Chapter Four: Transformation
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Disclaimer: I still don't own Transformers, Hasbro, or Michael Bay.
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Decepticon Field Laboratories
Tholin Plains, Novara
Fifth Moon of Gas Giant Atalkos
Approx. 1 Century Before Present-Day
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She jerked forward, screaming.
This was a scream unlike most. Cybertronians, like other vocally and emotionally capable beings, can scream for any number of reasons – pain, rage, joy, pleasure, excitement, in battle, or for a thousand and one others.
This was different, for while it was a scream of pain, it was also a release of years of frustration, of her loathing for her spark, for every time her energy gave out on her and sent her into the dust, and for every time she had to make excuses to avoid placing a heavy demand on her power systems. This was also a scream of terror, of uncertainty.
But it was the transformative nature of the scream that interested the Doctor. It was a rising, stygian wail, the sound of a thousand electronic speakers set at high frequency and completely out of tune, their disharmony wobbling along the un-note like it would shatter at any second. It vibrated in the metal plates and the enormous eyes of the Doctor, watching her readings intently.
For the Doctor, it was a scream of evolution.
Shivering, the slender green robot slumped back to the operating table. Had she a pair of lungs, they would have been hammering shallowly. Had she organic eyes, tears would have been streaming down the sides of her face. This was a pain the likes of which she had never experienced, like her whole chest was being torn apart. Her spark, normally a crackling if faint white flame, was thrashing against the confines of its chamber like a wild animal, an amorphous blob of energy and panic.
Blot it out – please – please blot out the pain, she told herself. Take your brain away.
"Very interesting," came the voice from the monitor.
The Doctor wheeled on the source. "Hyu see, now? It is progressing far better zhen I had hoped."
"Yes, quite."
The figure on the monitor leaned in. He was a broad-shouldered fellow with an unusually high-pitched electronic voice, one of the Decepticon elite cadre by the looks of him. Covered in engines and control surfaces, he clearly favored flight. Her half-lucid mind recognized him as the one drumming up Decepticon support some months ago.
His red optics scanned the green robot on the operating table. Her thin armor hung suspended from racks behind the table, exposing a mess of wires and gears from disassembled mechanicals. Hundreds of conduits of varying dimensions radiated from the chamber at its core, snaking into every piece of equipment and machinery in the laboratory. Her spark danced like an enraged flame.
The Doctor skittered along the table, picking through instruments. "Hyu see? Very good!" He selected a thin scalpel with an energy blade, good for working on delicate mechanical equipment.
"Yes, again," the scientist replied. "In fact, am I correct in asking that this is, so far, the most successful such procedure in our medical books?"
The Doctor waved him off. "Not entirely impossible, zir – mit ze rarity of spark deformities, it's surprising vee see any of them at all. Perhaps there are two, three osser recorded experiments such as zis vun?"
"A valid point," came the reply. "This one is the best of the lot, assuming she survives. What improvements have you made on the procedure?"
The Doctor didn't look up from making a slight incision in one of the containment coils. As if in response, the thrashing spark leaned off-center, a top with a wobbling orbit.
"I haff been poring over your old notes, hyu know, und hyu are quite interested in the nature of the spark."
It looked up, quite pointedly fixing its gaze on the larger robot. "Very, very interested."
"Of course," his colleague replied. "I find its study fascinating. The spark is not only powerful, but fragile all the same, able to be snuffed with the barest of touch. There are secrets to it, I believe, secrets valuable for those of us interested in taking…precautionary measures."
He shifted his weight, eyes still boring into the complexities of the Doctor's equipment. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. What guarantee do I have that this one won't just die like the others?"
The Doctor looked up, a glint in its eye. "An old theory off your own design."
The robot produced two pieces of metal, shaped like convex triangles. Held in the palm of its claw, they gently counter-rotated in midair and threw dull lines of light from their curving planes.
On the monitor, the other scientist leaned in.
"Rotary units? Those were flawed by design – the theory behind them is unsound. You can't just infuse a spark with more power than it can handle and drop the rotors in – it will break the spark chamber and snuff its life."
"In fact," he continued, "the whole concept reeked of Megatron. It was all about power, without the thought of consequences – the same demon that plagues most Decepticon thought. Young and brash, was she?"
At this, the Doctor chuckled. "Off course, zir – but mit ze proper techniques – ze proper application of power und cooling, it is possible for ze rotary core to produce considerable power from a tiny size, as tiny as ze underdeveloped core on ze little girl here…"
"But she will burn through Energon like a Cybertronian twice her size. You can't get something for nothing."
"Zat is ze nature of engineering, as well you know."
"If you can stabilize the core properly with the rotary units, she could be a valuable soldier in our ranks."
"Ja. Assuming she survives."
On the other side of the monitor, the scientist tapped his chin. "I'll expect to see your research notes after this is through. Continue."
The Doctor shot him a chrome smile before turning back to his experiment.
"I thought hyu would never ask, Lord Starscream."
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Testing Range
Tholin Plains, Novara
Fifth Moon of Gas Giant Atalkos
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Sgt. Auger's voice roared over the din of training grounds. "Fire!"
A bolt of green light streaked over the plains, lanced into the mud and burst upwards in a fireball of trapped gases.
"Fire two!"
Another explosion, this time more on target.
"Run now, Decepticon! Run like Prime himself is on your tail!"
