So this chapter kicked my ass severely. there was originally supposed to be a triple update, with this, a chapter of human pov and a chapter of decepticon pov which i would post in the same day. boy was i wrong! Anyway, next chapter is definitely gonna come sooner because frankly it's easier to write. Also, this might the last chapter with Jamie's POV until later near the climax/finale/chapter when all hell breaks loose soooooooo, have fun!
Stray pieces of matter flew through them as the grip on their right arm pulled them at speeds they couldn't feel.
Consciousness felt fleeting. They could feel but they couldn't think. Like a wall fog was clouding them. A faint thought appearing before being pushed back by something.
It's then they- Jamie and Teresa, realized they are not one person.
Teresa had been the one to bring them here. To have them pulled to a destination light-years away from Earth.
James did not know her motives, nor her reasons. He could guess, he probably would guess correctly, but there was an underlying feeling that told him he wouldn't.
James was Teresa but now he felt distant, alienated from the life he had lived after fourteen years.
Teresa was Jamie but she was dead. So why was she pulling them to a destination that Jamie could not comprehend?
Questions weren't answered in the middle of the moment. They felt different, too different. The chaos of life going against the silent order of isolation. Chaos against Order. A supernova against a black hole. Matter and antimatter.
Life against Death.
Understanding came when the pull got stronger, the space around them became hotter and their form was starting to take shape.
The gravitational pull of the planet was taking hold.
Hotter and hotter, until the heat could not go through them anymore. Until they finally gained form.
There was no crash, no large spark or explosion as their feet connected with cold metal. But not dirt. Nothing but cold metal, covered in dust and particles of what not. Like a layer of age.
A planet made of dirt, made for dirt.
A planet of metal, for metal.
Cybertron.
Why are we here, James asked.
For allies, Teresa replied. Jamie tried to find more, he needed to know more, but he couldn't. He didn't know why they were here because he was not the one who decided they had to be here.
Teresa was James and James was Teresa but in no way were they connected. Not since then.
Since when, asked James.
You'll know one day, replied Teresa.
And then they started walking.
The metal streets were just a little rusty but uncomfortably cold. Everything looked too new, too shiny for it to have been left for a million of years.
But if metal isn't used, then it stays the same. Especially if it's not prone to rust.
Rust is a show of abnormal atmosphere and excess of humidity.
Cybertron does not have rain or oxygen which could cause rust. Cybertron doesn't even have a sun.
Earth does. When Megatron claimed that Earth was hell in the last hour of the franchise, they assumed he meant it in the religious form. Nope, Earth was a special type of hell that catered specifically to Cybretronians. High chances of catching rust, primitive tech in comparison, fragile natives that could go from intelligent to stupid in a second with no consistency, hellishly specific road laws and quite possibly the basement for all the mistakes from the Great War.
Yeah, no wonder Megatron hated Earth. A part of James wondered if he could love it one day. In all it's antagonistic features towards Cybertron, Earth could be fun. Sometimes. Maybe Megatron would have appreciated the underground fight clubs or mercenary rings back there.
Not the point. Cybertron was a relic stuck in time with no need for renovation. The fact that it was so new put a new perspective to Jamie.
Maybe someone still lived here?
He already knew the answer to that.
And then they saw her.
Jamie's first thought about her is that she's tall. Very tall. She was approximately three meters, maybe four. Short by Cybertron standards but monstrous in human eyes. Not to mention the long, metal feathered tentacles and appendages.
She wasn't facing them. She was looking into a shrine, similar to the one he had seen from a screen. This one was more... open aired. She hadn't heard them either. Then again, they haven't made any sound.
She was staring deeply into the distance.
Time to put on your best impression of a kicked puppy, Teresa said to him.
Do it yourself, you dragged me here for no reason after all, Jamie replied.
Do I look like I have unlimited power, remarked Teresa. Oh, right. The curse thing. Fine. Jamie's not sure what he's supposed to be doing. He never has. It's always just been him bullshitting his way out of problems while going with the flow.
Jamie suddenly felt Teresa's grip lighten. He looked at his arm. She was gone. So now it's just Jamie and this giant metal robot god who's probably hellbent on destroying his kind.
Fabulous odds, truly.
Was he supposed to get her attention or something? Teresa said they're here to gain allies, so convincing Primus' angry quintesson daughter to use her anger for something that's not counterproductive? Like maybe taking a few hits at S'rik.
Yeah that sounded like it made sense.
Jamie took a step forward. There was a most definite noise from the footstep. Ah, so it was Teresa who kept them ninja-stealthy.
Quintessa immediately flinched. She spun around and her eyes were looking into the direction Jamie came from. For a second, she seemed excited. She didn't even notice him. Her face scrunched up before slowly turning downwards. Then her eyes met his.
Jamie probably looked like a gremlin in her eyes. Some weird fleshy thing, just looking straight at her with beady eyes.
Her eyes- or was it optics, rolled as if this was a chore akin to dishes.
Did Quintessa know what humans are? Could she even do that? Had she been on Earth previously? Why was she used to him?
"Again, really, I told you vacuum fliers this a hundred times already, I'm not joining your little clique or whatever you're trying to do. I have a prophecy to see to." Her voice was odd. Tinny. Alien. Yet very reminiscent of organic life.
"Vacuum fliers?" Jamie repeated. He genuinely did not know who she had mistaken him for, but if Earth suddenly had a coven of witches that used vacuum cleaners as a modern alternative to brooms, then maybe it's best to keep them and Cybretronians separate.
A brief look of annoyance flashed through her.
"Yes. That's you. Dark matter souls, creatures who traverse the vacuum of space with ease, vacuum fliers. Darkwalkers. That thing. Now get out, I'm not joining and sending a glitched one doesn't raise your chances."
Darkwalkers? What? Wait. The conversation in Luciano's study replayed in his mind. There were souls that were made of dark matter. Souls that could contact each other, that had their equivalent of a convention.
And Quintessa was one of them.
A lot of things suddenly make sense.
Like how she's able to float with no jets or anything. Or how she's able to live on a planet with virtually no atmosphere. Or how she managed to move the entirety of Cybretron in the matter of three days. Assuming that it took Optimus two years to get there.
"Who are they? The Darkwalkers."
"You don't- Oh, you must be a new one. I couldn't care less. Go, shoo. Find someone else." She waved her hand at him, almost like a human trying to scare away a seagull. So obviously Jamie refused to move, staring at her with a renewed need to look creepy. Just to spite her. Quintessa wasn't amused. "Are your audials defective? Leave. You're not welcome here."
Ah, there she was. Canon Michael Bay Quintessa. Rudest and only quintesson in the continuity.
Jamie decided to flare some of that well-preserved, aged anger that he never realized he had.
"You're a real delusional one if you think Darkwalkers would send me." Jamie sneered. The words came out almost as trill, like another jaw was pushing to say the same thing from inside his throat. There was a dimmed red light that shone through, with what seemed to be specs of mint green in his vision. Quintessa stiffened before retracting her hand, almost as if questioning him to go forward.
Jamie wasn't giving her that. If she wanted something, she had to say it. Right now, Jamie had no respect for Quintessa. She was a stranger, a mechanism in the system that was made out of a million metal parts. Literally.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"If it's not them, then who?"
"Who what?" Jamie wasn't taunting her. He swears he's not.
"Who sent you?" Quintessa grit out and the whine of her teeth gritting together made all the more funny. She's gonna hate him, it hasn't even been five minutes.
But back to business. Jamie had a general idea of what Teresa was trying to get him to do. This whole escapade to avoid Mission City and the destruction of Chicago, the pyramids of Giza, Hong Kong and several other places was mostly to stop humans from dying from being there at the wrong time and giant metal bastards from exacting blood vengeance on each other. Quintessa, however, was both that and S'rik business. S'rik wanted her dead. If Quintessa was dead, Cybertron would be left alone to simply float in space. Alone. Unguarded.
If the movie with humans being able to melt down Transformium into a more modified version, then Cybertron was a literal planet of raw materials.
S'rik wanted to make Jamie their second attempt in conquering Earth. Luciano was...their first. He said that he had destroyed anything and everything he could to stop the mobilization. That meant materials being lost.
