I have done it! I have brought another chapter to "A Different Shade of Crimson"! And markzilla, your OC is at the end.
13 - Darkest Hour - 13
I was locked away in a cell, where I was left to think in the solitude of the brig. Since the Decepticons had trouble catching their enemies, the Autobots, the brig was almost constantly empty. Other than for that one time when Laserbeak had kidnapped the human known as Agent Fowler.
Sitting was really the only thing I could do other than thinking. Within the first few hours—joors—whatever, I began to feel antsy, full of pent-up energy. My thoughts became dark as, the only thing I could do was pace about my cell and think about what had happened to me. What I did wrong, what I could have changed. What could have happened if I had not approached the Vehicon.
Back when I became a Decepticon, I should have just offlined myself, or had escaped. I shouldn't have let the thought of leaving Knock Out behind stop me from liberating myself. He could handle himself on his own. He had when I was amongst the stars, since he had Breakdown. He could find someone else.
They knew I was human now—I was never going to be a Decepticon again.
My fight had left me by the time I was taken from my cell, my wrists and wings cuffed, and led to the GroundBridge control room. I retreated into myself as the GroundBridge flared to life and I was lead through by a pair of Vehicons.
But I snapped to attention when I realized that I was now on the deck of the Space Bridge. I watched warily as I was lead through and out into the ruins of Cybertron. I managed to gaze around, and when I did, the depressed-state of my mind managed to take in the remains of what used to probably be buildings.
I recognised this place. It had been a small hamlet-like place in the Sea of Rust. It had been abandoned a vorn or so after it had been founded because of how the "weather" conditions were. It wasn't all that hospitable.
Why was I out here? Where were they taking me?
Then I saw them.
Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Knock Out. Optimus Prime, the Autobots. Bumblebee…
And the cylinders the three Decepticon officers were holding…
The children! Megatron had the children. My sight zoomed in on the cylinder Knock Out was holding. Raf was inside. I wanted to scream.
I knew what they were doing. Megatron was using the Autobots' allies against them in order to get what he wanted. That caused anger to well up inside me, and as a result, my visor began to glow. I let out a shout of anger and wrestled myself out of the Vehicons' grip. I charged across the expanse separated me from the groupings of Cybertronians, my turquoise highlights glowing to broadcast my fury as well. "Megatron! I hate you!"
Both parties of Cybertronians turned to look my way as I charged towards them. Out of the corner of my optic, I saw Bumblebee watch me with his big optics as I changed course and put my sights on Starscream. He was holding Jack's cylinder.
But before I could even get close, a purple bolt of plasma hit me in my side, sending me off my pedes, and slamming me into the ground. Nothing left my voicebox, but the air was forced from my vents.
Everything after that blurred past me. Megatron held me up by my neck and showed me off to the Autobots, as if I had been one of their own and had been spying on the Decepticons. He then reached up and ripped my visor off, eliciting a shriek from me. Feedback rattled my processor as it worked hard to compensate for the lack of information coming in. It had been a bad idea, charging them like that, bound as I was. I couldn't fly. Couldn't drive.
With Energon gushing from my wound, Megatron shot me again, and Bumblebee actually wailed. He made it known that he had some connection with me with that electronic screech, even though I had blocked the bond. "Bumblebee…no…" I whispered before Megatron took me and threw me away.
I landed several hundred meters away from them, and the impact knocked me into stasis.
When I came out of stasis, my nanites had stopped the flow of Energon to my wounds, but the wounds were still there. Slowly, I managed to sit up and cross my legs loosely. As I tried to take a deep breath in order to cool my internals, my cooling fans wobbled slightly. I ran a scan on myself and saw that the fans were slightly damaged. Great. My sparkling chamber was covered in bruises; my sparkchamber sported one large dent, which came awfully close to touching my spark; my forearms were dented and cracked to the point that I would not be able to unsheathe my wristblades or bring out my sonic blaster.
In other words, I was defenseless, and critically injured.
I looked down at the Energon leaking from the many cracks covering my frame. Across my vision, nearly covering my HUD, were warnings. But the one that shone the brightest amongst all the others screamed 'WARNING: LOW ENERGON LEVELS – CRITICAL'.
My eyebrows furrowed. Great. I was going to die from Energon starvation. I gazed down at the cuffs that bound my wrists and wondered why, why, they hadn't broken when I landed. Same went for the cuffs on my wings. I glared down at the cuffs on my wrists, hoping that they would just combust and incinerate.
I growled when they did not.
"Slag. It. All," I cursed. I took a deep breath in order to hold back the tears I could feel coming. "I can't die like this! Not while I'm alone! What about Bumblebee? Not after all that I had to go through," I said to the air, to the dead plains of my surrogate home-world. I looked up at the dark, star-light sky. "Primus, you saved me, and kept me from dying," I said.
"You guided me into making myself Bumblebee's femme-creator, his danniluk," I continued. "You wouldn't have done that if I was going to die, right? Right?"
There was no response.
And I sat there. In the silence. Listening.
All I could hear was the faint sound of the solar winds as the caressed the surface of the planet. It kind of reminded me of the rush of watching the races at Helix, but I couldn't figure out why. But it made me remember. Remember the good times. The times where there was no war, where you didn't have to be constantly looking over your shoulder in fear that someone might sneak up behind you and offline you. It had been so long, and my human life had only been a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the life I lived now.