The green robot took off at a sprint. The rotary units in her core whirred at high speeds, stabilizing and unifying the energies burning away in her hammering spark. She dashed between concrete barriers, squeezing shots off at targets in the distance before rolling and sliding in behind more obstacles.
There was nothing else for it; she felt young again. This was energy like she hadn't felt since she was a very small protoform.
Auger's voice buzzed in her ear. "Pick up the pace! You will be at that next station in five minutes, do you understand?!"
Her legs pistoned under her. The mud had turned to hard tarmac, a long back road leading to Station Bravo. It was ages away, and the destination of their last run. This time, though, her power remained constant. This was glorious.
Coming right up.
"This is Rotary, requesting authorization for vehicle mode."
She could practically hear the gears grinding in the Sergeant's head. This would be good.
"No alternate modes on my training course, maggot!"
The Doctor cut in over the same frequency. "Zargent, zis is a test of ze rotary unit. Vehicle mode authorized."
"Doctor, this is MY training course and I say NO alternate modes! Rotary, try it and I will have you back in that lab on a stretcher!"
The Doctor replied. "Do it. It vill test your energy readings und ze modifications we made to your chassis."
She hesitated, still running on foot.
"Do it. Zargent Nasty vill never hit you."
"This is Rotary. Going ahead with vehicle mode."
I've never had the energy to do this before. I hope I won't screw it up.
The robot dove forward, parts already clicking into place in midair. She landed upon four rubberized wheels upon the asphalt as a pair of fenders swung around from her shoulders, locking themselves around her front wheels.
So far, so good.
"Slag it, maggot, I told you specifically NOT to enter vehicle mode!"
A pair of missiles were already streaking through the air a mile back, and they were closing fast.
Uh oh.
Her drivers dug in and launched her forward as her vehicle panels clicked into position. She wasn't finished arranging everything yet – she hadn't yet figured out which components went where.
The rockets were closing fast, aimed to blast her off the road.
Finally, the last components ratcheted themselves into place as she accelerated. As befitting her new upgrades, Rotary's alternate mode was a low-slung vehicle, dark green all over, with bulging fenders and an arched roofline. It was classic Cybertronian scout altmode – small, light weight and agile.
Slag, this is fast!
Rotary's wheels bit in, and she took off tearing down the tarmac. The stars above reflected off her green panels, as did the lights of the missiles. Their rate of gain had slowed, but it hadn't stopped. Station Bravo was approaching fast, and in another minute or two she'd be there. The Sergeant's missiles would blow her off the road in half that time, perhaps minutely later if she really pushed it.
The tarmac under her roared by faster and faster as she pushed her upgraded spark for more power and more energy. The rotary units were working well, whirring away rapidly to manage the power, burning Energon away at an alarming pace. Rotary didn't care. She didn't care if the missiles hit at this point – the sensation of speed was unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. There was no comparison to the limited times she'd puttered along as a protoform – this was real, and this was raw. The bite of the wheels into the tarmac, the way her chassis just hung on in the turns, it was perfect.
Station Bravo loomed on the next hill, a nondescript bunker used alternately for prison work detail and military training on this muddy rock of a moon. Already, though, the missiles were right on her tail, and she had perhaps five seconds. Over the comm, the Sergeant was arguing with the Doctor.
Rotary ignored both of them and gave herself one last burst of acceleration. Knowing she'd never make it to Station Bravo, she threw a new plan into motion.
A series of girders and plates along her right side transformed back into her right arm. She stuck the hand out and slammed her fist into the soft mud alongside the tarmac.
Whump! went a plume of mud as the shock sent her into a tumble, transforming all the while. Her legs and feet emerged and ricocheted off the ground into a handspring. She converted the handspring into a roll and drove her still-spinning drive wheels, now swinging around her ankles, straight into the mud.
The drive wheels bit in and kicked up a massive rooster tail of mud, releasing trapped gases and a spray of vapor. Through all this she fired her newly-issued cannon, its green rounds lancing through the blast of mud and debris.
BLAM.
The trapped gases ignited, and a truly massive cone of fire consumed the rooster-tail spray of mud. It was a glorious sight, and her adrenal circuits kicked in, riding the rush of the action to play it all out to her in slow-motion. The fire crawled out along the blast, sending up pockets of superheated gases still trapped inside the tholin mud. Mixed in were the twin explosions of the missiles, consumed by the wake of fire, their conical blasts sending vortices through the flames to punch up the fresh mud.
Rotary spun through the air, transforming back into vehicle mode as she went, landing back on the tarmac in a sort of halfway configuration with half her torso and an arm outstretched for balance emerging from the vehicle. A haze of smoke and some small fires foregrounded her form disappearing over the hill, only to reappear a minute later at Station Bravo.
Rotary here. Mission accomplished, sir.
The Sergeant's comm. cut back in and she knew she was going to get it, but strangely, she didn't care. Perhaps it was the raging adrenal circuit.
But she didn't.
"Rotary, slag you, that was the damn finest job I've seen in a while. Not enough 'Cons are dumb enough to go into vehicle mode after I tell 'em not to, and fewer still are smart enough to use the slaggin' mud."
"You're a damn fine recruit. NOW GET BACK HERE BEFORE I LAUNCH A DOZEN. ON THE DOUBLE!"
Rotary just grinned.
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Author's note: Well, this concludes a bit of backstory for one of my OCs, and hopefully opens some plot threads. Hope you all liked it – and even if you didn't, leave me a review anyway as that's how I improve! See you next time!