S'rik wanted Cybertron both as a middle finger to Primus and a valuable resource in planet conquering.
Asshole.
If Quintessa went to Earth to uphold the prophecy, S'rik would be in the perfect position to kill two birds with one stone. Quintessa being dead, Earth being in shreds and panic, Cybertron being even more so and its natives being battle wounded and in hilariously low numbers.
It's Ragnarok, the apocalypse and doom day all waiting to happen at the same time.
So while Quintessa most definitely had a spot on his kill list, her death would do more harm than good. If she stayed on Cybertron with no intention of upholding the prophecy, Jamie would swear on his blood that he'll end the war and convince the rest of the bots and cons to go and do something productive for once. Like fixing Cybertron before the lack of gravity made it slowly collapse on itself.
Teresa telling him to look like a kicked puppy made more sense now.
Too bad Jamie looks like an awkward cat at best.
"S'rik. S'rik sent me to kill you." There was a flinch, a flash of recognition before it was stamped down and replaced with apathy and disgust.
"Oh. He's still mad about that planet. What was it again, Helka? Velga? I don't care at this point."
"You're aware I just told you they sent me here to kill you, right?"
"You're doing poorly, in that case."
"Purposefully poorly."
Quintessa didn't seem to buy it.
"Hear me out. I'm here to bargain."
"How exactly, do you intend to make me listen to you in the first place?"
"Why do you intend to ignore me?"
"That is none of your business, organic-"
"S'rik wants to derail the prophecy and so do I. That means killing you and using Cybertron as a mass resource. But if I kill you, S'rik will invade my home and enslave my planet. Not to mention I have a history with S'rik that needs to rot in a grave. But if I go along with the prophecy, my planet, and everyone on it, will be destroyed.
"I've come to propose something. Keep away from my planet while staying on Cybertron and I'll kill S'rik for the both of us, as well as end the faction war." Jamie knew that was a pretty unfair deal but he had to make it seem like Quintessa will accept because it had more of a payout on their side.
And then she started laughing. Not an evil, menacing laugh but a melodious one, like she just heard something funny. Her eyes were closed shut and she was shaking. What the fuck.
"Did I say something funny?" Jamie said dryly. Quintessa's laughs died out before she started floating slowly to the center of her platform, her left side facing him.
"Yes, that entire deal you just threw out."
"Elaborate, I don't have the patience to humor you all day."
"As much as I would enjoy S'rik being put in their place, you do not have the power to do so. That and I highly doubt your planet could be-" Quintessa suddenly stopped dead in their tracks, horror spreading across the face plates. Her eyes slid to his form. The jaw in Jamie's throat suddenly liquified, flowing down into his chest and adding a cold purple shade to the glowing atmosphere.
Quintessa floated backwards, hands raised and horror prevalent on her face. She was facing him once again.
"You... you are Unicron's kin. Your planet is Unicron." She said like it was a revelation of the century. "No- this can't be... you. You're trying to lead Cybertron to its doom. You're trying to kill Primus."
Woe is James, for Quintessa has misunderstood the entire conversation! Maybe because she views herself as a god and doesn't need to listen to an organic like James but Jamie will force this to be a two-sided conversation even if he's the only one talking.
"That's quite literally the opposite of what I'm doing. What I'm saying is that the battle between Unicron and Primus is unnecessary. And even if I was from-" Jamie was ultimately interrupted.
"The battle between Unicron and Cybertron has been foretold by Primus himself! To ignore it would be to ignore Primus! It is absolute! You're lying. Unicron is the devourer of planets, he does not create! He destroys! You cannot possibly be made from his essence!" Quintessa went off, yelling in an almost hysterical manner. Ah, so it was like that.
Primus was Quintessa's father and with that, gave off the impression of an unquestionable god. Not to mention it sounds like Primus himself had given her not a prophecy, but a last resort. If the Allspark is destroyed, she needs to use Unicron to replace what was lost. It would have been a last resort but Jamie could only assume that Quintessa's blind adoration and romanticism had filtered it through as a divine prophecy. A divine purpose.
A poor little creation, ignored for decades, desperately trying to win her father's favor again after being cast aside in favor of a new creation.
An slightly insane daughter trying to help a father.
So familiar, so pathetic, so close to home.
"Did I say Unicron is my planet?" Jamie sneered out, the jaw in his throat pulsing back into his throat and against his windpipe. "Unicron is in stasis. Has been covered by magma and a layer of crust. My species lives on that crust. Has been for a few thousand years. He hasn't killed a planet in four billion years."
Quintessa stopped in her tracks, as if trying to search for another reason. For a reason why she wasn't thrown away.
"Unicron will never wake up unless you actively force him into awakening with that prophecy. You'll enter the system and Unicron will act out in self-defense. You'll kill billions of intelligent life forms all because you can't let go of your father." At the mention of Primus, Quintessa got tense. Her hands clenched, giving out a distinct metal screeching.
"The prophecy is true. It will happen. It has to, it's the future. You can't change something that is predestined to happen." She said it like she was trying to tell James that biological death was inevitable. Yeah, like you can compare that to planetary warfare.
Jamie glared.
"A prophecy is only that. A prophecy. The only reason you let it be one is because you're complacent with what is told to you."
"It is a matter of life or death for Cybertron!" Quintessa refuted.
"That's on the idea that the Allspark is destroyed. If it came back and restored the planet, the prophecy will become useless. Once the Allspark is back on Cybertron, it will function as it's core and restore the planet to its previous shape. And then its people will return to fix it, to rebuild Cybertron both as a sign of good will to the opposite faction and as an apology to the Allspark."
"The Allspark was sent away-"
"I have the Allspark in my possession."
Quintessa was dumbstruck. She looked over Jamie as if determining if he was bluffing.
"That's not possible. It's been thousands of years. Solar radiation and the vacuum of space must have already destroyed it." She grit out. She didn't believe him. Or rather, she didn't want to believe. Probably because this whole prophecy was the only reason why she was even here.
Quintessa must have lived her whole life doing Primus' work. Energon didn't grow on trees and she was probably tasked with retrieving it. Harvesting it.
It's what's she's good at. Manipulating the flow of energy to drain one source in hopes of another.
"Unless it was pulled into the atmosphere of a familiar planet. A planet that had energon reserves. A planet that is similar to Cybertron. There, it could have survived for thousands of years, long enough for the war to be over and still have the power it has, maybe even more. Like a vacation from the war." She suddenly straightened, but tension never left her shoulders.
"...It landed on Unicron."
"Earth."
"What?"
"Earth. The planet it landed on is Earth. My planet, the planet that covers Unicron. That's kept him in stasis. S'rik wants my planet for Unicron... Well, maybe for not Unicron. He wants it for my species. We're godless. Or rather, we're not connected to any gods."
Quintessa got thoughtful.
"Like a backup for if his own race and believers somehow get destroyed." She answered. Finally, a conversation. "It can't be like his own planet has become uninhabitable. You really can't turn a planet that has a lagoon like environment into a wasteland."
"Unless the water got polluted."
"...Oh." That was not a good reaction.
"Quintessa I swear to Primus himself I will end you if I find out S'rik hates you because you poisoned his fucking water supply. Previous plan be damned."
"As if you could contact Primus."
"Yeah. He contacts me. He's the one who claimed he sent me."
Silence. Oh. Was he... not supposed to say that?
Wait. If the whole prophecy thing was so bad, why didn't Primus just talk to Quintessa about it? Since when is catching some random dude in the void and bringing him back to fix everything a better alternative?!
Then again James and Tereza aren't exactly random. They're a specific brand of shitty humans.
"You're lying. Primus-" Oh yeah that definitely hit a nerve. Judging by how defensive Quintessa got, Primus was a sore subject. "Primus was sent away with the Allspark. The Allspark was his gateway to them! Waves, code, encryptions- he communicated with them through the Allspark! He communicated with us in a way only we could understand-"
As her tone got louder, Jamie started noticing that several electric cables were starting to lash out. Okay, bad move.
