Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Only the plot and OCs.
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Chapter 11
"Bumblebee!"
"Bee!?"
"Bee?"
"Bee?"
"Bee . . . ."
"WAKE UP!"
Jolting upright Bumblebee was met with darkness. Empty, stretching, unimaginable darkness. And then pain.
Pain that overwhelmed the rising tide of confusion and fear to leave him letting out a low whimper and curling in on himself. Arms wrapping up tight around his middle in an effort to maybe make the aching deep inside him stop.
It doesn't help, not that he thought it would.
His inners protesting any kind of movement. Rib struts making damn sure he knew just how very much broken a few of them were. His vents labored with what was probably a few shards of stuff that wasn't supposed to be floating around no longer attached, but not at all not being where it shouldn't be.
Its right then that Bee actually looks, because for some reason looking through absolute darkness seems like a good idea instead of wondering how much of his internals are broken and how he should deal with possible internal leaking seems like a good plan.
That's when his spark decides to get really still, and really cold, leaving him feeling remarkably alone as he stares up and around at the sheer vastness of the nothing all around him.
Nothing, that is, apart from thick blackness.
And of course, the only logical response to that beside the very long moment of terrified silence is the almost soundless whimper he let out into the darkness.
"Hide? Opt?"
He doesn't get an answer.
He doesn't get anything.
The only answer is the emptiness swallowing him up in its chill.
If he was being perfectly honest with himself, he had no idea how long he sat there staring out into the nothing around him. Slightly bruised doorwings and winglets flown wide in an attempt to hear something. Antennas standing up tall in their grooves trying to add to some kind of something.
But there is nothing.
Over the low blowing of the cold wind he is trapped in silence and darkness.
Fear twisting his already aching insides, but he didn't move. Didn't so much as try to call out again. His voice was just swallowed up by the shadows around him, and even though his spark could tell his bonds were there and unharmed when he pushed on them he didn't get an answer.
Which could only mean they were too far away to communicate with.
Which begged a very interesting question; how far did he fraggin' fall?
Where was he was also pretty high up there on his list of things-he'd-like-the-answer-to-right-now. However, he was a little too busy being a little too scared and acing to move at the moment to go about getting up just yet and going about finding out.
It didn't take too terribly long to figure out that wherever this was, or whatever it was, Ironhide and the others weren't going to magically walk out of the blackness around him if he sat there and waited. Whatever happened that hole that swallowed him up took him a long way down. He didn't actually remember hitting the ground though.
All he remembered was falling and then . . . well nothing.
He didn't hear them shout for him at all. He must have fallen too fast, and though his head was still ringing he wasn't sure if it was left over voices in his spark from them trying to call for him before he fell too far away or if it was something else. Pulsing wasn't getting him any answers however, so with a hard swallow to squish down the urge to whimper when he tried to stand he managed to get his feet under him, forcing himself upright.
It took more work than it should have. Rib struts and such putting up quite a bit of protest at being moved before they deemed it time to do so. All his internal scans and checks showed damage, some pretty bad, but nothing life threatening . . . yet.
Ratchet made sure all his repair systems ran to the best compositely possible, but that didn't mean still growing and learning systems didn't have some trouble with multiple breaks and fractures along with some leaking that really needed to be stopped.
His self repair nanites were working on that though. They couldn't heal the breaks, but they could patch together the leaking parts. Stop his vents and stuff from filling up with the energon inside of him that was in the wrong places.
That didn't mean it didn't hurt though.
Because by Primus did it fraggin' hurt.
Clenching his jaw Bumblebee forced himself to stay quiet. Throwing his hands about him in search of a wall or at least something like it. He found one eventually. Towering, cold, smooth stone is what his palms were met with. Much like the ground under his feet. There was still fine sand everywhere. Rubbing against his palms and toes, but it was different from what was at the surface.
Almost . . . worn down like the stone around.
Bee figured that made since though. Whatever it was that made this hole in the ground was big—bigger then even Grimlock with the way the wind rushing about around him was any clue—and probably, somehow, was at least part of the cause of this hole.
At least, Bee figured that might be it.
He knew the Smelt—the river of lava and slag that ran under the surface of Cybertron down to the core—carved tunnels out of the world. However, those were hot. Outrider told him so. Even the long 'cooled' ones that the river of lava had turned away from to carve a new path never truly lost the heat that had once burned through them.
This place . . . it was cold.
