Chapter Six
Tailgate was once again eating his knees.
He whimpered to himself, half out of frustration, half out of that sinking feeling he got whenever he felt he was in over his head. This situation certainly qualified in a physical way; they were now at least five miles beneath the planet's surface, and continuing ever deeper.
Looking out Sixshot's window he could see the lights of the transmechanoids traveling alongside the multichanger, flanking them on either side, with the red female supercar in front, and the bulky indigo SUV behind them. They'd used the high-speed underground transit tunnels for several miles, veered off into an access shaft, and then passed through a gateway in a false wall of what looked like solid rock. Now they were in a lightless shaft plunging ever downward.
"Could have driven myself, you know," Tailgate grumbled quietly, folding his arms over his chest, staring out the windshield, the interior lights of Sixshot's cockpit casting a red-orange glow over the minibot's white frame.
"Unacceptable," Sixshot countered authoritatively, having heard the minibot speak over the road noise of engines and tires over dirt and rock. "You're best kept here. Your new alt-mode is too slow and clunky to keep up with myself and these primitives."
"If only I could have picked a faster alt-form. It's like my choices were unfairly limited or something," Tailgate snorted.
"You are remarkably flippant, considering your situation," Sixshot replied.
"Well, you were going to kill us all back there on the ship. I figure that you're still going to kill me in the near future," Tailgate snipped irritably. "So I don't feel particularly inclined to be nice to you."
"I'm not going to kill you," Sixshot said calmly.
Tailgate's optics flickered like a startled blink. "Come again?"
"I said, I'm not going to kill you," the multichanger reiterated. "I am here for a challenge, and for death, preferably on my own terms. You are merely a means to that end. Until that opportunity arises, I will keep you alive, by any means necessary."
The minibot's arms dropped to his side, taking in this bit of information. His pity for Sixshot returned full-strength, and he felt sorry that he'd been snappish. Not that being crammed into a cockpit designed for something much smaller than he was did anything for his mood, but his conscience was now nagging at him for being petty and making snap judgments against the larger mech.
Tailgate turned to stare out the passenger side window, looking at the light shining from the headlights of a repair truck – the transmech medic, Gauge, outside. Inside the closed doors of that truck's rear half was the injured cricket robot. He wondered how she was fairing. If she was afraid of what was going on. If she had any idea of where she was going, and if she was being taken somewhere against her will, as he was. She was probably happier. Coming with others of her kind to wherever they were going was no doubt a better fate than being 'maintained' at quality control.
...
::So,:: Gauge radioed as he pulled forward to drive alongside Wildfire, ::What do you make of our two newcomers?::
::Which ones?:: Wild questioned, her high-beams streaming down along the winding trail of dull gray-brown rock, cutting a trail through darkness ahead of them.
::The ones that are obviously not transmechanoids,:: Gauge sniffed, scanning over his left side suspiciously, tilting his rearview mirror to catch Sixshot's reflection.
::And you're completely sure of that?:: Wildfyre questioned, surprised and curious at the same time.
::Very,:: Gauge affirmed. He narrowed his bandwidth, encrypting the transmission to a private channel, an electronic conversation barely above a whisper. ::They're running on a type of energy source I've only encountered once before. To further place them in the category of 'alien outsider', they have a quantum irregularity in the center of their void chamber.::
Wildfyre's engine hitched. There was only one other being on the planet she could think of whose internal scans matched Gauge's description, and if his sensors were not misaligned, she would have no choice but to take these strangers directly to him.
::The Elder is going to want to know about what happened with these two anyways,:: she stated with finality, making the call as the group's leader. ::Thanks to the big one, we're all wheels deep in manure anyways.::
::Are you certain its safe to let them near him?:: Gauge questioned, concerned. ::The small one certainly, but that violent titan is another matter altogether.::
::I can handle him, if the Elder doesn't do it first,:: Wildfire reassured her companion as the road changed into smooth metal beneath them.