"How-" Quintessa seemed to take deep offence in Jamie being able to talk to Primus. "How could a flesh bag possibly communicate with him!"
The cables then lashed at him. Jamie didn't know if it was his understanding that shit has hit the fan or reflexes but he dodged some of them.
"How can a mere mortal dare to talk to him!"
More cables struck themselves into the metal ground. Jamie jumped off the panel onto another.
"How dare you speak his name so recklessly!"
More cables started thrashing, the electric charge turning the field into a dangerous array of Nikola Tesla's coils.
"How-" Quintessa's voice got tinnier. Jamie was so busy dodging that he didn't notice that Quintessa-
Quintessa was on the ground, metal tendrils lying and fanning around her like a dress. Her arms clutched on her biceps, curled in a fetal position.
She was shaking. No sound except for the buzz of electricity was heard. Jamie took a careful, silent step forward and strained his ears.
"How... why would he just... Just leave me here... I'm..." Jamie wasn't sure of Quintessa was purposefully tugging at his heartstrings or was actually in the middle of Transformer equivalent of a breakdown. She was called the Great Deceiver by her own bodyguards. She'd killed thousands of people. She's destroyed dozens of planets.
But what was she doing all this time?
They never really got close to understanding why she wanted Earth in pieces. Almost no history or information about her.
What did she even do all these thousands of years? Just sit back, watch the planet be consumed in war, then watch it collapse on itself as thousands fled for the stars. Just sitting there, on a dying planet, with nothing but the prophecy in mind, as if thinking it will turn everything back to normal.
Well, her normal at least.
He's not even sure what that is.
Damn you Michael Bay.
"Hey, are you-" Quintessa seized up and snarled at him.
"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Quintessa suddenly launched herself at him, coils following in her wake. Jamie renewed his efforts in dodging.
"ME?! HOW IS THIS MY FAULT?"
"YOU AND THOSE DAMN ORGANICS- IT'S ALWAYS YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT WE WERE RUNNING LOW ON RESOURCES, YOUR FAULT FOR NOT EVEN USING THEM, YOUR FAULT FOR INFECTING THIS STUPID, FRAGGING SENTIMENTAL VIRUS ONTO US!" Quintessa's voice was a screech of metal and sound, cables and tendrils shooting up to try and slam into James. James himself is pretty fucking pissed. Especially at what Quintessa said.
"I SAID IT'S NOT MY FUCKING FAULT! YOU COULD'VE STOPPED IT! YOU COULD'VE POSED A DIVINE INTERVENTION IN THE WAR BUT INSTEAD YOU'D HAPPILY SIT IN YOUR TEMPLE, DELUSIONAL, AND DREAMING OF A PROPHECY THAT'S GONNA FUCKING FAIL!" Jamie dodged and hollered at Quintessa.
"BECAUSE YOU ORGANICS EXIST! WE WOULD'VE BEEN JUST FINE IF UNICRON MINDED HIS OWN DEALINGS, FATHER WOULDN'T BE SO FOCUSED ON KEEPING YOU DISGUSTING BAGS OF PROTEIN ALIVE! YOU'RE WEAK, FOOLISH AND USELESS-"
"NO LESS THAN YOU ARE!" He snapped and grabbed two cordes, swinging them against the others to knock them out of the way. "DON'T YOU THINK ABOUT IT, YOU FUCKING MONSTER?! YOU'VE KILLED BILLIONS, ALL IN THE NAME OF PRIMUS BUT HAVE NO SHAME? HAVE YOU NO RESPECT FOR THE DEAD?! DO YOU LOOK AT ALL THE DEAD CIVILIZATIONS AND CALL IT A FUCKING ACHIEVEMENT?!"
"Silence!"
"JUSTICE!"
"They do not deserve justice! We do! I do!"
"WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO SUFFER?! THOSE WHO YOU KILLED? DO YOU HAVE NO EMPATHY? DON'T YOU FEEL ANYTHING TOWARDS THEM?!"
"They're nothing in comparison to us! They're a necessary sacrifice! Their lives are already a blink of an optic, to say it has sentimental value is illogical! They serve no use to me!"
And the world exploded in red.
"THEN IT'S NO WONDER PRIMUS LEFT YOU HERE TO ROT AND DIE, YOU FORGET EVEN THE FIRST AND MOST BASIC LAW OF THE PRIMES!" Jamie snapped. "PRIME OF LIFE, WHAT A JOKE! LOOK AT EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE, EVERYTHING YOU LET HAPPEN AND EVERYTHING YOU ARE! YOU'RE NOT THE PRIME OF LIFE, YOU'RE THE PRIME OF DEATH!"
Jamie heaved as the red light slowly receded, returning to a pale mint shade. He stared at the crushed cords in his hands. The one on his right hand was channeling small discharges of electricity.
Jamie lifted his head, ready to flash teeth at Quintessa. His expression dropped when he saw just how scared and angry she looked. Almost manic. Like she'd just heard the thing that was the last straw on the camel's back.
Shit, why the hell did he say that? Why is he even butting into Primus' disfunctional family affairs? Fuck, this was just like with-
A girl sitting curled up in a ball in a corner. The room was devoid of light, except for the sun peeking through the blinds. Soft carpet, soft clothes. Heavy crowbar, heavy soul. Teresa stared at the thing in front of her. Dead eyes stared back. Soggy carpet, soggy clothes. Soggy with blood. Dead blue eyes stared at her. She could almost hear it again, the man calling her-
"Fish-eyed brat. Just like yer mother."
This was just like with Maggie and Robert.
Jamie shaked his head, thinking back to the present. No time for that. He'd buried his skeletons with Teresa and he's gonna make sure he keeps them buried.
But now things have gone tits up. Royally.
"Leave." Quintessa said, voice devoid of emotion.
"I'm- I didn't mean-" Jamie tried to say something, anything.
"LEAVE!" Quintessa shot another coil at him. Jamie didn't bother dodging.
He deserved this.
Everything went black.
Jamie woke up in the darkness. Again. And he felt like shit. Nothing new. It felt like barely any time had passed.
And once again he wakes up with the fallout.
Teresa asked him to get Quintessa on his side and all he did was make her even more mad.
And like always, Jamie fucks it up. They've always done that, Teresa or James, it doesn't matter.
They always knew there was something collectively wrong about them. Something off. Something weird.
It's hard to understand why you're the way you are when you don't even know what you are.
It's hard to communicate when the person who you've seen as a villain for years is suddenly no longer a cardboard cut-out of every made up crime in the world.
"Way to go, fish eyes." Jamie groaned as he dragged his hand down his face.
He stared at the void. It does nothing.
"Are you going to do something?" He asked to no one in particular. Nothing. "Fine. I'll just go back then."
A loud metal noise erupted. The sound of was very similar to listening to ships bend against the pressure of the sea. What... the hell.
The hairs on Jamie's back stood up. Goosebumps popped up on his skin. Jamie's immediate thought is that something is very, very wrong because goosebumps are for feeling threatened and he does not get threatened-
Wait, since when did he assume he didn't get threatened? What the fuck. Jamie was an asthmatic scrappy human, since when was he on top of the food chain? What the fuck.
"Who goes there?" A deep, ragged and dry voice drawled. It was similar to Primus, with its watery undertones and static echo but there was something...sinister in it. Something wrong with it.
The scenery immediately changed. Dark metal panels came into existence with wires made of thin metal strings dashing back and forth between two walls. Bridges began forming with magma bursting out of the walls to flow down into the next hole or simply to have the bridge end midway. The air was getting stuffy, heated and smokey.
There was no floor and no ceiling. Just two walls stretching into the distance.
"What in the nine gates of-" James whispered to himself.
"You dare try to hide from me?" The voice spoke up again, the volume of it disrupting the flow of lava and shaking the wires.
James didn't even know where he was, much less who was talking. Was this another stupid god?! What the fuck!
"You cannot run." The entire facade started shaking, vibrating as if something was slithering on the other side of the walls. Or maybe-
Or someone dragging their claws against metal. Oh fuck, Jamie realized.
He made a mad dash across the walls, going in a random direction. And by dashing, he meant grabbing onto loose panels and launching himself off of them into a random direction.
