Transformers Prime: Lost, But Found

Part Four

The Present…

Arcee knew she was dreaming. In it, she was young again, by human standards long, long ago. She was on Belsaris, a small moon just a few hundred light-years from lost Cybertron. The Autobot legion, under Optimus Prime's command, had retaken a massive Energon refinery on the moon's icy southern continent. The battle had been hard fought, and devastating for both sides. Standing as a solitary figure on a glacial plateau overlooking the battlefield, Arcee watched the medical units move amongst the aftermath, checking still forms for signs of living sparks. Somehow she knew they would find few if any.

"Ain't you a sight." Came a husky baritone at her back. Arcee needn't have turned to know who it was. "Like a winged messenger, come from the All-Spark to see the lost put to rest."

"Very poetic." Arcee replied somberly.

"I have my moments, I suppose." Cliffjumper remarked, moving up to stand beside her. "After-all, I ain't just a another pretty face."

"Not really in the mood for jokes right now." Arcee rebuked.

"Partner, ain't never a bad for smiles." Cliff observed. "Heck, with everything we've seen, and everything we've lost, I think we're entitled to find a happy moment when we can. Even with…all this." He finished, gesturing to the field of broken fighters.

Arcee was silent for a moment, mulling over Cliff's words amongst her myriad other thoughts. At last, the Cybertronian woman sighed, giving the battlefield one last look before turning to move away.

"I just hope this was worth it." She said, striding back towards the command bunker Prime had established after the victory. "We take something from the 'cons, they turn around and take something from us. Back and forth, back and forth. Doesn't feel like we're getting anywhere. At this point, Cybertron will stay lost."

Giving the Autobot a slap to the shoulder, Cliff tried his best to assuage his partner's doubt. "Prime is always saying that as long as there's even one of us left fighting, there's hope. And I aim to believe he's right." Cliff gestured to the husk of the Decepticon assault cruiser in the distance, a loss which had turned the tide against the enemy.

"Every day, 'Ol Megatron is loosing ships, special units, his Energon stockpiles. Everything that's given him the advantage in this War. We're chipping away at his ranks, and in the meantime the cowards and traitors that signed up with him get more and more desperate. Heck, I'd be willing to wager it won't be long before Starscream tries to stab him in the back, just like he did us. The 'cons are coming apart. And when that happens, we'll be there to finish 'em off."

Cliff reached out to set a comforting alloyed hand atop her shoulder.

"Trust me." He said with a grin.

Arcee, despite her best efforts, could not contain the small smile which appeared on her face. Part of her wanted to be annoyed that, once more, her stalwart partner had robbed her of a well stoked inner turmoil; however, as always, what he left in it's place was much better.

"Think we'll even be there to see Megatron put down once and for all?" Arcee asked.

"You betcha. Ain't nothing gonna keep us from that. It'll be you and me, all the way to the finish."

"Yeah. You and me." Arcee said, leaning in to rest her head on the larger Autobot's armored chest.

"Till the wheels come off, partner." Cliff whispered.

Then, she was awake…

…

When she opened her eyes, Cliff's face was still there, smiling at her with all the swagger and bravado she remembered. Then, slowly, the face changed, becoming strangely distorted. The smile vanished, replaced with a grim line of a mouth, and the face, once so full of life, became drawn out, mangled. Before her eyes Cliff's features became a twisted thing of nightmare. And then it blinked at her.

"Welcome back, partner…" It said slowly.

Arcee recoiled, her back pressed hard against the cold rock of the chamber, her arms and legs pulling against the salvaged magnetic restraints.

After a moment, her fear subsided enough for Arcee to gather herself. Though the nightmarish thing was real, it had yet to do anything to her beside trap her where she lay. He thoughts struggled to focus, and in a brief moment of clarity, she recalled that which was most important to her.

"Jack. Where's Jack?" She asked the twisted form before her.

For a moment, a clear, frightening rage filled the mangled visage of the thing looming over her. But, just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by a distracted, almost uncertain look as her captor began to mutter to himself.

"You see…she still…still doesn't see us. She's forgotten us…should have killed him…torn the skin from his corpse…No, no, then she wouldn't understand…we couldn't make her…understand…"

"Understand what? Cliff. Cliff, if it's you. Talk to me. Why are you doing this? What happened to you?"

"You KNOW what Happened! You were THERE!" The twisted figure bellowed, wheeling on one of the chamber's lighting rigs in a terror, smashing the thing into broken shards. "You watched us die, and you did nothing! Where were you, where were you to save us like we saved you so many, many times?"

"Cliff, Cliff I'm sorry. I thought you were lost. That there wasn't anything we could do to save you. The 'cons killed you, then they turned you into that…thing. Ratchet said there wasn't anything left to save."

"Well he was wrong, wasn't he! We watched it all, from behind eyes that weren't ours. Watched us scream and tear and kill, listening to the voice, the voice in our mind, whispering, whispering…"

Once more, the abomination that had been Cliffjumper grew almost still, murmuring to itself over and over again with words Arcee, even with her enhanced audio receptors, could not make out.

