Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.
Enjoy! ^-^
Chapter 17
Bumblebee sat, crossed legged like a sparkling, in his sire's lap staring down at the hardcopy photo that had been handed to him . . . well quite a while ago actually.
He wasn't sure, when he asked, just what he had been expecting, but somehow he figured no matter what it might have been he likely wasn't going to be ready for it. Turns out he was right, but it also turns out he was wrong.
Dustoff had seemed to know that he'd mentally shut down for a while after the first. Bee didn't really know how he knew that. Maybe being a medic older then the planet you were standing on had some upsides.
Yeah.
He kind of supposed that might be the reason.
Whatever it really was though, the huge helicopter mech had come across the distance between them, slipped between the wall of family watching him closely, and just handed over the picture. The one that he'd pulled from subspace with the flick of a habitual movement. Not one he had to dig for, or so much as think to find. One he had had on hand.
For vorns more then the young mech could comprehend. For it was how long he had been alive, but the prospect of that was so big he couldn't quite wrap his head around it.
He was trying, mind you, but it wasn't easy.
His whole life, secretly because he was ashamed, he'd wondered. He tried.
For the slightest hint of a memory.
A mere glimpse of an image long forgotten to time and youth.
To just remember what she had looked like.
But he hadn't been able to.
He hadn't remembered her.
Not the sound of her voice, or the look of her face, or even her name. The femme that had carried him, birthed him, and then died for him. The femme he had forgotten her to the recesses of a sparkling's mind.
It was a shame that had been buried down inside him, deep enough that even Hide and Mia couldn't find it, for as long as he'd been with his family. Because as happy as he was, he still wondered about her. He couldn't say he missed her, not anymore, but then, he had never known her.
It was like missing a stranger in the crowd to him now. He missed an idea more then he missed her.
Sitting here now with his optics locked on a glossy but worn with time photo he hated himself a little bit for that. Because there on that faded glossy photo was the brightest femme he'd ever seen. Not in color, no, for his natural color was a bright as her and bright he might be but not the brightest. No, it was the glow of life that he could see even in a vorns old photo damaged and faded with time.
In the photo sat a bright yellow femme. Small, for the age and place she had come from. Not much bigger then Chromia to be honest. She was lean, and thin on all aspects of her, but the curves that made her up worked well with it. Curled up in a ball as she was on what looked to be an old chair in the back corner of a dark room it was hard to see the two sets of doorwings that hung behind her back, but he made them out all the same. Thinner, and smaller than his, but there all the same.
Her optics, framed in the same yellow and silver protoform he had, were the same as his as well.
He guessed he could understand what Dustoff meant now. When he said Wardrums looked at him and saw a ghost.
He supposed they did look almost identical.
His spark felt funny in his chest.
"That's me." He said it almost on accident, after he had sat tracing his thumb around the image of the brightly smiling femme not at all paying attention to the camera that had taken the picture of her. She was instead smiling with those brightly shining blue optics down to a tiny bundle of yellow wrapped up carefully in an old blue blanket.
The sparkling was just as easy to see as she was in the picture. The way she held him up so close to her chest while she stared down at him meant that tiny waving hands could be seen as well as a giggly face and the bright blue optics shared between them.
Dustoff made a low sound deep in his throat. It might have been an agreement, it might have been a purr, it might also have been pain. It was such a complex kind of sound that Bee didn't know what to make of it, but after what had to be several klicks of just staring blankly at the photo in his hand he lifted his gaze to find the big flier sitting just across from him beside Optimus. Those pale red optics watching him closely as he nodded.
"Yes."
He looked back to the photo, and then he pointed out, as if it was an important thing. "I was tiny."
Jazz snickered beside him before he could help it. Then, suddenly, Sideswipe leaned over Hide's other arm and snatched up the photo from him. "I wanna see tiny Half Pint!"
"Hey!" Bee snapped, suddenly coming to life again in Hide's arm as he made a mad scramble for the photo. Sides just snickered at him, a part of his spark lifting at the sudden movement of the little mech again. The dazed still he'd been in had not so secretly been freaking the twins out.
Bee didn't do still, nor quiet. Not unless something was seriously wrong with him. The little mech was motion, noise, all the time. He was . . . life. He was what life looked like to the lot of them at least.
A reminder.
A promise.
A hope.
One they would die for without even a first thought let alone a second.
"Give it back!" Bee shouted as Sides danced out of reach, chuckling the whole time for Bee got himself caught by a quick black hand around his scruff bar when he accidently kneed Hide in the gut.
The twins ignored him, hovering there on the other side of Ratchet as they both bent over the photo when Sunstreaker snatched it from his younger brother.
"Give me that, you're going to hurt it."
"Was not!" Sides snapped at him.
"Probably would, and then Dust would have shot you and I'd have to do something about it."
"If Dust shot me there wouldn't be anything for you to do about it." Sides snarked back. "We'd both be dead."
"All the more reason." Sunstreaker drawled back with a huff, turning his attention down to the photo. "Pit. It really is possible you were littler then I remember, Half Pint."
Caught where he was in Ironhide's hand sprawled across the other cannon wielding arm Bee pouted rather dramatically while he glared up at the big frontliners.
"Afts." He muttered under his breath, still pouting at them when they just winked back at him.
"Give me that!" Ratchet's hand snaking up to snatch the photo away from the two mechs who growled back only to have one long glare from the medic shut them up and leave them sitting down like scolded pups on both sides of him.
For a moment after that Ratchet went on glaring at the pair of them, looking as if he was contemplating smacking them, until finally he gave a hard snort and turned his own attention down to the small photo.
Bee let out and exasperated whine.
Dustoff chuckled.
"You know, little mech, I have more."
Popping up like a spring crystal the tiny mechling beamed and the huge 'copter took to laughing as he dug into his subspace again.
And so Bee looks.
He looks, and he touches, and he stares but he stays silent for a long time. With his head tucked under Hide's chin, or maybe Hide's chin tucked onto his head, he stayed snuggled against his sire's chest letting the big mech look along with him. Jazz is curled up—almost perched to be honest—on Hide's arm looking over the photos as well. Ratchet had come to sit close to Hide's other side with the twins in tow and finally Optimus picked himself up and came to sit behind them all. His height meaning he could just lean over them to get a look at everything. The fact that he was more or less wrapping them all up in the process just settles them all down another notch.
They seemed wary in a way Bee's spark flickered about. Uneasy and nervous, but he's not paying attention to that at the moment. He's too busy looking, and trying to remember.
Dustoff—still sitting across from the all—looked content to just let him do that for a while. The whole telling part the little mech had asked for apparently something he thinks he should wait about.
Maybe that is for the best though.
