So, I was meant to post this ages ago, but life got in the way and I, kinda forgot? So I've actually finished writing chapter 59 as well, so I'm gonna post this today, and 55 either later today or tomorrow!
Sorry about that! Hope you enjoy regardless!
Les Gens Que J'aime, Barcelona
"-And that is why you do not, stick your hand into a toilet in Malaysia." Kia remarked, finishing off a tale that had the rest of those sitting at the private booth howling, half finished cocktails lining the table.
Barricade shook his head, patting Kia on the shoulder in good nature while Mikaela and Bumblebee leaned on each other for support as both tried to avoid busting a gut.
Kia chuckled herself, running her hand through her hair. "And that is why Ivan only has twelve confirmed kids in Malaysia, he got the fuck out of there after that snake bit him."
Mikaela whistled. "Every time you talk about this Ivan guy, it astounds me… like… holy shit that's a lot of... escapades?"
Again Kia chuckled. "Yeah, it still baffles me and I grew up with him as my primary bodyguard… Ma ma made sure I didn't know about them until I was old enough." She chuckled at that. "By which I mean age thirteen when one of his nightly conquests stumbled into the living room hungover and asked which way the exit was. Pretty sure Aria and Wren nearly choked on their toast."
Mikaela looked at her confused. "What were they doing there?"
Kia huffed. "Sleepover, we've been friends since I was six and they were five, Ira joined us when she was fourteen."
"Huh… cool… so… um…" She paused, rubbing at her throat, a nervous tick she'd developed.
Realising Mikaela couldn't think of anything to lead off that, she spoke again. "How's your throat Miki? No shadow pains I hope?" She asked, rubbing her own choker covered neck.
Mikaela shook her head. "No no, well, a bit when I wake up in the middle of the night… Sometimes I still get nightmares about it…" She admitted. "Which is weird cause I don't really remember it much… the concussion and all…"
Kia and Barricade both nodded, while Bumblebee took her hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the back as she leant into his shoulder.
"Hmm… not much I can really offer help wise with that… trauma isn't something with a magical off switch… that I could provide" Kia remarked gently.
Bumblebee spoke up then. "She's getting better, so long as she never has to see… him again, she should be fine." He said this while shifting to put his arm around her, holding her close to his side.
Barricade sent his son a small smile at that. "That's true kid... " He trailed off, moving to take another drink from his cocktail.
Mikaela looked at Kia then. "Hey Kia? Forgive me if I'm being a bit forward, but, when you were asking me about my scar… you rubbed your own choker…" She made a motion on her own neck over the area. "Are… are you talking from experience?"
There was a silence that filled the air after Mikaela's question, Kia made a face somewhere between a grimace and contemplation.
With a sigh she reached up to the back of her neck with both hands, and undid the clasp that held the choker in place, pulling it away.
What was revealed was a deep, jagged scar, the outside of which was dotted with stretched spots of scar tissue, two of her fingers went to brush it before she paused. "It's an… unpleasant memory… but I feel like I might as well tell the story..." She remarked.
The other three at the table all leaned in, Barricade in particular, as he was closer and able to get a good look at it. "That's a horrible cut…" He muttered. "Looks like someone used one of those bread knives you have in the kitchen."
Kia huffed. "Good eye, it was a bread knife."
They all gave her a shocked look at that, causing her to chuckle as she put her choker back in place. "I wear this so people don't stare… now… allow me to set the scene..."
They gave her their undivided attention.
"It was a few years back… it was a big day… a really big… day… the day before the twins would be getting married."
If one listened close enough they could have heard the collective record scratch that happened in all of their heads.
"What?!" Mikaela exclaimed.
"Those two are married?!" Bumblebee exclaimed.
"Well slag... " Barricade muttered.
Kia raised her hand for quiet. "The wedding never happened… Because the groom… tried to murder them, myself, and Ira… The only reason we're all still alive is Ira woke up to the sound of my throat being slit and she kicked the twins in the face hard enough to wake them up."
