==Thunder and the Sun==
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of the characters or concepts. I make no money from this story or any other about Transformers.
For all those who read this and alerted it and favourited it and reviewed it etc - my great thanks. And I'm sorry it has taken me so long to update. I have been busy with Forbidden Fantasies -and other more mundane things in life.
For new readers – this story and that one are part of the same continuum and that one is quite complicated without the addition of Thunder and Sunny's antics and Sunny's complex past. The two stories have to start coming together in the next Chapter of FF – and I felt that a more detailed picture of Sunny's past and the basis of his feelings for TC were needed before that happened. It is useful also, I think, to start to get a picture of how things were on Cybertron before the war and of the more deep rooted reasons behind some of the tensions which arise in FF and which are likely to get worse as the continuity evolves.
Just briefly without becoming boring – for those who don't know this continuity - Cybertron before the war was a free choice society and a representative democracy under the leadership of Optimus Prime. The planet was in a state of change, however, having moved away from the previous political system – The "Caste" order - which was not a free system but one where rank and function was pre-decided and couldn't be changed.
Things are always difficult in times of change. The Alpha caste – of superior programming - who had ruled the old system, were still clinging to their old status and were using their money to try and re-establish control. There were many other problems on Cybertron – the conditions in Kaon – awful as you'll see - were only one.
The Decepticon "party" - in opposition – took full advantage of the troubles to try and show that Prime's regime wasn't working. Then, when they failed to win government, they started the war. It's how wars on Earth have sometimes started too is it not??
There's also reproduction/sparkling stuff in this story – maybe its my contribution to the "procreation" theme which seems to have been popular lately. In this universe you definitely need two TF's to produce a replication program. They can both be the same gender – but if it's two males then a femme is needed – oh yes, femmes have a definite purpose other than just girlie tokens – to incubate the rep program. To get it to the stage where it's ready to become a sparkling. At that stage it gets removed and put in a replication chamber, and the machine assembles the sparkling's prototype from the program blueprint.
Important to remember also that the Alpha caste got largely wiped out by the Decepticons after the start of the war when negotiations broke down. There were some survivors. Mirage, of course. And lesser known ones. The Reflector (De Luminiere) triplets and Mirage's cousin Blur. As well as …… read on
Warnings: the entire story has adult themes and does contain smex, slash, drugs and at times, a lot of swearing. This chapter has decidedly adult themes. You can add prostitution and inferred child abuse to the above list. I'll keep it M rated.
Chapter 2
Leaving his brother to deal with Bluestreak, Sunstreaker headed out of the Ark and into the night, aware that his departure would come to the attention of whoever was on watch but not caring. Sure enough, he had not gone further than twenty metres from the Ark when a voice on the com said "Sunstreaker? Is there any particular reason for nocturnal wanderings?"
Wheeljack. He composed himself. .:: I'm – er – just feeling a bit hemmed in Jack ::. He explained. Just need some fresh air. Thought I could – er – keep a lookout for anything untoward at the same time. I won't go far …"
.:: Right you are, Sunny! Been feeling a bit of the old claustro myself lately. But keep your com on – just in case ::.
.:: Got it, Jack!::.
It paid, he reflected, as he made his way up a small track he had discovered a few days earlier, to be favored by the medics and senior officers. He got away with many things which others did not because of his careful cultivation of the relationships – as did Sideswipe. Yes – they all thought he was a paragon of virtues. Not that he wasn't – in many ways – and not that his genuine loyalty to the Autobot cause didn't help matters along.
And that is the difference me and Mirage he thought, and the old anger flared in his spark as he thought of the Alphamech and his high handed ways and questionable allegiances. And he thought: It will never be all right, between me and him, no matter what Sides says or thinks, any more than it ever was with any of the rest of his pitspawned kind …. And it bugged him, and what bugged him most was that he still got these feelings, even after all this time.
Very soon, Sunstreaker reached his intended destination – a little hollow in the rocks about fifty meters above the Ark. Settling himself down, he took a deep intake. The sky was very dark, thousands of distant suns studding the canopy like jewels. Below he could just see the bulk of the Ark as it protruded from the mountain. Below, the tops of the pines at the treeline were a dim outline. In the distance, a few lights glimmered here and there, testament to isolated human activities in this sparsely populated region.
Sunstreaker lay back and put his hands behind his head and looked at the stars. He knew you could not see Cybertron's twin suns - which the humans called Alpha Centauri - from here, because it was the wrong end of the planet. He wondered how many of those other stars out there had life and how many were worlds which Cybertronians had explored, and thought that it would be just a handful among millions, and that, whatever happened, Cybertronians were very insignificant in the scheme of things. His intakes let out a sigh. He felt better now. Always for Sunstreaker, being in a situation where he could get some perspective on the Universe helped.
Sighing again, he closed his optics and thought of the conversation earlier with Sideswipe. Dear Sideswipe. So close to him in so many ways. So similar. So much so that Sunstreaker could tell how Sideswipe was going to act in any situation and could almost feel what he was going through. The twin spark at work.
And yet, he reflected, that was where the similarity ended. In personality, they were quite different. And Sides was – uncomplicated. Seemed to have himself worked out and not get bogged down with hang-ups and events from the past. Whereas he …
As usual when he thought of the past, it was as though a darkness threatened to envelope his spark, and he felt anger and resentment burn, fragments of the perennial fire which seemed to have scorched him for all of his life. Sides would never understand the fire. Nobody on the Ark – with the possible exception of Ratchet – really understood it. But Thundercracker – whatever else he may have become – had always seemed to understand.
Thundercracker. He found he was beyond crying about the Seeker. Instead, he felt an ache in his spark, but there was a warmth to it, and he found himself thinking fondly of the Seeker, of his calmness and gentle words. Whatever Sides says, he is different. And I will help him if I can.
The air was very still. It had a balming effect. And Sunstreaker felt himself drifting offline, and as he did so, the memories of the Seeker were very strong. And yet, as he offlined, it was as though the air changed and a storm gathered in the distance. The Seeker vanished, and his recall systems strayed from the new found warmth and back into the emptiness and the darkness.
And he found himself drifting away, further back and to a time long past, and looking on as though he were a ghost, a shadow who had returned as an observer. Looking at the very thing from which the Seeker had rescued him, so very long ago.