After everything Dustoff had said to make him stop crying before moving onto of these photos, he knows he's more than a little emotionally overwhelmed. And then . . . kind of not.
Its . . . weird inside him as he sits there looking at pictures. Unconsciously nudging at Hide every few moments getting a low rumble and a hard press to the top of his head back. His bonds were more or less open, at least as open as he'd let them get since before with Star, flowing and bright between the mechs around him. Warm, patient and curious. It was through those bonds that he could feel the flickers in their emotions they didn't so much want him to know about.
He didn't figure they were meaning to though.
It didn't feel like they were at least.
"See what I meant now?" Bumblebee wasn't quite sure how long he had been sitting there quietly again flicking through photos. Photos of Mercy smiling, Mercy working besides Dustoff, Mercy curled up against Wardrums' side the both of them in recharge, Mercy with a tiny sparkling him curled up on her chest, Mercy standing him carefully on the floor in front of her trying to see if he could stand on his own, tiny him laying in a pile of blankets cooing as he reached for the camera, tiny him chewing on a blanket with just her hand wrapped around him in the photo, Mercy standing on what looked like a ship looking out the window at the blankness of space before her.
In some of the photos he could tell she was very young, in some she looked older then he could comprehend, but when she smiled as she held him she beamed with a brightness he wondered if others saw in his optics when he did the same.
She was like a little sun that had dropped down from the heavens to spin and glow in the presence of lesser, duller things. She was so bright when she was smiling at that camera or smiling down at a tiny him.
How had he forgotten that?
Why was it that even as he sat there staring at a memory of her image burnt into a photo he still couldn't link her up to a thing inside his spark?
Slowly, optics still set on the pictures in his lap he nodded. "Yeah, I think so."
"Resemblance is uncanny." Dustoff's voice tilted in amusement enough that Bee had to look up at him to find he was smiling down at him again. That sad fog to him still hung but it was dimmer now. As if sitting there looking at him look made the old flier feel better or something. "Kind of a hard thing for the two of us to see, but that doesn't make it your fault. War's got no right to blame you for that, little mech. Mercy made her own choices when it came to you and she never regretted them."
"I can't . . . remember her." He whispered it, sinking deeper into Ironhide's hold as he did. Grateful of the big strong arms that tightened around him as he did. The steady pulse of warm, strong life beating in the chest behind him and in the warm lines of the bond steadily shining between them.
"I know." Dustoff replied quietly. "But you were just a little thing when she was gone."
"Feels like that is something I should remember though . . . isn't it?"
"Mechling," Dustoff sighed, drawing his attention again as he scratched at his jaw. "Do you understand coping mechanisms?"
"Coping mechanism?" His antennas twitched. "Well yeah, but what does that—"
"Not mental ones, mechling." The huge tan helicopter shook his helm. "Spark ones. Things a bot's spark does to keep itself stable. Do you know what those are?"
Bee blinked back at him.
"Yeah." He huffed, with a warm roll of pale optics. "I'm gonna take that as a no."
He then shifted his gaze to Ratchet who sat quietly beside Ironhide with the two terrors of twins Dustoff had kept alive for so many vorns more or less hiding behind him. He knew the two terrors probably thought he wouldn't recognize the actions for what they were, but he had been watching them just as closely as he had been watching Bumblebee. He knew who it was that had picked the two of them up and helped them learn they could become something other than the killers War had turned them into.
He knew a debt he owed to this young medic, even if the bot didn't know it yet.
"Medic," He addressed only to get scowled at.
"Ratchet," The yellow and red mech grunted a correction.
"Ratchet," Dustoff amended, doing his best to hide his amusement as he titled his chin. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"
Ratchet huffed at him, looked more offended than anything else while he twisted away from the flying mech to pin his optics on a still uneasy youngling that he had been taking care of since they found him.
Yeah.
There were many debts Dustoff owed this medic.
"Spark coping mechanisms, Bee, are instinctual kind of things. Most of the time your frame and processor don't even know they are happening. It's another one of those things sparks do that science really has no idea how it happens, but most of the time it is a self-preservation impulse. Most fully mature sparks stop doing it because by that time they've become accustom to . . . well life. Immature sparks though—younglings and sparklings—are not. They simply haven't had enough experience with the world to know how to be. They don't handle trauma well because the truth is they shouldn't have to. They aren't steady enough in their own source of life to be. So, spark coming mechanisms as we call it are the things young sparks do to handle trauma before they become fully mature."
"Oh." Nodding as Ratchet spoke the young mech thought he was understanding. "Okay, but what does that have to do with why I can't remember her?"
"It has everything to do with it." Dustoff told him softly. "You were three vorns old, mechling. And your carrier bond shattered, you're only creator bond. That . . . does things to sparklings. It can kill them, in many cases, but in some cases if the sparkling's spark finds something else to cling to then the spark copes the only way that makes sense to it. It replaces old links and pain with new links and life."
"Bee," Ironhide rumbled behind him after Bumblebee sat for a klick or two after that just glancing between the medics. Waiting until those big baby blue orbs lifted so that the small mech was tipping his helm back to stare at his adopted sire, Hide let his own much dark blue optics search that young faceplate. He knew ever curve and line of it. He knew just what was going on inside the younglings mind to make his antennas flicker or move a certain way. He knew how to read when one of those smiles he wore was real or if he was trying to make it seem that way. He knew every pitch and tilt to that voice and what each one meant. He knew where his dimples were without his cheeks moving to make them.
He knew the spark that shown so brightly inside him.
He knew it like he knew his own, like he knew his mate's.
He knew it like he would know a spark that had come from his own. Because he didn't care who might have done the coding and kindle donning that went into this little mech. He didn't care.
Bumblebee was his mechling.
He had been, since a three vorn old sparkling he had found in a pile of trash in the middle of a battle field and carried home had realized his carrier was gone and mentally shut down. Since he had sat silent and shivering in the hands of who ever held him, refusing fuel of any kind. Since the little life had been withering until it finally decided to reach out and cling to the spark Hide and the others offered.
Since it reached out and took hold of Hide like nothing had in a very long time at that point.
Since he adopted the little mech into his spark and claimed him as his.
"You don't remember when I found you, do you?" Ironhide asked him quietly.
Bee shook his head.
Yeah, Hide hadn't thought he would. And while that should be enough to prove Dustoff's point it wasn't. Because sparks remembered. When all else was gone, sparks still remembered. Bumblebee knew that. He knew that probably better than anyone else ever could. That little spark of his did quite a few strange things.