"The groom? … Wait…" She rubbed her throat. "Don't tell me the groom was…"
"My brother? Yeah… it was supposed to be a marriage to unify the Orichiono' family with the Estrada… A marriage of convenience more than one about love… everything had been going well, our hen night had happened without even someone trying to poison us! But apparently the stag do… hadn't been so… clean… in fact it had gone… horribly wrong… Fernando did something… something he knew the twins wouldn't hesitate to kill him for… so… he decided to kill them first… and because we'd all passed out on this one big bed together after the party… he decided to kill me first… I was closest to the door..." She trailed off and rubbed her throat. "I'm speaking from what others told me… I don't remember much because of the blood loss, Ira managed to hold my throat shut until doctors arrived a minute or so later, and the twins chased him out of the house with a sword they pulled from the mantle of the room we were in." She rubbed across the fabric of the choker "They rushed to seal my throat back shut, by some miracle he hadn't gotten the chance to slit open my windpipe… otherwise I would have absolutely drowned in my own blood…"
Barricade reached over and gently rubbed her shoulder. Mikaela looked pale, as did Bumblebee.
"I owe Ira my life… if she wasn't such a light sleeper, we'd all likely of died that night…" She shook her head. "Fernando escaped, he managed to double around the twins and smashed a vase on their head… I remember waking up in a hospital room with the twins in the other bed, they said in the most deadpan way Wren could while pumped full of enough morphine to kill an elephant, that the wedding was off, and then passed back out and slept for four solid days."
"And that's why you all still sleep together now?" Mikaela asked gently, remembering all the times she'd been at her boss' villa early in the morning and had seen Aria in the kitchen, Wren reading that tablet of hers, and Ira stumbling about freshly awake and muttering about how she wanted to punch the sun.
Kia nodded. "Yeah… we were all… sufficiently traumatised after that… Ira in particular is just not mentally able to sleep alone." She explained. "Considering the last time she slept alone in a bed was before she and her fiance became intimate... " She trailed off. "God I miss the old days…" She leant back into the plush seating, grabbed up her cocktail and took a small sip. "Before all the bullshit happened… The getting sent here is another set of bullshit entirely I should probably say…" She remarked flippantly while rubbing at her forehead with her free hand.
Barricade hummed, and decided to take it upon himself to change the subject. "So, Bee, you looking forward to seeing your older sister again? Heard from Ratchet that Red Alert was one of the bots to arrive." He enquired, he'd done his best not to intrude on his sons other family, but he couldn't help but feel a bit curious.
Bumblebee gave him a confused look before it seemed to dawn on him. "Sister? Oh! No… Red's a mech now, he decided to make the change when he became an adult…" Bumblebee explained.
Barricade nodded. "Ah, I'll be sure to remember it, so, looking forwards to seeing your older brother?"
Bumblebee smiled. "Of course! I asked Ratchet and Ironhide not to tell Red I've got my pipes back, wanna surprise him!" He exclaimed happily, glancing at Kia for a moment to send the woman another look of thanks, he'd developed the habit of that ever since she used the Allspark to make him a new set, he didn't quite sound like he used to, but it was close enough for him to be happy with it.
Mikaela smiled and hugged his arm. "I can't wait to see their reaction…" She trailed off. "Is it rude of me to ask... but I'm curious… how does a Cybertronian go from being a mech… to a femme?"
Barricade and Bumblebee alike looked confused, Kia spoke up. "It's called being transgender in human terms Miki, for humans it requires drastic surgery, for Cybertronians, it's honestly more cosmetic… given that mechs and femmes all have both sets of parts. Cybertronians are Hermathrodytes, gender for them is much more fluid as a result, most fit into the categories of mech or femme, but there's also others that slot somewhere between… think Derrick as an example, he identifies as male, but also likes to display more feminine traits." She explained.
Mikaela looked surprised, then turned bright pink. "Oh… Ratchet tell you that?"
Kia nodded. "Yeah, he finds comparing our societies quite fascinating, and he needed me to help him understand why humans only have either a cock or a vagina. It led to… gods that conversation took hours…" She trailed off with a chuckle. "When he got to the bit in the text book he was reading on the menstrual cycle he had to double check that with me if it was a fatal affliction or not."
Mikaela's eyebrows shot up. "No wonder he had pads in his murse when I got my period early that one time!"
