A/N: Hey all. Sorry for taking so long to update this story. I seem to be taking longer to write chapters and I have four stories I am currently writing. *ruds head sheepishly* I will try to update more often after I finish A World Apart, which is only so many chapters away from being completed. But you see, there are reasons why I might not be able to update any faster. It depends on how much and how fast I can write my chapters. You see there's this thing called a job.
I now have a job! My job hunt is finally over! *does a little victory dance* I haven't started it yet, but I do in fact have the job. I am just waiting for the paperwork to go through and I also need to do some online training before starting on the job training. But when I do start it is at Subway in the nearby mall as a Sandwich Artist. :D I don't know my hours yet, I will get those after I do my online training, but I have to wait for the paperwork to go through first.
Anyway, next on my agenda is It's a Prime Adventure, just so ya'll know what one will be next to update in case you were wondering.
Oh! Almost forgot. Another thing I need to say. You remember that poll I had? Well, turns out it was all for naught. I tried to give you guys a say! I hope you can forgive my muse for making a decision that made your votes invalid. But it's a decision you will find will make things interesting I promise! It is going to remain a surprise though. ;P I will tell you this though, Mina is not going to turn Cybertronian, or at least not full-on Cybertronian, I'm thinking Techno-organic, kinda like Sari in Animated. My muse is still working on how to make it happen. She is also, at this point, not going to be paired with anybody.
A/N2: Blah! i forgot to do this when I updated. Terms used in this chapter are not all mine. I noticed the book used the term mechanos when describing the size of the gladiatorial pits so I went from there figuring out words for distance and stuff.
One mechano is equal to ten of our feet.
One ano is equal to one of our feet.
It takes ten anos to make one mechano.
Other terms used are "Opiluk" and "Danniluk" which are explained in the chapter. Before anyone goes, "hey I recognize those terms! You stole them!" or "Oh, I guess they are free to use without permission." and use them without asking the proper person or think those words are my own when they aren't. They belong to Lunar Mist, author of the story Through a Cybercat's Optics. She gave me permission to use them in this story and YWOB.
Scripture of the Update:
"A wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident." ~Proverbs 14:16 New King James Version
Author's Replies:
Sci-Fifan95: Yup. Lol. Indeed you should. :P Glad you liked it.
KayleeChiara: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. :)
soundwavesfangirl250: :D Thanks! Glad you liked it!
qaz1234: Thanks! I'm glad you like it. :)
AndromedaAI: I didn't know that. Lol. That's great! The world needs more dreamers. ^.^ Everyone's changing their names! XD
Jayna Prime: I am glad you liked it sis. ^.^
LonelyLullabyOwl: Owl City? I haven't heard of them, but I'll check them out. ^.^ A crush, huh? Lol. Is this the part where I tease you? Lol.
sisterawesomeness: Thanks! I'll try. :)
Chapter 7: Discuss, Battle, Discuss, Sisters…
Journal Entry #45 A Little Scared
I would never admit to my new friends this feeling I felt whenever I heard about this Megatronus person. So far his intentions seemed to be good. But so do the intentions of most politicians until they get what they are initially after, then many regret voting for them. But Megatronus wasn't a politician, he was a gladiator who worked in the smelting pits. I couldn't compare him to the corrupt people in leadership positions on Earth.
Perhaps it wasn't really Megatronus who had me worried, but what was likely to come. I kept having this foreboding sense that I wouldn't have to worry about it being too quiet while Orion was away from the apartment at some time soon. How soon was soon was anyone's guess if I trusted that feeling. My confusing dreams didn't help the matter either.
Whether or not I would be here when it happened, I was a little bit scared for my new Cybertronian friends. I had a vague sense of where things were going. Vague enough that I didn't have a grasp on if Megatronus was a good guy or a bad guy in the grand scheme of it all, but clear enough to know it was going to be a rough road. I just hoped my friends would find the right path.
~Mina Castina
I yawned and stretched my arms above my head as I rubbed sleep out of my eyes. I hadn't gotten much sleep during the night time due to some weird dreams. On top of that, Orion had woken me up early, saying he was going to bring me with him. He was getting more worried as well, though he was in more of a position to do something about it and find out more about what was going on. He was still concerned about his co-workers spotting me, however, so he left me with Alpha Trion in the ancient mech's office. That was where I was now, leaning against the jar of ink Alpha Trion used for writing in his book.
"You've grown quite comfortable among us, I see," Alpha Trion observed as he glanced at me as he dipped his quill. It seemed an ancient practice to write with quill and ink, even to me.