The darkness evaporated into an eerie aqua-blue glow as sensors adjusted to the sudden influx of light streaming down from somewhere above. Tailgate fairly pressed his faceplate to the driver's side window, wide-eyed at what he was seeing.
In an enormous dome-shaped cavern sat a small city. Nearly everything in the cavern was metal, from the dozens of bridges spanning deep chasms near the edge of the city's platform, to the ground, to the walls, to the city itself. It was nested atop a peninsula of dark gray metal, surrounded on three sides by deep pits, and spiderwebbed with bridges leading out towards the edges of the dome, no doubt into other access tunnels like the ones they had just passed through. Blue-white light shone down from recesses the ceiling, and the city itself was alive with motion and light. Tailgate thought it looked remarkably like some Cybertronian city back home.
"How is this even possible?" Tailgate asked quietly, overawed, and a little unnerved by the similarity to home.
"Did I not say that this planet was the body of Unicron?" Sixshot answered.
At that, Tailgate began to panic. "Primus spare my spark! Primus spare my spark-!"
"Will you stop that!?," Sixshot barked. "The Anti-Spark is no longer within this vessel. This is little more than the chaos-bringer's empty husk. You have nothing to fear."
"How can we be sure that he can't access his body remotely?" Tailgate asked, twitching like a rabbit that had just seen the shadow of a hawk pass overhead. "Everything's lit up like he's still alive!"
"If he were alive that city would not exist. His internal defenses would have eradicated it and its inhabitants long before it could have been built," Sixshot grumpily reassured. "He certainly would have sensed our sparks and reacted by now if he had any control over this husk."
Tailgate continued unintentionally playing devil's advocate. "What if the city is there because he just can't sense these guys?"
That question gave Sixshot pause. He could not sense a spark in any of them. Tailgate's supposition was entirely logical; if Unicron could not sense a spark in them, he may not have attacked at all . . .
. . . but there was the matter of that city. Such a build up of debris over his internal components would have been removed by his body's maintenance systems. No, his original assertion was right. If Unicron were alive and still in control of his material form in any way, his internals would have been pristine of such an artificially made 'tumor'. His thoughts turned back to his cowering hostage.
"Well?" he asked.
"Well what?" Tailgate questioned back quickly.
"Are we being attacked?"
Tailgate peeked out the windows once more. " . . . No?"
"There is your answer," Sixshot stated curtly, exhausted with the conversation. "We are safe. Now stop worrying over nothing."
Worrying over nothing, Tailgate snorted mentally, sitting back in his seat as much as was possible. Easy for you to say mister point-one-percenter. You're not a minibot inside the struts of the cosmic embodiment of evil.
. . .
The group rolled to a stop at the edge of the city, the TransMechs transforming into standing, bipedal humanoid forms. Sixshot followed suit, ejecting Tailgate out of his cockpit and into his waiting hands, holding him carefully, so as not to give away their status as kidnapper and hostage.
"Welcome to Zero Point, gentlemen," Wildfire said, turning to face them all. "You newcomers are Breakers now."
"All of us?" Sixshot asked, feigning an innocent curiosity that was jarringly out of place with his previous display of violence.
"Almost all of you," Wildfyre corrected, optics on the two Cybertronians. "You two are here on good behavior. The moment you start shooting things like you did up top," she added, pointing an index finger at Sixshot, "you're getting tossed out on your tailpipes. Or worse." She lowered her hand, placing it on her hip. "There is no fighting in Zero Point," she stressed, looking at all of them, making certain the cricketoid in Gauge's arms and the police bot understood the ground rules. "We have ways of settling our differences that don't involve lost of life and limb. We have children present and I don't need them picking up bad surface behavior from any of you. Is that understood?"
"Children?" Tailgate and Sixshot asked in unison, sounding surprised.
Wildfire gave them a puzzled look. "Yes, children. What, did you both work on some kind of isolated military base?"