"You cannot escape me." The voice rumbled, louder this time and Jamie kept launching himself in between the walls, dodging any flowing lava or electric cables that got near him.
Salvation came in the form of a layer of metal that was clearly loose, loose enough for him to hide behind or inside.
Grabbing the panel, he pushed it to make sliding in just the very least possible. The metal groaned loudly.
The shaking came stronger, so much that lava was spilling out and about chaotically, oh come the fuck on.
"C'mon, putain, je n'ai pas le temps pour tes tropes de films d'horreur-" the metal groaned, finally making space and Jamie dove in, squeezing and sliding himself in between large pipes and mechanisms to get in deeper, further away from the entrance. Gravity seemed to have returned as a small slip nearly made James fall face first into a resistor. An even stronger tremor made him take a turn diagonally. A large pipe was merged into a hexagon like prism, with vents and holes of the sort. It was under him and Jamie hopped down to it, grabbing onto a hole and hiding himself behind it.
OKAY, okay, calm down, this was probably an adequate enough hiding spot. Jamie took deep and panicked breaths as the rumbling continued on getting louder and louder.
Then it stopped. Jamie's breath got caught in his lungs, not daring to make a sound. He watched the small light that came from the outside due to the loose panel. It was faint, falling over the tubes and mechanical junctions. Nothing moved, nothing was even heard-
An enormous, metallic slab of something slammed through the pipes, deeper into the insides of the place. Jamie's hand slammed over his mouth, his heart was hammering in his chest. He wasn't sweating, probably because he wasn't in a physical realm but his skin felt overheated and jittery. His hand had a vice grip on his leverage. He unconsciously pressed himself closer to the box, almost as if hoping he could phase through into it.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, that could've been him.
The slab started to recede, showing how the hard angles twisted back and- that was a claw. Or an extremely pointy finger. A giant pointy finger just stabbed through the fucking machinery so hard that Jamie couldn't hear any fall of debris. Or maybe it was because the sound of metal screeching was overpowering every other sound. The cut was brutal and the pipes and wires fell limp, some giving off discharges.
Hoooly shit, that was close.
"Come out, wherever you are, before I decide to crush you precisely." Oh fuck, he didn't miss, this was a fucking warning. Maybe-
Maybe if James was really, really quiet and carefully moved away, maybe he won't notice and think he actually crushed him. Okay, okay, that's not great but Jamie would seriously prefer not to witness the motherfucker who may or may not be the cause of all the extraterrestrial bullshit on Earth.
'Fuck, shit, damn, putain de merde, here we go. Off to the world's scariest game of tag and cliff climbing.' Jamie thought to himself as he quietly climbed to the other side of the box. Away from the giant indent that may or may not speak his doom.
Slowly and painfully carefully, he climbed up on the box and began tip toeing on the tube. It crossed with another one, which hindered James' path but if Jamie was lucky that could be the equivalent of a hiding spot in a horror game. Halfway to the tube of glorious safety and with the finger completely out of sight, the rumbling returned. And it was getting louder. Fast.
'Fuck it!' James thought as he made a mad dash for the tube. Just as he got to it and swung himself across it, the giant slab of a digit rammed into the skin. He spun around latched onto the tube and held on for dear life behind it.
The digit receded again, faster this time and the tell-tale sound of metal transforming was heard above him.
Looking up he saw that tubes and wires were dividing themselves and-
That motherfucker is gonna pull a whole chunk out of himself just to get him, fuuuuuuck-
James started hastily climbing the tube, trying to get to the top of it. He needed to get out of here, fast. Just as he was looking for a stray wire, a pipe, anything to haul himself away, the chunk started moving outwards. Like someone was pulling it out.
James would have been lying if he said he didn't feel like crying.
He kept spinning around, looking for something within reach as the mechanism was being pulled out faster than he could outrun it. A small pole, just barely the width of a pipe and too close to the surface for comfort but better than nothing. James ran to it like a madman on meth, jumping and sliding closer to the pipe.
Just a little more-
He jumped and grabbed it, desperately trying to pull himself up. He had managed to get his head above the pole when something smashed into the back of his torso, making him lose his grip and fall back into the quickly moving chunk.
"MERDE!"
His body was skidding down the pipes and through the gaps, essentially getting him pulled out as well. His hands desperately tried grabbing something, anything to at least stop him from slamming into things.
The world was a giant metallic blur.
Because it always fucking is. Life is always a damn blur for James. A blur of alcohol, a blur of panic, a blur of depression, a blur of mania and a blur of blood.
Memories feel so distant you can't tell if they really happened or if some eldritch fish god decided that you need something to build character from.
The blur of metal is soon tinted in vibrant purple and Jamie realized that there's a significant lack of metal surfaces. Instead, his hands flailed in at attempt to grab anything, only for his fingers to get tangled up in some cords.
His hand squeezed on them and even if he felt the drag resulting from it, there was no friction burn or anything of the sort. Just a moment of halted movement before James was left dangling from the force.
What just happened? James looked at his hands.
Ah, he nearly fell out of the chunk and into... wherever he was falling too. Wait, that meant that that guy pulled out the whole chunk of himself and Jamie along with it.
Fuck.
Maybe if he stayed quiet and really still, he'd be able to pass off as-
"I can see you." The voice repeats in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Can you pretend not to?" Jamie asked in his suffering, having fully given up on survival and resorted to bargaining and haggling.
It's not that he was afraid. He's not really sure if he should be afraid. Rather, he's scared of the implications.
Because if the motherfucker currently holding him hostage really is Unicron, Devourer of Planets, Threat to All and Primus' Not As Cool Goth Brother, then likelihood of Quintessa agreeing to anything as of now will be null and void.
In no way is this gonna be a "deadbeat father, fatherly uncle and mildly to severely traumatized daughter" scenario.
Unicron being awake and conscious meant that he'd now have to worry about two whole gods going on highway to hell with this prophecy.
If he asks, then Unicron will mobilize ten- no, a hundred years too fucking early.
If he says nothing, Unicron will be left as a wildcard factor with no basic foundation for swaying him to the other side when push comes to shove.
If he mentions Primus or Cybertron, the God might throw a huge fit and Jamie already has his hands full with three gods fighting over the fate of some tiny carbon-based planet.
Now that he mentions it, he hasn't heard from those two in a while.
"Your thoughts are rather loud." The voice speaks again. At which James has given up everything at this point.
"Can I ask you a question?" Silence followed, giving him permission to go on. "If you were to crush my body hard enough to kill me, would I die back there? Because at this point I feel like every time I try to do something to help the situation, it blows up in my face faster than I can fix it."
"..." Unicron was probably expecting a different conversation. More fear, more yelling, more arrogance and probably a young idiot. Not whatever the hell James is doing.
Must be Unicron's first time dealing with burnt out and depressed life forms. He's not saying anything so James can only assume he's trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
"Why are you telling me this?" He finally asked.
"You're the one who said my thoughts are loud. That means you've heard everything and gave now changed your agenda according to the changes of the situation. Which is to say the whole plan has, probably for the sixth time now, gone up in flames."
"Then why do you still keep this plan if it is so faulty?"
"Too stubborn to leg it go, too dumb to think of a new one and too deep in it go throw in the towel. This plan is all I have, it's all I am."
"Can you, for a lack of better term, can it with the depressed monologues?"
"Can you stop being the source of all my suffering for a few years?"
"What have I done to you to warrant such...behavior?"
"It's not what you did, it's what you wear."
Unicron's confusion could almost be heard. Okay maybe he's a little hard on him. He's probably used to the yelling of the people he's wronged, not this...confusing dialogue.
"You're a core now, you know. You crashed into another planet and the debris and mass of it covered your entire form. Gravitational pull and vacuum pressure happened and compressed you into a bigger planet. It's been about four billion years, give or take. Now you're a planetary core to the universe's most troublemaking planet. You're basically wearing my planet like a huge fur coat."
"Ah, that. My abrupt stasis. What business does that have with me?" Weird form of question but okay.
"Well, first off, the surface planet, let's call it Earth, has life now."
