Ended up on a roll with 66 and actually have the first scene of 67 already written up! So here's 62! Hope you enjoy lore and certain bots not being in a good mental place.
Everything was numb.
Their sparks throbbed endlessly, in tandem with the other.
HUD's that weren't their own flashed through the startup process.
They could barely focus on it, their processors felt like they'd been stuffed full of spun silica.
One of their optics flickered on first, just one, but they both saw the blinding walls of shining white metal, and lights, far too bright.
The optic snapped back shut as they both grimaced.
One of them groaned first, their vox spitting static as brand new systems tried to function.
It didn't sound right.
It was… wrong…
Memories were incredibly hazy, their memory banks only just starting to store things, those few moments of bright light the first image recorded.
One of the vox's made a grinding sound as they tried to croak out something.
It was a designation, part of one.
"N….eee?" The vox strained and warnings flared, more time was needed to calibrate.
It was slow, very slow, but the start up systems continued to run.
Basic systems, fuel tanks, actuator motors, tensioning lines, all had to be calibrated.
It all felt so painfully raw once the sensor array began to fully engage, leaving them pulling on each other, tugging as the stress of it all built.
Audios picked up the sounds of low thruming noises, and on the rare occasion, there was a beep from one of them.
Eventually, patience ran thin, and one of them started to try and get up.
Only to discover they were very firmly strapped down.
Irritation suddenly flared into abject panic and both started to struggle, frames protesting against stressing sparks and confused processors.
Optics strained in the brightness to spot the restraints, thickly woven wire mesh, locked them down to the berth.
One of them snarled, flashing denta that were flat barring four sharper points.
The door opened and a white and red mech strode un, not even looking at them. "Ah ah. Naughty femmes, you still need to rest." He chided, voice riddled with condescension.
Anger flared between them, indignity and confused fury.
In tandem, they snarled out an order. "Release us."
The mech froze in place, the centres of his optics cycling wide as he turned to face them.
The expression was completely neutral as he strode over, pulling a collection of keys from a hook on his hip.
Locks clicked open, and the woven mesh was removed.
Their surprise echoed between them as they stared up at the mech.
Confusion built, when they were released, and they tried to sit up, the mech helped them, gently, oh so gently.
The mech took a step back, and then, he just…
Stood there.
Optics not even twitching.
That… that wasn't normal, was it?
They managed to look at each other at last.
They didn't recognise the faceplates that met their own.
A quail of fear left one of them, reaching up to feel over their own features, finding nothing was where it was supposed to be, their helms… their frames…
It was all… so… so wrong.
Colours…
The colours felt right.
Those were their colours.
Just…
On the wrong plating.
One of them reached for the other first, the servos weren't right, but they could still grip tight.
And grip tight they did, as they yanked each other together, unceremoniously tumbling to the floor between the berths they hadn't thought to register.
Limbs weren't down into a tangled heap; they swiftly turned into a desperate embrace as they tried to check over each other, to find any sign of what they were supposed to look like beyond the colours.
The optics weren't even right.
They couldn't remember what they were even supposed to look like.
But… it wasn't this.
Not this.
Never this.
"Silverstreak, what's going on…. Silverstreak! Why are they out of containment!" A femme screeched as she ran in, heading for them.
The mech seemed to snap out of whatever trance he was in, stumbling back as he clutched his helm. "What… ugh… my helm…" He groaned, clutching at the sides of his helm.
The femme looked to him alarm, and then to the two frames laying tangled on the floor.
One of them shifted over the other, hissing at them both as the claws on her digits dug into the tile.
The other clung to the more protective one, letting out a hiss of their own.
The femme baulked. "Are they slagging feral?!" She screeched. The mech groaned. "Well they're up. They need to be transported to holding."
"Yes! Strapped to the berths! They're a danger to everyone here!"
"Medic Siren, that is quite enough." A new mech interrupted, walking over to the mech. "I saw what happened on the security footage… it would seem we have some very interesting specimens here…" He purred, his attention on them rapt.
They didn't like his faceplates.
They hated them.
Wanted to gouge it into pieces.