"Well," Hide went on. "When we found you and brought you home you figured out she was gone. You did what any sparkling would do with that reality, you shut down, Bee. We tried to get you to eat let alone speak and you wouldn't. Your spark didn't know how to cope so it was shutting down. Only reason you didn't die is because you latched onto me. Me, Jazz, Optimus, and Ratchet. Pit even those two terrors."
The jab of a finger at the twins got him a chorus of 'hey!' before Ratchet smacked them and told them to be quiet.
Bee giggled at them, and considering that was probably what the twins had been trying to accomplish in the first place Hide let it go.
The short giggle wasn't long lived through as Bee took in that bit of information. He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth as he thought. Antennas flexing up and down even though he had no idea they were doing it before he finally muttered.
"So that's why I don't really remember her, even when I try. Because my spark took you mechs in replacement for the shattered bond?"
Ironhide nodded slowly, as those big optics turned to him curiously again. Part of the old ebony colored mech fearful of admitting the truth as he sat here in the face of a mechling he called his coming to terms with coded family being presented to him again. He knew to Bee the fact that he shared code with none of them didn't matter.
This was a family.
As messed up and broken as it was.
This was his family and the little mech had proved already what he was willing to do to keep it. However, that didn't mean Dustoff, Wardrums, and the memory of Mercy finally stepping into his life wouldn't change things.
No matter how much of an aft the big black and gold shuttle made of himself every bot sitting around this circle knew the nano something shifted in those fire colored optics into something besides resentment Bumblebee would throw himself at it. He was already fascinated with Dustoff. All the 'Bots could see it. For the answers he held as well as the mystery, and because the big 'copter seemed to actually really like him.
Ironhide knew it wasn't right that he hated that.
He knew.
But he didn't care.
Because Dustoff could make all the excuses he wanted. It wouldn't change the fact that he and that overgrown shuttle had let a helpless sparkling slip through their grasp. That he would have died out there alone in a war zone where no bot would have known, let alone cared.
It didn't change the fact that Ironhide was terrified of what the two of them would do now that Bee had found them. Because if there were any creatures on this damned planet that were tied into the Guild it was these two.
"Oh." The small youngling muttered, doorwings twitching behind his back while he leaned his head back down to rest in the center of Ironhide's thick chest armor. The big black painted mech had no problems with letting him. Simply sitting there and watching his youngling process things that should have been addressed long ago had they not hid them from him.
Finally Bee shifted again, glanced at the photos, and then slowly lifted them to hold them out to the big coper again. Dustoff lifted an optic ridge in question while he made no move to try and reach for the photos being held out to him.
Confusion flickered in Bee's field before he asked. "Don't you want them back?"
"I have more, mechling." Dustoff shrugged. "Besides, you want to keep them don't you?"
Yes. He whispered to himself. I just didn't think you'd let me. I'm not sure I deserve to. I . . . .
"I forgot her." He whispered it, the words twisting with as much shame as was burning in his mind right now. Shame that he had done it, but also shame that his spark didn't want to take it back. That he didn't want to take it back. Because he loved Hide and Mia for the creators that they stepped up and became. And he loved all the others for the family they let him have when they didn't have to.
His spark had let Mercy go so that it could have something living.
He was hurt by it, but he was hurt more by the fact that his spark didn't really seem to care. Logically his processor knew he should feel bad about it, but his spark didn't. It had bonds and . . . something else. He was too busying poking at his own past to wonder what that was at the moment though.
"No." Dustoff rumbled, deep voice pulling Bee from his thoughts before they could spin even lower. "Not forgotten. Not now."
It wasn't a lot, it wasn't enough, but somewhere deep inside a young spark some of the pain eased and Bumblebee breathed a little easier. Nothing changed, but then again, something did. Snuggled into Ironhide's chest he sat back and nodded slowly to the towering tan mech with the pale red optics.
Maybe he hadn't known her, maybe his spark had let her go to be replaced with something else so he'd live, but that didn't mean he could never know her. It didn't mean she was forgotten forever.
His hand tightened around the cluster of photos before every so slowly he tucked them away in his subspace for safekeeping. He then tipped his chin up again to hold those pale optics as he asked.
"So . . . will you tell me about her now?"
Slowly, Dustoff smiled.
His birth carrier liked poetry.
She loved crystal-keets and kept hundreds throughout her young life. She smuggled them between the war ships she called home her whole life until they finally reached this Cybertron. The New Cybertron to Dustoff, but the only one Bee could wrap his mind around. She had been extremely shy, quiet, and reserved. She spent her life in the shadows of powerful brothers who guarded her from a universe at war but in doing so made her scared of being herself on her own most of the time.
But she had been happy.
Bright and shining when one managed to coax a real smile out of her.
According to Dustoff there hadn't been a mean strut in her frame. Which was apparently very funny to him considering she came from the family she did. She had been considered a runt among their kind back then—and didn't that make War's picked name for Bee all the more telling—but it had never bothered her.
Her size meant she went unnoticed and for a femme who liked the quiet company of herself that had worked in her favor.
Shy, she might have been, but Dustoff told him with a smile on his lips again just how much trouble she could get herself into that her brothers had to bail her out of time and time again. She had had this bad habit of trying to see the best in others which got her in more the a few tough places over her life.
As Dustoff went on to a wide opticed youngling a picture formed of a slightly timid, more often than not quiet, kind sparked femme who cared for the brittle, breakable things in a world of war and fighting all around her. Slightly spoiled more often than not and reliant of those who were bigger and stronger than her but cared for her greatly to get her out of the trouble she found herself in. She had been happy as often as possible, loved music, and words, and to watch colors sparkle in the seemingly vast empty blackness of space.
And when their world eventually crumbled around them leaving nothing but her, War, and Dust she had been the thing that kept the two big mechs going. Because, as Dust told it, she would smile even with the shadows choked them. Quiet, as she always was. Just a bright spot of glimmering life in the blackness that surrounded them until both mechs remembered they still had something to fight for.
However, it was with a great bluntness that Dust explained to the little mech that Mercy herself had hated fighting. Every aspect of it. She'd been called a coward many times in their old world order because she wouldn't fight. But she had been a healer by nature and refused to do damage to others. She refused to fight, even when she probably should have.
It was, in fact, only Bumblebee that Mercy had ever fought for.
He was the thing that stiffened her spine and made her hold her ground. For the first time in her life.
Mercy had let the world rage and battle around her all her life, taking chunks of her more often than not because she wouldn't fight it, but when he came along suddenly Mercy found something she would fight for. Something she would die for.
Bumblebee felt both honored and confused by that, but the last emotion came more out of a lack of ability to understand because Bumblebee might be small, bright, and bubbly, but inside him was a willingness to fight.
He could understand not wanting to hurt others, but he couldn't understand standing back and letting bad things happen around him.