Cybertron 2000 vorns before the war
A thick smog hung over the vastness of Kaon, sealing the heat into the industrial sprawl as tens of thousands of production plants and generators cast their emissions into the thin atmosphere, spreading tendrils of foul scent into the dingy residential districts which nestled in clusters within Cybertron's largest industrial city.
That cycle had been especially sticky and oppressive. The kind of cycle where passengers aboard the shuttles leaving the busy intraplanetary port would have stretched themselves and been very happy to depart, to pass out of the soggy, smelly, noisy wasteland and into a cool, indigo violet Cybertronian sky; to leave behind the tops of the giant square buildings and plants, as they peeped through the suffocating grey blanket below, glimmering in the setting glow of the twin suns.
Although the technology on Cybertron was advanced and very clean compared to - say - Earth, the sheer volume of production there had failed to stop all pollution.
When the Alphas had ruled Cybertron, the answer had been simple. Contain all production to the cities in the north. The workers, of course, had to put up with the discomforts. And they lived in squalid, ugly conditions. But since they were only low castes and epsilon drones, it mattered not. They fulfilled the purpose for which their caste were created. Their basic needs were met. They expected nothing more.
But things had changed on Cybertron! There was a new order. Of choice and equality and opportunity. Caste described physical type only. It no longer dictated occupation. And the automation programs which had replaced manual labor had meant that far fewer Cybertronians needed to stay in such Kell holes. For the majority of previous plant workers, better lives awaited, out there in the nice cities in the southern half of Cybertron. Praxus, Sale, Iacca Niara. And of course – the best one of all – Iacon.
But the mechs hadn't left. Unwilling to step into a world foreign to their programming, they lingered in the shadows of their old workplaces, in places which became cesspits of unemployment and apathy, an embarrassment to the government which reacted with welfare and assistance schemes.
But the money didn't make everyone leave either. Instead, it financed well the new businesses which thrived there - drugs, gambling, illegal pitfights and street racing. And the inhabitants became so bound to lives of crime - and the rest of Cybertron became so wary of anyone whose history contained a shred of Kaon, Rufon or Yangal - that the vast ugly metropolises became as much prisons in the New Order as they ever had been under the Alphas.
Now, shadows from the setting twin suns spread slowly over the Blocks, the most run down and impoverished district in the most stricken and crime ridden city of them all ….
On a makeshift berth in the front room of a dirty cuboid building - only one of dozens of identical ugly structures which lined either side of the narrow street - a mechalescent lay recharging. He was one of many still sleeping off the effects of the revelries of the previous darkcycle. Bigger and better proportioned than all of the other Blocks juveniles, he was a handsome specimen - even if he was – like most Blocks mechalescents - in need of a wash and a good makeover. His intakes sighed rhythmically and he twitched periodically, pleasant online visions invading his unconscious state.
It was as though Sunstreaker now floated into the body of his younger self, and he found himself redreaming the dream. It had been a most successfulsession of Street Races, and he had easily outrun the mob from the North End, creaming them with the zooped up, turbo charged alt mode he was not supposed to have until he Came of Age. And the older Blocks Streeties had been so impressed, and some of them had won a lot from betting on him, the odds lengthened by his comparative inexperience. And all the Blocks tarts with the garish pink and sky blue makeovers had been crowding around, and they all said he was the most promising transformer to appear at the Circuit for - they didn't know how long ...
Then as he had walked away with the older mechs, a couple of the Enders had jumped them. But Kell, had they been sorry about that! In his dream he saw the big roller with the track wheels leaking energon and limping away, supported by his stupid mate with the phoney racer alt mode and the rest departing hastily behind, a couple looking furtively over their shoulders as they went.
It would be a while before any of them dared to mount a challenge at the Blocks Circuit again.
Sunstreaker smiled in his sleep. After that, there had been police sirens and the usual scarper, the satisfaction at seeing the frustrations of the hopelessly overworked police in catching nobody. In his case, of being not even questioned, because even though they had an interest in him for other reasons, he was too young to have an alt mode. And he wasn't bright yellow in those days, and his alt form extras looked just like those of any other aspiring Blocks mechalescent wannabe Streetie who plastered himself with fake transformer race gear in the hope of sometime doing the real thing ….
Both of Cybertron's suns had been well and truly above the horizon by the time he crawled home to his berth in the squalid two roomed unit.
Yes, the Circuit. Everyone knew that nobody in the Blocks was really anything, but at least racing at the Circuit seemed like something. The mechalescent stirred, turning over. And a thrill now ran across his frame as into his awareness came a scene which was really something. Which made the Circuit pale by comparison, a trifling replica of magnificent reality.
The slick black surface stretching into the distance to the Iron Hills beyond. The intoxicating scent of high grade propellants and volatile emissions. The tall podiums, alive with the excited babble of thousands of voices in the stands, all but drowned out by the roar of the most highly tuned engines on Cyberton performing their pre race checks …
Energy coursed through him. The atmosphere was electric, alive with anticipation as the sleek numbered forms were ushered into position. And behind the scenes, he knew huge money was at stake, not paltry welfare cheques. And out there in the stands stood not the Blocks tarts but the most beautiful and richest mechs and femmes of the Alpha caste of Cybertron.
Because this was The Track. The real Track. With real racers lining up in real lanes on a real course …
And he was out there! Among the sleek Alpha racer forms. The best of the best. And he was going to win ...
Sunstreaker shifted and moaned at the sheer magnificence of it all…
…………………….
Outside, the cycle wore on, much the same as any other in the Blocks. Heavy machinery droned, a whooshing came from the nearby conveyor transport, the pungent scent of ozone wafting through the room. Competing holovision sets and radio transmitters belted out music and chatter in the usual cacophony, interspersed at irregular intervals with laughter and the crying of sparklings, and sometimes voices raised and the wail of sirens.
Dimly aware of it all, Sunstreaker heard voices right outside, accompanied by a crashing and giggling and sound of running feet. He knew it was the sparkling gang from Third Row who were hurling rocks on the roof – something they did quite often and for no other reason than to make a noise and be a nuisance. If he had not been in the midst of his fantasies, he would have gone out there and caught the little beggers and given them what for. But right then the sound - along with all the rest - failed to rouse the mechalescent. He offlined again, returning to the glories of real racing.
Presently, however, there were other sounds in the room which he could not ignore. Somebody moving around, things being tidied around him and put away. Then there was a femme's voice. Tired sounding, as always, but sharp ....
"Sunstreaker! Wake up! C'mon now, it's late in the joor ..."