That ruled out it being a tunnel carved by lava. What that left though . . . .
Well, Bee didn't know. He wasn't all that sure he really wanted to find out either. Though the longer he stood there trying to clear his mind from all the ringing his audios were doing along with the alerts and checks his systems were doing it was beginning to look like he wasn't going to get much of a choice.
Not knowing what was around him and where he was one of Jazz's number one no-no's. The silver spy was always stressing to Bee the importance of being aware of what was around him. Of having multiple options and plans based on that knowledge.
"Never settle for one way out, Bee. Enough isn't good enough. You have to be sneaky and tricky all the time. You don't have size on your side, you can't fight your way out of a tight spot. So you have to clever your way out."
That was what Jazz had always called it; 'clever your way out'.
He said it wasn't always about being the biggest and the strongest that got a bot out of places alive so they could go home. After all, look at Jazz. Apart from the femmes there weren't many smaller than him. He was far from the biggest mech around, but he might be the most deadly among Bee's family despite that.
All because he was quick, clever, and he knew how to think his way out of places.
Jazz had never been afraid to get dirty to get what needed to be done. He was not shy about teaching Bee some of the more . . . dirty techniques either. And no bot cared. Even if Optimus didn't like it. He and Prowl both looked the other way when Jazz taught Bee how best to kill something five times his size.
He'd only put the skills to use once . . . and a part of him still shivered inside at the memory of all that sticky blue gushing down on him and the grey lifelessness that had crashed down after it.
Sideswipe had told him once that it never goes away. The first kill, he said it would haunt the back of a memory for as long as a bot lived. It wasn't a concept Bumblebee was all that much looking forward too, but so far it had proved itself correct.
Bee suddenly gave himself a hard shake. That wasn't the thought path he needed to down at the moment. He had to figure out how to get out of here.
Where ever here was.
Trying to keep his breaths shallow and calm to not stress the already aching insides trying to heal inside him at the moment he cast his external sensors apart as much as they seemed to want to go. Winglets twanging painfully back at him in protest. Ignoring it for now he forced down the alerts and pings inside him to try and get some readings he could work with.
But just as he was afraid of. He didn't come back with much of anything.
The speed of the winds breezing around, the temperature, and the strange smooth nature of the stones and sand around him.
"Well," He mutter to himself. Casting his optics about the darkness, grateful for the slight glow they gave off along with the few biolights along his sides. It wasn't much but at least it gave him something as to not feel totally swallowed by the darkness. "If there is a breeze it has to be coming from somewhere, right?"
He didn't get an answer, but at this point he was hardly expecting one.
Swallowing down the tired aches he kept one hand on the wall and started forward the direction the wind was blowing from. Sooner or later he'd find where it was coming from and find a way out.
At least, that was what he was hoping would happen. There wasn't much else beside that to be done though. He couldn't feel or hear anybot that normally saved him when he got into places he didn't know how to get himself out of.
So he started forward by himself because there wasn't nothing else for it. Keeping his sensors up and alert he slowly made his way along the wall. His hand making quiet scraps against the smooth stone while he let his mind wonder.
All Spark.
That was what Hide had said.
Bee didn't even know what that was, but it sent something inside him to humming. Spark letting go of the fear and uncertainty as it started that not so quiet pull again. This time there were no words to go with it and even if he kept looking over his shoulder, there was no ghost robo-cat of long ago watching him either.
He didn't know what happened or even how to explain it.
"What is happening to me?" He whispered softly to himself as he padded along.
Once again, no answer was given to him.
He walked for . . . joors. Down, up, around long curved turns—no angles, no sharp turns at all, though he didn't know why—along and along. Only knowing how long it had been because of the clock inside him telling him over and over again how long it had been since he'd seen his family.
He stopped regularly. Hurting and tired and needing a break, but he always kept one hand touching the wall. Afraid to lose it in the darkness. Afraid of never getting out to the sun and the stars ever again.
Only the clock in his head told him when a whole orn passed. Shivering in the cold without the supplies to light even a small flint fire he just huddled in on himself. Arms and legs pulled and wrapped up tight. Doorwings and winglets plastered against his back. Antennas pinned down into their grooves.
He had a few rations of energon in his subspace that had been given to him once he joined up with the others. Pulling one out now he felt his now almost empty tanks clench and protest the lack of fuel but he didn't down what he had. Instead he sipped lightly at the slightly dull traveling fuel.