Kia nodded. "Yeah pretty much… He likes to be prepared and wanted to be sure he'd be able to support you if you were caught unawares."
Mikaela processed that for a bit then smiled. "As gruff and serious as Ratchet is, he's kind of goofy you know?"
That got a round of huffed chuckles from everyone. "Well, Ratchet was once a young bot, once upon a time in eons passed." Barricade joked.
Mikaela played along. "You mean there was a time when Ratchet wasn't a grouch?!"
Again Barricade laughed. "Believe it or not, yes! Though I never got to know him at that time of his life, Dust used to regale me with stories from her time training him..." He chuckled. "There was this one time she came to me with the biggest grin on her faceplates and announced she'd gotten him to finally admit his feelings for Ironhide… She kept that smug smile on her face outside of surgery for over an orn!"
Bumblebee had leaned in to listen intently before Dust's designation was even mentioned, and only leaned in further when it was. "Can you tell us?" He asked.
Barricade sent his son a soft smile and chuckled. "Another time maybe… it's getting late and you two have to work tomorrow." He reminded.
Mikaela pulled out her phone and checked it. "He's right Bee, it's already past 11pm, we need to get back to the apartment." She announced, reaching to her side to pick up her purse, then glancing to the amassed drinks on the table.
Kia waver her off. "I'm paying the bill for this hon, you two get home safe and have a good night."
Mikaela and Bumblebee both nodded their thanks.
"Night dad." Bumblebee said to Barricade, who smiled and nodded. "Night son, look out for hooligans on the road, you have my permission to mop the asphalt with them."
The blonde holoform chuckled and shook his head. "I'll remember that." And with that he wrapped his arm around Mikaela's waist and the two walked away, heading for Bumblebee's altmode that was parked out on the street.
Barricade leaned back into the booth. "So… those two are getting intimate?" He muttered to himself.
Kia kicked his shin. "Hush, her last boyfriend wasn't good for her, it went too fast for her, this time, she's doing it at her pace." She remarked. "I remember seeing that as a note on her file…" She added.
Barricade sent her a look, not really caring about the kick, he did deserve it. "Anyway… who's the mark tonight?"
Kia shook her head. "No mark, just wanted to take those two out for a nice drink, and you as well of course."
Barricade hummed. "There a dance floor somewhere I missed here?"
She gave him a confused look. "You want to dance?"
He shrugged. "We haven't danced in a while… you're a good partner." He added, glancing around past the booth more.
Kia couldn't help the small smile that formed on the side of her lips at that. "Oh? Well thank you for the compliment… But no… there isn't a dance floor here, I'll pick somewhere with one next time."
He nodded and took another sip from his drink. "So… as we're here, and there's no one else about, anything you want to talk about?" He asked, regarding her as she took another drink herself.
"...I miss being human… the holoforms are advanced enough thanks to Prowl, we can technically get drunk if we want to… and our senses are much more accurate… but… there's no thrill to live with these…" She finally answered, setting down the drink so she could poke at the fake skin of her holoform. "There's no danger in us going out and getting the marks the twins give us… there's no adrenaline rush to get the heart going…"
He listened to her intently, pondering over the words. "And because everything has been so quiet lately… I mean, you weren't even part of the fight at the Cosmopolitan… you and the twins just had a quick brawl with your brother to get Mikaela… you haven't had that rush since before you got to this earth… Primus no wonder you four are so antsy on quiet cycles…" He remarked, the facts clicking together.
Kia hummed and slumped further into the plush booth. "No joking… I swear I've woken up in the middle of the night to find the twins pacing the room like some caged animal before… I just pretend I'm still asleep… because fuck there's something… something unatural about them when they do that…" She shook her head. "Not really a surprise though… they've been like that since they were kids… guess it's a mentality they developed growing up, pacing their territory to feel safe or something…"
Barricade hummed. "So… you're all missing the adrenaline high… have you considered getting it from a different source other than life or death situations?" He asked.
Kia snorted. "What? Like fucking? Never really been my thing… being infertile and all… not many even bothered with a second look…" She grumbled.
He regarded her with a confused look. "Were they blind?!"