The mechalescent stirred again, hearing it but not wanting to hear it. He did not want to descend from the glorious heights of The Track. Doing that would mean facing the fact that he would, in fact, never race on The Track - or even get near it. Mean remembering that he was he was a Gamma caste, and not an Alpha, and that he came from the Blocks and not the Towers of Iacon or the Pinnacles of Praxus and that although the New Order was supposed to make everything fair it had not altered the exclusive rights which the Alphas held to The Track.
Above all, he didn't want to be forced again into the miserable reality which was mostly his life in the Blocks. The dingy cramped room, the stink from the processors, the stifling heat and his frail looking femme creator. Especially, he did not want to look at her as she prepared for her usual dark cycle of clientele, the ones who paid her for pleasure in the other room of the miserable unit. It was means by which she financed their pitiful existence – and also the drugs which kept her sane.
"Sunstreaker ..." The voice was impatient, and right over the top of him. And now he felt himself being shaken. "Sun ..."
Unfortunately, he was coming to, aware of noises now which indicated that it was, indeed getting late. There were sounds of activity as the Blocks prepared for its essentially nocturnal awake cycle. There were engine and transformation noises and heavy footsteps, the sound of irate female voices as sparklings were summoned home after breems of unsupervised havocwreaking in the filthy streets. Next door, the volume of the holovision set was suddenly cranked, and he heard voices and the muffled cracking of cubes.
The heat descended like a blanket. The familiar ozone scents flooded the room with a particularly potent pungency.
The mechalescent turned over and squinted at the femme across the dimly lit room. "Whattya want ...?" he growled.
"Sunstreaker – I need to talk to you. About something important ...."
He was annoyed. This would be another remonstration about his failure to attend the useless Blocks educational institution that he was supposed to have been at today. He figured he'd laid the situation out quite often enough. How his above average ability to learn and his being able to read and assimilate had already taken him far beyond the standard of any of the other mechelescents there. How his attendance was a waste of time. How an extra body in the classroom – especially one which was bored pitless - was something which the already harangued and burned out teachers could well do without ...
"Sunstreaker ..."
Either that or some other scrap. Not the alt mode – there was no way she could know about that. But cop stuff, maybe. Some jerk sniffing around about the fight, perhaps. Or the tags on the library wall, or that statue of Alpha Trion he'd knocked off and flogged. They had nothing on him, of course. But the thought of going through some tiresome interrogation was excruciating.
He reshuttered his optics.
"Sunstreaker this really is important!"
Her voice was right in his audial! His optics snapped open again. "Oh What is your damned problem?" he snarled, sitting up and glaring at her. Primus! The only time he even got any attention was when he'd screwed up and the authorities got up her tailpipe. The rest of the time, when she wasn't sleeping off the effects of her habit, her clients got it all.
Heaving himself on to the edge of the berth, he looked at her contemptuously. "I told ya ..." he snarled. "... I saw the truancy jerk. And as for the graffiti pit - that was the sparklies from the Iron Tower..."
"This is not about school! Or the police!"
Sunstreaker looked through the dirty Perspex window. Outside, the light was thickening, but the sparkling gang could be seen in the gloom, hanging by the front fence. The usual sounds floated through the hot twilight. Through the thin walls came raised voices, competing with the holovision set as the neighbours cranked up for one of their regular high grade fuelled arguments.
"It's – its quite different from that ...." There was a strained quality to her voice. Turning to her, the mechalescent could see that she had sat down opposite on the battered bench, the only other place to sit in the cramped surroundings. Her glassy pale blue optics were looking straight at him, the strain mirrored on her thin, fine featured, unwell looking face. He sighed. "All right," he muttered. "But it had better be good ..."
He got up and wandered over to the cabinet which housed an ancient and barely functional holovision set, the main means by which he studied the forms on The Track. Opening the compartment above it, he extracted a half filled cube which he had left there when he returned earlier. Now, in the haze of the post race revelries, he recalled some talk about another Challenge tonight. A mob who called themselves the Stunticons, coming in from the West Bank .....
Coming in with a reputation. And a wager. On him.
Damn it, he thought, I could have done with more recharge if I am to go out there again …
From next door a female voice yelled some thing which sounded like "fraggin' useless afthole …. And he heard their sparkling start to cry. A door slammed and another voice yelled something which sounded like "dumb glitch ..." The holovision blared on regardless. By contrast, their little room was quiet. He realized she was waiting for him.
"So?" he said, returning and sitting back down on the berth opposite her. "Fire away! I've got other things to do besides hang around here..."
The femme ignored the insolence. She had long become oblivious to his moods and outbursts, as well as to the fact that he spent much of his life either avoiding the police or in recharge.
She smiled. A pale, underenergised, half baked smile. "You will not be Coming of Age for a while …" she said. "But there are things you need to know. I know you are already – somewhat mature - and don't need the sort of talk some mechs of your age might ...." Her voice trailed off.
And now he imagined he knew what this was about. And he felt annoyed again. He'd had a slagging full on sex education operating right in the room next door, for Primus sake! "Well, what of it?" he snapped. "Believe it or not, I know how to frag! And I also know how not to get into spark input, not starting replication, putting up firewalls and all that pit ..." He reflected as he said it, that he was usually too out of it to bother with the annoying connotations of precautions. Besides which, it ruined the overload.
She was looking at him sadly, and he noticed her hands were clasped in her lap and were twitching, anxiously. "I know," she whispered. She looked up at him, with the ghost of a smile. "I also gather that you're not - without some reputation as far as that is concerned."
As with most other things, he was better at it than the other mechalescents. Or so he got told. He supposed at least she acknowledged one of his good qualities. Even if it was that one ...
"There are other things I need to discuss with you."
He eyed her suspiciously. The alt mode! Surely she didn't know about that? Only the Circuit mob knew he was fanging it out there with the full grown Streeties. He looked at her coldly. If she did then she was a sly glitch. All those times he'd been to the Circuit and she'd never let on!
He scowled. She looked down. Her hands twisted in her lap..
"Sunstreaker, I know you are disappointed by the life you've had to lead…" she sighed. "I wish it had been some other way. Truly I do …."
Next door their miserable underenergised sparkling was still crying. A door slammed again and the male yelled "Shut it up, can't ya? …" and his bondmate bawled something back. Movement caught his optic, and through the window he saw that the one functional street light had come on. The gang had gone but a mech, dark and sultry looking, was skulking in the shadows. Undoubtedly the first client for the night, once she had said this important thing.