He chuckled, stepping closer, he grabbed the defensive one by the back of her neck, and yanked her up, her grip on the other meaning they both went up together.
Suddenly, they realised just how small they were.
He grinned. "Behave now~ Or I'll have to clamp your mouths shut~" He warned, before turning and striding out of the room with them, the femme balking again as she scampered out of the way of him.
The mech followed behind. "Sir… what did you see? One moment I was going to check on their monitors, the next, they were in a heap on the floor!"
The larger medic they hated purred. "It would seem that the procedure had an unexpected side effect. We are now in possession of Point one percenters, Pilot Frames~" He declared. "Truly fascinating~"
They were taken into a lift that went down, down, down, past the floors that the lift had buttons for.
The mech smirked at them. "Welcome to your new home~" He purred, before looking out into the corridor that seemed to stretch on and on. "Amer~ Rover~ You have new playmates~" He called before he tossed them both into the corridor, their frames bouncing and rolling along the floor with pained grunts.
One of them got up just in time to see the lift doors closing.
There were no buttons to call it back.
The other got up, and grabbed at them, tugging them into a tight, messy embrace.
They felt they were being watched soon after, both of them looking over, and meeting surprised, orange and yellow optics, surrounded by surprised faceplates, in turn framed by purple plating and two golden horns that curled in from the sides.
The femme stepped out from the doorway she'd been standing in and called back into the room. "Rover! Rover we have more survivors!"
"Wait, he wasn't yanking on our pede?!" Another voice exclaimed.
The purple and gold one stepped closer.
Neither of them moved, watching her wearily as she knelt down. "Hey, it's going to be okay… you're right out of the procedure… aren't you?" She asked, voice soft.
They both blinked at her.
The femme, Amer, sighed and shuffled closer. "Do you remember anything yet?"
They glanced at each other, before shaking their helms.
"Do you know how to walk yet?"
They blinked, then looked down at their legs, two joints in each, that wasn't right either.
Amer hummed. "Alright, I'm going pick you both up, don't worry, we'll help you."
The other femme appeared then, soft greens accented by blue, with a thick cable running from the back of her helm to her mid back, she had off green/blue optics. "Oh Primus… Amer… they were twins…" She whispered to the other.
"I know, I know. Alright, one…" She slipped her arms around the both of them. "Two." She got ready to lift. "Three!"
They were lifted up like they weighed next to nothing, Amer holding them close as she awkwardly walked back to the room they had come out of, Rover helping to hold them both steady so they didn't fall to the floor.
They found themselves deposited on a rather hard berth slab, with the two femmes coaxing them to untangle a bit so they could both sit up.
They still kept tight hold over each other.
Rover frowned. "You poor things… we were just like you two when we first woke up… you must be scared out of your own processors…"
Amer walked over to a cubby in the wall but spoke after Rover. "Take all the time you need to remember yourselves, your sparks are gonna be frazzled for a while, what with you losing your original memory banks, don't worry, you'll get all of those back in a few cycles once the bastards upstairs are finished making a digital copy from your old banks to re-download."
She returned with two cubes that had their fuel tanks pinging alerts of being low on fuel.
They accepted one each, their grips unsteady, but they still managed to drink.
Both sagged into the other a bit, tiredness was creeping up on them again.
Rover petted one of their helms. "You rest, we'll be right here when you come back online…"
The Matrix
The memory ended, and they sat back up, feeling wholly better once they recognised their own limbs again.
Vector Prime, now joined by Solus and Liege, helped them out of the pool.
"That was…"
"Deeply unsettling." Aria mumbled after Wren trailed off.
Vector Prime helped them to fully stand. "Indeed… there is going to be quite a substantial time jump before the next memory, is that okay?"
They nodded, before Wren asked. "What happened to that youngling they were looking after? Stormsurge… I didn't see an entry wound when he was shot?"
Solus spoke up. "Good spot, it wasn't a lethal shot, they used something called a 'Nudge Gun' it knocked him into stasis lock… from there, they purged his memory banks, and sent him to an orphanage in Iacon, so he could be 'generously adopted' by a wealthy family unit in the upper echelons of Iacon."