Slowly, I righted my right pede. Even as I began to feel the strain against my systems because of the lack of Energon, I got my left knee under me before I managed to get to my pedes, like that time back when I came face to face with Breakdown's commandeered body. Oh how I wish things had gone differently. Often I would wonder what would have happened if the war hadn't started—if Optimus had stayed Orion Pax and as a data clerk and Megatron had stayed a gladiator and a miner…
I wouldn't be Cybertronian. I would be human, and humanity would have never met the Autobots and Decepticons. I would have still been struggling through school, and my mom would still scream at me because of the low marks I would get. Jack wouldn't have been hanging from the servos of Starscream… There wouldn't have been so much suffering.
Default wouldn't be dead, Sentinel would still be ruling Cybertron, most of the High Council members would still be alive, there wouldn't have been a sparkling genocide…most of Cybertron's population would still be living their day to day lives…Praxians wouldn't be an endangered race…
But I would not have become Bumblebee's mother.
Bumblebee wouldn't have had to grow up during the war. He would still have a voice box…
My opticlids began to droop, and I felt myself sagging forward. I dropped to my knees again, my wings drooping. I didn't have the strength to lift them.
"I…have to be…strong…" I croaked.
I listened to the wind as it continued to caress the surface of Cybertron. It was beautiful, I realized. Everything in life had a beautiful side of it, some people just chose to be blind to it. The way a sparkling was born from a femme was beautiful, despite the pain the femme had to go through and the mess; the way the two Autobots known as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker fought back on Cybertron, that was beautiful in a savage way…
Death was even beautiful if the bot that was slowly offlining chose to look at it that way. They were leaving the land of the living, falling into the soothing embrace of what was the Well of AllSparks, where there was no more pain, or sorrow. Suddenly, I yearned for death, to just lay down and leave everything behind, 'run to heaven' as Breaking Benjamin put it.
But something stopped me.
I felt a servo land gently on my shoulder. I flinched and tensed up before I risked a peek upwards. What I saw caused my dimming, almost black, optics to widen.
"A…Alpha Trion?!" I gasped. The ghost-like, transparent figure smiled as he got to his knees in order to be more on my level.
"Wavelength," he said, greeting me.
I blinked sluggishly. "How…how are you here?" I asked. "You disappeared!"
"That is one of the many mysteries that will have to remain unanswered for now, young one," he chuckled. "You've always been full of questions."
My vents shuttered with the effort it took to still function. "Why…why have you come to me…now?" I asked.
"Primus wishes he could respond to your questions, but he is still asleep*, repairing and readying himself for the day when the planet is healed," he sighed.
My cooling fans finally ground to a halt and whined. "I'm dying, sir. I'll get to ask the questions in person," I explained. I'm going to die, I told myself. And I cannot do anything about it.
"That is why I am here, daughter of two worlds," he said, addressing me by a new title. "One of Primus' last orders, revealed to me in the Covenant, was that, when the time came that your spark was about to expire, I would repair you, wipe your slate clean."
My optics widened again, and I was unsure of what I had just heard. So…I wasn't going to…die?
"Rest now," he said, easing me down onto the ground. My chassis hissed as I was stretched out on my back, my wings manually placed so that I didn't lay on them wrong. It seemed so surreal when Alpha Trion bid me to rest again, that I didn't stop myself from powering down.
I had never been so close to death before, except for when I was shot by that Vehicon.
When I came out of stasis, I found myself in the same position I was in when I fell into stasis. But there was something sniffing at my face, and I tensed. Slowly, I opened my optics and found myself staring up through a new visor and at the face of a robotic dinosaur.
"Me Scrap wonder if you little femme is okay," the dinosaur said in a strange form of words.
Slowly, I sat up. Rubbing my forehelm, I asked, "Where's Alpha Trion?"
The dinosaur merely cocked his head.
I sighed, and gently pushed the dinosaur's face away. I looked down at myself, and noted how my armor no longer sported any scratches—big scratches anyway, the finer scratches were still there. My main colour was still black, and my turquoise highlights were still in all the right places. My wings were still there, as were my wheels. But the Decepticon symbol that had been on my chest…it was gone.
It was gone!
I was free! I could leave the Decepticons!
AllSpark Princess: What were you expecting to happen? Was it different from what I wrote?
Dragonmaster789: "The Autobot Soundwave captured escaped" - when I wrote this, I meant it that Knock Out was explaining to Wavelength that the Autobot Soundwave had captured, as in Smokescreen, escaped. A little confusing, I know.
KayleeChiara: Sorry for the wait. I hope I did justice with this chapter, because I had a lot of trouble writing it. Intenseness, I know!
Phoenix-168: Very complicated, indeed. Let's see how she's going to join the Autobots!
KeepingThemAtBay: *snickers* It wasn't much of a plan, or maybe it was.
Taboo22: Thank you very much!
panthergirl: I have updated!
zrexheartz: I like cliffhangers, that's why I write them *laughs evilly*
Autobot StarRacer: Oh scrap, indeed.
anonymous: I have updated!