"...Life? Intelligent life?"
"Yes, a whole six billion of them. Tons of culture, technological progress is slow but it's going, we've got a moon too and it's been fifty or so years since we first stepped foot on it."
"A young form of life..."
"Basically. We're a bit similar in some cases to the Cybretronians but sometimes similarities get scary accurate and other times we couldn't be more different. We make lots of machines though, so that's a plus."
"Fascinating..."
"You're not going to try and wake up, are you? Because if you do, we'll all die because this is our one and only planet. And I've been suffering to make sure that doesn't happen."
"To stop me from awakening?" There was a clear sound of distasteful anger in his voice.
"No, dumbass, to make sure the whole planet's population doesn't blow out like a fucking candle. Once, or maybe if, humanity moves to Mars or something then please, by all means, rise and shine for all I care. I'll probably be long dea-"
"Cease your rambling. It annoys me to great lengths."
"Cease your current antagonistic ways. It annoys me to even greater lengths."
"What I do with my existence is none of your business."
"On the contrary, that's my only business in this life." Jamie replied. "Can I go home now? Wait, no I can't, I'd set all of Tranquility ablaze if I did. Can I wake up now?"
"No."
"Why not? You lonely?" Jamie inquired.
"I am not lonely. I thrive in chaos and despair. Your presence means nothing to me." Unicron sneered.
"Then why keep me here? I'm not exactly oozing despair. It's more like mental exhaustion."
"You are connected to me. I want to find out why."
Now that Unicron mentioned it, why was he here in the first place?
"Good question, any ideas?"
"There's only one way but it's unlikely."
"Well what is it?"
"Why should I tell you?" Oh, tin-man had teeth, huh?
"Well, excuse you but this is my soul first and foremost; I have every right to know what's so fucked up with it." Jamie sneered.
"Do you?" Unicron said. "Do you really have every right to know, considering that you are not whole?"
"Excuse me?!" Jamie was getting angrier. Why was he angry? He shouldn't be angry. But something told him this guy was getting on his nerves, giant robot alien god or not. "I know damn well I'm not whole, but I'm gonna fix it. It's not my fault your shitty kids can't settle one fucking war peacefully!"
"I have no children." Unicron said firmly, a hint of anger in it. "If you're referring to my brother's creations, then you may just be as foolish as you look."
The chunk suddenly rattled, as if being moved.
Suddenly, a pair of huge, purple eyes peered down on him. They were so big, Jamie could see faint details like how the wheels inside of the iris turned slowly.
"I am not Primus. I am not some god who praises himself on a faulty system. I am not someone who creates nor do I nurture. I am the Pit, the Darkness and eyes of Death incarnate. I take and I destroy, and most of all," the eyes got closer to him and Jamie realized just how mad Unicron is. "I. Have. No. Creations."
Jamie was frozen. He didn't even know what to say.
His soul apparently did the talking for him as the phalangeal jaw liquefied and turned his body into a giant glowstick.
Unicron's eyes floated back, shocked and speechless.
"What..." He muttered. Jamie didn't say a word and instead looked over himself.
He was glowing. His form could only be told apart by the thin line of red which bled into mint green, illuminating the chunks of rusty metal.
But in chest, somewhere near his lungs and probably all the way up to his throat was a vivid purple galaxy which melted into shades of pink, magenta and purple before fading away into the dark silhouette of his body.
Okay...
Was that bad?
"Is this bad?" Jamie said as he tried to poke the purple area. His hand simply... went through it. Like it was a form of gas in a hole in his chest.
"It can't be... you..." Unicron started talking again but he sounded shocked, almost as if he were looking at something precious he lost long ago. "I... created you."
"What." The word left Jamie's mouth before he could stop it.
"I created you." Unicron repeated, as if he couldn't believe his own words. "I... No. No, I destroy and corrupt everything, I couldn't have-"
A giant arm came out of the abyss and grabbed James. Well, less grabbed and more like it held him as James felt the cords he was holding onto fall from the large chunk of debris he had been hiding in.
Well, fuck!
"You... how?"
"I... don't know myself. And I probably never will."
A sudden thing grabbed the back of James' neck and pulled. As in it took and suddenly James was flying at high speeds away from Unicron's partially visible body parts.
The last thing he saw was Unicron reaching out to him, calling him a name he never heard.
The darkness swallowed him up and for a while, Jamie felt lightweight.
Someone was dragging him back. The dragging slowed to a stop. Now someone was shaking him. Violently.
There were supposed to be words but there was something that kept blocking it out. No, it's more like Jamie couldn't understand the words. The words sounded like white noise but they meant something.
Jamie's brain was working in triangles, hexagons and all kinds of shapes. Feeling and focus going from one place to another with no pattern.
Something wasn't right.
He tried blinking, once, twice and finally color bled into the world. It was a soft sky orange hue with little specks of olive green and lines of light purple here and there. Light came from the outline of an arm that was holding him. From a significantly bigger arm than any human had, with odd protrusions from the forearms, wrists, knuckles and what was probably biceps. It was odd to notice but for some reason the entity had only four fingers- no, it felt more like-
Like a few fingers were missing.
Jamie's brain finally made contact with consciousness and everything that just happened hit him.
He spun his head around and-
There was a silhouette of something. Definitely bipedal but judging by how the weird protrusions had turned into jagged triangles on the top of the head they probably weren't human. That and the painfully green and purple eyes that reminded him too much of a crocodile.
The figure noticed that Jamie was conscious and stopped shaking him. Instead it-they started saying something. Jamie couldn't understand a word. All he could do was listen to sounds and syllables he had never heard.
"I- I can't understand- what are you saying-" Jamie muttered, eyes squinting as the lights were beginning to burn his vision.
The figure stopped talking, stared at him before letting go of one of his shoulders and started pointing at the direction he was pulled out of.
"So that purple mechanical guy?" Jamie asked. The figure nodded. So Jamie couldn't understand them but they could understand Jamie. Cool. "What about him?"
The figure pointed at the direction, then James before the hand faltered, fingers going over the smaller protrusions of their knuckles. Must be a nervous tick.
The hand suddenly shot up, pointing at him again and made a sharp chopping movement to their neck.
"You think he's was going to kill me?" Jamie asked.
The figure shook his head before repeating the motions, more earnestly.
"He was about to kill me?"
The figure shook their head again, obviously frustrated. Then they started mimicking the motions again, but now they pointed at James, chopping motion and then back at the direction.
Something seemed similar.
"If I don't kill him, he will?" The figure nodded strongly. "He won't kill me, if he wanted to do that I would've already been dead."
The silhouette shook it's head again, then pointed at his left arm. Left arm-
There were scribbles on it. Yellow and bright and in runes that were clearly not similar to Earth's runes.
S'rik. The chopping motion. Pointing at gods.
"If I don't kill S'rik, he'll kill me." Jamie replied. "It's why I can't hear you properly, right?"
The figure nodded earnestly.
"...Can that even be possible?"
The figure pointed at him again.
"Impossible for me?"
They pointed at him harder- Wait no, they're actually raising a single finger.
"Impossible alone?" The figure then let go of his other shoulder and started applauding him.
'Good job on understanding with a cursed brain, second phenomenon.' It wasn't a voice so much as it was a sentence inside of his head.
Jamie flinched. The figure noticed that and started to drift away.
"Wait, what's a second phenomenon and why am I the second? Is it because of Teresa? And are you talking inside my-"
'The phenomenon is you. The first is I. Tell Grikvel renegade that the idol of war said greetings.' And then they disappeared.
And Jamie was suddenly falling down back into Earth.
Luciano was worried. Scratch that, he was pacing around his study, every artifact and tool connected back to his time on his birth planet lying on the table. James had made predominant contact with his previous incarnation, Teresa, and Luciano has never felt fear of that magnitude since he haphazardly put together a plan to stop S'rik hundreds of years ago.
Luciano had heard of how that Doppelganger effect happened. If two incarnations met, in the time of forming, to an outsider it would have felt extremely wrong to be in the room. No explanations were given as to how, simply that it is.