"They used the threat of doing something to him to keep them inline, didn't they?"
Liege Prime nodded. "Exactly… they were vile excuses for mechanisms." He growled out, his contempt for the long offline medical staff evident.
The twins elected to take a step closer to Vector Prime, just in case, they weren't sure of Liege, he seemed to have something of a simmering temper.
"Um… quick question… how long have we been in here exactly?"
"Oh, only a day and a bit, the memories go a lot faster than time does." Vector Prime assured, a servo resting on the slope of their shoulder pauldron. "Are you ready for the next?"
They took a few moments, but then nodded. "Anything we should expect with this one?"
"Just that you may start getting… attached, they were your friends."
They both gulped, letting Vector Prime lead them to the next, moving to perch with their back to the pool.
After a few moments to steady themselves, they lowered themselves down, and let the Primes slide them out onto the surface of the pool, the memory taking over.
There were twenty of them now.
They'd been put through rigorous training, testing the new limits of their abilities.
Amer and Rover had made it clear to all of them to not give it their true all.
They all followed the recommendations.
They didn't run as fast as they knew they could, climb, punch, kick, they limited themselves in everything, but still enough for the Medics overseeing it all to be impressed.
Nebularburst and Solarstorm were the unofficial seconds now, their… unique ability was something they actively didn't practise with, no matter how much the medics insisted they wanted to test out just what they could do with their voices.
It was triggered by them speaking in tandem, they knew that, so they never spoke together.
But they always stood together.
Their rage and fury kept simmering just under the surface, ready to let it boil over if that was ever needed.
It hadn't been, which was good.
They would only get so far without weapons, which they were explicitly not allowed to have.
It didn't stop them from idly sharpening the tips of their digits on the rough walls of their not prison.
Not prison because the medics refused to call it what it was, they called it 'the compound'.
They were currently in the rec room, which had been opened up once there were ten of them.
They weren't alone in there, Swift and Revs, cousins from the colony planet Velocitron were playing a battle sim against Brawl and Hefter, brothers who'd come from the mines of Tarn, apparently they'd gotten in trouble for trying to talk about joining a union, the mine manager had shipped them off without telling them where to.
Their joy at being sent to Iacon hadn't lasted long.
Not everyone here was here because of bought debts like theirs.
Amer and Rover were spark mates, who had been declared the primary culprits in a fight that had broken out in a nightclub.
Rover explained that Amer had defended her from a lecherous mech who worked in a law firm… and by defended she meant introducing the mech to the business end of her temper and fists.
They all had different stories.
Amica were among them too in the form of four former 'War builds' battle mates, Cranker and Gearshift were one set, Gigaton and Siege the other set.
All four had retired after the war against the Undreki over a cluster of ore rich worlds.
At least, until all of their funds suddenly 'vanished' and they were offered jobs as security guards…
Of course, a medical exam had to be completed first.
And that's how they ended up here, in the compound, in frames that would have been completely dwarfed by their original modes.
The four stuck close together. Siege and Gigaton had only recently got their memories reinstalled.
It was always a nasty shock.
Swift and Revs were just starting to celebrate a victory when the intercom in the corner buzzed.
"All bots, report to the lift."
Optics went wide, frames rose swiftly.
Solarstorm snarled. "Everyone, stick close together." She ordered.
The others nodded, understanding.
They'd never been allowed to approach the lift before…
The lift doors always hummed with a violent warning of a painful shock if contact was made.
They all moved out, the ten of them soon finding the others filing out.
Amer and Rover approached them. "Sol Neb, take up the rear, okay?" Amer asked them, glancing to Gigaton and Seige.
"We can still fight." Siege growled.
"They've had more time with their frames, humour us." Rover implored him, and he relented.
They fell into two lines, set right next to the other pair.
The lift doors opened, it was large, large enough for them all to file into.
The doors closed and they began to move.
Up, up, up they went until the lift stopped.
Servos were grasped, and cautious whispers were passed between audios too close for anyone else to hear as the doors opened.
Amer and Rover strode out first, helms head high.