He turned back to the stuffy room, the worn flooring, the battered furniture and the surface peeling off the concrete walls. The heat was oppressive. My life …
He took a sip of his cube. "Whatever gives you that idea …"
She sighed again. "I was addicted to the enhancers early in life ... they are hard to get off, and expensive ..."
He glowered across at her, silent. She was still pretty, despite the drugs. All pastel hues and narrow waist and long, shapely legs. Unusually good lines for a gamma, and a petite form. She was smart, too, in her own shrewd, streetwise way. He had never doubted she could have been far more than she had been, and that despite how hard everyone said it was, they could have left here and gone somewhere better. Even if only to a better part of Kaon.
Anger flared in him. "Don't start!" he muttered. He thought of the Stunticons. He would, he thought, leave soon if she didn't get on with this. He could not handle a rendition of how hard her life had been.
But she had that intense look again. She leaned towards him and her optics burned brightly against her pale face. "Sometimes things happen in life. Sometimes an opportunity comes about. When it does you have to decide what best to do with the - new opportunity …"
Why couldn't she talk plain Cybertronian? He took another sip of his cube, a frown on his handsome face. Next door, the sparkling was still crying. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed and he heard the whoosh of the transporter taking off from the depot. What new opportunity? This was it! How many times had she rubbed that in? And he was destined, too, for it to stay this way until after he Came of Age - unless he could make enough from the streetraces to get his own place and lie to the authorities, somehow.
"Sunstreaker, you would have noticed that you are – different - to others of your age. Smarter. Superior – in looks and strength …"
He could, of course, be one of the "lucky ones" who got a job in some factory or some mine on the Equatorial Plains as a juvenile. But that was just another sentence to Kell! And she knew how he felt about it too. No - the alt mode was important – it was his only hope of escape and for the future, because he was going to be the top Streetracer in Kaon. And then he was going to be something somewhere. Somehow. And even though he could not go there, into his mind came The Track.
And if this "opportunity" was the death sentence of his chosen career - a litany about how much a junior constructicon alt mode would suit, then he was out of there. He'd live off the streeties, sell drugs, anything. She could go to Kell.
"Sunstreaker?'
He glared at her. "I'm not working in one of those pits ..." he growled. "I'd rather die ..."
"You won't have to!" she reached across and patted his hand. "Trust me! You won't have to."
For the first time, he was interested. He watched, curious, as she got up now and went into her berth room, and he heard rustlings and then what sounded like a lock unhinging. It was suddenly quiet. Next door the holovision had been switched off, and the sparkling had given up.
Sunstreaker fidgeted, sipping at the cube again. There were voices and he stole a glance outside. The mech had gone, but the Third Row gang were back. Clustered under the lamp, they looked to be plotting. A motley band, covered in dints and dings and scratches from the School of Hard Knocks. Like I was! He recognized one as a youngling he'd dealt a pasting to only a few cycles ago for calling him a flash grunt. Yeah, he thought, as soon as I can, I am soo out of here.
There was a small click and she returned. "This is not easy, Sunstreaker ..." she paused in the doorway, "but you have to know. ..." She came and sat back down and now he could see that she had fetched a small white card and was turning it over in her hands, her attention upon it. She looked up at him. "Have you ever wondered about your other creator?"
Now, he was puzzled. There had been one, of course. There must have been! He was not one of the few lingering deltamechs or epsilon drones, the only mechanoids ever to be cloned on Cybertron – a practice outlawed with the advent of the New Order. But that was all he knew! The subject had never been raised. He had just always assumed his mech creator was one of the many who had been in her berth. An accident, the program of which for some reason she couldn't abort. A flyer maybe, which would account for his speed and strength.
To be honest, he'd preferred not to know! And he wasn't sure that he did now ...
The heat was suddenly oppressive, the room, stifling. There was a new look on her face. One he hadn't seen before. A sadness? More than that. Something he couldn't place.
She looked at the card in her hand. "Lots of mechs have come and gone from my berth Sunstreaker … and most of them are nothing to get excited about."
He thought of the procession of sleazes who supervised the plants, the pimps, the drug dealers and the visitors from the Other Cities. In most cases, the reasons why they had to pay to get a frag were too obvious to contemplate. Looking out, he caught a movement at the end of the street and thought he saw tonight's client again, still hovering. "You're not kidding" he muttered.
"But this creator of yours - he was different … is different…"
He looked back at her, a pale form in the dimly lit room. Perched on the bench, her pink chest makeover with the subtle violet tints looked overdone, he now thought. But then – they liked it that way.
"How different?" he muttered. "What – was it some kind of special frag?"
"No – not like that. He's a very decent person … "I – have quite a love for him. Actually"
From outside there was the sound of breaking glass and sparklingish laughter erupted. He surmised that the gang must have knocked off some high grade. Next door, the sparkling started up again and somebody swore. And he thought by Primus. What room was there for love in this pitspawned hole? What room was there for love in her life? That she purported to feel something for one of those losers who paid her to perform was actually quite disgusting.
Whatever the Kell love was, anyway…."
He looked back at her. She said nothing. More laughter from the street, and another whoosh from the transport depot and he remembered the Stunticons. He should get going soon.
"Well," he said "Is that it?"
"No." She smiled shyly. "There's lots more!"
She leaned forward so she was looking straight into his optics, and her pale face stood out in the gloomy room. When she spoke it was in a hushed voice, almost as though she were afraid the sparkling gang outside might be listening. "This mech," she said. "He was – is – only one of your mech creators !"
His attention went back to her. He was puzzled – and a little shocked. "There's more than one?" he said "How did you work that out. What – did you do it with this mech and somebody else and it could have been either but it's easier to say it was both?" The idea was unsavoury, to say the least.
She laughed softly. "No!" She leaned forward and laid her hand on his arm. "You have two mech creators because I am not one of your creators ...!"
Next door, the sparkling's cries turned to screams and the mech yelled "Primus all fraggin' mighty…" and he heard the femme yell back: "Well you wanted the slaggin' thing …" There was a loud thump and the crying stopped abruptly and the femme shouted something else. Then there was silence. The mob outside had gone quiet.
The silence intensified. The heat in the little room bore down. For a moment all he could do was stare at her blankly. And then there was a burst of fresh laughter from outside and suddenly this was ludicrous! If she wasn't one of them then where had he come from? "Surely to Primus you didn't adopt me?" he burst out, the situation suddenly bizarrely funny in its impossibility. "Or did this lovermech leave me on the doorstep?"