"YesNo," Tailgate and Sixshot answered in unison. The others around them chuckled.
Gauge walked towards Wildfire, stopping at her side. "If you're still sure you can handle things here, I'm going to take the newcomers to the emergence center. The little one needs full repairs and our other new friend needs a full evaluation for placement."
"Yeah, I'll vouch for them," Wild nodded. "We're headed straight to the Elder anyways, and if I can't handle them, he certainly can."
Gauge nodded, pausing for just a moment to give his field commander one last glance her way, concern in his eyes. "Be careful." Wild nodded briefly, smiling behind her faceplate, watching the medic depart, hurrying on his way.
The ground shook slightly from Dirt Drop's steps, his whole body heavy and ponderously strong. He patted the police bot on the shoulder, getting the other's attention; the police bot seemed to be lost in his own sense of awe, taking in the sight of Zero Point and all the other free bots going about their lives within it. "C'mon kiddo," the giant rumbled gently. "The view's better inside, trust me."
The police bot laughed. "Well then what are we waiting for? I want to see it all," he grinned, following Dirt Drop onto the main street of the city.
Sixshot watched them go, studying the structures of the city. Like Tailgate, he could not help but feel a pang of homesickness; it looked a great deal like a smaller polity during the time before the war - some Praxus or Rodion hidden away on an alien world. Flying bots bustled like birds along the upper echelons of the city, eerily seeker-shaped in their designs, while grounders traveled through the streets on feet, tracks or wheels. He could hear music in the distance, savage and primitive - nothing like the ballads and operas of the Golden Age - but filled with a kind of raw vitality that had long been sucked from Cybertron's collective soul. Conflicting emotions assaulted his spark. He lingered, staring out over the city, silent in thought.
"So, you gonna carry your bride over the threshold everywhere you go?" Wildfire queried, trying to get Sixshot's distracted attention.
That did it. Tailgate was unceremoniously dropped to the ground.
"Ow," the minibot complained, rubbing his backside, checking for dings and scrapes. "Thanks a lot."
"That's some way to treat your conjunx endura," Wildfire mused, crossing her arms, the alien term rolling off her vocoder effortlessly.
"You don't even know what that means," Sixshot sneered, turning away.
"Oh yes I do," Wildfire countered, stepping closer, offering a hand to Tailgate to help him up. "I also know that you're both Cybertronians, and I know who and what you are, Sixshot."
Tailgate flinched instinctively even as accepted Wildfire's help up. The multichanger focus was instantly laser sharp on the smaller female.
"He's an Autobot and you're a Decepticon, and from how close you've been keeping him, I'm going to take a wild stab and say he's your hostage, not your mate," Wildfire continued fearlessly.
"Perceptive," Sixshot replied, optics narrowing, an uneasy tension like a storm brewing between them. "And how did you come by this information? Do the others know, hiding it from me, or is it only you?"
"You don't have to answer that!" Tailgate interrupted, desperate to try to keep Sixshot from tearing Wildfire to pieces, as he was absolutely certain he'd be witnessing it in short order if this line of questioning continued.
"It's fine," Wildfire reassured the minibot, releasing his hand and standing up straight, staring directly into Sixshot's optics. "I'm the only one that knows apart from the Elder, and that's because I'm one of the oldest here. Old enough to remember your name and how much the humanity had suffered because of Decepticon attacks."
Sixshot barked a short, harsh laugh. "If you know what I am capable of, then you should be thanking whatever gods you sparkless primitives worship that I have restrained myself from punishing your collective insolence."
Tailgate covered his optics. "Oh Primus, he's monologuing..." he whimpered softly into his hands.
"I don't have anything to fear from you. If I couldn't stop you, the Elder could with ease," Wildfire declared, stiffening her back and shoulders.
Sixshot roared with laughter. "And who is this great and powerful elder that could stop the greatest warrior Elite the Decepticon army ever produced?"
"Master Yoketron," Wildfire answered firmly.
