AN: Honestly the high-grade thing you´re about to read here was supposed to be only Doomsday´s problem until I made Maker culture a bit more depressing bellow the surface and threw it in there for the mix. FYI I am not an expert in addiction and do not claim to have a lot of medical knowledge.
Ratchet wandered into the control room with a rare smile. Mayhem and Silverbot had went out earlier to stretch their wings, Arcee and Bulkhead were on patrol and Bumblebee and Radical hadn´t left the younger bot´s berthroom in favor of playing videogames. While he could not account for the older Maker´s whereabouts they were doing whatever they pleased quietly and he appreciated it.
The medbot hadn´t expected, however, to see his old friend looking downcast and sulking about, for lack of a better term. "Optimus, why so glum? This planet, all planets, are finally free from Megatron´s tyranny." There was one less evil to deal with in the Universe, shouldn´t they be glad for that?
"I do not disagree, Ratchet. It´s just… a small part of me hoped to change Megatron´s mind, not extinguish his spark." The Autobot leader shook his helm, disappointed at his inability to have saved the mech that he once had called his friend. They´d walked side-by-side for long before the ex-gladiator´s demands for power made him show his true colors.
"Optimus! His vileness was not slain by your hand, but by his own twisted arrogance." The prime let out a grave sigh at his friend´s words and the medbot quickly tried to contain the damage. "I´m sorry, I know the two of you had quite a history."
"But the Megatron I once fought beside perished eons ago the day he chose to become a Decepticon." The Prime turned to face Ratchet. "The Decepticons may be at a disarray but they are not without leadership and while Starscream is no Megatron he is far from predictable."
Just as Optimus finished his words a loud was heard followed by the sound of metal parts falling to the floor.
"Decepticons!" Exclaimed Ratchet.
Startled, both ran towards the source of the noise, weapons ready to be drawn at first sight of the enemy but, fortunately, that was not the case. They only saw Doomsday, the femme sitting down with a large crate turned over on the floor and several metallic parts scattered around her they let out a breath of relief.
With a snarl the Forget looked up at the Autobots. Interruptions were not going to be tolerated if she wanted to get over with her task as fast as possible. "Not Decepticons, you burnout! I´m gonna assemble our high-grade refiner/dispenser. We had to take it apart to move it safely and since he have none left I need to rebuild it ASAP before we lose our minds."
"You are not-" Ratchet paused what he was saying when he fully processed the Maker´s words. "Wait! Burnout?! I´ll have you know my ranking did not come from idle chit-chat during the war and I´m still very capable of landing a blow on your helm!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Doomsday waved a servo in dismissal and went back to her project. "Now could I do this in peace, please? I´m on a schedule here, people."
"Doomsday, I´m sorry to inform you but I cannot sanction the refinement of our already low energon reserves for recreational purposes." Optimus explained.
Ever since the war had begun any and all energon resources had to be accounted for and kept from being used for more than fueling Cybertronians and their machines. Where once there had been a plethora of cuisine involving several materials now stood the energon cube, easy to transport and fuel efficient. High-grade was akin to human alcohol in the sense it had the effect of inebriating anyone who drank enough of it and a drunk bot was a dead bot in the battlefield, so all refinement to that point was discontinued.
The femme didn´t look up to meet the Autobot leader´s optics and instead chose to scour her memory on how to assemble her equipment. "Just ask the government for more, dim-spark." The lack of high-grade was getting to her, she was starting to curse more frequently and not just in her processor. It was of utmost importance to get some of the substance into her systems before Radical showed up and all her hard work suppressing that part of her would be lost.
"Were you not informed? The minute you moved in with us the humans stopped supplying your energon, you´ll have to scout to obtain it like we all have."
That got her to drop the welder she´d just picked up with a ´clang´. "What…?" It took only a few moments before full panic settled in her spark and Doomsday stood up to call for help. "FLARE! SOLUS SAVE US ALL, WE´RE DOOMED! I NEED YOU FLARE! PLEASE!"
The seeker in question came literally flying from down the hall and when she transformed Solarflare had to steady her spark before taking a look around only to take in the calm environment. They weren´t being attacked, there was no natural disaster, nobody had come in injured, so why had the Forger yelled? It was already bad enough she was beginning to feel the withdrawal approach and now that had just sped up her condition.
With an exasperated grunt Solarflare let her wings drop and relaxed her posture. "Dammit, you know what I´m like at the moment. If you made me fly all the way here worried about nothing I´m going to-"
Doomsday put her hands on her friend´s shoulders and shook her erratically. "We can´t refine high-grade! Why didn´t you tell us the big guys stopped supplying us?!"