She looked at him coldly, and he knew he'd probably gone too far with the last comment. "I have already told you, I carried your program. You are not my creation but I incubated you, Sunstreaker!"
He was curious, now. Why in the name of Primus would a pair of mechs want a whore from the Blocks to incubate their rep program? Surely there were other femmes available! Like – somebody who didn't flog their aft every dark cycle …
"I thought you were supposed to use friends, sisters? We don't learn a lot in that fragwit school but they did teach us that!"
"He couldn't …" she said, and her optics were suddenly intense again. And when he looked at her questioningly, she said: "He couldn't because …" she paused, and her attention was on the little card in her hands again, and she was turning it over. Nervously, she looked at him.
"Because he is an Alpha Caste and none of his friends or sisters could have done that for him!"
Something froze inside Sunstreaker. The small familiar room around him suddenly seemed – well - different. And it seemed to have gone all quiet again. Had he heard right?
"That's right, Sunstreaker– you have Alpha programming!"
He had heard right. Oh by Primus! Well, that was just … it was … well it was pretty amazing Of course, he didn't see how it could be possible! Not with her – this place – everything the way it was. She must have made a mistake. From outside came more cackles and the sound of glass breaking.
He scowled "Don't be ridiculous … "
She was looking straight at him. "It's true," she said, "a client." Then he must have had an amazed expression because she said. "Yes, there have been Alphas too – occasionally…" and she raised her chin with a defiant air."He helped me once! So I helped him. He found he was carrying a replication program which was not from his femme bondmate," she went on, "and I offered to incubate it for him. It had to be done secretly. Such a thing would never have been tolerated among his own kind …."
Another silence. Outside, somebody shouted.
And then, he suddenly was aware of nothing but her words. And all he could think was Oh by Primus, it is true! And it explains things. It explains everything!
Because it did. His speed. His accuracy. His fiercely competitive drive. How when he was racing he could anticipate every move the others made. So that is where I get it from …
He was dimly aware of raised voices again next door. But it was as though in another universe. From the other universe, he also heard her say: " … his name's Blaze De Lorian … Iacon family … comes from the Towers … but Sunstreaker, listen, there's more …"
But as his mind stopped spinning quite so much there was only one, all encompassing thought in his mind. He stared at her, elation rising like a tide in his spark. "The Track …" he whispered. "The Alphas are real racers! And now I'm going to be one of them!"
A shadow crossed her face. "Sunstreaker … she said, "… no … listen … you must hear me out … its not as simple as that …"
But he wasn't listening! He rose, excitement coursing, building in every circuit. "It's what I've always dreamed about!" He burst out. "You don't know it, but …" and then suddenly he was pacing up and down, blurting it all out, how he'd gotten himself an alt mode and been down at the streetraces, and how he watched the Alphas on the holovision, and how the streetraces were just a shadow of that, but he'd been the closest he'd been able to get. But now …
And he was aware that she kept trying to get a word in edgeways and kept saying "no … Sun … listen … " but he paid no attention because – well - what could be more important than this?
He stole a glance outside. A door slammed again and he watched as their femme neighbour emerged, garbed in some silly garish makeover. As she tottered up the street into the gloom, the sparklings turned and someone hurled a cube in her direction. It smashed against her aft and she screamed and ran on. There was raucous laughter. One of them fell against the fence and it collapsed. More hilarity.
And he thought: The Alphas! Even though anyone from any caste can do anything now, nobody does what the Alphas do because they are so much better! And it's not just that they go on The Track! They're rich and they look great, and they live in better places and have better alloys, and do better things, and get better paint jobs, and everything! And they don't have to look out their windows and watch some dumbaft femme get her aft wupped by Cybertron's greatest no hopers ….
"Sunstreaker, please!" He was aware of her touch. She had risen, and had him by the arm. Her optics were searching. "I know what you've been up to!" she said. "I know what you want! But this is not what you think it is …"
He pulled away from her and stared, incredulous, his excitement electric. "We don't have to live in this pithole any more! This is the end of it!"
Her optics were desperate, pleading. "Sunstreaker, I …"But he did not see. Did not want to see.
He heard noises outside and saw that an altercation looked to be starting up between two of the gang members. They were facing up, their chests puffed out in the gloom. There were shouts of encouragement. It would herald the arrival of the police.
"No - imagine!" he whispered. "We can live anywhere we like! We can go to Iacon! You don't have to be a whore any more …"
And then suddenly he thought her pretty, and that she deserved a better life. He touched her arm, met her optics with his. Joy rose in his spark. "I'm sorry for being such an afthole …" he whispered … "things are gonna change … I'm gonna be a Trackracer!"
She gripped his arm. "Sunstreaker – no – LISTEN TO ME!"
He could not ignore the urgency in her voice. The noises outside were suddenly distant again, and once more the room seemed to close around them, the heat settling with a new intensity. And then he was staring at her, and the only sound was both of their intakes heaving, and she was saying: " …the other creator, he is not Alpha, you are only half Alpha …"
She relaxed her grip. He found that a terrible sick feeling was making itself known, strangling the excitement. She took her hand away and looked at him as though stricken. "You are a half caste Sunstreaker !" She whispered. "That does not make you one of them! You have some of their qualities, but you will never move in their world…"
Then she looked suddenly drained, and she sank back down on the bench. "Oh sweet Primus!" she said. "I didn't know how to tell you this! I had to give you all the facts … I thought I should start with the good part first …"
Outside there was loud shouting now and the sound of the fight underway. He heard cheers and whacks and thunks, metal on metal and something breaking.
What did she mean? He knew everyone got cross about the Alphas refusing to live like everyone else. He'd got cross when he heard about it. But that was because he couldn't do it. Couldn't go on the Track. Now he could! He had their programming …
"Look …" she was saying, "times will change. What they do now … eventually others will mix with them, live with them, have their sparklings, do what they do … " she looked up at him. "But it will take a while …"
He stared at her, the sick feeling magnifying. "But I'm not 'others'!" he gasped.
Her gaze was sad. "Oh yes you are!" Rising, she went to him and took his hand and looked into his optics. "Especially you, Sunstreaker! I know this is hard, but you are - particularly not one of them because you are – the result of an activity not approved of in Alpha culture."