Kia snorted. "No, they had X-ray vision, saw right through all my looks and went right to the lack of reproductives… back home… it was on your public record if you had a physical mutation, and what that mutation was… and by universal law, they had to be public… when people looked at me, the tag of 'completely infertile' hung over my head… The twins were sexually active for a time, but they apparently got bored of all the fools trying to marry into the Orichiono family… like… those ones were absolutely blind. No Orichiono has lived past what? Forty five? In the last four centuries? And that includes those who marry into it, the whole family is cursed… Wren's words, not mine." She chuckled. "They're still pretty certain they'll croak sometime around 45, Cybertronian or not…"
Barricade listened intently. "So… what you're saying is, no one took a chance on you, and you've as a result never really bothered to even consider being intimate?" He asked, a part of him was starting to put the pieces together inside of his helm that lead to something, but he ignored it, for now, it was starting to get persistent the longer he spent in Kia's company.
Kia shrugged. "More or less, if I can be completely honest? I lived through Ira vicariously for a time… when she and her fiance were still happy together… neither of them had a black mark mutation like me… and I could pretend I was like Ira… happy and in love despite just how to shit our world was… when reality slapped us in the collective face though… it broke the charade… and well… I haven't really thought about it since…" She finished off with a shrug before taking another sip of her drink.
Barricade followed her lead, taking another drink himself. "Can I be bold for a moment?" He asked.
She shrugged again and nodded. "Go ahead, hit me with it."
"... I would like to be intimate with you." He got out, and almost instantly regretted his word choice.
After a few moments she set her drink down. "I think we've drank enough, come on, I'm going to go pay the tab…"
He watched her go, and took a moment to slump and put his head in his hands. "Stupid… stupid… stupid…" He growled out.
Now?! Now of all times was when he decided to make a move?
To say he was out of practice in this was a staggeringly massive understatement!
"'I would like to be intimate with you?' What kind of scrap was that?! I sounded like one of those formal glitches she complains about trying to 'kiss her ass'!" He gritted out into his palms.
After a few minutes of self depreciation, he heard Kia call for him from the floor below, apparently the tab was now paid.
He got himself up and, while he didn't sulk to the stairs, he certainly didn't have a spring in his step, he pulled at the tie still tied around his neck loose, suddenly annoyed at how tight it was.
Kia was waiting for him at the exit, and stepped out right before he did. "Let's walk for a bit…" She remarked, looking to Winston who was just getting out of a white SUV to open the rear doors for them, the man looked up at Kia's statement and simply got back into the car's driver seat to wait.
Barricade followed her as she walked away from the bar, a few turns later and she had stepped into a dimly lit alley way.
Quite suddenly the front of his jacket was grabbed by two hands and he was yanked in. In his moment of sheer surprise he didn't even really process that his back had hit a wall until he was staring into Kia's golden eyes.
"Ki-!" He was cut off by lips landing firmly on his.
After a moment he realised what was happening, and acted himself, his hands moving to hold onto her waist as he pulled her flush against him, a distant point in his processor pondered over how much easier holoform flesh slotted together…
Her lips pulled away before he could properly reciprocate the kiss, a hand moved from his jacket to pull further at the tie around his neck, and then the first button of his under shirt was undone by skilled fingers.
There was a look in her gaze he couldn't quite place, but he could tell there was lust somewhere in the mix.
"You sure you want to keep that offer on the table Cade?" Her tone was low, challenging.
Her front was pressed firmly against his, and for a moment his entire processor stalled out as he took in her face.
Suddenly he was struck by the realisation that it wasn't just her actual form he'd gained a certain type of appreciation for…
Her holoform, that replica of what she'd looked like as a human, the piece that she herself claimed was her and the other three's last real link to their old lives, even this he felt an attraction to.
It wasn't love… not the kind of love he knew at least…
It was an appreciation, and an affection for her.
One that didn't stop between her forms.
"I think I'm more set on the offer now… if I'm being honest…" He trailed off, still somewhat surprised she was even willing to consider it.
She smiled at him then. "Good…" She answered. "Now, let's get out of this place and back to the Villa… I need a shower…" She leaned up and pecked him on the cheek. "Let's take a page out of Miki's book and go slow from here, okay?"