"What? No they didn´t." She slapped the Forger´s servos off of her.
"I´m afraid so." Optimus cut in on the Maker´s talk. "I was under the impression you´d been told."
"No. I mean, he said he´d cut us off if we didn´t move but… Oh, no. This is bad." Solarflare composed herself and slowly put her servos on either side of Doomsday´s helm. "Deep breaths. You can do this." The previously panicked femme followed the advice and managed to calm down. "That´s it, you´re doing great. Feeling better?"
Doomsday smiled anxiously and nodded. "Yeah. I mean… yeah. Just…. I´m not looking forward to what happens next. I guess it´s fate´s way of telling us we´ve put this off for long enough."
Ratchet had grown increasingly tired of watching the back-and-forth with no understanding of what was going on. He did recall Makers were renowned for the amount of high-grade they both produced and consumed. "I cannot see what all this drama is for. So, you have a source of entertainment cut off, use that time to go out on patrol or do something more productive."
"You have no idea, do you? Makers consume high amounts of high-grade for a reason. Well, several, depending on who you´re referring to."
"Solarflare, I think you better explain this in further detail." Optimus did not have more than a basic grasp on Maker culture. Throughout his life he´d always avoided any type of situation involving any bot belonging to that faction and even when Megatronus had suggested they appeal to them he´d voiced his concerns. He looked back on his younger mind with some embarrassment after having met Solarflare and her team but he still held some reservations…
"You want details? To escape the reality of our situation, and suppress a few memories in some cases, a lot of Makers resorted to regular doses of high-grade to maintain a, let´s call it, positive outlook on life. As long as there´s a certain percentage of it circulating in our systems we´re fine, but if there´s a crash we´ll go through a withdrawal period until we go back to a normal state where high-grade is no longer necessary. I regularly drowned myself in that stuff after Victory passed just to keep the grief from knocking me into stasis, it helped me stay positive until I was over it, but then there was so much of it I never kicked the habit and I have no idea why I´m telling you this oh Solus I´m going into withdrawal faster than I expected." Solarflare hid behind her servos, ashamed the Autobots were witnessing a very low moment for her.
Doomsday, having become the calmer one, took it from there. "What she´s trying to say is that I´ll curse like no tomorrow, Airachnid is going to try to bed anything that moves and she´ll get super truthful. Also, there may be wild ups and downs to our emotional state. Getting clean will be a slag-sucking ordeal like a glitch."
The Forger had started drinking long ago in her youth. At first it was merely for entertainment, a fun way to kill some time between commissions, but as time went on the more reasons kept her from stopping. Her source of entertainment became her escape from reality and soon enough she couldn´t maintain her trademark cheerful mood without some of that sweet poison running though her system. It had been hard to admit that if she´d never raised Radical she´d probably have had spent the rest of her lifecycle going through spare parts and wouldn't have cut back to a mere fraction of what she used to consume.
"That is… highly unusual." Optimus was still at a loss of words but as a leader he needed to be able to deal with any situation, substance addiction included. "But none the less you shall have pull through, we cannot allow the improper use of the energon we acquire."
"Well, then I´ll be seeing you at a later date." Airachnid fell down from the ceiling to land behind her friends. "I don´t know about these two but I´m locking myself in my berthroom until this is over. I´ve got repressed memories from an old, let´s call him friend, and of another older more-than-a-friend friend and I need to deal with them alone." She then smirked and winked at Ratchet. "Unless someone would like to help me."
A disturbed shiver went through the medbot´s back strut. "Not in this or any other lifetime."
The spider-femme shrugged, already expecting the reply. "Suit yourself." Interfacing had become her escape after the accident but she´d pull through without it. Any amount of emotional pain would pale in comparison to when he had rejected her Maker nature.
Doomsday approached Optimus and made a motion for him to kneel down to her height which he gladly complied. "Tell Bumblebee to watch over Rad until I feel better, will you? I really don´t want to swear in front of him. I did enough of that in the past already." She asked with an embarrassed smile.
"I shall." The Prime was glad to see even though they were becoming agitated the sense of responsibility was still there although he chose not to further the thoughts about the sparkling knowing unsavory language, even if he´d already heard some of it.
The Forger suddenly narrowed her optics and grabbed the Autobot by the windshield on his chest. "Good, because if by the time I come out something happened to the light of my world that fragging wingnut will be missing some bearings before he can say anything. You too, by the way." In an instant she was smiling shyly once more. "Now, if you´ll excuse me this glitch has suppressed emotional issues to deal with."
Airachnid took the cue to grab her friend´s arms and pull them along to their respective quarters. "Let´s go, the Prime is starting to look good and I don´t like that one bit."