He had no way of knowing just how long it was going to take him to find the surface and then the others again. Rationing was the smart thing to do. So he drank only about half the cube before sealing it back and stuffing it away. And with that he was left with nothing else to do but sit there in the blackness staring out around him.
For no rest would come to his tired frame. No matter how much he needed it.
He just couldn't make himself close his optics in this place.
One orn turned into two.
Two to four.
Four to eight.
And he walks. Just . . . walks.
Never transforming in an effort to save energy added onto the fact that his inside still hurt and he's pretty sure transforming would be a horrible way to discover just how not right it is in there. So he doesn't.
He just walks.
Walks on through the darkness, shivers, aches, and rations. He's gone to skipping orns now. He doesn't have much energon left. Just about a cube left. He sips at it when he stopped for the night, but never more than a few mouthfuls now.
It's not so bad though. He's hungry, but the cold of down here as settled into his struts now and its slowing all his systems down. Making him slower with them. It's not a good thing . . . it's the first stages of freezing to death actually, but at least it's meaning he's not starved to death yet.
Not much of an upside, but still sort of one.
He tried calling out—never with his voice now, his too afraid of what might answer him—every now and again. Each time he stops he focuses in on his spark and tries for the bonds that are linked to him. Each still burning brightly and contently, but not within his reach of calling to. It's there, just beyond his reach. Dangling before his optics with a teasing shadow that he can see but not touch no matter how hard he tries.
He's too far away, and might be getting farther. At this point he's not sure anymore.
He thought he was following a breeze . . . . Now he's not so sure.
Down here in this never ending blackness, one hand on the same wall he's stayed on, he's not sure of anything. The long smooth turns, steep climbs, and even steeper downturns. He's fallen and slid more than once. Scraping himself up with gritted teeth he just went on.
Orns pilling up on each other while he shivered, ached, and grew steadily hungrier. He was starting to think he was never going to get out of here or find his family ever again when a loud rumble woke him from a doze of hunger induced recharge that he was shivering through.
Tensing up at the growing noise that seemed to rumble the very ground around him Bee scrambled up from his slouch. Optics flying this way and that in the darkness trying to track the sound. He wasn't having all that much luck.
Armor tightening down against his protoform he backed further against the wall. Doorwings struggling to track the rumbling. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Resonating like thunder breaking over the horizon. Demanding to be noticed, but impossible to ever truly know the origin of. At least not until the lightening was striking and it was far too late.
Bumblebee found he'd much rather not be around when whatever was causing that ground shaking rumble came around. So with one hard swallow he twisted—one hand still on the wall—and took off at a dead sprint.
If he'd known what he was going to be running head first into, later he'd wonder if maybe he wasn't better off taking his chances with the rumble.
There was only so much running energon starved systems could do. Ten orns in the darkness with less and less fuel weren't doing his already hurt systems any good. He was basically running on fumes now. Leaving that thunder like rumble behind and desperately trying to find his way out. He had kind of stopped paying all that much attention to what was around him . . . sorta, maybe . . . alright, fine, he got spooked and took off running not stopping until he quite literally crashed head first into a rather hard pillar of stone sending him crashing back to his aft cupping his now rapidly leaking nose plate.
When he was asked later how it was he almost broke his nose, he lied.
Getting his aft kicked by a vertical slab of rock was not going to do him any favors with the other believing he wasn't helpless.
Laying flat on his back clutching his now stinging face Bee cursed quietly to himself. Optics watering with coolant at the sting that he was having to rapidly blink away. Carefully prodding at the stinging plating Bee found himself pinching it shut despite the hurt, tipping his head back as he sat up, and sniffling trying to stop the flow of energon. It helped a little after a bit more sniffling. His nanites managing to catch up with the leak and stop it. Allowing Bee to tilt his head back down and lower his hands from his face.
An action that then left him sitting there on the smooth cold floor in silent shock when he realized he could . . . see.
Light . . . there was light.
Scrambling back to his feet Bumblebee threw himself forward. Rushing into the large circular open expanse of the rock full of strange vertical, pointed, stones stretching up, up, up, to . . . a huge circular hole in the ground giving way to the view of the vast open sky above.
What had to be some 7,000 feet up.
A crushing disappointment sent Bee back to his aft with a hard plop.