The words echoed in his head, and he found he was shaking. Her hand came up and he saw she still held the white card. "Here .." A softness came about her. "Blaze has been decent about it," she said. "He asked me to give you this. .." she handed it across to him and he took it, dazed. "It is a Simfurrian bank account card," she said. "The account has considerable funds in it…"
He turned it over, his mind still a whorl. He looked at her. "How much?"
"About a million credits .." he felt his circuits give a jolt. "He wants you to - finish your education somewhere proper and make something of your life, Sunstreaker …" she paused, and he read in her optics both fear and sorrow. "But in return …" she hesitated.
He felt weak. The heat was suddenly suffocating, the room oppressive. Outside he was dimly aware of a crash and more angry voices.
She turned away. "You are never to track him down ..." she hesitated, and when she turned back, her optics glistened. " … and to access the funds you will need to sign datapads to the effect that you renounce any connection to the Alpha caste of Cyberton…." She looked at him, and there were tears spilling from her optics and running down her cheeks now, "and any rights to anything which is an Alpha domain!"
He stared at her in disbelief. She hung her head and turned away and sat down again. Now his inners churned and the sick feeling started to turn into something else. For now he understood, knew why this had all been so hard for her. Because - now he thought about it -the name De Lorian was familiar. He had not taken much notice of any Alpha names. He knew the racers by colours and numbers. And the names all sounded the same. But de Lorian – that stood out.
He glared at her. "He's a Trackracer isn't he? This Blaze …"
She shook her head. "One of his creations, I believe. A full caste. Your half brother…."And then as he struggled to absorb this latest bombshell, she looked up at him and said. "I know about your aspirations in that way, Sunstreaker. I am sorry. But there are other forms of racing…." She attempted a thin smile. "And you can always go and watch this brother …"
He was angry then. Deeply. Fury welled in his spark, more potent than anything he had ever known in his life.
"LIKE KELL!" he roared, and he found himself on his feet, fuming at her, towering as she shrank away. His creator, who now was not even his creator - just a whore from the blocks - a miserable wretch who did favours for Cybertron's upper echelons! A fiend who offered him the world one microsecond and then smashed it to pieces the next.
Her optics widened and she shrank backwards. He held up the card. "You can tell him to stick this where the twin suns don't shine!" he roared, hurling it down. "And if I wanna live in a palace, or be a racer, I'll do it! And if it means not taking money he wants to give me to make me not wanna do it, I don't want the fragging money…" his voice rose. "I DON"T GIVE A FRAG WHAT YOU SAY!" He was really yelling now: "I"VE GOT RIGHTS! ISN"T THAT HOW IT"S SUPPOSED TO BE NOW! AND IF I WANNA SAY I'M AN ALPHA. I'LL SAY I'M A FRAGGIN' ALPHA!"
His fists were clenched. She backed up, placing the berth between herself and him. "It doesn't work like that!" she whispered. "And keep your voice down!" Past her through the window he was aware that the action had stopped and heads were turned in their direction.
"WHY?" he roared. "EVERYONE IN THIS FRAGGING HOVEL CAN HEAR EVERYONE ELSE ANYWAY!"
"Look at this pithole!" he gestured around him, ignoring the staring optics of his new audience. "All my life l've been a fragging junkie whore's creation living in the kellhole of the Universe…" he noted the hurt which crossed her face, as though she had been struck, the horror in her optics, but did not care. "But now I find out I'm not what I thought I was and I've got a chance. To be something I always wanted to be. Now you're trying to tell me some stupid rule's gonna stop me! WELL I DON"T LIVE BY THE RULES! NOT NOW! NOT EVER! NOT FOR ANYONE!"
He stopped, heaving. She was crying now, and she shook her head. "You don't understand!" she sobbed. "There is no choice in this! You have to take this. If you don't … then … the Alphas can make matters very unpleasant. To not take this would be – dangerous!"
He couldn't believe he was hearing this. "IS THAT RIGHT?" he bawled. "WELL BRING IT ON! IF THEY WANNA TAKE ME ON THEN THEY CAN! I'VE STUDIED THEM! I'M FASTER THAN MOST OF THEM ANYWAY! AND I'M PROBABLY STRONGER!" Now he became properly aware of a dozen or so pairs of juvenile optics looking on with fascination. "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT!" he roared. He drove his fist into the window, it broke with a loud crack and the femme shrank back further. Juvenile optics widened. The gang scarpered.
She was behind the bench, intakes heaving, face pale and stricken. "Sunstreaker," she rasped, "The Alphas could kill you! Believe me, they're very adept at that! I haven't told you everything. There's more!"
And whilst he stood there boiling, not knowing how he was managing not to start smashing up the whole room, she said "The incubation – after Blaze implanted the program - the spark element split into two! You have a twin!"
She sank back against the wall whilst he struggled to absorb yet another bombshell. "This is not like your half brother!" she said weakly. "It means there are two of you!"
Once again, all he could do was stare. Then he felt a weakness spread over his frame, and slowly he moved to the berth and sat down heavily. His optics glazed, unseeing. She sighed, leaning heavily against the wall. And when he looked down, a sudden overwhelming emotion gripping his spark, she sighed. "Look - they could have aborted the program. But they didn't! They didn't because they believed the combination of their programming would give rise to - a superior mechanism …"
He looked at her, beyond surprise now. "But it didn't work that way! Superior - yes - but not in the way they intended…." She hesitated. "And that was another problem for Blaze because – multiple replications aren't approved of – or tolerated - in Alpha culture either."
He felt the venom rising again. "Why am I not surprised to hear that?" he snarled.
She went on. "That is why when the incubation was at an end and it was time to transfer the program to a replication chamber you and your brother went into different chambers. In different places. Then when your prototype was built you came back to me … but he went else where. Otherwise …" she hesitated again. " … there was a concern that certain Alphas - if they found out - would kill you both!"
He was speechless. He wondered then just who the Alpha caste, the former rulers of Cybertron, really were, and a darkness crept over his spark. For a fleeting moment he thought that perhaps he should be happy to not be a part of it. Everything he had learned rallied deeply against some deep belief, something he felt buried within his spark. Yet all that was overwhelmed by the fury he felt at not being allowed into their world.
She had fetched a cloth and was wiping her optics. She picked up the card and held it out. "It's another reason you should take this money!" she said. "That way it will not matter – even if they do find out you're a twin." And when he said nothing, feeling the anger start to burn inside again she said: "Kell, Sunstreaker! He's been generous! He could have had you killed. And me! Let alone provided an opportunity like this!