He gave a slow nod. "Yeah… yeah okay… shower first…" He mumbled, once more following her back out, trying to straighten up his tie somewhat before they came back in sight of Winston, considering her actions, he figured Kia wanted to keep this quiet for now at least, and he could respect that.
It was hardly the first thing he respected about her…
Kia paused suddenly, the road was surprisingly empty as she turned back to face him. "I have to ask… really quick… You're last partner… I know she died suddenly a long time ago… are you really ready to move on?"
He pondered that, looking back over his own musings of the same question in recent months. "I still love her… but there's room in my spark to want to try this with you… see where it goes… I think I'm ready to move on."
She gave him a small nod of affirmation at that. "Good… lets get home…"
Decepticon Base Germany
Starscream snarled, slamming his servo into the table.
The body strewn across it bounced for a moment, before dropping back to the ground, its exposed internals jiggling despite how many pins he'd put into them to keep them in place.
The damn blasted human had died on him. In the middle of the surgery!
Scalpel, who'd had the foresight to grip the berth tutted. "Zuch ah vaste…" He quipped, quickly grabbing out the replacement organ they had been working on, it was such an annoyance such a vital artery was needed, and the procedure so delicate and slow to achieve, the lab rats kept bleeding out or dying from the shock before they could even finish attaching it.
Starscream wasted no more time grabbing up the useless corpse and ripped it off the table, innards and blood spraying across the already mess covered surface, and pelted it at the adjacent wall, where it struck with a now familiar wet slap before it slowly slid down the wall to join the pile the local scavengers and insect pests were treating like a feast.
The other humans he'd yet to pluck out from their cages were all just watching him with their hollow gazes, the damn things had done nothing since they were muted, and the few dozen sets of eyes left were starting to feel like they were crawling under his plating.
He spun around again and snarled at all of them. "STOP STARING YOU SLAGGING FILTH!" He roared.
They all turned away and looked at each other instead.
Snorting out a vent he turned back to the table, his wings hiking up when he realised someone was leaning on the door frame to his lab, a certain slagging Harpy who was unfortunately too stubbornly useful to just shoot full of holes when he was so needed.
Fernando had that same smirk as always seemed to be stuck on his face. "My my… do you treat your lovers like that too?" He remarked. "Kinky~."
The Seeker sputtered for a moment as he processed just what that slagging excuse for a mech had just remarked, Scalpel had the processor about him not to comment in the slightest.
Leaving Starscream to snarl at the Harpy. "Spit it out. Your reason for bothering me in my lab. Now."
Fernando chuckled and flared out his wings like someone putting their servos up in a placating manor. "Just thought I'd come by and see if you needed me to do another run… you've got what? Fifteen left?" He remarked, making a rough guess without bothering to actually look at the cages, all those hollow eyes… a shudder went through him for a moment. "These ones are all creepy now… I hate that look of acceptance..."
Starscream looked over to the remaining few. "You do not like the acceptance of their demise?"
Fernando shook his head. "No… no it means there's no reason to kill them. That would be giving them what they want… they ruin the fun of it."
Starscream huffed. "We're not supposed to be having fun… we're supposed to be finding a renewable source of that energon your frame naturally produces."
Fernando hummed. "Because I don't produce enough on my own to support even one of you bastards?"
Starscream grimaced. "Unfortunately. Your use is in your unique anatomy…"
"And…?"
"And your greater concept of how this planet works…"
"Damn right, you bunch of Pera's are so fucking trigger happy it's a miracle you don't have the planets militaries picking you apart for their own uses." Fernando remarked, swaying from side to side. "Remember~ They knew how to keep Megatron on ice for over a Century~" He reminded.
Starscream snarled. "I thought I told you never to speak that back stabbing no good -"
"'Half witted aft sucking pit spawned excuse for a deformed glitch hounds runt?' Am I remembering that right?" Fernando cut in, using a high pitched mockery of Starscreams tone to do so.