Not even Grimlock could get out of this. Some of these strange vertical pillars of rock were tall but none of them were tall enough to use for climbing. Even if he could get a grip on the smooth things enough to use them.
Only a flier had a hope of making it out of this hole.
After ten orns Bumblebee finally found his way to light and that light as well as the way out it provided was completely beyond his reach.
Letting out a frustrated yell the young mech shoved himself up and stalked to the closest pillar of rock. Slamming his fist repeatedly into the stone wasn't all that productive but it did make him feel better.
Slightly.
Hitting the stone until his knuckles split Bumblebee then lightly smacked his forehead into it with a low groan from deep in his throat. Squeezing his optics shut he silently cried out for Ironhide, for Chromia, for Sides, or Sunny, or Jazz, or Optimus, or . . . anybot.
Anything.
His arms slowly found themselves curling around each other and him while he slowly sank down to the floor when there wasn't so much as a peep of an answer. Still too far away.
He was alone. Oh so very alone.
The one thing above all else in this world that Bumblebee feared.
Spark shivering in its chamber at the lack of answers he curled in on himself. Pressing up against the smooth cold stone ignoring the aches and pains all over his body in favor of opening his slightly watery optics to at least look at the light while he had the chance.
He might not be able to use it as a way out but the sight of it after so long without it was making his spark a less heavy in his chest.
He'd heard the femmes talking once. About how Bee was a creature of light, he wasn't meant for the darkness. He'd found himself agreeing with them then. He especially found himself thinking they were right, now.
Puffing out a heavy sigh Bee relaxed back against the stone. Staring out blankly in front of him. Unsure what to do and not really bothering with the effort to truly look at anything.
He was out of energon and out of time.
He had no idea what he was suppose to do now.
"You're over thinking this."
Bee startled upright with a rather undignified squeak. Optics blowing wide as they searched rapidly around him until he realized where the voice was coming from. Inside but also . . . tipping his head back he found himself staring into a pair of glittering gold optics.
With another squeak he scrambled backward at a half crouch half crawl before he managed to twist around and found his feet. Leaving him staring at the lean, lanky golden and spotted in black form of a robo-cat with those impossibly bright golden optics. Lounging there at the pointed top of the pillar in a strange circled crouch that shouldn't at all have looked as comfortable as it did the slightly translucent creature was all but smirking at him while Bee stood there gaping back at him like a fish.
Finally the young yellow mech managed to clamp his jaw shut though. If only for a short time before he huffed out. "Star?"
The feline smile grew a little larger before that well known baritone echoed about in Bee's spark and sort of in his audios as well. "Ah, there you go. Finally starting to get it, are you? I was about to think the cold had slowed your processor."
"Well, it's slowed everything else." Bee bit back waspishly, but that only seemed to amuse the flickering in and out of sight as if made entirely of a breeze filled with dust particles cat.
Bee was not amused back.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were a figment of my imagination!"
The feline snorted. "I am not figment. Nor am I in your imagination. Though, granted, only you can see me. Others have sight such as you and see what you are learning to, but not me. For I do not exist in this realm or the other. Not for now. I can only show myself to you like this at the moment because of where we are."
Bumblebee stared at him dumbly for a moment before huffing out a tired whine. "That doesn't make any sense!"
Those rounded feline audios curved down slightly at the distress building in that young chest as well as on his faceplate.
Sinking down to the ground again Bee wrapped his arms tightly around himself while he gazed up at those warm, wise golden optics. "What is happening to me!?"
Letting out a sigh of his own the golden robo-cat jumped down from his perch on the stone before padding over to sit down on his hunches before the mechling.
"You seem to think that because of me and what you see something is the matter with you."
"I'M SEEING GHOSTS!?" Bumblebee all but screamed at him.
"Not really."
Bee let out a groan before following backward into the ground. "And now I'm being corrected by one."
"I'm not a ghost, Young Spark."
Twisting his head to the side Bee gazed back at the robo-cat sitting there before him flickering in and out of existence.
He wasn't the least bit convinced. So he said so.
That only seemed to amuse Star further though.
"Oh I promise you. You'll understand before too long."
"Can't you just tell me! You said once you were my friend! Well why don't you act like one!? Tell me what is happening, please!" Bee pleaded. "I wanna go home!"
Those golden optics dimmed. "I cannot. You must learn it all for yourself, otherwise you will never be what you are meant to be. But I will say this. Stop over thinking. Just be you. I promise you, it is more than enough, Young Spark."