Descriptions didn't hold a candle to the real thing. It was like eating a box of mints and chili peppers at the same time. Except instead of your tongue feeling hellfire, one's body felt both hot and cold at the same time which his brain couldn't find a proper description to.
Because the combined bloodlust of Jamie, small, scrappy Jamie who's 14, and Teresa, a six foot woman of lean muscle and eyes that stared into ones very soul, had Luciano restraining his flight or fight responses.
How could James be so furiously hellbent? What could have happened to a child that would bring out such emotions? How was Teresa able to speak so fluently? The person who'd experienced the Doppelganger effect, claimed that the double could barely speak. Just barely managing to form sentences and even so only about the prospect of why they manifested in the first place. Teresa was fluent, could manifest in full form and strong enough slip under S'rik's curse and travel back to the dimension they originated from.
That, on it's very own, was crack. Simple, unfiltered crack.
S'rik had been a God capable of dimensional travel, albeit without passengers. Luciano, who had previously been the closest thing to S'rik's metaphysical existence, could teleport from one planet to another.
An hour of brainstorming had came to three possible conclusions. One, Teresa was a God of unknown magnitude, two, Teresa had managed to reverse engineer S'rik's curse or , three, Teresa had managed to somehow generate power from the surrounding world and environment enough to achieve either possibility.
Still, extremely terrifying.
Especially since Teresa and, as of two hours ago, James wanted revenge against S'rik.
His death would mean nothing to them and Luciano sure as hell won't die for them. Not after everything they've done to the entirety of their race.
He could bitterly monologue for hours on how much they've shattered their world, how many lives they've ruined, how they destroyed almost 90 percent of their entire history for the simple desire of recognition.
All while saying how they were doing a service to the entirety of the galaxy.
Disgusting. Utterly disgusting.
Utterly disgusting because Luciano had been raised on that and assumed everything that was not it was lies.
The guilt never fades for him. No matter how many times he tells himself that he didn't know any better, that he was young and naive and inexperienced, he feels guilty for the many future generations that will have almost no history to learn because he, like the rest of his younger siblings, had been compliant. The guilt keeps him humble, he supposed.
The guilt doesn't fix anything though. It doesn't bring back the destroyed knowledge and killed elders and scholars. Guilt doesn't help him in any way, just keeps him jaded so other people could have an easier chance at understanding their own situations.
He should have gone back, he should have gone and told his thousands of siblings the truth-
Who'd listen to him? Who'd listen to a heretic who abandoned the will of their so-called god? Who'd listen to a traitor of the highest order?
Nobody. No one, not after everything.
But he had other people. Others who'd listened to his story and actually considered his position.
Darkwalkers. That's what they called themselves. That's what he was. In every species, there's one soul that's made of dark mater. If it dies, it's reincarnated, either a blank slate or still having memories of previous lives. There's no fixed pattern. It's a coin toss every time. They're not gods, they fear death- because death means wiping the hard drive and forgetting every single experience they've had up until now.
It wouldn't be them anymore.
Luciano and hundreds of others are a testament of that.
They were Darkwalkers, this is how everything worked.
And so was the case with Jamie and Teresa.
And so was supposed to be the case.
But they're not.
They're different. Wildly different. Because they came from a completely different universe, one where Darkwalkers didn't exist. Yet that was their place of origin and they came back.
And with an anomaly of a curse.
Luciano feared for James. Because if S'rik went as far as to put a curse on them, then whatever revelation he'll get by the end of this journey will be soul shattering.
If they even finished it. Jamie was not immortal. He couldn't regenerate limbs or tissue, he didn't miraculously heal and Luciano knows for a fact that he was still here because of the necromancy juice.
Well, it's not necromancy juice but if you happened to drink it before dying, well, you're not dead for long.
Some mad bastard back in the 50s who drank it was enough proof of that.
He never did get his name.
But that's not the point.
This whole scenario has S'rik's name written all over it and Luciano will sooner damn himself into the pits of this planet than let S'rik grab yet another planet.
So Luciano was going to get involved.
Even if Jamie was screaming at him to get away as far as possible from him, like he was a radioactive weapon, Luciano is going to help that damn kid even if it killed him.
Because the situation is different from what he had heard in Las Vegas.
This wasn't some kid thrown with a prophecy to undo, this was a psychological and biomechanic game of capture the flag with Jamie currently holding it with no team behind him.
How did Jamie survive for a whole two weeks carrying around a literal homing beacon of radiation with the government and two different Cybretronian factions after him?
Cybretronians. Fuck. Those giants never did anything in halves.
If they had a goal, they had a goal and they won't stop. When there's some higher power or stake at hand then there's no way they'll stop. Not until this planet is in shambles.
They didn't stop a civil war until they had to throw away their literal core and destroy their planet.
The poor thing is still half rusted and destroyed, just floating somewhere around in space.
Cybretronians don't really have the best track record. There are solar systems with war cultures that have better reputations.
And they're going to fight. Here. On Earth. On the planet he had protected for a millennium. He wants to hate them like he hates S'rik.
He wants to. But he doesn't. Because he's still hoping that Jamie's claim that there are some that have come for sanctuary without knowing the Cube was here.
If Jamie could get the war to stop permanently, legally or illegally, Luciano would take the risk.
"Hey."
Luciano screeched as he jumped a few feet into the air. He actually jumped over his own couch. Scuttling up to his feet behind the sofa, he saw none other than Teresa standing in front of him.
Except it wasn't the same Teresa he had seen several hours ago, just before Jamie stormed off in such a rage that he hit his head against the edge of the door, knocking him out and ripping open his stitches.
What a reckless child. But back to the topic.
Teresa looked more... human. Sure, the form she had appeared in was very reminiscent of how many Darkwalkers appeared in the Dark Age - when the body and soul swapped places, essentially covering the body in a form of black that almost looked like photoshop. The dark age was essentially called that because, well, you could stay in it for almost forever and somehow not have the body age. It was almost pseudo-immortality but such a power took lifetimes of control to master; most had either given up or forgotten just along when they entered a new life along with the rest of the memories. That didn't mean it wasn't impossible.
Teresa, as she was now, looked like she was halfway out of it. The dark matter covered her body like a robe, that was more of a large sheet with a hole in the middle.
Her face... Hyperbeings above, what did S'rik do to her? Her eyes were a few shades short of dark red, sunken in and droopy. Her nose was missing some flesh on her right side, as well as some terrifyingly prominent scars that stretched all the way from her jawline to the bridge of her crooked nose. He could see her teeth. With the addition of pitch black messy hair, she was intimidating in a way he had never experienced.
But judging by how defensive she got when Luciano had nearly jumped out of his skin, she was definitely not intending to scare him. She wasn't doing on purpose or consciously, she couldn't help looking so terrifying.
Luciano immediately straightened, hands still gripping the sofa.
"Yes?" He asked, cringing at how unstable his voice was. He was the one who brought them here. He's seen scarier things than her. "Is something wrong? With James, or-"
"The kid's fine. He's just... sleeping. Doesn't need me to hold the soul together." Hold the s- what the fuck did that mean? "I need to talk to you. Or rather, warn you. It's about James, whether or not you're coming on this...journey of his, you need to know this. You're likely to be the only person who can help."
Luciano felt dread pool in his stomach. Something was wrong with James, yes, but for him to help?
"Is this about S'rik?" He asked, immediately getting serious. Teresa shook her head.
"No. The curse they have is simple but it's tricky. You can't help with it." She said and there was an air of unspoken information around it. Like she had tried herself. She suddenly went deep in thought. "Or can you?"
Oh, the curse. Luciano had noticed it only moments after Jamie had knocked himself into unconsciousness. He felt stupid for noticing it only now. But then again, prior to today, their meetings had been fleeting and nothing exactly triggered the curse into motion.
"Curses aren't exactly my thing. I was your human equivalent of the grand pope. Blessings and direct communication with our... god, was more my thing. Even so, I'm not sure how my kind had transformed curses- it could be different from what I was taught." Luciano awkwardly replied as he rubbed the back of his neck. Talking about the details of his past wasn't something he had prepared for. At all. "But I could bless him to an extent that if it's something to do with physical attributes."