Sparks flew from Starscream's gritted denta. "Yes… that…"
Fernando hummed, tapping his lower visible jaw with the hooked joint of his wing strut. "I'm not surprised Orichiono was able to sink their talons into him…"
Starcream perked up. "You believe it was the former humans who swayed Megatron? Do not give me good reason to laugh." Starscream remarked.
Suddenly he was pinned by a partially unseen expression that held the now unofficial ruler of the Decepticons in place.
"There is nothing to laugh about. Why do you think I have been convincing you not to engage them directly? Why I advised you to take hostages instead of fire bombing the Cosmopolitan?"
Starscream pondered that for a time and came up with nothing. "Do tell. What is it that makes them so… worthy of your fear?"
Fernando answered first with a low chuckle and shake of his helm. "They are ruthless. But they have a weakness within their trauma. They are hard wired to try and grow the circle of those they intrust themselves to. And when they are deemed safe and good for them, they will do anything to maintain them. Taking valuable hostages would have locked them in place, they wouldn't have even moved. It worked for a few moments, when I had the one called Mikaela, but they had expected me to take a hostage, they would not have been prepared for all of you taking hostages."
Starscream made a face. "That is not a reason to fear them, that is an exploit…"
Fernando raised his wing to speak. "I was laying down a ground work for how they work. I was once one of the ones they held so close. Megatron saw the value in their fierce loyalties, and decided he was better off swallowing his pride and unifying with the Autobots, so as to not earn their ire… I suppose the reason being, that he saw what they are truly capable…" He paused for a time, for the dramatic effect of course. "For you see Starscream… The Orichiono… was never human. I had the misfortune of discovering that myself…"
Starscream paused and glanced to Scalpel, who had been perched on the table watching the conversation with rapt attention, the tiny doctor looked just as perplexed as his features allowed. "What?" Starscream enquired.
A shudder went through Fernando then. "It is not a human that has become a Harpy… it is something else… something that contented itself to masquerade as a human… but the moment it is crossed, it is enraged past its own control… its true horror is revealed… I was lucky to escape alive… for I had seen the faces, the gaunt empty faces that screamed a single silent thing. 'Run'. They chanted it at me. I thought I knew better. I struck, intending to slay the thing and those it had bound tightest to itself… but I failed… and I saw the true breadth of what it was… They were never Arien… they were a monster… a harvester of the dead… a soul reaper…"
A long silence filled the room, even the humans, so content to accept their deaths looked scared.
Fernando took a step closer to Starscream. "You cannot kill something that has never been alive. You can only make it freeze in place for a time. For it will outlast you… It will wait for the moment you let your guard down, and it will strike. I am alive now because of a pact they made to let me live until my mother was buried six feet under… That is the only reason I am not just another empty screaming face trying to break free from it…"
He stepped forwards again.
"It is death incarnate Starscream… have you found a way to truly cheat death forever? How do you do that... When the spectre of death itself holds the Allspark in its clutches?"
A cold chill went through his spinal strut then. "Megatron has allied himself not with the Autobots… but with Death… itself…" He trailed off, looking away as his optics went wide with the realisation. "This does not leave this room… this would devastate the already diminished moral after Barricade's passing…" He remarked.
Scalpel spoke up then. "Vhy vould death itzelf want to pretend to be a human?" He asked.
Fernando pondered that for a time. "The thrill of being discovered… that sadistic grin when they realised I knew… when I realised what they were… when the mask fell away... what they said… 'There is no where you can run, we will always be right behind you~. For you will always cast a shadow. Until the light will never hit you again.'" He shuddered again. "You see now why I wanted you to listen to me? You cannot fight something like that with explosions or brute strength… and you must always fight them when there are those they care about present… they will pretend to be mortal to maintain the ruse…"
Starscream turned to Scalpel for a moment, then back to Fernando. "Why tell us this only now?"
Fernando shrugged, his previously scared countenance morphing into something deranged. "So I could see you come to terms with your own delicate mortality~" He taunted.
Starscream snarled and pointed past Fernando. "Begone from my sight you slag stain! Occupy yourself with your human hunts!"
Fernando grinned and chuckled, giving the Seeker a mock salute with his wing. "Sure thing Screamy! And remember! The only reason you're both still alive is because you aren't making yourself a thorn in their side!"