The corridor was lined with medics, guns not subtly hidden, in easy reach of their servos.
The CMO beamed at them all. "Your long wait is finally over, congratulations!" He cheered. "There is a transport waiting just past the door you see behind me, you will soon be on your way to your glorious future!" He announced.
The medics surrounding them all began to clap as Amer and Rover kept walking, Nebularburst and Solarstorm taking up the rear once more, doing their best to keep their contempt off their features, now wasn't the time to instigate a fight.
The CMO raised his servo once Amer and Rover were close enough. "Now I know you all loathe my spark. But I am no longer the one in charge of you. The Prime himself is, from this cycle on, overseeing you. He has big plans for you all, I suggest not disappointing him." He warned.
The inlaid threat was clear.
They all knew full well the legends and rumours of what happened when someone crossed the Prime.
The CMO stepped aside, and the doors opened, revealing a sleek transport. "All aboard~" He crooned, voice sickly sweet.
Amer and Rover started walking again.
Pair by pair they walked through the door.
Amer, Rover.
Strafer and Galeforce, former seekers, they'd been allowed to keep their wings in the form of useless winglets, the flight sickness those first few orns they'd been in the compound had nearly put them over, now they clung especially tight to one another.
Brawl and Hefter.
Laurel and Prowler, a pair of sparkmated Polyhexian enforcers who'd looked too close into corruption that led back towards their own precinct.
Swift and Revs.
Valour and Renegade, brother and sister from Simfur, they'd been training to be medics when they applied for second jobs to pay the tuition fees, they'd been snatched from campus in the night.
Cranker and Gearshift.
Gigaton and Siege.
Solarstorm and Nebularburst.
The doors slid shut on the transport just before the vessel took off.
It was cramped seating only, it was evident that the transport wasn't sentient.
No one dared to speak, not wanting to break the tense silence as Iacon swiftly vanished under the thick cloud cover.
It was the lunar cycle, the stars above visible through the small round windows.
It took a few joors for the silence to be finally broken with a shout.
"Holy slag! That thing is HUGE!" Revs shouted, Swift peering over his cousins shoulder pauldron at whatever Revs had spotted.
They all clambered to see.
Ships.
An entire line of them.
Ten of them.
Each one was bigger than an entire district of Iacon, and long enough that if they were put upright, their nosecones would slice into the lower atmosphere.
"Pilot frames…" Amer mumbled as the realisation dawned on her, and then the others.
Soon enough, the transport landed, the doors opening to allow them out, the walkway they found themselves on flanked by guards.
Not just any guards.
The Prime's guards.
The towering behemoths of devout loyalty loomed over them all, massive weapons in their holsters, none of them even glancing down at the cluster of twenty bots.
They all had the same paint scheme, White and gold.
At the end of the walkway, waiting for them, stood a mech who needed no true introduction.
Dominion Prime.
The mech towered over all of his guards, faceplates chipped with scars that told of his combat service before he was announced the new ruler of Cybertron.
Unlike the guards, his colours were Black and Silver, specifically chosen to stand out against his guards.
"Makes him an easy mark." Solarstorm mused over the bond to Nebularburst, who didn't comment.
The Prime opened his arms wide. "Ah! My Pilots! I'm so glad to finally see you all with my very own optics! Come! Come! No need to be shy, the news bots are practically frothing with anticipation to meet you!" He declared, his voice booming so loud some of them turned down the sensitivity of their audios.
They cautiously approached, Amer and Rover stopping before the last set of guards.
Dominion Prime grinned. "Ah ah, none of that, they won't attack you for approaching, follow, follow." He called, before turning and walking towards where there seemed to be a stage set up in front of the first of the massive ships.
Sure enough, there was a massive crowd of News bots.
Dominion Prime gestured for them to stay behind the curtains as he strode out to a roar of cheers and clapping. "Thank you! Thank you! It is my delight that you could all make it here for this incredible dark cycle!" His voice boomed, the crowd quieting down.
He looked to the other curtain, just as a quite honestly drop offline gorgeous femme approached from the other side, completely covered in sheer fabric and gems, held in each arm was a sparkling.
