Chapter XIII

Fanatica
by: The Feesh

They thought they'd won. When I went down due to a mistake on my part, they cheered and ran off to do whatever it was that they thought they had to do. Ohoho, but they were wrong.

My weapons are dangerous to both mechanoids my size and the organics that I commonly have to encounter. Thus, it was not surprising even to me when the blade came from behind, moving on given momentum and took me by surprise. I can imagine what they must have thought, to see the adversary that had gotten shot by shotgun rounds near point-blank and had shaken it off without a dent getting cleanly decapitated by his own weapon.

They must have thought me silly, pea-brained, or stupid.

No.

The insects left me behind and fled the building, and I could hear Megatron in the distance. Reserve hard drives kicked in and my systems recollected and began to reboot, but they ran on energy conservation mode in order to put my regeneration systems at full speed. I knew I had time; the fleshlings would be too busy dealing with my leader … or rather, they would be too busy dying at his hands.

Megatron.

There were explosions somewhere, screaming, I could still feel vibrations in the floor as surely the dam began to crumble beneath the assault. The thought crossed my back-up mind that I could die here, but it would have been a sacrifice worth making for my cause. A sacrifice I have been willing to make for millennia.

Decepticons forever.

Silence encroached me for a time frame undeterminable.

/ :unit Frenzy offline, span unknown. Last recorded memory file: F43.18.

…

…

System check initiated.

My functioning scanners and radar served as my only connection to the outside world aside from touch. The dermosensors that covered every inch of my frame were still functioning and highly keen; I felt no disturbances through the concrete, heard no evidence of violence, and could only barely detect a few remaining heat signatures some rooms away that could have been insects. A bloom of satisfaction welled up in me at that point: we won. The dam was dead, but still standing, and surely the Decepticons were the victors.

But… something was wrong.

I felt… empty. There was something I had been able to feel immediately upon reaching this planet, a tiny tug on my spark that made it pulse and swirl faster and brighter. The others felt it too; Barricade reacted like a canid on the hunt, twitching and straining at his proverbial leash as we approached the foreign human establishment in search for sufficient alternate forms. All too gleefully we tore the compound apart after my partner had chosen a disguise that suited him and I picked up the first one that I came across that was good enough. I am not picky. I will change my mask as often as I need to in order to achieve my goals.

Barricade was a little pickier. At the time, the irony of choosing the alt. that he did was lost upon the both of us, but with a few minutes to look into it, he laughed. He had chosen a form that the local dominant species, homo sapiens, trusted and hated both. I didn't care outside of the fact that in selecting what he did we had free run of the country's thoroughfares.

But still, that ache, that pull had always been there, present in both of us at a constant rate. Reports with the others who had landed confirmed it: the Allspark was on Earth. We could sense it.

But after the battle at the dam … I did not feel it. The spot that the drive to find it had occupied was empty, free of that energy that I knew so well because it gave me life. It gave us all life.

And so I worried. Hours passed by in stillness and silence but I was ever patient, willing to wait for as long as I had to while repairs finished themselves. I was becoming dangerously low on energy when I was finally fit enough to get up and move about. Ten hours had gone by and still the majority of my head was gone. My processor had regenerated as well as some of my helmet and one eyestalk, but it had become apparent to me that my restoration processes were slower than they had been in thousands of years.

It cemented my suspicion that the Allspark had been destroyed.

My software was damaged and semi-dysfunctional; my comm. systems were still nonoperational; most of my hardware was offline. But it was enough. I fled the dam after raping an abandoned car of its battery power and headed for the last position I saw Barricade: Tranquility.

Along the way I continued self-repairs and amused myself with how daftly stupid the insects were. None of them noticed when I so much as boarded a bus one early morning and took refuge beneath a seat in the back. Sillysilly insects, stupid little cockroaches.

Barricade was not in Tranquility. Some seventy-two hours and seven vehicle batteries later, I was in better shape but still I could not send out signals or transmissions. This bothered me greatly; I was adept at my own repairs, and yet the correct systems refused to come online. The best I could do was emit a cryptic burst of static that served no purpose but to perhaps attract unwanted Autobot attention. I could, however, still hack into and listen to other signals.

That is how I found out about Mission City.

I eavesdrop on a conversation between the Autobot leader and his ancient medic over what they think is private link. They speak of the Witwicky boy and some Banes child; they chat almost nonchalantly over their victories against my now deceased comrades. A single phrase sends dead, bitter ice into my spark:

"Barricade collided with an overpass pillar at high speeds, Prime. Ironhide forced him off of the road on the way to Mission. It is doubtful he could have survived a headlong impact of that magnitude."

So B-Barricade is dead, I muse. No faithful partner to work with and find shelter in. I am on my own.

"I understand your reasoning," comes the deeper, hushed voice of Optimus Prime himself. "But Bumblebee has seen him on long distance radar heading towards the East Coast. He has assured me that it is him and has gone to perform reconnaissance. I received a report just this morning that Barricade is very much alive and well in the East. Last known track he was heading towards Minnesota."

Minnesota.

"How far away is Bumblebee?"

"Barricade has a three-day headstart and official colors going for him."

Two thousand miles away.

Without bothering to listen to the end of the conversation I leap into action and begin heading northeast.

Surprise. :)