Then, in a rush of hard breeze he was gone leaving Bee sitting there in the stretching rays of light from above staring down at the spot that a moment before had been filled but now was hollowly empty.
Bee wondered if it was possible to realize you had lost your mind after it had happened.
Because at this point, he was pretty sure he was crazy.
Absolutely bonkers, in fact.
However, sitting there on his aft in the middle of a hole contemplating if he really had lost his mind along the way at some point and just failed to notice the fact, wasn't getting him anywhere. So with another sigh that rattled his insides a little more then they deemed they wanted to be rattled he pushed himself back to his feet. Though after he did that he realized he had no more idea of what to do with himself now that he found some light then he did when he was looking for light.
For he still had no way out.
Tilting his head back he gazed up at the dizzy inducing distance between himself and what was apparently the surface. There was no way in pit out was going to come from that direction, and there was no more guarantee of him finding another source of light should he pick a direction from this large round carven and start walking again.
A sudden chill went up his main backstrut at the prospect of wondering back into the blackness where he could hardly see his own hand in front of his face with the glow of his optics let alone what else might be lurking out there where he couldn't see it. Maybe even just a few steps in front of him.
It was true that the noises of the night did not seem to carry down here like they had at the surface but that didn't mean the left over ring of those awful screeches in the night had left Bumblebee's audios.
They were still there, tugging at his memory with shadowy figures and things his mind supplied for the lack of a better answer. He didn't know if imagination was worse in regards to what it was that made that sound nor was he sure he wanted to find out.
He gave himself another good shake.
No. He scolded himself. This is the time to think, not cowering around like a sparkling waiting to be saved.
Yes.
There.
That was the way to look at it.
"There has to be a way out of here somehow." He went about looking around him again. "That breeze I felt likely came from here, so that idea is out now. What else could . . . sound . . . no."
He shook his head, walking around the pillars of stone as he thought.
"Sound echoes too bad down here. That's no good. I can't smell anything of importance let alone use. And then there is the fact that now I'm out of energon."
Heaving out another sigh he leaned sideways against another pillar. "That's problem number one at the moment. How do I fix that? Getting out would be a good start but it's no promise. Huh. What to do?"
Chewing on his bottom lip he stayed lent there up against the cold stone wracking his processor. Stilling coming up short he started to lean his thoughts back to Star.
"Stop over thinking . . . just be me?" Another bit of gnawing on his lip, he mumbled. "What does that even mean?"
Out of the corner of his optic a smug of black caught his attention. Leaving him pushing himself upright then to blink hard at the surface of the dark stone beside him.
Glyph.
That was a glyph.
Straightening and twisting fully he found more. Long, scribbled carvings, large, jagged, and all burnt black carved down in a spiral around the tall stone pillar. Tracing his fingers over them Bee followed the letters and signs but couldn't make out what they said.
However, they rang familiar in his memory. Familiar like the datapad he had taken from Jazz's office. With a sudden thought he reached into subspace and pulled out the pad that Jazz had given back to him after he had told them he could read a little bit of it.
Booting it up he traced his fingers over the words he had been able to make out while they danced and swayed on the screen. Letting his gaze snap back up to the stone he found that the burnt carvings of the stone had a light sway about them too.
They didn't move like the ones on the screen did but they still had a slight sway to them. As much as an image burnt into stone could move that is.
Bumblebee wasn't sure if it was a play of the light or his tired optics doing it to him, but he let it go for the moment in favor of glancing back and forth between the two things trying to find symbols that looked the same.
It was defiantly the same language . . . whatever that language was.
But why was it here?
What were the odds of that?
That the datapad the others couldn't read but he could would have the same writing as stones down in the bottom of a lost hole. Quickly tossing his gaze around, he found as he narrowed his optics and focused that there were other carvings. Every few pillars there were carvings.
Darting his gaze around him he realized something.
"They're . . . leading somewhere."
He could see it now. There was a pattern . . . an arrow. An arrow of carved stones in big black letter made my hands far bigger than his own. An arrow pointing . . . somewhere . . . .
"Stop over thinking, huh?" Bee said softly to himself. "Well, alright. I can do that."
And with that said he took off to the west, the direction the carved out arrow made of words he couldn't read pointed heading he didn't know where might go but somewhere deep in his spark something was telling him that was what he was suppose to be doing.