"Ahh, and there's my beloved~" He crooned, greeting his mate with a chaste kiss to the cheek that had the cameras lighting up like a shower of sparks off an angle grinder.
The sparklings didn't even turn away from it all, clearly already desensitised to the bright lights.
Each got a quick kiss to the helm before Dominion Prime turned back to the crowd. "For such a momentous occasion, I just couldn't leave my family at the palace."
The femme gave a small, graceful wave, perfectly practised as the sparkling held in that arm didn't shift at all.
"Now there's no hiding what is behind me, and the construction has gone on for so long, even the miners of Kaon know about this project that I have been helming. But what I have been able to keep to myself, is the details~"
He was right, the News bots looked like they were practically about to spontaneously combust from the excitement to finally get the big scoop.
With a dramatic sweep of his arm, the Prime began his announcement. "These, are the first of their kind, our new, deep space exploration fleet, the Trans-Galactics! Capable of flying far beyond even our own galaxy!"
Cheers and questions alike rose up from the crowd of News Bots until the Prime rose his servo for silence so that he could continue.
"Answers will be handled by my small army of secretaries. For now, let me continue." He cleared his vox. "Such ships will have two jobs. The defence of our great empire. Providing the force needed to truly overpower any whom would dare to question our galactic might! And secondly, as harvesters of distance worlds we otherwise would not be able to benefit from the resources of, each contains a fully automatic processing facility, capable of smelting the raw materials into pristine alloys, revealing the gems hidden from sight, and the storage capacity each of filling every ware house in the transport depots of Iacon five times over! The people of Cybertron will be brought into a new age of prosperity thanks to these ships! None shall ever go without again!" He decreed.
Amer glanced back down the line to others, making sure they were all hearding the same thing she and Rover was.
Dominion Prime allowed the cheer from his guests to come to a natural end before he spoke again. "Now of course, such ships cannot be piloted by just any regular mechs and femmes, oh no. After counselling the Prime's of the past, and our brightest processors in Iacon, I sought out to create something truly unique. A brand new frame type! Perfectly crafted to operate these great vessels! Allow me to introduce you to them!" He turned towards them, and gestured with his servo for them to come out into the spotlight.
Amer took Rover's servo, squeezing it tight before they both stepped out into the light.
Into the view of the cameras, they swiftly went off, and kept going off, the constant flashing of the lights threatening to blind them as they kept walking straight ahead.
Soon enough, Solarstorm and Nebularburst were in the view of the cameras, all of them standing together.
"Behold Cybertron! Your future! The PILOT FRAMES!"
They all stood ramrod straight, unsure of what to do.
"In a few short cycles, they will be taking off for their first training sessions in the ships, which I shall now introduce to you!"
He gestured to the first ship. "The Victory, which will be piloted by Amer and Rover!"
Cheers went up with each ships introduction.
"The Navigator! Solarstorm and Nebularburst!"
"The Legacy! Strafer and Galeforce!"
"The Conquest! Brawl and Hefter!"
"The Valiant! Laurel and Prowler!"
"The Honour! Swift and Revs!"
"The Adventurer! Valour and Renegade!"
"The Liberty! Cranker and Gearshift!"
"The Dreadnought! Gigaton and Seige!"
They were all introduced, all of them trying to keep their expressions neutral.
By some miracle, none of them cracked, even once the crowds dispersed, the announcement was over.
Dominion Prime only turned to regard them when silence filled the air. "I expect big things from you all. No excuses." He warned, before turning to his mate. "Come my love, let us be on our way, they can get acquainted with their ships."
The femme nodded and the Prime led her and his two sparklings away, likely towards a heavily guarded transport.
In the silence that followed the guards departing with him, they all slumped to the ground.
None of their sparks raced anymore, they simply couldn't, but their venting could wheeze as they clutched onto their other halves.
They stayed like that for a time, before Amer and Rover got back up. "Alright… this… this is…" Amer struggled for a moment, it was obvious the pressures of just what they were all going to have to do, likely for the rest of their cycles were weighing on them. "We don't do this for any of those upper crust slaggers. We don't even do it for the Prime's sparklings… We do this for Cybertron! Because I say, if we can stop younglings from starving in the streets, I say we do this!" She declared, Rover giving her a tight hug as she nodded.
