The Diego Diaries: Cloudy (dd7 366)
=0=Cybertron
They sat on a hill of broken stones on a dusty plain that once was a rural area. In the distance there were mountains, sandy colored and broken in their skyline, jagged and pure appearing. This was a large area of preserved land where animals and plants lived and grew in profusion. Some of the rarest plants on Cybertron were here, desert-like spiky bushes and tubular shapes that one might match up with cacti on Earth. They didn't match them in appearance, particularly, but they were desert plants and needed little to no tending.
Lunch was served, a meal from a food box that each got from the galley of the shuttle. It was dark overhead and the stars were vast and far away. The desert was cast with the shadows of who knew what, though this area had not borne the brunt of war. It was one of the few lucky places on the vast semi-organic world of Cybertron that could boast such a blessing.
"You don't have much to say, infant," Raptor said to Ironhide who was eating his food, though he had no idea what it was.
Ironhide glanced at his grandfather. "There's little to say. It is what it is."
"Its hard to take," Raptor agreed as the others murmured. "This is safe though. I think it'll do better and be more profuse when there's light again. It always was nice here at night but its always night now."
"I hate it," Ironhide agreed. "This is so sad to me."
"We'll make it better," Hard Drive said. "You were at the Citadel hospital? Is that the memory before this happened?"
Ironhide glanced at him, then thought a moment. "I was headed that way to visit a friend. A good looking mech from Velocitron."
Raptor grinned. "Did you wear your cape?"
Ironhide grinned. "I did. I cut a wide swath, I'll tell you. I was going to swagger in and have my knee assembly checked."
Laughter greeted that. Everyone remembered Ironhide's 'knee'.
"I remember when Ratchet got assigned to the Army Med Center. I heard some really good looking mech with a good right cross was there who could fix anything. Someone told me that he was the only son of the mechs who operated RTR Tools," Raptor replied. "That alone was worth a look-see."
"I was walking toward the Center when I ended up on the deck of the ship with all of you," Ironhide said with a frown. "I don't remember any of this or most of what's going on. I didn't know if it was you or not but someone said they were a good looking slagger like you."
"It hasn't happened to you yet, all of this," Ratchet said. He'd been listening to the conversation with amusement. He was well aware of how his looks were greeted by Cybertronians. He was way the hell over at that end of the appearance scale, though the humans would live a zillion vorns and never get it. "Otherwise, you would remember." He grinned and preened slightly. "I'm rather unforgettable. Or so all my mechs say."
Ironhide glanced at him, then smirked. "Is that so, slagger? Apparently I landed ya."
"You did. After The Audition," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile.
"Audition?" Steiner asked with delight. "Do tell."
"Why, Steiner," Ratchet said as he blinked his optical ridges like a debutante. "I never frag and tell."
HUGE laughter greeted that.
Ironhide stared at the good looking enigma sitting nearby with a smirk. "Audition?"
"If you were old enough I'd tell you, Ironhide, but something tells me you're a bit of a sub adult yet. You might not be mech enough to handle it," Ratchet said with a smug grin.
HUGE laughter, mockery and amusement greeted that remark.
Raptor glanced at his grandson. "Yeah, Ironhide, ya big baby. You might not be mech enough."
Everyone of the mechs grinned at Ironhide as he frowned back at them. He glanced at Ratchet. "I doubt that. Seriously."
The laughter could be heard for miles.
=0=Ops Center
Orion Pax aka Optimus Prime sat in the Center at the command desk talking off line with Prowl as his genitors sat nearby reading textbooks. He was over the moon that they were getting the education they always yearned for and having a great life. He was going to their apartment shortly to have lunch while Prowl did a number of things that needed attention.
He was told they worked together like a well oiled machine, no pun intended. The precision they brought to their work was almost unconscious, he and Prowl, they meshed so well together. He considered that, then the handsome mech working furiously on a number of data pads. Prowl was indeed handsome and seemed intensely devoted to him. It was strange in the extreme that he didn't know why.
He'd seen the images of the children, learned about them and to some strange degree wanted to see them. Whether that was possible, he would leave to Prowl. He would know best.
Their home was cosmic in its magnificence and so patently different from his experience it'd been almost mind wrenching. He'd sat by the pool the night before staring out at the stars in the sky beyond. It was dark and they were many. The pool and all the other amenities had been put there by the guilds, unions and construction teams that had built the tower. Prowl had said to him that he was loved, respected and admired by his people, that he was the best Prime ever in their history and that he was a gifted mech in endless ways.
It felt like they were talking about someone else.
He was smart, this he knew. He was brave and courageous. He'd stepped into problems without fear for himself. For others, he had that. He tried to live up to the ideals of his family, their selfless moral code and be the mech they raised him to be. Apparently it'd paid off. He was here on a world in a colony he'd devised, had a great affectionate bond, amazing children living in an amazing home and his genitors were also here enjoying life with him.
Oh and he was the Prime of the Cybertronian Empire.
He never in his wildest dreams ever had even the smallest flicker that such things could come to be. But they had.
:Is there anything that I can do for you to help you, Prowl: he asked.