"Cliff, please. Please, listen to me. If I had known, that there was even the smallest chance you were still alive in there I would have stopped at nothing to get you back."

"Then…where were you…?" Cliff asked coldly, his uneven back still to Arcee.

"The mine collapsed. I thought…I thought you were gone. The team had to get out before…"

"No! Not there. Before. Before they pulled the Spark from our chest and put in that darkness. Where were you to stop them?"

Arcee tried to find her voice, but found she couldn't. She began to understand, at last, the betrayal Cliff believed he had suffered. Struggling through the anguish and torment which filled her chest, Arcee tried to keep her words clear as she spoke.

"I wanted to save you. I would have gone into the Nemesis myself to get you out…but we saw your Energon signature…stop. We…I thought, they had killed you. Cliff, all I wanted was to avenge you after that. I was…so filled with rage, I wanted to make them pay for taking you away…"

"What changed?" The mangled figure asked.

Arcee could only gaze at Cliff's back, unsure about how to respond. Sensing the sudden silence, the twisted hulk turned on her.

"What changed?" It asked her in a rage.

Thinking on that, eyes closed against Cliff's savage, patchwork countenance, Arcee wondered at that. It felt as though it has been a lifetime since she had thought back to those early days, when Cliff was newly gone, or so she had thought, and all her world was revenge. Then, as if to answer the question she had yet to voice to herself, she saw the face of a boy. The face she loved.

The look which crossed her face did not go unnoticed. Again, the thing which had once been Cliffjumper turned as if to speak to someone else in the room yet unseen.

"You see? Yes, we knew the answer. Knew it all along. He made her forget. Made her forget about us. She would have come. She would have…if not for him." Cliff muttered, his distorted voice shifting as if from one mouth to another. "Kill him then. Kill him and she'll know our pain. Know our loss…"

"No! Cliff, please, don't hurt him anymore!" Arcee pleaded, fighting against her bonds with intensity renewed. "Who ever it is you're talking to, don't listen. You're not a killer!"

"You think you know who we are, Arcee?" Cliff asked her, gazing off into some unknown distance. "Because we forgot. In that darkness, under so much rock there was only the cold empty hunger, and the Whispers, telling us to kill." Slowly, Cliff raised his hands before his eyes, following the contours of battered alloy and eroded carbon.

"Then…then, after an eternity with it, the voice stopped. We were alone, and we wondered why no one, not you, not Prime, or even the voice wanted us. So, we gave ourselves a new voice, and it filled us with thoughts. It gave us the strength to escape, to dig, to crawl and pull ourselves out of that place."

Cliff turned to her then, moving slowly, hand outstretched towards her. Arcee tried her best not to pull back as the twisted limb grew close.

"And, that entire time, crawling and digging thought the dark, we saw your face. We remembered, remembered things lost to us. Names and places. But…always, it always came back to you. Partner."

Cliff came to a sudden stop, the tips of his worn fingers just inches from her.

"When we came into the light again, we had so many questions. We wondered at why you never came for us. Why we were forced to pull ourselves from that abyss, alone. But…we had to wait. To be patient. We were broken. But, in the caves, among the shattered Energon and machines we found what was left of the 'cons."

Once more, Cliff seemed to take in the limbs, worn and uneven, and at last Arcee understood why it was her lost partner appeared so…wrong.

"We took their pieces, and made them ours. Fingers that did not fit, legs that did not work. But, we made them fit, and then we made them work. And then, we could move. We could walk. And we did. Across the desert under moonlight. And then…we watched. Watched the skies and the roads and we waited. So patient."

And then, the thing which had been Cliff smiled for the first time. Arcee had never seen anything so ugly.

"Then we found you, partner. Saw you, so fast and beautiful. And we wanted to kill you. To pull your head from your neck!" For a moment Cliff seemed to loose himself even further, hands suddenly outstretched as if to seize Arcee by the throat. At the last moment, the broken figure seemed to regain some small control.

"But, then we saw you weren't alone. We saw the human. Small and proud. We saw how he spoke to you and how you spoke back. And we remembered…remembered when you spoke to us like that. When you looked at us like you looked at him. And we knew what we had to do. We had to make you understand what you had done to us. Then…then you'd see why we are…what we are."

Cliff stood then, as straight as his uneven form would allow, and for a moment he seemed as sure of himself as he had been when he had once been whole.

"But, we had to be sure. Had to know if we would be more important to you, standing before you, then him. And here you are, faced with what we have become, and you still think of him. So, we will bring him here. Then, when we are done, you will know what it is to be like us. To have nothing left to love…"

And then Cliff was moving away, the cold, stark realization of what he was going to do falling upon Arcee like a molten blade plunged into her heart.

"No! No! Cliff, don't do this! Please, Cliff!" Arcee screamed and begged at the monster's retreating back, pulling in desperation her bonds. "Damn it, no! Cliff! Please…Please…"

To be Concluded…