Solarstorm rose up next, Nebularburst joining her. "We do this for each other too. We're all in this together, if any of us get in trouble, we all drop everything to help. Understood? Anything tries to hurt any of us. We stomp them. Flat."
There was a round of nodding as they all gradually helped themselves back onto unsteady pedes.
Amer turned to look up at the ships. "Looks like they're our new homes…"
They came back to themselves in the pool, and were helped back out once again.
They were quiet for a bit, pondering it. "More time jumps now?"
Vector Prime nodded. "Yes, but it's best if you take a break, this can be very taxing."
They nodded, letting him lead them back towards the room they'd woken up in, Liege and Solus drifting off elsewhere in the palace.
"You have a lot on your processor…"
"Yeah, are you a mind reader?" Aria asked, trying to joke.
He humoured them with a soft chuckle. "Not to my knowledge, no… you are thinking about their old ability, and yours, that gift Lucifer gave you, to control the very souls of humans…"
"That… that wasn't by accident, was it? It's always been a useful tool… if difficult to get right at times."
"You say that when you have all but mastered the gift, just as they did in time. Their friends, their family helping them perfect it with themselves as willing aids… it made you incredibly powerful…"
"That's why they… we… alone were spared… while all the others were…"
"Massacred."
"Yes…"
"Rest, we will continue once you have had time to process all of this, take care, I will be but a call away."
Monaco.
"Maria? Sure, I can call her." Annie confirmed.
Sophia smiled. "No no, Ira needs to call her. She won't give Juava's location to anyone else."
Annie pouted. "You kept this all from us… all this time…?"
Sophia nodded. "Forgive me, we didn't want the both of you to fret about us unnecessarily."
Prowl hummed. "No wonder you took finding me in such a stride… you've literally seen… everything."
She chuckled. "One could certainly say that… It is lovely to see you both again, I heard about the attack… I was so worried I almost told Sourouvro to take me to Nevada, but Maria called me to remind me not to blow her cover, so I stayed and just sent flowers."
"They were lovely." Annie commented.
"Good, so, once Ira and Soundwave are back, we'll get this whole thing underway."
Rafeal piped up from where he was sitting against his dad's side. "Isn't that a bit… fast? Aria and Wren are still out… If they wake up and we're all gone…"
Kia, who'd been quietly listening to everything and trying to process it all, nodded along with Rafael. "Ratchet is going to have a conniption if he doesn't make sure her spark is healthy enough for this first too."
Sophia nodded. "I see your point, I've been kicking about since before the creation of fire, I can wait a few more days or weeks before we start this quest." She assured Rafeal. "Forgive me if I seemed like I wanted to rush this."
Annie chuckled. "You always have been quite the go-getter… Do… Do you know what happens when Ira gets these keys… to you? Wouldn't your 'duty' be over?" She asked, tone filled with concern.
Sophia's features shifted, as she moved to lay back on the sofa. "I don't know… perhaps I will live to the end of this lifetime… and… never wake up again… maybe I'm forever locked in this cycle, and I will witness the heat death of the Universe? Whatever comes, whatever my fate is, I will be happy I succeeded…" She mused, glancing between them, and then over to Soundwave's younglings who still lingered in the living room.
They'd all been listening quite intently to the woman who seemed to be the guardian of Saurouvro, the great beast was still lying close to them, dozing away.
Prowl frowned. "Sophia… if Maria is one of the other guardians… who are the other two?"
She chuckled. "Isn't it obvious dear? Who among our little eclectic group loves nothing more than to travel?"
Annie sat up a bit straighter. "Selena and Narisa…"
Sophia grinned. "Well done deary~ But there's a set order to this, you will need Jauva to lead you to Legora, and only Legora can keep up with Panthera."
Raf spoke up again. "What about Molly?"