No.
He would fight the shadows. He would do battle for the light. He would not wait for others do it for him.
Bee was a fighter.
He always had been.
Overall though, he could see as the tale Dustoff told of a bright, quiet femme where she was in him. In more than just the way he looked.
It warmed him in a way he hadn't been expecting. The end of the story leaving him cross legged there in Ironhide's lap staring up at the huge helicopter mech with wide, curious optics. Drinking in all that was being said until finally the huge mech lapsed over into silence. Those pale red optics staring down at him with a fond glimmer.
Waiting.
Because he knew very well what came next.
There had been a lot in there, a lot to explain that he just brushed around, and he was coming to see that brushing around something would never satisfy this little mech. He wanted the truth, and he wanted it now. He wanted to know.
It was a trait he did not get from his carrier.
Mercy had been passive her whole life until she finally found something she was willing to fight for. This little mech though, this little mech was not like Mercy in that way. Much of her shown in him, and Dust was content in the knowledge that now he knew that. However, the truth was he might look like her, and shine like her, and be bright like her, but inside him was the spark of a fighter. A spark he didn't get from his carrier.
Oh no.
That spark came from the same coding, yes, for she had had it too. She had never been like her brothers though.
She had never had the spark of a Knight.
Bumblebee though, this little mech did.
Then, finally, just like Dustoff knew they would. The questions came.
"Wait . . . ." Perking up, antennas flickering, Bee made a face before locking his gaze with Dust's again. "You said brothers. Plural."
"Yes," The old mech nodded. "I did."
Bee blinked.
As did all the mechs around him.
Dustoff's smile turned a little sad at the question in those bright blue optics staring up at him as he softly said. "Wardrums had other siblings too, young mech. Royal families tend to do that. He was the eldest and so the heir, Mercy was the youngest and the only femme. Born after our world died. There were other brothers also though. All twelve of them."
Bee's jaw dropped a little bit. "Twelve?"
"Yes," Dust nodded. "Twelve. You can just imagine how annoying my life as royal medic was, huh? On the bright side though none of his brothers were quite as annoying as War. Most of the time. Granted, Steelbane was bad if he got bored, but considering how many of them there were boredom didn't happen often. The most trouble they ever caused me was when they combined. Damn frustration that dragon was, and hive minds get fraggin' frustrating when they're committed to pranking you."
By this point Bee was gawking but at least he wasn't the only one.
"Dragon?" Sideswipe squeaked. He actually squeaked. Bee would have been rolling on the floor giggling at the sound had he not been staring so widely up at Dust.
Well, at least the helicopter was amused by all this, no matter the slight sadness that flickered in his optics.
"They were gestalt siblings. Real gestalt. Not the mimic of it a few of your ages breed have played at." Dustoff explained. "It's a coding that has all but died out when our breed fell. The closest your kind has to it, Sideswipe, is you and your brother."
Something in the air around them all went very tense.
Bumblebee sank down a little deeper into Ironhide's arms in response to it as glances started getting thrown around them until all were looking at the twins. Even if the twins were doing nothing but staring up at the old medic as they sat beside Ratchet.
"What are you talking about, Dust?" Sunstreaker growled, voice pitched low and dark and dangerous. He was faking though. Bumblebee could feel that from here. Sunstreaker's reaction to unease had always been anger though.
The old medic just clicked his tongue at the pair of them as he sighed. "How is it, do you think, that I knew how to take care of you two so well all those vorns ago, Sunstreaker? Did you ever consider how it is I never so much as hesitated in how to fix either of you? Or why it was Wardrums picked you in the first place out of all the much bigger and healthier younglings that were down in that pit hole? Did you ever stop to wonder why?"
"Oh course we wondered why!" The golden twin spit back, only staying where he was because Ratchet reached out and wrapped a hand tightly around his arm.
"But you're . . . you!" Sideswipe added on, his own voice raised and dark.
"Yes," Dustoff nodded. "I am me, and I am old. I come from a time in our races history where the coding that made twins was fairly common. When no bot thought there was anything wrong with you. When your type was understood far better. I delivered, and treated quite a few sets over my lifetime, mechs. Because there were plenty of them. Twin coding is a splice of mutation of gestalt. It's where it comes from. Developed into its own thing, because the two are different in many ways, but the underlying factor is still the same. One spark, divided into more then one and more then one sparkling being made because of it. Now, granted, twelve was quite a jaw dropping number even back then. Their carrier nearly died giving life to all of them. It was why all those vorns later Mercy was such the surprise she was. It was thought that Radiance's spark had taken too much damage to ever be able to kindle again. Turns out the medic that told her that wasn't wrong, because she did die giving birth to Mercy. But she knew she would beforehand. Femme always did do everything in her power for her creations. It was why she kept the twelve until full term."
"Twelve sparklings." Jazz mumbled in a kind of awe that only a carrier could truly come up with. His optics wide behind his visor while he stared up at the huge mech, one hand clenched tightly in his lap to keep it from wondering to his abdomen. He might not ever carry now because of his sire, but he had never wanted to in the first place. Still, by nature he had the coding inside him and he balked now at the very prospect.
Because . . . how?
"At once." He went on, awed. "How is that even . . . ?"
"Mech," Dustoff said. "In my time, we were all a great deal bigger then you all are now. Radiance was a huge femme in a world where huge was normal. In fact, in our world, she was considered normal. Smaller than a good many, but still bigger than anything you've ever seen besides War and myself. It was not unfeasible for her to carry many sparklings at once or for her spark to be able to support a split of a kindle draining more energy from her. The only reason the coding died off is because of the sheer amount your breeds have shrunk, bots. Your carriers are no longer able to support such large numbers of sparklings so the coding has drifted off to memory. The most you have is twins now, and that has turned into something taboo and fearful. Your breeds have gone so far as to kill them because you think there is something wrong with them. There is nothing wrong with them. It is only a mutation of coding and a very strong spark. They are as natural as you and me, their sparks just function differently. Primus, I'd be interested to see how some in your age would handle a real gestalt set being born these vorns. That would be something."
He just got stared out.
The smirk on his lips said found this amusing as well.
"Come now," He laughed softly to himself. "Is all that really so hard to believe?"
"But . . ." Sideswipe mumbled it, drawing pale red optics his way as he asked. "Were they like me and Sunny? Were they bonded?"