Sixshot's laughter died in his throat.
Tailgate peeked out from between his fingers. " . . . Did somebody die?"
"Take me to see him," Sixshot demanded of Wildfire with anxious urgency. "Take me to see him now." Suddenly it began to make sense - this female's movements, the knowledge of Cybertronian customs and the look of the city - it was all because of Yoketron. It was all because of his old sensei.
"Master Yoketron will only see you if you are worthy," Wildfire said. "I'll take you to the dojo and make the request. I'm fairly certain the Autobot will have no trouble being accepted -"
"He can do whatever he likes," Sixshot snapped impatiently. "Just get me to Yoketron."
"Wait what?!" Tailgate stammered, staring in shock at Sixshot. "I thought I was your prisoner - now you're just going to toss me aside like an empty bottle of high-grade?"
"I no longer have need of you, Autobot. You're free to go," Sixshot said hurriedly, brushing the minibot aside, his entire focus on his old sensei as he tried to stare into the city's streets to see any sign of the dojo for himself.
"Hmph. So much for that relationship," Tailgate retorted under his breath.
"Follow me, both of you," Wildfire said. "I'll take you to where you need to go."
*.*.*.*.*
"Sixshot. One of my finest students ... and one of my greatest disappointments." The old bot scowled. "I did not train you just so that you could put your talents to use causing death and chaos across the universe. So many settled, inhabited worlds brought to rust at your hands ... and ultimately, therefore, at mine."
Sixshot remained somber, still respectful of his old sensei, the words stinging him more than he imagined they ever would. He looked down at the floor.
"Still," Yoketron relented, thoughtful as he gazed upon his larger student, "I understand that a member of Megatron's Phase Six program has had some of his freedoms stripped from him. I know about the virus, Sixshot, and what was done to you to make you what you are now, and as you no doubt have many questions for me, which will be answered in good time, I have a question for you:"
"Why did you allow yourself to be stripped of your freedom?"
The question settled heavily in the open space of the room. Sixshot took a moment to compose the answer in his mind before activating his vocoder to speak.
"It had already been stripped by the caste system, Master Yoketron," Sixshot stated firmly. "I paid the price I felt I needed to pay, in order to try to buy freedom for us all."
"As did many others," Yoketron agreed with a saddened, accepting finality in his tone. He poured a cup of engex for Sixshot, setting it on the table in front of his student, inviting him to sit. "Functionism was indeed a great evil. It repressed so many for so long that, when the pressure of the caste system had become too great for society to bear, it exploded, and caught many worlds in the crossfire - including this one."
Sixshot picked up the engex, sitting at the table and removing his faceplate to drink, as his master continued to speak. "I believe your return to this planet is predestined. Chaos gathers chaos, and you will never have the peace that you have been searching for until you finally accept what I told you those millions of years ago."
The multichanger scoffed. "I came here to find a challenge worthy of me, not to find peace."
"You chase death," Yoketron commented gently, cutting through his student's bravado with the ease of a well-honed blade, "and what is death but the eternal peace of nothingness?"
Sixshot slammed the cup down on the table, rising and turning his back to Yoketron; the older Cybertronian did not so much as flinch, familiar enough with storming emotions and wounded sparks that he no longer reacted to any such outburst with surprise.
"You wanted revenge, and dressed it in the nobility of a cause," Yoketron continued, unrelenting. "The moment of revenge has long since passed, and all that came of the anger and bitterness of the cause you espoused was suffering beyond measure, a bloody path carved behind you, and ashes in your mouth rather than the victory and honor you craved." The elder mech poured himself a cup of engex, taking a moment to reflect over its softly glowing surface. "There is still a way for you to find what you are searching for, Sixshot. I have taken on a new student. She will need your assistance as a mentor."
The larger bot turned back towards his sensei, affixing his faceplate so as to hide his contempt for the idea and the student in question. "You waste your time with one of these lower creatures?" he sneered.