Sophia smiled. "Molly? Oh Molly's quite the character… a few hundred years ago, we managed to… pull some strings if you will, at her request, she joined us in the reincarnation cycle. In that first life time, she had been Selena and Narisa's older sister, born to a somewhat well off family in modern day Bulgaria, of course they had different names then, each new life brings new names, new faces…" She trailed off, reaching up to rub her cheek. "It's been so long… I only have the barest grasp of what my face used to look like… I know Maria gave up remembering long ago… we've all had to give up a lot of memories… Dementia is a…" She stopped her from cursing in front of Rafeal. "A pain… If we lose a memory to dementia, it doesn't come back in the next life."
That was right about when Optimus' holoform flickered into existence in the kitchen, the mech evidently running on auto-pilot as he put the coffee pot on to brew, grabbing 'his' mug out of one of the cupboards.
Soundwave's younglings all collectively went tense, having recognised the mech's holoform almost instantly.
They still weren't exactly on board with this whole, being at peace with the Autobots thing.
He didn't actually turn around until the coffee was already half drunk.
He… didn't look good.
Prowl rose. "Sir…" He started, pausing for a moment as Optimus looked over to him. "Sir, you need to recharge."
He hummed. "Duly noted Prowl… I thank you for your concern." Then he took another sip of the still boiling hot coffee.
Sophia frowned. "Goodness boy. Go to bed. They won't appreciate you being in no state to greet them when they wake up." She scolded him.
He frowned. "I am perfectly fine."
"Your eyebags have grandchildren. Go to bed."
He blinked at her a few times. "Who are you?"
She hummed. "Sophia, Saurouvro, take him to bed would you?" She asked.
The great beast got up, allowing Optimus to actually notice her presence, and promptly nearly drop his favourite mug in shock as Saurouvro padded over, chuffing low.
He staggered back. "Am… am I seeing things? Or is that a tiger?" He croaked out.
Saurouvro bumped her horned head into his chest, pushing him back, rumbling low.
Optimus seemed to war with himself for a few moments, before seemingly relenting that this meant he really shouldn't ignore his HUD demanding he recharge anymore, and relented. "Very well… I will rest…" He grumbled, setting the mug down and effectively being frog marched to the stairs by the big cat, who, after a moment, figured out how to get up them as well.
Sophia nodded. "The state of him… he must be worried sick about them…"
"I don't think any of the permanent residents of the manor are handling this well…" Annie commented, her arm wrapped around her son's shoulders, who in turn lent into her a bit more.
Upstairs, Optimus found himself in his bedroom with a tiger, and was, quite honestly, completely perplexed.
"Are… you are real?" He asked as the tiger clambered up onto the end of the bed.
She chuffed, and promptly rolled over, exposing the white and black fur of her under belly.
He knew a request when he saw it.
But that request wasn't coming from a house cat.
Still… he could just turn off the holoforms ability to feel pain…
Which he did, and promptly began to administer belly rubs, earning a happy call from the big cat.
He could not believe he was doing this.
This was not how his addled processor had predicted the cycle going.
Not in the slagging slightest.
Maybe he needed to call Lena to check if his sanity was still stable?
No, she was busy.
Somehow affectionate rubs evolved into him laying sideways on the bed too next to the big cat, and talking to her.
"I'm… not sure what to do with myself… most of my functioning life I've been fighting for something… but I can't fight this… I can't pull them out of the relic…" He mumbled, completely crestfallen.
Saurouvro let out a gravely croon, shifting to drop her front right paw over his back and shoulder, not far off the weight of a sandbag.
Either he was going completely crazy, or this tiger had a degree of higher sentience.
Which was more than his processor was ready to handle right now.
Presence of a horned tiger first, sentience when he had the processing capacity to handle it.
"What am I supposed to do?" He mumbled dejectedly as he looked out the window towards the view of Monaco proper.
Saurouvto just kept chuffing, but he could tell she was listening.
"I feel like I'm stuck in a holding pattern… Things are obviously happening and I can't keep up with them…" He lamented. "I was too anxious last night, and the night before… and the one before that… the stress of getting the new arrivals here had been keeping me up… and now I just… I'm too worried something will happen and I won't be able to respond in time."