He was incredulous. The fury burst out again. "Are you trying to tell me I owe him one for letting me exist? And then stopping his mates for knocking me off ?'
"I know it sounds bad. I'm sorry."
Looking back, Sunstreaker often surmised that it was at that moment he decided to support the Government. And the ones who made up their ranks who later called themselves the Autobots. Because they at least were trying to make everything fair. Whereas this Alpha Caste - from that moment he hated the Alphas and vowed that if he ever had the chance to fight them and bring down their rotten regime once and for all he would.
And he told himself he hated them for what they stood for but, in fact - although it took him aeons to admit it - he hated them for shutting him out.
Now he looked up at her, seething. "Where is he? MY - TWIN?"
She sighed. "I don't know … I don't even know where they built the protoform."
Hatred burned in his spark. For her, the Alpha caste, everything. And there was, of course, one more thing she had not told him.
"What about the other mech? My other creator?"
"I don't know!" She dared to move back to the bench now and she sat down, weakly, looking at him, drawn, with tear stained cheeks. "Something high up in Government, I believe" she whispered. "That's all I know!"
Hope flared briefly. Illogically. Then the anger returned. "I suppose I'm not allowed in his circles either!"
She sighed and shook her head and he saw real sorrow there and caring, but he was not interested. "I can't answer that!" she said. "I don't even know if he's aware you and your brother exist."
Anger erupted, and he was on his feet again. "IT"S ALL ONE HUGE PRIMUS ALMIGHTY FRAG UP, ISN"T IT? THAT'S WHAT I AM!. A FRAG UP! AND NOT A HALF CASTE! I'M A FRAGGING OUTCAST!" He glared at her, but this time she did not shrink back, and he saw a new look come over her. "I don't know why you even told me all this!"
She rose slowly, and this time her voice was more controlled than before. There was a determined look in her optics. "Because this is a chance for you!" then they filled with tears again. "And I want you to have it! This is your right …"
Of all the things she had said today, that surely had to be the most ridiculous "I DON"T HAVE ANY RIGHTS!" he roared.
And then suddenly all he wanted to do was to get out of there and go and take on the Stunticons. And thrash the Kell out of them. And he wanted to imagine every single one of them was an Alpha caste and that he had somehow busted on to the track. The Real Track. He would systematically wipe them out, one by one ...
He picked up the card and shoved it furiously into her hand. "Here's an idea!" he spat. "You use this! Go down the Blocks precinct and get enough enhancers to shove into your filthy conduits to send yourself into oblivion – for good!"
And he was gone, ignoring her stricken tear stained face. He was through the door and into the street and away into the night, ignoring the mech still in the shadows, ignoring the stares from the dirty windows as he transformed and roared past them.
Sunstreaker awoke with a start, pump hammering, intaking sharply. The stars burned very brightly in the canopy above. A creature called somewhere in the night and another answered. A gentle breeze had sprung up, and it wafted over is surfaces, cool and soothing. He sat up. The lights down the mountain were twinkling.
Always he went back in dreams to that conversation! And always he remembered such detail. But now, as always, a cavalcade of images about what had come afterwards went through his processor. No details. Just like a series of snapshots was getting played.
The Stunticons. The Race. His triumph. Thinking the whole time of the Alphas, and slamming his dental plates together so that it hurt and vowing I am as good as any of you spawns of glitches whether you like it or not and this is just the beginning! I have your programming, and that is all that matters …
Afterwards. The high grade, and the other drugs. The psychedelic lights and the thunking music, and the pretty mech with the door wings - the one that tried to look like a Praxan. And the femmes. Many of them. Many mechs and femmes all with nice bodies and seams and cracks and wires and ports and more drink and drugs and lights and wildly throbbing sounds....
Losing himself so he did not have to think about earlier …
The police again. The arrests. A serious bust, this time, his adult mech friends being led away. The hiding in the shadows, the not going home for two cycles until; he was starved and parched and had to, and then returning to find the unit surrounded by police. The neighbours gawking. The not being allowed in. Being told the femme had – died. Being belted in the face and knocked nearly unconscious by the big black one he knew as Barricade when he tried to force his way past them …
The despair, the guilt, the emptiness …
Something white on the ground. The numbers of the bank account on the front of the card.
Her body. Her frail, sad, drug infested body. The great and terrible love he suddenly felt for her, of all that she had been through to bring him into the universe. And this Blaze. Of how she'd loved him and he'd used her…
The burning anger and hatred which had fired through every part of him …
The inquest. The finding of "accidental overdose …"
The funeral. The community cremation furnace. Nobody there except the silly femme from next door and her wailing sparkling and a couple of degenerates who claimed to be "relations". No clients. No-one! And definitely no sign of his pit spawned Alpha Caste creator .. or the other one …
Putting a single amethyst crystal in the ridiculous Blocks community memorial chamber, because purple was her favourite colour and he did not know what in Kell else he could do. Looking at the plaque of names of those who had died in the Blocks for stupid, useless reasons and vowing that he would do something about these places, if it was the last thing he ever did …
…………………………
Sunstreaker put his hands to his face and rubbed his golden optics. The stars burned in the canopy above. The memories kept coming.
The unit getting smashed up, everything taken. The life of fear he led after that. Feeling alone and – hunted. Although he did not know who, or what hunted him.
And he had the card …. But he was damned if he was going anywhere near the bank.
Swindle and Vortex. The Combaticon mob. Onslaught. Leaving the Blocks, forever, and surviving under their crooked, Primus forsaken mantle. Dangerous. Desperate. But anything was better than go and sign those papers and use that card …
Jail. Then Sideswipe. Sideswipe's wealthy Praxan step creators getting him out of jail and then welcoming him in as one of the family. Him never really accepting their charity, and feeling lost and alone, and so many other issues, and so many questions unanswered.
Questions that still, to this day, remained unanswered …
………………………….
Sunstreaker looked at the stars. He could see the three stars which the humans called the belt of Orion rising in the east and he reflected how those three stars looked just like that from Cybertron, and how a lot of stars did, and how Jack said that was because in comparative terms their two star systems weren't far apart. That was a good thing if they were, as he believed, in for the long haul here.
But it didn't matter where he was, he concluded with a sigh. His past still plagued him. The whole ghastly circumstamces of his incubator's death and the horrible feeling in his spark that she was killed and it was his fault. The anger once he really thought about Blaze De Lorian and realised how he had let her struggle away in that pithole for aeons with his now unwanted spawn and had then paid him - not out of concern - but to stay out of his life and not be an embarrassment. Or die …
But he didn't die! And he waged war on the Alphas. Oh, how he waged it! His own, private, bitter war. And they waged it back! And the more it raged, the more the doors were closed against him….