"Yes, I appear to make a habit of it," Yoketron pointedly countered, unhurried as he took a sip of his drink.
Sixshot grunted. For all the pomp and celebration of a point one percenter's sparking, the fate of the discovered was rarely the same as the discoverer. Sixshot was a prize jewel in the crown of a Prime's guard, and every bit as much of an object as a gemstone. Like a rare and dangerous beast in a menagerie, he had been marked and sent off for examinations, tests, training and a life comparable to that of a nuclear bomb - a threat waved around in conversation among senators and cronies, kept safely locked away from everyone else.
Yoketron had been regarded as the foremost teacher of martial arts, an ancient warrior who had risen from the ranks of Cybertronian slaves to help free the planet from the Quintessons during the Age of Wrath. Few Cybertronians were still alive that remembered those days, and to most, Yoketron was simply very old, and very skilled. He had stopped counting his age long ago. It simply wasn't worth the effort once one could mark the passing of ages rather than years.
The old warrior had been given the task of training Sixshot, among other potential elites. This had once been a source of great joy to him, molding the finest and fittest raw sparks into the best of the Primal Vanguard, a force for the defense of their homeworld against other potential invaders and usurpers. He had taught them the greatest virtues tradition and belief could hand down: Self-control. Generosity. Mercy. Courage. Self-sacrifice. Humility. How to find satisfaction no matter one's circumstances and means, but how to strive to achieve greater and better things at the same time. The Golden Age had indeed been the peak of Cybertronian civilization, and deep in his spark, he knew that once the summit had been reached, there would only be a downhill slide back to the bottom.
So it had begun with functionism, with the caste system. It was a marvelous idea, wondrous theory intended to give order and meaning to the seemingly random events of the spark waves: A pulse from the Well of Allsparks igniting new life out of natrous metals in what were called 'hot spots'. Cybertronians mined from these areas could become anything - miners, data storage, tanks, jets, construction vehicles, even tools - but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to why, and in what numbers. Not, it would seem, until those with delusions of grandeur decided to impose their own concept of order on the process, cloaking it in religious terms, and using the names of the gods to coerce compliance with their ideology.
Now it was no longer just a moment of celebration and joy, of welcoming new life into the world; it was a time of auspice and portent, of guildmasters consulting their charts and reading signs in the bottoms of their energon bowls from the patterns of the solids left behind. Now it was the will of Primus being expressed in what these new lives could do. Were there more miners? Primus willed construction. Were there more scientists? Primus willed research. Were there soldiers? Primus willed war.
Now those who had enjoyed happier lives were relegated to lives lower than slavery due simply to how many of them made up the population. The rare, the special, the unique - they were the only ones fit to rule, and the Primal Vanguard that had once been the guardians of Cybertron's safety soon transformed into a boot against the necks of those who would not submit. It was logical to order society for better performance. Rational, and within the will of the creator. Why should anyone fight against it?
The subtle truth that eluded so many was that the lofty guild masters, who decided which Cybertronians were to be assigned to what caste and trade until the time their sparks expired, were the true masters of the world. A tank could become a miner, or it could become a general. If Primus were expressing his will through the number of alt-modes being made and the jobs being assigned, then it had been the Guildmasters who were twisting it to fit their whims, engineering society according to their own ultimate plans.
Yoketron had seen through thin veneer of order and reason to the manipulation behind it, but he had only been one mech against billions. Revenge, upheaval - these were not his way. He had taught his students to find contentment and peace even in the face of prolonged adversity; he could do no less than to follow his own strictures. Instead, he had prepared his students - the greatest warriors of the Golden Age and beyond - to hold fast to honor and truth, to respect life, and to remember that they only thing they had a right to change was themselves.
...