Dustoff nodded. "Yes, but it was a bond both the same and different than yours. A spark split that many ways couldn't support itself at all if it wasn't somewhat self-reliant. If one died, they all died, like you. They were bond deeper in their sparks then most sparkmates can dream of, like you. And they had to merge to keep each other alive, like you. They were sparkmates, like you two, but they were also more then that. Gestalt was a thing all to itself. I called it hive mind, but that was more a medical jargon joke. Even while at the same time its not. Gestalts were individuals. Each their own bot with their own personality and traits just like you two. But unlike you two they could combine more than just their sparks. They combined everything. Together they could become something, somebot else. Together they formed a single life form that was a personality and creature all its own. It was them, but it was all of them together. That was how Gestalts worked. That was the main thing that made them different. Because most times Gestalts were just three to six. That was the common number in our age. For there to be twelve of them, well I'd never heard of it before, but they were alive, they functioned, and they were themselves. When they weren't being Dragonstorm at least. He was both them, and then not them. That's part of the reasons gestalts were different then twins, but the main reason is this; you two can't share sparks with anything but each other and possibly one other spark out there in the universe. Because every set of twins is born with a match spark, somewhere, if you could find them. Gestalts though, they could, if they wanted to. They could sparkbond outside each other—none wanted to, it got weird in their helms—but they could merge. If they wanted to. It meant they could have sparklings. Pretty much the only reason that quirk existed. Like you two they couldn't kindle with each other, because carriers were never mixed with sires, but unlike you they could merge with any spark they wanted. Like normal bots. So, technically, they could breed with them too."
The twins stared.
Ratchet looked like he was thinking.
Jazz still seemed awed by the concept of twelve.
Optimus was being strangely quiet, as was Hide.
Bumblebee just blinked up at the massive mech until he softly said.
"They're dead too, aren't they?"
Dustoff's train of thought derailed a little at that. The side step of question causing him to pause for a moment as he slowly lowered his gaze back down to find those question filled blue ones. That flicker of sadness in those pale red pools finally made since to Bumblebee then. Because Dustoff slowly nodded.
"Yes. They're gone too. They died long ago, just before the Fallen came to power and the Civil War started. They just . . . vanished. Them and their charge. War . . . well he misses his brother's, mechling, I'm sure you understand that."
Antennas folding down against his head again Bee sat still for a moment in what he supposed was respect to the lives of family he had never known he'd had. Family that died long before he ever came to be. Family that he would never know, that would never know him. A bubble of sadness formed in his spark at the concept but it wasn't overpowering. Just a slight sore inside that had him feeling low.
"What . . . what were their names?" Lifting his optics again he questioned the big mech, relived to see some of the sadness faded from those optics as he nodded slowly with a slight smile.
"Dragonicus was the eldest, then there was Stormreign, Steelbane, Skullitron, Switchslide, Torrent, Loophole, Aftermath, Shale, Roundabout, Rapidburst, and Landslide. Together, they were Dragonstorm. They made up a special unit of Wardrums' army after he took control from his sire. They were the Guardian Knights, a division in and of itself. Quite the force to be reckoned with too. I miss them a great deal." Something softened in those pale red optics then as they flickered over Bumblebee once more before he said quietly. "And they would have very much liked to meet you."
Bee smiled, the same sad kind of smile that tilted Dustoff's lips until the big mech took another breath and nodded to himself.
"But yes, there is quite a lot of difference between the bots of my Age and the bots of yours. Simple basic coding has changed a lot with time. All of the old world's coding has died out, apart from War and I." All of a sudden, Dust paused, something like unease flickering through his gaze before it settled on Bee again as he said. "Though, that's not quite true now is it?"
"What?" Bee peeped, optics widening again as he looked up at the big mech. "Me? Be coded like you? Umm . . . Dust, I'm tiny."
At that, Dust threw his head back and laughed.
It was a laugh the likes of which Bee had never heard. Deep and powerful, but pleasant. Like a strong wind on a bright day. The little mech couldn't help but grin at it as the flying mech laughed and laughed until finally he managed to calm himself back down to catch Bee's optics again as he huffed.
"Really? I hadn't noticed."
That got a snicker out of Jazz, or maybe it was Bee's offended snort that did it. But he got knuckled between the antennas all the same by the silver mech who he swatted off with pretend frustration.
Sitting back against Hide's chest again he crossed his arms and was about to start pouting when a flicker of movement across the room caught his attention. Down here in the darkness, lit only by the soft blue glow of crystals, Bee had gotten use to moving shadows. Things seemed to be constantly shifting in the shadows down here. He'd been tripping over himself the first few orns wondering alone down here trying to catch sight of things that weren't really there. After so many times a processor just stopped noticing them, giving it up for the tricks of the light on the mind.
This one though, this one he noticed.
He wasn't sure why at first, but his attention shifted all the same before he tensed up ever so much at what he found flickering in the corner of the cave next to a cluster of crystals.
Risk.
Bee stared.
The small silver and blue robocat flickering in and out of sight like a light breeze stared back.
With a hard clench in his chest he looked away. Pinning his optics back on Dust in what he hoped was a quick enough time that no bot noticed the hiccup of focus. Dustoff was still chuckling quietly to himself and none of his family had followed the glance so he plowed on doing his best to ignore the flickering ghost prowling the side of the crystals around them.
"But I don't understand. I mean I get the thing about me, I guess, because Mercy had coding from your age so, yeah I guess it makes sense that I would to. I am tiny though you know, and you're not. But what about the Aeriabots? They can combine and their not like Sides and Sunny. They're just siblings, but not all at once. And the 'Cons. They have combiners too."
"Your times science is impressive, I will give it that." Dustoff shrugged. "Smart enough bot can taper with coding. Twist it and shape it to do things they want it to. It ain't easy, it's not safe, and it kills more then it works with, but its been going on for a long time. Your combiners are science experiments, or didn't you know that? Not much different than the seeker trines. That became a political power tool for Vos didn't it? Mentally binding bots together for their whole lives by a string of coding. Then again, the Senate did worse."
Yeah.
Bumblebee knew.
The Decepticons started the war because of the Senate, but the Autobots had come to know the full crimes of them too. The causes of all this death and madness, it wasn't black and white. No matter how much each side wanted it to be. Bee didn't think it was that easy. Prowl didn't powder coat things when he taught Bee history. He told him the truth for what it really was. It wasn't always easy to swallow but it was the truth and Bee had wanted to know it.
So he had been told. He knew he hadn't been told all of it, but he was pretty sure he had a good picture at least. That was why hearing that the Aerialbots were a science experiment shocked him enough that Risk slipped from his mind for a nano.
"What do you mean they're science experiments?" He chirped, instinctively darting his gaze toward Ratchet. Because Ratchet wasn't just his medic, he was the medic. He didn't mean to undercut Jolt, or Aid, or Fire, but the truth of the matter was that Arcee and Ratchet ruled the medical world of the Autobots. Their word was not only final, it was law. They could toss even Optimus out of his aft when it came to the health and care of his army.