"No. It's a neural and spiritual curse. There's something else he needs help with." Teresa began. Luciano noted that she was referring to James, which is to say it's really about him.
"Shouldn't we be talking about this with him present? Shouldn't he know about this?" Luciano asked as he slowly came from behind the couch.
"He can't. He doesn't even know. And I can't tell you with him being awake. I'm too busy keeping his soul from going haywire and ripping itself out of his body." That was troubling.
Scratch that, it was terrifying. Souls didn't work like that.
"What?! But, if you're here and not there then-"
"He's astral projecting. Not in his body. He'll be fine, but we don't have time for squabbling. You need to hear me out." Teresa said with a grave tone of voice. Luciano swallowed the nervous spit in his mouth and nodded.
"Remember how you talked about the Doppelganger effect? You're not... wrong but you're correct either." Teresa hesitated. Luciano got worried. "You know how when you see your life flash before your eyes, you only see what your eyes saw? Not yourself in third person? That's sort if what happened to Jamie. I remember him. He existed as a part of me, yes, but right now he's got the whole situation backwards. His vision of his life is skewed because back then... he wasn't exactly a person."
Luciano suddenly felt all of his blood turned to ice.
"You don't mean-"
"James isn't the original. He's...I'm not even sure what he is. I kept calling him the calligraphy thing for years." She avoided his gaze. Calligraphy thing? What kind of name was that? "He was like a shadow of me. Everything I pushed back because I was disgusted by it. Everything that was against humanity in myself was just- him. But he wasn't even a person. He was an apparition. He couldn't even show emotions."
"And now he's a whole person." Luciano anxiously shoved his hand into his hair.
"That doesn't mean he's a whole soul, though. When we got cursed, S'rik thought he locked our emotions away. He didn't. He separated us. He locked me away and pulled James forward."
"But James wasn't a full soul."
"He thought James was the by-product of sealing away my rage. He was wrong. James suddenly had his own body but too developed of a mind. He had memories that he shared with me and assumed them as his own. He thinks he's my reincarnation. He's... partially right."
"So," Luciano started. "He's like you but if you had-"
"Forgotten how we died. I remember, he doesn't, so he's completely different person by that standard. We used to be one, then we got split up. Even you can tell we're too different. He's more..." Teresa drawled off. Aggressive? Active? Reckless? "You get the point. But James can't handle having his own body. He developed as a person, not as a soul."
"Then maybe he could grow as one. As a soul. He could go and develop his soul and that could be that, right?"
"That's the problem. He can't." Teresa stated like it was set in stone. "You said it yourself. He's dark matter. Dark matter can't create. He needs a crutch, a replacement, something to fill in the missing pieces."
Luciano heard something clearly obvious in that statement.
"But if he's dark matter, then what are you?" He asked gravely. Teresa merely looked saddened. No, not saddened, more like she was regretting what she already knew.
"I'm human. Just not... your type of human. The human type that's from a different dimension. Turns out dark matter and whatever the hell souls are made of mix like water and oil." She gave off a bitter chuckle.
"Oh..." Luciano breathed out. He picked at the leather of the couch. Now the whole conversation felt awkward. "But then, how do we stop it? Or do something about it. It's clear you're not here forever."
"Yeah. Especially with that statement about my body. Well, Teresa's body."
"It's still functional?"
"Functional? Being preserved is more like it. It's in mint condition as far as I know." That should've been the bomb but the way it was spoken meant that something was wrong. "And S'rik has it."
There it is. Problem of the century- no, problem of the millennium! Luciano's hand came to cover his face and rub it in slow vertical motions. Fuck. Why was it always S'rik?
"Why the hell would S'rik need your body-" Before he could finish the sentence it dawned on him. He looked at Teresa, eyes owlishly large. "No. Don't tell me."
"Are you sure?" She asked, clearly wanting to tell him.
"...You know what, whatever, spill the beans." Luciano threw his hands into the air in mock defense. Whatever, he could do this. He could stomach whatever-
"S'rik personally killed us. And we fought back. We managed to fight back, we nearly won. We were strong. S'rik hasn't had a proper gateway to the physical realm in centuries, correct? He got a two for one when he killed us." She said, that harsh, bitter tone returning to her voice.
Nope, this was awful. This was the apocalypse in the making.
"S'rik wants Teresa's body as a vessel."
"Exactly so."
"Fuck me all the way to Jerusalem, we need to get it back. Or at least destroy it. Anything to keep S'rik away from it. Do you know where it is?"
"Yes. It's in the heart of S'rik's domain." Luciano broke into a nervous fidget. Oh no, c'mon, don't tell him. "Grikvel. Your home planet."
Luciano fell down to sit on the armrest of the sofa, a pained whine emitting from his throat as he held his head in his hands. This was the end of the world. The literal end of his, James' and humanity's world.
"I'm sorry." Teresa said, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Why..." Luciano whined, drawing out the vowel. "Why does it have to be Grikvel? Why is it always Grikvel?"
"I... don't know. We still have time, though. As long as I'm in Jamie's body and he's breathing, S'rik can't so much as look at my body. Metaphysical ownership rights and all that."
"That doesn't make the situation any easier. We can't keep you here forever because you have a body and if you leave Jamie will die. But if we fix Jamie first, then his body won't be able to take two souls at once and will at some point die, which will let S'rik get your body. We're in a Mexican stand-off situation, the fact that he's being chased by Cybretronians makes the situation even more unstable."
"We still need to act. If we don't, and Jamie fullfils his end of the bargain, S'rik might just kill him out of impatience."
"We still need to fix this mess first. And even then I'm not even sure how we'll be able to teleport to Grikvel. If we can even survive this problem, that is." He whispered to himself. They were going up against giant metal soldiers who could turn into any form of transportation possible.
Wait. Wait a minute.
"That's it." Luciano's head whipped out of the hold he had on it. "THAT'S IT!"
The Cybretronians! That was the answer!
"What's it?" Teresa asked, an oblivious look on her face.
"The Cybretronians! They're how we fix everything!" He grabbed Teresa's hand and was shaking it wildly. She was spooked and Luciano immediately let go of her hand. "The Cybretronians can turn into any form of transportation so among them there has to be someone who can turn into a shuttle! And if not that they have ships meant for galactic travel! Jamie wants them to come to a truce, which means by extent if he manages to do that the Cybretronians will owe him a boon. Which we could use for getting your body back and finding something to fill in the gaps of Jamie's soul! They're the key to this whole mess, they even have a soul spitting artifact!"
"You do realize that plan can be... faulty, right?" Teresa made a movement under her robe, which was probably her crossing her arms. "You said it yourself, your culture actively demonized the Cybretronians and your idea is to send them after my body, which S'rik no doubt guards religiously."
"..."
"It's going to be their version of the apocalypse, you know. Plus, it'd be like starting another war. Not really worth it if you ask me."
"We can make it a stealth mission. In fact, it probably has to be a stealth mission. We can get in there, you and I can navigate them to the body, they'll put it in a preservation chamber and they'll be out in the same day." Luciano started again. "They don't need oxygen and the body is probably kept in the deep keep, so we won't have to worry about running out of time, oxygen or about water pressure. It's... it's our only choice at this point."
"But it depends on the peace of the Autobots and Decepticons. It's not impossible but it's pretty close." Teresa stated. "Plus, it might throw us all into a new timeline. That could be bad."
Luciano sat back down on the couch chair.
"How bad?"
Teresa's brow furrowed, deep in thought.
"...S'rik was the one who placed us here, while Primus was first contact. They want two different things- one wants the minimal casualty of the Cybretronians which involves the possible death of millions of humans, the other wants the minimal casualty of humanity which involves the maximum number of deaths of Cybretronians. The truce between Autobots and Decepticons can achieve both, but it won't go unnoticed."
"I see. You mean to say the best interest of both gods is the death of the opposition. Which means if no deaths actually occur, S'rik will get suspicious. He'll probably send someone to investigate, or worse, buff up the curse. Which means if we go with the Cybretronian alliance plan-"
"Then we'll need to act almost immediately after the truce. S'rik is patient, but this plot of his doesn't require it. So he's free to be paranoid about the time wasted." Teresa finished.