Prowl glanced up, transfixing on the kind handsome face of the only mech who knew all his secrets, flaws and foibles, yet still loved him perfectly. :I'm almost done. Then we can go to your office and work on things together. There's much you can do and it'll help you with getting to know more about this place and your role: Prowl sat back. :You play on a football team:
Orion stared at him silently a moment, then sat back as well. :I do?:
Prowl nodded. :You do. You lead it. The Crater Comets. You're very skilled as a sportsman. Your team in another sport won the first world championship. Basketball, its called:
Prime considered that. :I will rely on you to tell me such things. I have no memory:
Prowl grinned very faintly. :I'll remember for you: He leaned forward to place a servo gently on Orion's. :Don't worry or be afraid. I'll make sure that you're safe and that this gets resolved:
Orion nodded. :I believe that. I just … all of this is strange. The children …:
Prowl leaned closer. :If you believe you need to see them I'll arrange it:
Orion considered that. :I believe they should return to their home. It will be best for them to do so. Or am I wrong?:
Prowl squeezed Orion's giant servo. :No. The best times are when we're all home and the doors are closed:
Orion nodded. "Then that would be a good thing."
Prowl stared at Orion as if to see the mech that was the center of his world in the generated face of the youngster sitting before him. :Anytime with you, for all of us, is a good thing:
Orion stared at Prowl a moment, then squeezed his servo. :Then I will wait for you:
Prowl sat back, then glanced at his work. "Give me a moment, then we can go to the office."
Prowl would hurry.
Orion would wait, studying the familiar stranger as he rushed through his unknowable projects. Then they would go to his office and spend three joors going over things that needed his attention. He would be asked by Prowl what he thought about the issues at hand, reflect, then answer them with reasoned responses.
It would, and not, surprise Prowl that all of Orion's suggestions were good, useful and reasonable. He would implement them the same way he would if things were normal. He would also marvel that the big youngster sitting with him was as intelligent, intuitive and capable when a kid as he was as an experienced adult. It would make him feel a bit better about the whole thing that he was.
=0=Cybertron
They walked along the trail through piles of rocks. The broken infrastructure and debris of the bombed out buildings was gone, lifted away by the Pantheon and Primus during the visit Prime had taken no so long ago with Them. It made things infinitely easier and less disturbing to those stuck here or working on the problems. They paused by a seam that was part of the metallic configuration of Primus Himself.
Hard Drive turned to his great, great grandson. "This was rent and torn not so long ago. It was fixed by Primus Himself. Prime was given a dispensation, if you will. If this hadn't been given an assist we'd have to take literally maybe a year to get the deep down destruction repaired before working on the surface part.
"This was filled with oil, water, energon and chemicals from the district here that had washed in during the acid rain that we no longer have. Sciences is studying the climate and weather systems. We're thinking we got an assist with them, too," Hardie concluded.
"There were a lot of buildings and a midsize city here," Ironhide said.
Raptor nodded. "There was one here but it got obliterated. Bombs in the district warehouses here ruptured the planetary surface and the gash that split open ran for 359 miles in both directions. It was murky, dangerous and nearly impossible for us to fix safely. We caught a break."
"What about the locals? This had a lot of population," Ironhide asked.
They stared at him silently, then Hercy pointed to an area with three huge mounds. Mounted on the top of each was a burning flame in a silver dish of some size. "They're over there," he said quietly. "We dug them out. We have millions to go but when we find them we try to figure out who they were for their families and we put them into decent graves, all of them together. They lived together, they died together, now they rest in a decent peace together."
Ironhide stared at the mounds, huge towering immaculately manicured and constructed that covered a lot of ground. He looked sucker punched. "How many here?"
Hardie knew. He glanced at his grandson. "Each of those graves encompasses fifteen thousand individuals. We have them everywhere. The priests help with it to give them a respectful finish but … what can you say?"
"Megatron did this?" Ironhide asked.
"He began it, doing the biggest part of the destruction but it was inevitable the moment we forgot to be one unity. There's no winners in war. You just get to be king of the hill," Sun said nodding toward the mounds. "We fought three oppressions trying to end slavery among our people. We never got a chance to figure things out. There was always someone who wanted everything. But what do you have when you get it? Unless you understand the concept of others, you die alone."
Ironhide stared at the mounds, then his solemn family, mentors and other mechs he knew somewhat or not at all, though all of them were good friends normally. "How did it come to this?"
"Simple, infant," Hercy said. "This is what happens in an absence of love. This is bitter fruit. This can never happen again but somehow it always seems to. Some never have the capacity to think things through to the end."
"Where's Megatron?" Ironhide asked emotionally.
"Out trying to collect allies. Out killing an alien empire as vast at grains of sand on a beach, one that's as big a predator as he is," Ratchet said. "Someday he'll come back and all of us will be ready for him."
Ironhide stared at Ratchet. "I hope so. Count me in."
Ratchet grinned. "Why, Ironhide … you give me tingles."
Huge laughter greeted that as Ironhide grinned at Ratchet. "Maybe you need a tune up."
"You volunteering?" Ratchet asked as he batted his optical ridges.
Oo's and ah's greeted that as Ironhide stepped back a step. He grinned at Ratchet. "You better be careful what you ask for, slagger."
"Oh, Ironhide," Ratchet said as he rose to go. "Hurt me. Hurt me."
Laughter and rude remarks greeted that as everyone rose to follow.
Ironhide came last with a grin on his face. / … slaggers .../
=0=TBC 8-30-2020 edited
LEONESS: You are right. :D:D:D
NOTES
Leoness: Ratchet is, isn't he? LOL! Never keep a good mech down.