And frankly, there were few bots Bee had ever met that were as scary as Ratchet when he was pissed off at idiots.
Seeing the way those light blue optics dimmed told Bee he might not fully grasp or like what the medic would say next, but Ratchet wouldn't lie to him. Not now, at least.
"In a manner of speaking." Ratchet grumbled, a glare shifted Dustoff's way for a klick though all it did was make the much elder medic snort and roll his optics. "It's not something I did though, Bumblebee. I know the medical jargon of their case, I know how to treat them and keep them alive, but not how it is it works. Wheeljack would be the better explanation of that."
"Wheeljack made mechs experiments!?" Bee balked.
"No." With a quick shake of his head the yellow and red medic turned his gaze back to him. "Wheeljack just fixed what some other idiot screwed up. The Aerialbots were a transfer unit from early in the war. When we still didn't have any fliers and we needed some. When a cluster of siblings with wings signed up and were willing to try some experimental weapons technology the head medic in charge of their unit jumped at it. No one did anything to them they didn't agree too, Bee, and you know very well that their sparks are nothing like what Dustoff is talking about. The medic in charge of the surgeries could have just done a better job of the finish work. They got sent to Wheeljack when the coding started fritzing on them. He fixed them and they've stayed with our branch ever since. Not that there are many branches left for them to go to. Calling them science experiments is a bit harsh."
"Harsh it may be." Dustoff shot back. "But it is what they are. I will never understand why the so called government that came to power over your Age liked to play with coding and then turned around and ran scared from it, but there you go. I guess you could call it evolution but I'm just going to call it too many forgotten lessons."
"I didn't know trines had mess with coding." Bee admitted quietly even as he rationalized that technically he didn't know much about trines at all. It wasn't like he'd ever really met any. The Aerialbots were the closest thing the seekers the Autobots had and now Bee figured out they too were tapered coding.
Dustoff hummed, but it was Jazz that answered this time. "Trines were political Bee, but those politics are long dead now."
"But the trines the 'Cons have still call each other trines. I mean, I know Thundercracker and Skywarp defected, or died, who knows but Starscream is still alive. If his trine brothers are dead wouldn't that mean he should be too?"
"Trines don't work like twins, Bee." Sideswipe told him. "Neither do the Aerialbots. They are tied in coding, Half Pint, not sparks."
"Oh. But how does that work?"
"Processors." Ratchet answered. "It's rewriting basic code structures. Not easy, sort of not safe, but by the time Vos started doing it for fun they had at least made it almost completely safe. What was done to the Aerialbots was very similar it was just messing with another string of code as well. Apparently the dormant code Dustoff is talking about."
"That would be correct yes. It is still around, most traits are, but it's very rare now." Dustoff nodded, he then spun on into some very large words and explanations that Bee couldn't even begin to make heads of tails of. Ratchet was paying attention to him though, as was Jazz, and Optimus. The twins were listening but didn't seem to get the long explanation anymore then Hide did while the big black mech sat still with his arms still hung loosely around the little mech.
As the conversation drew on with Ratchet firing questions back that elder medic leaving Bee's focus to drift again. It was then that a flicker of movement to his left again making his head snap around once more as his spark gave a hard tug.
The truth was he wasn't sure why he was surprised the second time. Sure, he'd been distracted, but it wasn't like he'd forgotten the phantom cat was prowling across the room.
Maybe he'd just been hoping . . . he would go away . . . ?
He should have known better.
Because there he was.
In all his small, bristled up, silver and blue glory. No matter how transparent he appeared Bee could still see him perfectly, lashing his tail back and forth in angry movements as he paced up and down the side of them. Those bright optics locked on him as his mouth opened in what Bee figured would be a yowl only there was no sound to go along with it.
Deep in his chest, his spark gave a hard pulse.
Hot, prickly, and unhappy.
A hand flew up without thought to press hard into the center seam of his chest. Rubbing back and forth as his expression pinched a bit at the hard, hot pain. His optics never left Risk though.
No matter how hard he tried to turn away and focus back in on the mechs around him before somebot realized he was doing something weird again. He just couldn't look away.
His spark pulsed harder and harder, pain building behind the still instinctively locked together panels of his chest. His optics watching that prowling ghost that shouldn't be there.
He couldn't be there.
Ghosts aren't real. He told himself firmly. It's not real. Whatever your seeing it's not real. It can't be real. Because . . . if it's real . . . .
Then something really was wrong with him wasn't it?
Gulping hard, he traced the line the robocat phantom paced with his optics. Anger or maybe fear—Bee couldn't quite tell with how walled off he had his spark still—shown in the bristled way he held his plating and the lashing of his tail. That mouth—full of tiny needle sharp teeth—kept opening in silent calls and screams but no sound ever came with it. Just the robocat pacing back and forth just outside the circle of mechs. Those bright optics locked on Bee as he stared back.
He was trying to convey something, Bee knew that much, but that didn't mean he understood. He didn't know how to understand!
Because how was this possible?
What was wrong with him?
Seeing ghosts, not normal.
Then again, most of the stuff he did wasn't normal so . . . .
Unknowingly gnawing on his bottom lip, he watched the flickering form of his long dead friend pace back and forth. The small figment becoming more and more upset with each lap. He seemed to be calling out none stop now, but Bee still couldn't hear the sound. Even as he flickered his antennas and twitched his doorwings trying to filter sound at a different frequency to see if that helped.
It didn't.
Risk swung around the bottom on a crystal racing out a few yards toward them before skidding to a stop and silently crying out again. Tail lashing hard behind him, plating bristled up to stand in small jagged lines along him. Those bright blue optics weren't narrowed in anger through.
They were wide.
Wide with fear.
Bee's spark clenched tight in his chest. Sharp flares of feeling pulsing out trying to work around the thick wall of no he had shut around himself after that little incident with Star. The truth was his so called friend that was the voice in his head had scared the living pit out of him and he'd been sort of too terrified to so much as look with it.
Or at it.
He'd been sort of ignoring his spark more or less since then. Settling for just trusting his gut and following after Dustoff. When the whole thing about everybot having been lying to him came up he'd poked and prodded at his bonds again, but he'd done it through the muted wall he'd thrown up.
Now, shivering inside at the notion, he wondered if taking down that wall was something he needed to do. Optics tracing Risk as he jumped, and pounced, and paced and was obviously trying everything he could think of to get Bee to look at him. Because it had to be Bee he was doing all this for.
None of the others could see him.
Swallowing hard, Bee shifted a bit in Hide's lap. Part of his mind already nudging him up and urging him to follow. It had all been very important the other times he started seeing things that . . . weren't supposed to be there. This was looking to be something kind of important wasn't it?