So he ran. Not even bothering with keeping track of the wall this time. He just ran.
As fast as his hungry, injured systems would let him. Using his doorwings and winglets to keep from running into the slow twists and turns. He picked a direction and tried his best to stick too it. Hurrying along in search of something he wasn't sure what was.
Trusting his spark.
Letting it tug him where it wanted to go.
Tugging left, right, and then down, down, down into the darkness. Following nothing but this growing since of this way that was thumping through his entire body. Driving him forward as fast as he could manage with a frame damaged and hungry.
When he all but fell down another steep slope ending up on his knees in a large cavern light opening lit not by the light of the sun but the glowing lights of crystals he came to a complete stop.
Optics stretching wide in wonder while he stared out at the magic like blue glow of the sharp, twisting, curving, sparkling stones. All an almost mystical color of pale blue. Shining through the darkness like miniature stars trapped down here so far away from the sky.
They shone as if they really were stars that sank down from the sky. Maybe grabbed by some ancient creature. Plucked from the darkness of space to be locked away down below the dirt and stone. Left here to shine with all their glory away from the sky but no less bright because of it.
Shimmering and reflecting off each other they threw beams of dancing light in every direction. Lighting up the darkness more so then even the glimpse of sky he had gotten earlier.
It was . . . awe-inspiring.
Slowly pushing himself back up to his feet Bumblebee stumbled forward. Not sure where to look first among the glittering crystals. All of which were softly humming between themselves. A soft almost breeze like song that curled up through the air.
Making his doorwings twitch and flutter as the picked up the sound. Letting it sink into him, chasing away some of the darkness that was beginning to linger inside because of the sheer amount of time he had spent wondering down here. Leaving behind an almost tingling sensation that pushed down and curled around the pulsing ball of his spark in his chest.
He shivered once in a full body rattle then found himself calming down like he hadn't since he woke up down here. Taking a few more breaths he slowly walked into the glittering cavern of singing blue light. Watching the lights flicker and move in their own star or sun like movement of light that somehow powered themselves. Flickering and glittering and moving all around in sways of twinkles in every place and direction around him.
Some of the clear, blue crystals towered high into the circular roof, others tiny that were hardly there, bunched around the bases of the larger crystals. Both becoming their own life forms and growing there while they also leaned and used the strength and life of the older and taller ones.
Stepping around some of the taller, brooder, bright ones Bee lifted one hand to trace along the angular edges and sharp, but not pointy corners. The moment he touched one a sharp zing of warmth and life. His spark pulsed hard back at it. Equally warm and almost greeting.
It only took a few moments of tracing his fingers along the glowing warmth of the crystals for him to realize that soft, tingling sounds he was hearing that sounded like singing was . . . actual singing.
Voices that were not voices humming up through the stones themselves to hum out a complicated rhythm of noise. A song made of something he'd never heard before. Voices and noise that weren't really a kind of life he had ever heard but sounds of life all the same.
After so many orns of being alone in the silence and darkness with nothing but that breeze he had been chasing hearing even a sound he'd never heard before was welcomed and held onto.
He knew what they were. He knew why they sang.
All crystals did.
He'd never actually seen one before. Considering the war was suppose to have destroyed them all. The famous, well bred, and domesticated wonder that were the ones that were born and created in Praxus were gone forever just like the city and most of the breed of bot that had come from it.
These were not those kind of crystals though. From the pictures Smokey drew him and Prowl told him about. These were wild crystals. Living somehow down here away from life. They had survived when all others like them had been killed off. Destroyed to never be seen again.
Yet here some were.
Life.
Life holding on down here where there seemed to be no hope for it at all.
He didn't know he was smiling even when his cheeks started hurting from just how broad it was. Tracing his fingers along them as they hummed and sang up through his spark. Echoing inside more then they were in his audios.
Making his doorwings twitch and flick behind him as they tried to filter through the sounds through his audios but they kept filtering back to his spark that seemed to understand far more than his audios did.
Grinning even bigger he almost snickered as he leaned fully against one of the larger stones. Staring at the shining glowing back at him.
It was then that Bumblebee understood what they were all singing in rhythm with each other at him.
"Hello to you too." He chirped happily back at them.
The singing got even louder then. Gaining a happy, swinging tone. Getting louder and brighter along with the lights they were giving off.
Letting his doorwings spread wider in an effort to hear a bit better now that he was quickly realizing how they were speaking. A moment later he realized the next question they were all saying now in various tones and echoes.