Optimus and Ratchet were out of words by the time they watched the three Makers leave. They could have had an easy time believing Airachnid and Doomsday had past issues suppressed deep down with the help of high-grade and in need of being dealt with but Solarflare? The same femme who´d fought alongside them relentlessly against a hoard of Terrorcons with no faltering and deadly precision was being held together by an addiction that apparently plagued most Makers in existence.
"Optimus, please tell me what just happened?" Ratchet wished badly to erase the memories from his processor, in particular those of the purple and black spider.
"You just saw a part of mom no one´s seen in a loooong time." Mayhem´s voice echoed though the main room. Startled, the two Autobots looked at the smiling heavy-duty seeker as she waved while leaning against the exit hallway door. "Hi!" It was impressive how someone known for her impulsive nature was able to take a silent approach when putting in the effort.
Silverbot came from behind the wall and stood behind his sister with a nonchalant expression. "Don´t worry, they´ll be fine. I can´t tell you in how long but they´ll be fine." He´d seen Makers that cut down on their high-grade consumption and come out alright, exhausted both physically and mentally but always in one piece by the end of their experience. However none had completely purged the substance from their system but those three had survived though a lot, getting clean would be no problem… he hoped.
"I don´t know how they were fine before. You faction is crazier than I remembered." The medbot hoped the responsibility of putting them back together by the end of their self-imposed temporary exile would not fall onto him. Just Doomsday´s mods alone and Airachnid´s frame type would be nightmares to deal with.
"Well, when you only have a home with no chances of leaving your birth conditions imposed by a strict caste system you take what you can get. Intoxicated or not that femme raised both of us and we could have turned out worse."
A week had passed since the three femmes had retreated to their quarters without much happening. To the surprise of the Autobots everything had remained calm, one of the reasons why being that Radical had set up a Cybertronian-sized gaming system in one of the corners of the main room so Mayhem was kept fairly entertained and did not cause mischief when she wasn't outside on patrol.
Having been shooed more times than he could count from both the gaming and control consoles Radical had settled for sitting on a crate while listening to one of Bumblebee´s many stories about the war. The scout was beeping animatedly and at certain times pointed his blasters at a non-existent enemy behind the sparkling as if it was actually there.
"Really? Then how do you make warrior class?" The smaller bot was thoroughly enjoying knowing more about the ward they´d all (thankfully) missed. More beeps answered his question but Radical got a little confused. "But you´re great out there, you´re awesome."
Bumblebee beeped in agreement and Optimus put a hand on his shoulder at that moment. "I second your opinion, Rad, but Autobot hierarchy is different from the one you´re used to and though it may be hard to believe our young scout still has much to experience."
An alarm went off at the console and Ratchet was quick to figure out the emergency "Exposed energon. And it´s on the move."
Bulkhead came closer. "And since we ain´t movin´ it, guess who must be."
"Decepticons." Arcee finished.
Roused from her fixation on the 2D fighting game Mayhem took an interest in the event as well. She dropped her remote and leaned over both Cybertronians. "Without Megatron?"
"Unfortunately Megatron´s legacy will live on, as other rise to take his place." Optimus knew that with Starscream at the forefront of the Decepticon cause they would get no more rest than with Megatron. "Autobots, you remain behind. Ratchet, I may require aid."
"And leave them unsupervised? I´m sorry but unless it´s critical I will remain behind." The medbot did not fancy leaving his equipment close to the ´splash zone´ in case something went wrong and with more than one bot capable of creating unintentional serious damage
"Oh, pick me! Pick me!" Mayhem jumped from one pede to the other and waved her arm in the air with a huge smile. If she couldn't barge her way into a mission she´d just have to get picked then.
Optimus calmly nodded to the excited seeker. "Very well. Bumblebee, Mayhem, let us see about this energon in transit."
"For real?! Yay! I get to go on a real mission! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
The Autobot leader hoped she´d do well on the mission. He could use a heavy-hitter if there were a Decepticon attack and according to Bulkhead she´d held her ground without a problem when storming the Nemesis. The Prime had also paid attention at the spacebridge and it was obvious the seeker had some training resembling a mixture of various styles, he´d even spotted some cyber-ninja as well.
Soon after the three bots disappeared into the groundbridge with a ´see you later´ and a thumbs up from Mayhem. It was her time to shine and show that even without her Carrier around she could behave and act according to her age.
"Aren´t you going to complain?" Arcee turned to Silverbot, who was taking a seat on the ground in front of the gaming console next to Radical.
"What for? Megatron´s gone, she can handle herself." He picked up the biggest remote and motioned for the smaller bot next to him to select his character. "Ready to dance, Rad?"