Saurouvro chuffed, shifting again to lay on top of him, squishing him into the covers with a muted 'ouf' from the Prime's holoform.
He managed to wriggle about until he was on her back, and met the yellow-green eyes regarding him.
She looked… unimpressed.
Her head settled over his shoulder, and she began to rumble, a deep sound that no doubt reached out across the floor boards of the room a significant distance.
He chuckled softly, managing to rub along the dense fur of her side. "Are you…" He yawned. "Trying to comfort me?"
She just kept rumbling away, subtly leaning into the rubs.
He sighed. "I don't know what to do… Normally I'd be helping Wren with document handling… or learning to cook something new with Aria… she'd promised a big roast for everyone, you know? I was looking forward to that…" He mumbled, feeling a knot starting to form in his throat. "Everyone is closing in on themselves… we don't know what to do with ourselves… Ira's gone somewhere, you've suddenly appeared with that old lady…"
Saurouvro chuffed, it almost sounded like a laugh.
He went lax under her. "I… I feel… useless… I wasn't able to make it to Monaco in time… if I'd been there… I… I could have done something…" He admitted. "I… I can't lose them too… Not like this…" He pleaded.
He didn't see how Saurouvro's eyes widened slightly, before she let out another thrumming croon, trying to soothe him.
It didn't work, and the knot in his throat got tighter. "I keep remembering that cycle… when all I could do was watch… I… I saw it all… and I couldn't save them… I couldn't get there fast enough… I can't lose them too…" His arms came up, clutching the big cat to him.
A crack became a burst defensive wall, and the first sob escaped him.
Once one broke free, there was no stopping the cascade of quiet sobs that followed as he tried to quiet himself in the thick fur of Saurouvro's neck.
She stayed atop him, being the steady, unbiased rock he needed to come apart against right now.
If he didn't, he'd never be able to pull himself together.
She stayed until the sobs quieted to whimpers.
And from whimpers to sniffs .
And then, when it was quiet, she stayed.
Gently she picked him up by his jacket, dragging him to lay right way up on the bed, and with an ease that spoke of eons of practice with ungainly limbs, managed to tuck him haphazardly in.
And then, she stayed, shifting to lay down right next to him.
He needed this.
He wasn't sure when he'd slipped under.
But he knew where he was.
This corridor…
He was in the grand towers of the old Senate…
The corridor he'd first spotted…
He was on auto-pilot, cautiously walking further along.
He wasn't sure what he was going to find.
He'd been back here so many times before… and they'd always haunted him…
"Hunter?"
His finals jumped, and he spun on his axis.
Solarstorm stood just outside a doorway, helm tilted with a look of perplexion on her features.
He let out a broken noise as he took a step closer.
He felt so… so raw…
Her soft features became that of pained sympathy. "Oh… oh Hunter…" She crooned, opening her arms up towards him. "You look haggard dear…"
He stumbled closer. "I don't know what to do…"
Her servos cupped his cheeks as he dropped to his knees before her, bending over double so she didn't have to reach too far.
She rubbed at the plating under his optics with features filled with pained empathy. "And that's okay… It's going to be okay."
His arms wrapped around her, gently, gently, he was always so careful with her, he never wanted her to feel trapped. "I thought I was making progress…"
"You have been…" She assured, arms shifting to wrap around his neck. "And we're so proud of you! You haven't had to come to me in months! You're allowed a little slide back now and then, it's natural." She promised.
His vents rattled as he keened softly, before asking. "We? Is… is she here?"
She rubbed the back of his helm. "Yeah… Neb's here… want to go see here too? I think you need both of us this time."
He couldn't agree more.
Op: Could a mentally unstable mech do this?
Proceeds talk to a tiger beast, then go talk to the ghosts in his helm for comfort instead of talking to literally anyone else in the living about his problems.
Me: Goodness you need therapy. All of you need therapy!
Wren: Fairly certain this is all your fault, you better be paying for that damn therapy.
Me: On my salary?! You'd have more success following Op's lead!
Wren: Technically, we already are.
Me: Fair point, well, until next time! See yah!
Moon