And that was really what he had never come to terms with. Never! Even though most of them had been dead for a long time now. And he had never felt sorry about the destruction of the Alpha districts; in fact, it elated him. He thought of Mirage – the surviving full caste – and the hatred which burned behind the blue optics because Mirage still suffered over the Towers and Mirage knew he, Sunstreaker, didn't give a damn and Sunstreaker knew Mirage knew this and derived a grim satisfaction from his sufferings.
Nor had he resolved the bitter disappointment of not knowing who his other creator was, of going up so many blind allies but, ultimately, the searches yielding nothing ….
He thought of his twin brother. A warmth spread through his spark. Yet Sideswipe couldn't help. Sides didn't worry about these things. Sides had never even been to Kaon! Sides reckoned since he grew up in Praxus he was Praxan, and that even though Praxas wasn't there any more that was who he was, and it didn't matter how he was really programmed. Said he never felt like an Alpha so he couldn't care less if they didn't think he was one of them. And it was true that there were no murmured innuendos and poisonous glances between him and Mirage, in fact, they got on quite well!
Kell! Nothing bothered Sideswipe! He wasn't even bothered about the scrap being blown out of Praxus because he said it was just buildings and it was people that counted and all the people who counted to him had survived.
He came back once again to the conclusion that out of everyone here on Earth from Cybertron, Thunder was the only one who did.
…………………
Thunder. He thought of him again now. He was the first one he'd ever really told about that conversation with his incubator at the Blocks. The first time he'd ever confided in anyone about the hopelessness he felt over so many of the issues it raised, the anger and the bitterness and the implications which he knew were going to come out of it. It was also the first time he and the Seeker shared connectors …
Sunstreaker took a deep intake and let it out in a slow hiss. Even after all this time, he remembered it so well! He had not known the Seeker long. Thunder had laughed, that deep melodious laugh he used to have.
"Kell, what a tale!" He'd said. "That's amazing! I thought my origins were prickly enough, but that takes the tailwind! You should write a book …"
He'd been furious. "Are you trying to make fun of me?" he'd snarled. "make a joke out of the fact that I only know part of who I am and can't even be that because a load of glitchspawned aftholes think I'm a pile of pit?"
The Seeker had reached out and taken his hand, and he remembered how electric that first touch had been. "Hey!" he'd said softly "No offence meant. But y'know, it ain't so bad. You wanna try being a Seeker! Ever wondered what it's like to have the whole of Cybertron think you're a pile of pit?"
He'd laughed, but then he'd burst into tears, and then the Seeker had taken him in his arms and held him and rocked him gently. He'd said "Sun, you can't change what y'are. But you can make something of what ya got. And from what I can see you've got plenty."
"But I don't even know who I am!" he'd wailed.
He remembered Thunder's arms around him, his reassuring strength. "Sun you are - your Spark and everything which has happened to you and everything that you think and feel. Which is lots of amazing bits and pieces, as far as I can see. Now you have to get in there and pull out the good bits. And you got lots of those. And times'll change – you'll see. I'd bet half my aft you'll be fanging it round that Track one day …. And if you ain't – you'll be doing something else amazing …"
And then he'd wanted the Seeker after that, and it was the first time he'd ever really wanted anyone with his spark and not just for a quick buzz and energy exchange and release of overload. And the Seeker had resisted at first, and then hadn't been able to, and once they'd started they couldn't stop. They'd made love all that cycle, and that had been the start of their relationship.
And the Seeker had said lots of lovely things to him lots of times after that … lots of times …
Sunstreaker took another deep intake, and looked again at the starry sky. Again the Earth creature cry rang out and, again, it was answered.
He remembered after that first time, as they lay there in a blissful afterglow, Thunder had said "And for Primus sake, stamp on that stupid pride and use that money! It's yours!! The frag where it came from! Do something with it …"
And he'd felt too happy to be angry, but he'd murmured: "but my identity! I have to sign it away…"
"Naa you ain't signing nothing away! It's just a fraggin' data pad! Sign it! Then do whatever you wanna do anyway, only .." and he had leaned over and kissed him, deeply and softly: "you're probably best off staying away from those Alphas, sweetspark.
The fights with Thunder when he didn't and he got himself in a whole pitload of trouble for other things came later….
But he'd used the money. To train as a pitfighter. Then Sides had wanted to be in the pit as well so he'd used the rest of it to get him trained too. And it was then that Skywarp came into the picture and that had been that with Thunder ….
…………………….
Sunstreaker looked down to where the outline of the Ark shone faintly in the starlight. Sides was right – he had been sparkbroken. And irrational. Yet, for all that, he'd had a good look at himself and asked himself what he'd stood for. And he'd joined the Autobots because he really did believe in their cause, and his skills from the pit had made him a formidable warrior. And all through the war when his past still plagued him and when he'd had to face Thunder in battle he'd remembered his words, and Thunder had been right: he had become something amazing - one of the best most respected Autobot soldiers of them all.
And the great irony was that he knew – whether the rest of the 'Bots accepted it or not – that it was largely because of the Seeker, largely because of a Decepticon, that he was how he was now.
And whilst he'd never stopped thinking Thunder deserved far better than the Cons and, especially, he deserved someone better than Skywarp, he'd never been able to hate him.
And now he would help him. He could not bear to see him suffering the way he obviously was. He would enfold him to him the way Thunder had done to him, so long ago. And who knows, he may just help himself again. Come one step closer to answering the unanswered and resolving his dark and tortured past.
…………………………….
After a while, there came the inevitable buzz on the com. "Sun? You right?"
Sideswipe. Jack had told him. He was surprised how much better and more resolved he sounded when he answered.
. .:: I'm headed in ::. he said. .:: I won't be long ::.
But he continued to sit and stare at the night vista for quite a while after that.
I never intended this to be that long! But it should make the next FF chapter better. Thanks for hanging in there.
I had a think about why Sunstreaker was so angry at the universe and at the animosity between him and Mirage and figured it was all pretty serious. And JK Rowling played around with things halfblood so I figured I could do the same with the half castes. Sunny and Sides aren't the only ones incidentally. A loose end, along with a load of others now hanging there, I know. All to be tied up in time! Please R&R! A x