He frowned. "That's too short."
Liliy laughed. "I guess it is. I'd love to share the details with you but there is something I want to show you first. Will you come with us?"
Predaking did the unexpected and extended his servo to her. "May I carry you there?"
Liliy looked at the long, clawed digits and remembered them crushing Leecher's helm. "Only if you don't mind me riding on your shoulder."
"That is acceptable."
Liliy slipped down to Leecher's servo and stepped across to Predaking's, before running up his arm to perch on his shoulder.
"Let's go to the receiving room," Liliy said with a nod to Leecher.
Leecher led the way out of the room, closing the door behind them.
"Is this… Cybertron?" Predaking asked as they came out of the space bridge portal. They were at the edge of the city, overlooking the Sea of Rust. Although, it wasn't looking so rusty now.
"That's right," Liliy replied. She zipped down from his shoulder and ran up to the top of the nearby pile of rubble in front of him. "The last time you were here, when Shockwave woke you up, this planet was dead. But now…" She closed her optics and drew in a deep vent. "Can you feel it? The planet is alive once again." She turned to him with an excited smile. "Our home is alive!"
"A joyous thing indeed," he said, looking more at her than at the scenery.
"Now then…" She sat down on the piece of debris she had been standing on. "Let's get you up to speed."
Liliy told him about what happened after he got kicked off the Nemesis. About how the CRC temporarily joined forces with the Decepticons to rebuild the Omega Lock. About how they took Megatron and the others down once the Lock was finished. About how they had to convince the vehicon commander and the insecticons to work with them. And finally how they went about reviving Cybertron.
"Right now, our goal is to clean up all the mines back on Earth before we head back here to start rebuilding," she finished.
"I am curious about one thing," Predaking said.
"And what would that be?"
"Why did you wake me first?"
"Ah." Liliy picked at the edge of the debris. "Well, I could say it's because you and I are the same. You may be a king without a people at the moment but you are still a leader. I think of our status as equal. But that's not really why I woke you up first. I actually did it because I have a favor to ask. One I think you might enjoy."
He eyed her. "What is it?"
"I would like you to survey the planet. Well, ok. Not the whole planet. It's way too big for you to survey all by yourself. But I would like you to start the process. You are free to fly wherever you wish but as you move around, if you could send reports back to Charlie about changes in the landscape or whatever, that would be great."
"Who is Charlie?"
"I'm Charlie," said the gray femme as she approached them from inside the city. Quebec was right behind her. "While I'm not particularly fond of the idea of working with a predacon, I will follow the madam's orders."
Predaking frowned, optics narrowing. "You think I am inferior?"
Charlie shook her helm while keeping her posture neutral and non-threatening. "Not at all. I just simply have bad memories of an encounter with a predacon in the past. Watching your comrades get slaughtered by a crazed beast is not something you can easily forget."
Predaking started at that. "You've met other predacons?"
"The one she is talking about," Liliy replied, "was a long time ago, on Earth. It had suffered some cranial damage and ended up turning on the ones it was supposed to consider allies. Actually, it was attacking everything. I, uh… I personally killed it, saving Charlie and five others. My first followers."
"Was it an instant death?"
She shrugged. "I cut its helm off as it was about to attack them."
"Close enough, I suppose. And, thank you for telling me."
"That's actually something you might keep an optic out for," Liliy said suddenly. "You were born in Shockwave's lab. He, no doubt, had other labs here on Cybertron. Maybe he cloned more of your kind but wasn't able to retrieve them."
The idea seemed to excite Predaking but it was hard to tell that from the way he spoke. "Very well. I'll agree to help. But only for you, little one."
"YAY!" Liliy exclaimed as she jumped to her peds. She was on his shoulder in an instant, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you, Predaking!"
Predaking froze as Liliy disappeared again. Receiving a kiss was a new and unexpected sensation, so he was uncertain of how to react. He reached up and gingerly touched the spot on his face. "What was that?"
"Ah…" Liliy stopped mid-stride as she was climbing back up the pile of debris.
"Oh dear," Charlie said.
"Pfft." Quebec used his servo to quiet his laugh.
"That…" Liliy was suddenly flustered. "That was a kiss…? A-a token of my appreciation... But it can be used for other things too… Do you really not know what that was?"
Predaking shook his helm.
"That's…" She actually transformed and ran her hand roughly through her hair. "Slagging damnit…"
Predaking raised an optic ridge at her sudden transformation. He was a little surprised that her alt was human but it was also understandable given her size. She looked up at him. He could actually see her eyes now since her visor became her headband by default. The glow from her actual optics was shining through more than usual, making her irises more red than brown.
"Please tell me you know what interfacing is?" she asked.
"Yes. I know what that is," he said.
Liliy sighed in relief. "Oh thank Primus."
"Do you want me to lend him a datapad, madam?" Quebec asked, grinning.
"Would you? That would be fantastic."
"Here." Quebec passed the datapad he pulled out of his subspace to the predacon. "You can use this to look up anything you don't know."
"Well then, Predaking," Liliy said quickly. "I have to get going. If you have any other questions, you can ask these two." A space bridge portal opened nearby. "See you later." And all but ran through it.
"PAHAHAHAHA!" Quebec burst out laughing as soon as the portal closed. "I have never seen the madam so embarrassed before. Oh Primus, what a sight! Haha!"
Even Charlie was smiling. "Thank you, Predaking. We got to see something unexpectedly cute." She changed the subject. "Anyway, here are our frequencies so you can contact either one of us. And as for energon, here are some spare cubes." She pulled the cubes out of her subspace and handed them over to him. "When you need more, just contact us."
He nodded as he took the cubes and put them away. "Thank you. I'll be in contact later."
"We'll be waiting," Charlie said as she turned to go.
"Be careful out there," added Quebec with a wave as he followed Charlie.
Predaking watched them transform and fly off before he looked down at the datapad and the blank search bar waiting for his inquiry.