He shifted again, not pulling away, but turning to keep Risk in his sight as the ghost robocat made another lap around the crystals coming back to start bouncing just a little ways away from Bee again. Still yowling silently. Still with fear in his optics.
What was wrong?
Deep in his chest his spark gave another hard pulse and he felt some of that wall he'd built up crumble.
"Bee?" Ironhide's deep rumbled question, even so close to him, almost wasn't enough to distract Bee from his following optics but there was still enough youth left in his instincts that meant when his sire spoke he listened. Antennas flickering back toward the sound of his voice while his doorwings settled back down against his back as slowly Bee turned his head back find Ironhide's dark blue optics.
Only he found a lot more then that.
Because they were all staring at him. Six different sets of shades of blue all in various degrees of confusion flickering to him and then out into the alcove around them. Searching for something they couldn't possibly see. Because Bee wasn't that lucky.
"Whatcha lookin' at, Lil' Bee?" Jazz asked, his visor bright as he looked out around the dim blue glow of darkness around them before he turned his optics back. The bright glow of them shining behind that slime blue curve of glass enough to make Bee shrink back down into Hide's grip. His optics wide as they shot back and forth looking for an answer he wouldn't find among the curious slightly worried gazes staring back at him.
He didn't know what else to do though. Because he no idea how to explain this.
How did one explain this?
His bright optics darting over to find Risk prowling and yowling just on the other side of Jazz then darting up to the silver mech's gaze. That gaze that flicked right over the very distressed ghost a few times before flicking back to Bee.
Hide had a hand at his back, rubbing between his slowly dropping doorwings, but the young mech couldn't make himself so much as look up at his sire. He was too busy dodging the questioning stares of the others, even Optimus as the big mech leaned forward behind the backs of his Weapons Specialist and CMO to catch his optics.
He quickly snapped his own optics back away. A low hum of unease and search for an answer leaving him without his consent. His jaw working but vocal processor not keeping up with the rapid spin of his mind. Desperately searching for some explanation that wouldn't make him sound insane, but coming up with nothing.
Then, much to his surprise, Dustoff saved him the trouble.
"I'll be damned." Maybe it was because Dust speaking was the last thing Bumblebee had expected in that moment, or maybe it was because there was . . . awe in the old mech's voice. Whatever the reason, Bee didn't really have time to figure it out it would turn out, his jaw snapped shut and his head went with it. Optics locking on the huge helicopter mech only to find him staring out over the little cave. Or more accurately, staring at Risk.
The very upset phantom cat paid the flier seeing him no mind. He was still too busy pacing and silently yowling and staring at Bee to care that somebot else was seeing him.
Bee though, Bee took notice.
Dustoff stared at the pacing cat for a long few nanos only for his gaze to dart back to Bee, and then back, then again, and again, and again, until finally a long slightly mystified chuckle left the huge mech as he whispered. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you, little one?"
Something in Bee skidded to a stop.
It just stopped.
As those pale red optics settled him and he couldn't help the harsh breath that left him as he squeaked. His own optics darting back and forth between Risk and the 'copter for a moment longer before he barely breathed. "Wait . . . you see him too?"
Dustoff hummed low in his chest and nodded slow, just once.
That something deep down in Bee's spark, that had stopped, squeezed just once more around that bright ball of life in his chest before it let go. It let go and Bee took a breath like he was starved for it, like he'd been holding it and hadn't even known it.
"So. . . ." He whispered it, even if he wasn't quite sure, everything else tuned out but those pale red optics staring back at him. "You mean . . . I'm not crazy?"
Dustoff snorted a laugh, amusement glittering to life in those pale orbs as he slowly shook his head. "Crazy? No, mechling. Not crazy."
Another hard breath left Bee as his whole frame sagged in what he supposed would be relief. A slightly delirious chuckle leaving him as he took to grinning stupidly at the huge mech. Dustoff just huffed back at him. Amusement and wonder at war on his faceplate, but Bee didn't care.
Somebot else saw it.
Somebot else saw it!
He couldn't fraggin' believe it!
He might slaggin' cry he was so fraggin' happy right now!
And than, on par with Bumblebee's luck these orns, would be when the bottom fell out of everything.
Quite literally.
Before Dustoff, could so much as open his mouth again a loud, deeper then thunder, boom shook the very stone they sat on. A sound so deep it shattered some of the crystals clustered in the corner of them room. A high pitch scream vibrating through each of them making Bee duck his head suddenly—doorwings plastered to his back—as he let out a pained squeak of his own.
It was all was drowned out not a nano later then with another booming rumble came. Scrapping, whirling, shaking. The very ground itself shook, chucks of rock and metal falling around them as everything shook.
Optics blown wide, head ringing with the dying screams of crystals, and a sound so big it made the very air move he didn't have enough senses to focus on the high pitch scream he let out to match that of the dying crystals. He hardly realized Ironhide snatched him up tight, pulling him closer to his chest as the ground beneath them started to crumble.
Above the screaming in his mind and the roaring boom in the air he somehow managed to here Dustoff yell.
"Move! Now!"
A large, clawed, tan hand snaked out and caught hold of Ironhide. Lifting him—mechling and all—by the bicep before he tossed him toward the way out. Bee was limp in Hide's hold for all of the time it took the big mech to catch himself from being thrown before he wiggled and hit the ground. Not really because Hide wanted to let him go, but the big ebony mech knew the youngling could out run him any time.
Bee's feet hit the ground in a stumble because everything was shaking. That rumbling boom all around enough to make his inside vibrate. His balance along with it. He probably would have landed flat on his face too had Jazz not zipped in beside him. A clawed hand snatching him by the arm. Hauling him up to his feet and then dragging him behind the silver mech as they all ran.
"What the frag!?" He heard Sunstreaker snarl over the roar and crumbling stone and metal all around them.
"Sandshark!" Dustoff snarled back from somewhere behind them as every sense Bee had was lost in a wall of noise and motion. The only thing that kept him moving was Jazz's tight grip around his arm. "Driller, whatever the slag you idiots call it these orns! Just run!"
"Run where!?" Jazz hollered back, dodging a crumbling wall of stone, blocking the path they had followed down Bee down. Twisting away from the falling stone, bending over Bee in the process they just managed to not get squished by fallen ruble by Optimus' strong hands snatched them both by the backs and flinging them the other direction.
It crashed them into a wall, but Jazz snatched Bee up and dragged him forward again as the ground startled falling from beneath their feet as Dustoff screamed.
"UP!"