"Bumblebee," He snickered. "I'm Bumblebee, but almost everybot calls me Bee."
Another purr like chime echoed in response flowed around him. Swirling through the air like the beams of light they put off. It left him snickering as the sounds twirled around him. Optics darting while he swirled around in a slow circle watching them all twinkle.
It was then that the tune of them seemed to change. Pulling him along through the tall and short shining stones. Weaving through the sparkling reflections off each other. Lights dancing off his plating in spots and lines of dotted light. The sounds leading him forward until he found himself standing before alone tall wall of cold, dark stone. Only this one was not lit by the light of the sky too high above to ever have any hope of reaching. This one was brightened by the reflections of the singing stones.
Dark carves of burnt and blackened lettering. Long, sharp letters that seem to sway even in their etched prison of rock. Bee stood there staring up at the huge carvings only to blink hard suddenly when the two lines suddenly becomes readable.
There are two.
That darkness will rue.
Head tilting in a curious flicker of antennas. Optics flickering over the words again and again he mouthed them a few times. Shocked by the sudden spike of energy in his chest. This bright, hot flare of . . . something . . . sucker punching him deep down in his gut only to swell into his spark chamber. Not taking the calm that the singing stones around him gave him, but amplifying the brighter side of the emotion. Turning it into a torch that that Bee felt like he could almost reach inside and tug out. Let it flicker into the real world as if it would stay there on its own. As if it was . . . suppose to burn both inside of him but outside as well.
"There are two." His voice carried with it the rhythm the crystals were singing even if he didn't know it. "That the darkness will rue."
"Well now,"
Bee all but fell over in a twisting mass of shocked and tumbling movement as he spun around. Doorwings flinging up tight behind him in shock while his winglets pinned down against his back strut. Antennas caught in a half way tilt of shock and interest found himself look at and then up, up, up into two sets of red optics. One a calm pale shade while the other was a violent fire like color, shining down on him with an intensity that made his plating clamp down over his protoform.
Leaving him plastered up against the stone behind him while he craned his neck back to stare into faceplates of the massive shapes that came forward out of the darkness. Their sheer size almost seeming to fill up the whole cavern itself.
One an impossibly tall, broad, bulky, sharp plated mech that had to be some type of shuttle. He out sized even Grimlock, making the beast mech look as if he might even be normal in comparison. Those fire like optics flickering with a heat that made Bee's insides shake. His dark black coloring stripped in swirls of bright gold making him both blend in and melt out of the brightened shadows of the cavern.
The other smaller but only enough so that their shoulders weren't level with each other. The dusty brown flickered in bits of black was about head level with the larger mech's shoulders. His build strong but not quite as massive as the other. That and he didn't have the huge, long, hanging wings behind his back. He had a set of rotor blades that furled and twitched from their locked together dangle behind his back. An almost curious nature about their movements as if somehow they were trying to express emotions like wings did.
The smaller mech's optics were far less burning. The paler shade of red making them easier to hold and because of it there was only a moment needed for Bee to realize there was no malice or harmful intent hidden behind that color he had for the most part learned to fear.
He was in no way as bias as some of his family had become. For a very early age Bee learned that optic shade did not dictate the nature of a creature, but that didn't mean he was foolish. He knew for the most part that those that owned that color would harm him just as soon as look at him.
That fire shade was easy to believe just might, but back to a wall of stone behind him and the other less angry like shade next to it left Bumblebee standing there a little like a circuit deer in headlights.
Unable to move even if he had wanted too as he stared up into those two sets of optics.
Then with a scratchy, rumble, almost thunder like voice that seemed to come from deep in that powerful black and gold lined chest the towering shuttle went on.
"It's been quite a long time since I heard those words."
Much to Bumblebee's surprise that made the brown and black mech chuckle. His paler optics softening with a kind of amusement Bee didn't know how to define while the bigger mech just seemed to be annoyed.
Sinking down further against the stone Bee's fingers itched for the dagger tucked away in his subspace but he knew against mechs that large in the position he was in there really was no point to being armed or not.
Besides, while they were kind of terrifying he didn't feel as if he was in danger. Especially the longer he stood there looking up into their optics. If anything they were sort of . . . familiar.