With that, he sauntered off into the darkness of the rest of the base, likely to go drag Bonecrusher into being his human transporter again.
Starscream again snarled, and took the time to sheer his claws through a chunk of his work table. "That vile deluded piece of scrap…"
Scalpel hummed. "Ja deluded piece of scrap zhat haz an immunity ve do not… Best to keep him around az ah shield no?"
Starscream sighed and nodded. "We will have to… and we will have to hope that the Decepticon forces do not fall to Megatron's claims of a peaceful end to the war… hmm… we will have to see..."
Illinois, Indianapolis
They'd stopped for the night at a rather 'swanky' motel not far out of the city.
Two beds per room was the layout, so Elita-One and Arcee had ended up rooming together.
Arcee had just got done enjoying the quirks of a human washracks and the tiny bars of soap the motel provided, and came out with a towel wrapped around her middle and one wrapped around her soaked hair, she found Elita-One sitting on her bed, staring out the window. "'Lita? You okay?" The femme asked, moving to perch on her own plush berth.
Elita made a face. "Those vehicles that joined us… the escorts… who do you think they are?"
Arcee shrugged. "Hired staff of the humans we're going to be meeting in Europe?" Arcee put forwards, that was how Optimus had explained it to her after all.
Elita's expression stayed the same. "I know… but I'm worried… this is a big show of power… what kind of enemies do these allies have?" She asked.
Arcee shrugged. "Nothing we can't handle, Optimus explained it. The escorts are here to defend us if trouble does come, so we don't have to risk blowing our cover. It's not a show of power to us 'Lita, it's a way of us staying out of the eye of the planets governing bodies."
"But why are we hiding? Wouldn't it make sense to make ourselves known? So we can have their support?"
It was Arcee's turn to make a face. "'Lita… They're a young species, they only recently made it to their moon, and their history, short as it is, is filled with bloody wars… Can you blame Optimus for not wanting us to add to that history?" She asked, pulling the towel from her head down to cover her shoulders, revealing her currently messy pink hair.
Elita hummed, considering that. "You're right… he wouldn't want that to happen… but what if these allies tried to use us? To force themselves to become the definitive rulers of this world once they had enough of us?"
Arcee shrugged. "They're human too, and Optimus trusts them."
"Optimus is predisposed to trust until a bot literally stabs him in the back, his trust is too universal to really put our full faith into him." Elita-One admitted.
Arcee hummed. "He's two doors down, go talk to him, express your concerns yeah?" She offered.
Elita-One considered that for a moment before nodding. "Okay, I'll go try and talk to him… See if you can get this monitor to turn on, that remote thing is confusing." She pointed to said remote, that did indeed have a lot of buttons on it.
Arcee waved her off and picked up the remote. "How hard can one little remote be?" She remarked while Elita-One made her way to the door, grabbing up one of the two keycards that granted access to the room.
She'd barely closed the door behind her before she realised her target was out in the corridor too, sat down against the wall with that flip phone of his to his ear. "Oh you are cruel taunting me with such imagery…" He remarked.
Elita-One froze in place, realising he hadn't noticed her leave her and Arcee's room.
"Is everything ready to go? … Good good… Any word on Ira's recovery? … Ah, that's good, hopefully she heeds Ratchet's instructions not to overdo it…"
He sounded happy as he spoke to whoever it was on the other end of the call, she assumed it was one of the ones he'd spoken with last time.
"Raf and Annie are holding up well, they're looking forward to seeing you all again… uh huh… hmm… yes… oh that's not long after we're set to arrive… ah, you were invited? Well I hope you have… oh, oh you want me to come along too? Well I can hardly say no to such an invitation. Alright, I look forward to a pleasant outing with you then… Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be resting at this hour? Ah ah, don't act like both of you aren't tired. That's the fourth time you've yawned in the last minute… Okay good. Rest well you two." He pulled the phone away and ended the call, before flipping it shut.
Almost at once he looked up to regard Elita-One. "Terribly sorry, but it's a bit rude in human culture to try and have two conversations at once, are you alright?"