"Since the time of the Age of Wrath, there has been a saying among us, 'Freedom is the right of all sentient beings'," Yoketron said as he addressed a new group of students brought to him by the Guild. "It is a noble sentiment, and one that has great merit: Freedom is a precious gift that brings many benefits." The old mech put his arms behind his back and stood tall. "But it is not a right. Those of us here know all too well that those words ring hollow for us. Our lots have been decided for us by others. Freedom is something we must now be strong enough, or lucky enough, to earn. Think deeply on that phrase, my students: Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. If freedom is a right, then all peoples may demand it - but from whom? Who would think themselves so high above all others as to be the gods that entire species may cry out to for salvation? Who would be so perfect as to know for certain what is sentient, what is not? Why is life that is not sentient undeserving of freedom?"
There was a look of surprise that swept over the faces of those who knelt at Yoketron's feet as they drank in those words, taking apart the hidden interpretation behind the mantra. Soft murmuring rustled the dojo like the flapping wings of a nervous bird.
"Do you see now, the iron fist behind such a velvet glove? Do not be taken in by noble sentiment, lofty platitudes or "just" causes, my students. I will tell you the great truth that even the Primes will not speak: The only change you have a right to effect is change on yourself. You are the only true master of your own fate, of your own mind, of your own will, of your own thoughts. We are no gods, we Cybertronians, no matter how old we become, or how powerful we may be. Not one of us can rekindle a spark once it is extinguished.
"Freedom is not our right, my students," Yoketron said gently, seriously. "Freedom is a gift, or a privilege we may earn. I believe that one day we will abandon the notion of ratioism and functionism - not through revolution or slaughter, which only breeds more revenge and slaughter - but when enough of us decide that the only mastery we seek is mastery over ourselves. Do not be fooled: You will all learn how to fight, and you will learn how to fight in ways you never imagined, but I will not teach you how to overwhelm and subdue others for the purposes of oppression. No, I will teach you how to resist everything. When you are finished, you will come as close to putting on godhood as Cybertronians are allowed, and like Primus, you will understand that the greatest possible use of such power is in sustaining the lives of others."
...
"Your training was never completed, Sixshot. The revolution came before the last phase of your apprenticeship could be assigned," Yoketron continued. "You were turned lose because your combat training was finished, and that was good enough for Zeta, but you are still incomplete." The old mech turned his optics up to the taller multichanger. "The war is over. You can finish what you started."
This would mean taking on a student of his own to begin to train, to complete and test his education by passing it on to another. "Which one of them is it?" Sixshot asked gruffly, relenting. After four million years, the old mech still commanded complete respect and deference from his students. The former Decepticon could not help but quietly admire that even he could be brought to heel so quickly.
"Wildfire," Yoketron replied with a note of amusement.
"That one?!" Sixshot bellowed, incredulous. "You would saddle me with a sparkless femme?!"
Yoketron casually sipped his engex. "My reasons are my own," he calmly responded.
Sixshot growled behind his faceplate. He could not work with such a creature. To be burdened with something without a spark, created by base organic creatures rather than having been forged from the sentio metallico of Cybertron or its moons - unthinkable. Unbearable! It was bad enough with the minibot hostage, now to have a helpless, sparkless native as his charge -
"If you do not feel you can handle such a task, then you may return to your ways as you please," Yoketron said, breaking into Sixshot's thoughts as if reading them.
"... Fine," the elite relented. "What am I to teach her?"
"What I taught you: Duty. Honor. Discipline. Truth. Generosity. Respect for life. Self-control," Yoketron listed, pausing as if lingering over the list and measuring Sixshot's capacity to educate a Breaker on things the multichanger had long since forgotten. He took another sip from his cup and set it empty on the table in front of him. "If you are in need of assistance, advice, or perhaps a refresher course on these things, I am always available."
Sixshot smirked beneath his face mask. "Very well. I accept your challenge, Master Yoketron. I will show her what I've learned."
"You are not allowed to kill her," Yoketron added nonchalantly.
Sixshot grunted, optics narrowing behind his visor. "I am not that far fallen, sensei."
"We shall see, Sixshot," the older mech answered. "We shall see."