"Bumblebee," The helicopter mech rumbled in his own deep voice, tilted with that chuckle. It wasn't anywhere near the deep throat, personal thunder storm that belonged to the shuttle, it didn't rattle the very ground he was standing on, but it was still enough to demand Bee's full focus and to keep his plating tight to his protoform.
The fact that he said his name triggered something inside though. Shock lifting him off the wall and tilting his head again. Antennas flickering a curious few times before in a timid voice that absolutely did not squeak like a sparkling's not matter what the amused tilt of that mech's lips questioned.
"You know my name?"
"Aye." He went on in his light chuckling. Lips tilting up into a much easier to read type of amusement. Those pale optics sparkling with a mirth with the light of which Bumblebee wasn't at all expecting. Epically when what must have been a stupid question—if the roll of those fire like optics was anything to go by—made the big shuttle mech cross his arms over his chest letting out a loud huff, steam billowing out with the action.
As if Bumblebee needed any physical frame clues for his own tiny in comparison body to realize just how laughably out sized he was here. The helicopter smacking the shuttle in the harm with a hard flick of clawed fingers and the larger cringing away with a snort of protest was the last thing Bee figured would happen from that though.
His optic ridges lifted high in response to the brown mech turning those pale optics to the fire set and glaring hard for a long moment. The larger mech seeming to relent as he looked away was equally as shocking. Then those paler red optics turned back to him. Softening once again while that amuse glint returned while he went on.
"Aye, we know who you are. Though it's no real surprise you don't remember us. You were such a little thing back then."
Bee's spark suddenly gave a hard tug. It pulling him off the wall far more than his body actually making the decision to complete that motion. Still slightly hunched into himself, unable to fully stand under the gaze of such powerful and large mechs that he should probably have started running from with all he was worth by now. He slowly stepped forward. Optics wide and wary even if inside his thoughts were rolling.
Somewhere in his spark this mech, his voice, and those optics were familiar. So despite what was probably better judgment he reached out with his spark. Letting it poke along the comics energy waves only to catch hold of this mech and realize he was already linked.
He knew him.
He knew both of them!
Jaw dropping open in shock at the sheer strength and connection that burned to life suddenly in a place where a moment before there had been nothing it was at least reassuring to see that these two seem almost as equally as shocked by the feeling suddenly slamming into them as well. At least the shuttle did, the helicopter once again just looked sort of amused.
And like a puzzle piece he hadn't known would work until it did, something clicked into place.
"Dustoff." The name came out so easy even in his processor thought it was foreign to his tongue. His spark knew it.
His spark knew it well.
Those pale red optics widened just a fraction before a full smile took place over that more square then it was angular faceplate.
"Well," He smiled. "Good to know you remember something. I'm surprised, I'll admit."
The towering shuttle did not seem amused at all. Those deep optics narrowing into thin, burning slits before he rumbled.
"I warned him." Was all the colossal mech all but growled. The heavy, warning tone making Bee sink back despite himself. Even with the link there he hadn't known he had burning between him and this huge mech that only meant he could sort of feel the shift of emotion through him now.
What was simmering annoyance and slight surprise was slowly shifting into real anger.
Dustoff turned from the young yellow mech sharply. His own gaze narrowing as he glared at the other. "Wardrums,"
"I gave him one task." The shuttle—Wardrums, his spark now hummed contently, somewhere inside he knew that though he didn't know how—growled back at the other. "One simple instruction and look!"
Throwing his huge, clawed hand out toward Bumblebee for some reason the notion that it alone was bigger than he was, was something his processor felt the need to point out to him.
"Yes," Dustoff nodded, one thick optic ridge lifting up his forehead. "Look. Look at the little mech reading it."
Wardrums wilted, if only slightly.
"Stop being an aft for about four nanos and look yourself." Dustoff snorted at him.
Wardrums scowled in return. "You agreed before!"
"I still do." Dustoff replied with another roll of his optics before they softened once again when they returned to Bumblebee. "But I am not so foolish as to think there was ever any say we had. So stop being a right bastard and say hello to our nephew."
Bee was pretty sure his world just ground to a very hard halt. Optics blowing wide, doorwings flaring out, and antennas pinning down this time there was no denying that what came out of him was a squeak.
"Nephew!?"
Dustoff grinned.
Wardrums slapped his palm into his forehelm with a heavy groan.
He found them! Or they found him. However you wanna look at it.
And now the real problems begin.
I hope you all liked it, can't wait to see what you have to say. See you next time.
-Jaycee