Bee squealed before he could help himself as he suddenly lurched downward. Arms flailing as he tried to catch himself. Jazz's claws were still locked hard around his arm, the sharp digits tightening to the point they drew energon as the silver mech was suddenly yanked back with him. Desperately trying to get a grip on him as they both pitched back as the ground fell.
"Bee!" Jazz had never sounded quite so panicked to the young mech before, not that he could remember right then at least, as he dug his grip tight into Bee's arm. Even as it drug him back over the crumbling edge with the youngling. They both probably would have fallen into the gaping pit of black nothing opening up under them too had Dustoff not caught them both in a swipe of claws. Flinging them forward again he bellowed to keep going.
Jazz didn't stop to thank him.
His grip just tightened around Bee's arm. Yanking him hard and faster. The lot of them flinging themselves into the dark tunnels running as fast as they could while the world around them shook with booms that some part of Bee's processor informed him was in fact not thunder. That was a Sandshark—a Driller—boring its way through the ground. The very thing that made all these tunnels in the first place, or at least one of them.
One giant, jagged, metal worm that was supposed to be extinct.
So why the pit was it trying to eat them!?
A shaking tunnel wall to the side of them erupted into ruble, showering them in tiny bits of stone and metal, but it wasn't that made Bumblebee scream.
Oh no.
It was the giant, spinning, tentacle like worm that followed the shower of rubble. Sliding in the shower of stone Bee crashed into Jazz's back as the silver mech suddenly stopped, his own expression twisting in fear as he shoved the little mech behind him. Head thrown up and optics wide behind his visor at the sight of the roaring, audio shattering sound the twisting creature made.
It was huge—and that was just the head—bigger than anything Bee had ever seen before. Thick coils of protoform, plating, cabling, and wire all wrapped up in a jagged edge circle of one massive beast. It had no optics and yet somehow that massive head that obliterated the ground around them twisted—four smaller, slimmer, but just as sharp and whirling tentacle like things spinning around the one bigger head—to lock onto them.
That giant, gaping, mouth seemed to have thousands of jagged teeth made out of what Bee could only assume was plating, or armor, or something because nothing like normal teeth could be like that. The who thing twisted on the inside, spilling and whirling in dances of thousands of teeth as it swayed. Made to cut through the hard stone and metal ground of Cybertron easy as slipping through sand.
It hoovered there before them—louder than anything—like a poised snake playing with a terrified glitch-mouse whole frame still twisting and spinning around itself. That gigantic head looming closer while the four tentacle branch offs spun and surged. The inside of its gaping mouth crunching and spinning as well. Coming close and closer as Jazz stood trapped there before it with Bee clinging to his back. Almost caught in a trance by the sheer impossibility of the thing.
They probably would have stood there and gotten themselves ate like the terrified glitch-mice they were acting like had a plasma rifle shot not bombed off behind them. The burning blast catching the Sandshark in the mouth drawing out an audio shattering scream from it as it twisted away from the blast. Arching up and back just enough to open the path it had covered.
"I SAID RUN YOU SLAGGIN' GLITCHES!" Dustoff's bellow snapped them from their daze. Jazz shaking himself hard as his claws tightened again and he raced forward. Dragging Bumblebee along with him, they raced under the arching up worm trying not to fall over clutching their heads from the sheer sound of it. The others racing after them, the twins stumbling at the sounds, clutching their heads while Ratchet collared them both and shoved them forward before him.
Dustoff's rifle kept firing as he ran. Shot after shot making the creature twist, and scream, arching high and higher into the tunnel while the big flier raced under him as well. Twisting around to flee backwards as he kept shooting for its mouth to keep the Sandshark from coming after them. Instead, as another blast caught it deep in the mouth it let out a deep scream before plunging back into the hard ground. This time going straight down. Shaking everything around it as its whole frame spun, twisted, and sliced cutting through the world around it.
Bee threw a glance over his shoulder as he was drug along. Looking back to catch Dustoff turning away from firing to keep chasing after them but his gaze locked on the long silver shape that was still coming from where it had emerged and plowing back into the ground.
It was . . . massive.
It was still coming.
"Keep going! It will swing back around but they can't make tight turns! It's too big! Just keep running! We have to get above ground!"
"What good will that do!?" Bee heard himself shout, but didn't actually know he was doing it as he ran for his life. "It eats the ground!"
"No, it eats you!" Dustoff shouted back. "If it catches you, now keep slaggin' running!"
Oh, well.
Bee decided to stop asking questions and do what the huge flier said to do. Running as fast as he could kept him at pace with Jazz because he wasn't about to let go of the silver mech as they fled, twisting through tunnel after tunnel with the others hard on their heels trying to find the way back out.
They might have made it too, had the ground just in front of them on the tunnel path not erupted into another giant, spinning, roaring Sandshark. Crashing up from below them to slam into the tunnel's roof. Sunlight burst into life around them. The creature crashing into the roof opening a straight shot to freedom, but not one they got to take, as it swung itself back around to crashing into the ground beside them.
Taking a large second of the ground with it into tumbling blackness.
Later, Bee would ask himself why in that moment he felt the need to quietly breath out. "Oh, there's two."
He wasn't quite sure why he did it. Let alone how he knew it was a different one. He just did it, and then the ground once again fell out from under him. He didn't scream this time, it was too much of a shock, one moment he'd been standing there crashed into Jazz's back and the next those sharp silver claws had been ripped out of his arm by the force of gravity. Pealing back light plating and protoform with it in long streaks of energon. Energon suddenly flowing up, in glittering balls of blue, because he was falling.
It hurt.
It should have hurt enough to at least make him cry out about that, but he couldn't. He was too busy falling into the empty blackness beside a giant twisting worm-snake-thing the audio shattering sounds enough that he couldn't even hear the screams of Hide, and Jazz, and Optimus, and Ratchet, and the Twins, and Dust. He didn't hear the roar of powerful shuttle engines echo in the bright sun filled sky above.
He was just swallowed up by the roars and the blackness.
It would be safe to say Bee is very done with falling for this lifetime. Poor little mech. I'm so mean to him.
Anyway, I have been waiting a long time to get to this part. I finally get to play with the Sandsharks-Drillers, as they are technically called, but come on Sandsharks sounds cooler-and I am so excited. I hope you guys are too. I really had fun with this chapter, more then I've had with a GG chapter in a while. So hopefully that is a good thing.
It might also have everything to do with the fact that I went and saw The Last Knight, as should be fairly obvious after reading this chapter. So, that was actually pretty cool and yeah, it is now all got worked into my plan and this story got even longer. I hope you are all excited. I am. Because I do so love playing with Bumblebee.
I hope you all liked it. I look forward to seeing what you thought. So let me know. Thank you for reading and reviewing!
-Jaycee