Elita-One moved to sit down against the wall next to him. "Yeah… just got a lot on my processor… how much can we trust these allies?" She asked, not wanting to beat around the topic and just get right to it.
"Hmm, how trustworthy… they are… for the most part trustworthy, their best interests lay in us all remaining peaceful and as their guests… but I will admit, some of their methods for keeping us safe and undetected are a bit… unethical…" He admitted, a sour expression on his features for a moment.
"Like what?" Elita-One probed.
"Hmm… their staff… one in particular used to be very antagonistic… shot Aria levels of antagonistic… but now he's completely docile and does transport work for them, getting materials and the like… it was like a switch flipped… he used to go by the name Jamerson, and now it's Max… they all change their names once they become employed…"
Elita-One hummed. "Do… do humans have shadowplay?"
Optimus balked at the suggestion. "Primus no! The closest they have is Hypnotism… and that seems to be more fictitious than fact." He explained. "But they are very persuasive… they likely managed to convince him to join them… the name change to make him harder to trace..." He pondered.
"To keep us all hard to find?"
Optimus nodded, letting out a soft sigh. "I don't like to think bad of them, they've done so much already… and their fate in this all only seems to bring them difficulties…" He seemed to hesitate then. "Did I tell you how we managed to get Megatronus back?" He asked.
Elita-One shook her holoforms head. "No… you haven't, I've been trying to figure out how you pulled him back from madness after all of this time…"
Optimus hummed. "It wasn't anything to do with me… it was Aria and Wren's doing…" And so began a long retelling of the events that had occurred months before, Elita-One knew he was omitting stuff from the retelling, but she figured he was leaving out the more technical details for the sake of brevity.
By the end she just had to sit there for a bit. "So… our hosts… are from another dimension? And Megatronus had his consciousness transferred there to splice into the cognitive space of those two? And now that they've been reunited here, he's gotten all calm again?!"
Optimus nodded. "Effectively yes, he feels happy with them, and he sees it as his duty to look after them as his senior, and considering we are allied with the two as well, that is where the peace treaty came from in affect."
Elita-One nodded, but then thought of something. "What if something were to happen to them? If they're human, don't they have a short life expectancy?"
"Oh… they're not human anymore, the jump across reality made them into techno-organic hybrids."
"Ah… I see… wait… WHAT?!" She suddenly exclaimed, Optimus reacted by clapping a hand over her mouth and shussing her.
"Sshh, there's humans in this place as well…" He reminded her, he didn't worry about humans overhearing their conversation if it was kept quiet, the doors to each wall were sufficiently to soundproof normal levels of talking, a shout, less so.
She nodded in understanding and he pulled his hand away. "Sorry if that was a bit harsh." He apologised.
She huffed. "I'm not made of spun silica Optimus." She returned.
He let out an amused hum. "True, true… but be assured, the treaty is not limited to a single human lifetime." He assured, before yawning. "I apologise but I'm going to return to the room now, I've left Wheeljack alone to his own devices long enough and I fear what he's already done to the kettle." He remarked, pushing himself up and moving to go back into his own room, the door wasn't even shut before the sound of something going technically wrong confirmed Optimus' prediction.
"Oh… Wheeljack… That's going on your bill..."
Elita-One couldn't help herself and snickered, getting back up herself and returning to her own room, where she found Arcee's attention glued to the screen.
A very buff human was looking at a human youngling on the screen. "Come with me if you want to live."
Arcee giggled. "Yes sir~"
Elita-One regarded her close friend with concern. "Cee…"
"What?! He's wielding a double servo shotgun in one servo! Tell me that isn't hot?!"
Elita-One chuckled and moved to sit next to her. "Fair enough, seeing as I'm now single, I can join you in the fawning."
Arcee let out a small, somewhat out of character giggle. "Apparently 'popcorn' goes really well with watching human media."
Elita-One hummed. "Tomorrow morning before we head out, let's go buy some."
Arcee grinned and held up a 'debit card'. "Wicked. Now shush." She ordered, putting her attention back on the film playing.
Elita-One huffed and ruffled her still drying hair for that.
So! That's all for now! Until maybe later today or tomorrow!
Take care!
Moon.