Luciano sighed. This was a mess and a half. Luciano was still reeling from the inclination that they were going on political and actual war with Cybretronians, but now they have the heist of the millennium to plan right after.
He's against it. He's severely against going back to his home planet, frankly because the memories would hit him home harder than one would assume. They couldn't send anyone else because humans on Grikvel simply did not exist. If anyone spotted something like it, they'd kill on sight. Not because of the idea that something shorter than them could be dangerous but more so that Grikvel was a closed off planet. It had closed borders, relying only on its own resources and energy. Anything that wasn't one of his kind would be labelled as an intruder.
They're a secretive species. Luciano partly blames S'rik for it, but the very aspects of their nature had more to do with it. They're shape-shifting amphibians with abnormally long lifespans. The closest comparison would be lobsters, who are relatively immortal with the exception of death by being eaten.
It still feels odd. He's stopped calling himself part of their world, having calling himself human for centuries now. He... can't really feel any connection to his home planet. It seemed more of a distant, bitter memory than an actual place in the universe.
He's not homesick. He can't be homesick to a place that he couldn't consider home.
It's the implication that one day he will have to go back that terrifies him.
He wondered if James had ever felt something like that. It's clear Jamie's life... or existence as Teresa's Doppelganger was not a sweet life by any means. There's rage, crimes and a somber aura around him. That or the smell of alcohol.
He had said that, as Teresa, they kept one secret to the grave. And Teresa was probably considered dead in her world right now.
Jamie wouldn't want to go back either, he supposed.
"We can't tell James. He'll do something unpredictable." Luciano said it as if it were a revelation.
"Agreed." Teresa suddenly turned to the door. "He's coming back. I have to go."
"Go. I'll... I'll try and think of something." He said. And Teresa left him alone in his study.
Jamie woke up slowly. Like a Saturday morning in spring.
If one's Saturday included a hangover with the most annoying sun in the galaxy. He could tell he was lying down on a couch but the sun was just painful at this point. He tried to move his right arm but it felt too heavy.
Oh right. The cast.
His head was throbbing. Crap. What happened?
There was Quintessa, Unicron, orange person. But those were all things he could remember while he was asleep. How did he manage to fall asleep in the first place.
He remembered the whole realization. S'rik probably knew what Teresa had done and had something to do with their death as well.
The orange guy's idea came into mind. 'Kill S'rik before he kills you.'
"Like there was any other option." Jamie mumbled to himself. S'rik's death was set in stone the moment Teresa set the final nail in the coffin. He doesn't care if he's some subterranean sea god who swims through different universes, he's frying him over a salt slab when Jamie's done with him.
The problem is how.
When it came to plotting someone's death, it was at a time when Teresa already knew the victim, their routine and just where to hide the body.
Now how does one kill a god that exists only in your mind who you haven't talked to in probably a week and have no idea how to reach them in the first place.
The process itself isn't hard, it's how to get to it. Important things like joints and organs are easy to find, but to lure the target into a false sense of security and get close enough to strike - that's the hard part.
Humans are different from animals, but under specific circumstances the line between consciousness and instinct blurs. Bars, clubs, parties, public transport, the streets, one's very apartment block - all these places either put a person in a state of comfort or a state of full-blown paranoia. Humans are kind, empathetic and patient creatures but at the same time they're paranoid, hateful and panicked.
All it takes is one push to go from one to another. Like a metronome following the state of time, the human psyche can fly between the most intelligent and social apex predator on the planet to a terrified beast in human form, lashing out in self defense or self absorbed dilution caused by the chemicals in the brain.
All it takes is a flip of a switch by something that is clearly not human. By a creature that feels neither form. One that's too high-strung, too self-aware, too paranoid to ever feel any comfort but too strong, too armed, too dangerous to feel fear in front of something.
A human feels either comfort or fear because of their environment. One that feels detached from the environment, isolated in one's own skeleton to the point where bodily functions become apparent is not human.
Jamie's not sure how many times he's teetered on the line between human and inhuman. Teresa was human, is human. Jamie-
Jamie isn't sure about himself. Jamie knows he's human, that he used to be human as Teresa, that's he's still human-
But now that this mess concerning dark matter souls, curses, prophecies, gods and an alien robot war has encompassed his life in less than three conscious days, Jamie's unsure for how long he can stay human.
How long does he have left until he's no longer human? How much until his sins come back to haunt him, to the point where he's no longer a person but some- some-
"Hey?"
Jamie's brought out of his mulling by a voice. He whips his head around, restricted by the leather couch but he noticed Luciano standing outside of his study.
Idiot, Jamie thought to himself. He was doing it again. The selfish idea that everyone would benefit from his perspective when he doesn't even know a drop of theirs. What if Luciano was still afraid of S'rik, and killing him would make Luciano fear James? What if S'rik was needed to keep the planet alive?
...If he killed S'rik, would that affect Luciano? Would he go back to his home planet?
"Did you cool down?" Luciano asked again.
"I'm not even sure how I passed out." Jamie replied as he began sitting up. Oh, he had a blanket on him. "Did I even pass out?"
"You got mad, started yelling at your Doppelganger, wrote some random stuff on a piece of paper and then accidentally smashed yourself into a door." Luciano departed from the door and walked into the living room. "You also opened up your stitches."
"Fuck. And you fixed me?"
"Yes but don't do it again."
"I'll try but-"
"Don't. Do it. Again." Luciano repeated slowly, a weight of importance in his words. Jamie raised an eyebrow. Luciano sighed. "I know how to sew stitches but that doesn't mean I should. I'm pretty sure my medical licence has expired and medschool isn't as fun as it sounds."
"Economic inflation or the toll of becoming a doctor?"
"Yes." Ah, so both. Jamie got his head off of the couch and started rubbing his eyes. "That and you shouldn't keep opening up wounds. It's gonna scar or infect and you don't exactly have the possibility of visiting a doctor for that. You've got to take care of your body more."
"I know, I know-"
"Do you?"
Jamie stopped and dropped his arm on his chest.
"...No. I don't think I've ever valued my life enough to take superfluous care of it."
"Well today is a good day to start." Luciano said and threw a large towel at him. "Considering that you've been running around the country for two weeks with no hygienic care, you smell of the sewer, sweat and a dead carcass. Go shower, then we'll pack and hit the road."
"Shower- I don't have any spare clothes- wait what do you mean we'll pack? I'm not gonna bring you with me into this hellhole!" Jamie jumped off the couch.
"Which is exactly why I'm coming along. You've gotten ridiculously injured over the course of time and now that S'rik has apparently decided to move after a millennia, this is my business as much as it is yours. Nor to mention you're a teenager going on a potentially life threatening trip to stop an intergalactic war."
"But-"
"No buts! Now off to the bathroom with you, you smell like hell." Luciano said as he pointed in the general direction of what was probably the bathroom. "And as for clothes I think I might have something lying around in the attic."
"Why do you have clothes in the attic?"
"I sew."
"Why?"
"Why not?" Luciano then crossed his arms in a way his mother would when she saw Jamie do something bad. "Shower, now."
Jamie groaned and went off to the hallway.
"But the cast will get wet-" Jamie raised his right arm while the left held the towel.
"It needs new bandages and a new coat of ointment anyway." Rebutted Luciano, not even the least amused.
"The stitches-"
"As long as you don't drown your forehead in water it should be fine. Your cheeks are almost caked in dirt so as long as you use a shower cap it should be fine."
"But my hair."
"I'll wash it in the sink." Luciano finally sighed. "And we might need to dye it too."
That made Jamie confused.
"You're on the run from the government and the police is looking for you as a lost child. You'll get caught without a disguise and clothes only do so much."
"No, I mean as in- do I..." Jamie fiddled around with his fingers. "Do I get to choose the colors?"
Luciano stopped, looked at him and sighed. It was a tired but affectionate sigh. He ruffled Jamie's hair.
"Sure. But nothing too crazy, we're on the run. Now go, you look like a rat and you smell like one too."
"Hey!"