"Hard not to when you live with Orion Pax and have met more than one of you," I said. I pushed my visor up a bit from where it had slid down my nose. "You guys are huge. It's either get used to it or have a mini-panic attack every five minutes. I have enough stressing without being terrified of bots who don't want to hurt me. Can I ask you something?"
"You may," Alpha Trion said, pausing in his work as I closed my makeshift journal.
"Do you believe in the possibility that someone could have dreams about the future?" I asked, looking up at the mech from behind my visor.
"Before I answer your question, I must ask my own," Alpha Trion said. "What are dreams?"
I stared up at the mech for a moment before remembering that the bots didn't already know what many words meant. It wasn't like I had had a dictionary on either my iPod or my laptop. Then I had to think of a way to explain what dreams are.
"Well," I said, twirling my pen between my fingers. "They are mental images, emotions and sounds, pretty much anything one would experience while awake, except it is only in one's mind and happens when one is asleep, or in recharge as you guys call it."
"Ah, yes, I understand what you mean now," Alpha Trion said. "Some of us are gifted with the ability to see into the future." He tapped his fingers on the pages of his ginormous book as if in thought. "It is a very rare gift indeed. But, why are you asking?"
I adjusted my visor again and shifted so that I was fully facing Trion, rather than turning my head to look at him. "I've been having some weird dreams lately," I said. "They have me worried, because I have had dreams in the past where at a later date, the events that were in my dream came to pass exactly as they had in my dream. Most people I have talked to about it put it off as coincidence, but I find a hard time believing that."
"Hmm," Alpha Trion hummed in thought. "What are these dreams you are having?"
"Usually battles," I said. "I am usually fighting alongside a group of bots against other bots. But I am unsure who we are fighting. I would know them if I saw them, my dreams are very detailed and clear in the picture. One I had last night, I was looking over a very damaged city and in the distance I saw a lot of explosions. I do not know how to tell the difference between dreams that are of the future and aren't. But I do worry about what is to come. Something doesn't sit right in my gut about this Megatronus. His intentions are good from what Orion has told me, but things are not always as they seem."
"Indeed," Alpha Trion said. "I share your concern. I am also concerned about you, as it appears you will get caught up in the coming conflict."
I shrugged. "Come what may, Orion is my friend, whatever I can do to help him, I will," I said.
"'Come what may'?" Alpha Trion asked.
"Whatever may come, whatever the future holds, no matter what," I explained. "I have faith Orion will do what is right. He's my friend and to me that means I trust him and will help him. You should always trust and help your friends."
Alpha Trion smiled briefly but then seemed to sigh and he got back to work in his large book. "I am sure Orion Pax will appreciate your faith in him," he said. "I have no doubt he will need someone willing to show that faith in the near future."
I looked at the old bot curiously. "What does that mean?" I asked.
"I am afraid I cannot divulge that information," Alpha Trion said.
I gave the old bot an analyzing look, trying to find a clue as to what he was thinking. Whatever it was, he gave no outward clue as to what it was and my gaze shifted to his large book. What I could see of it gave no clue either, as I could not read the symbols. I sighed and shrugged. I had almost had another piece of the puzzle, but apparently I was not meant to have it yet. Whatever it was wouldn't change the fact that Orion was my friend and as such I would be here for him as long as I could be. Whatever that meant.
~Gladiator Pit, Kaon, Normal POV~
The gladiatorial arena in Kaon was a rather large business. The pit floor where gladiators fought and died was large enough for a regiment of bots to hold exercises on. It was two hundred mechanos on the short sides and three hundred mechanos on the long sides. The floor was made from crushed ore pebbles discarded from the foundries, because their concentration of metals was too low to be useful. Mechanical debris and burning heaps of trash were scattered across the floor at irregular intervals, creating endless opportunities for tactical ambushes. Surrounding the floor were four rows of seating, which rose to a ceiling a hundred mechanos from the floor. Lights in every frequency from infrared to ultraviolet were set up, drenching the floor in merciless light.
The stands were jammed with bots who worked in the factories and refineries of Kaon. The bots stomped their pedes in rhythm until each balcony bounced up and down nearly to the limits of the metal frames' tensile strength. The noise was overwhelming and over the course of the match it would grow so loud that the contenders would fight with nothing in their audio receptors except for a constantly maxed out white noise.
Megatronus had entered a pit, either this one or one much like it, over a hundred times. Every match he entered, he left victorious at the end of the match. The Tournament of Champions, the arena circuit in which he now stood, had changed the rules for those who faced Megatronus. His opponents were allowed to enter the pit first and given the choice whether to remain in bipedal mode or assume alt mode. They were also allowed to scan and assimilate anything their forms would allow to be used as camouflage for an ambush. Megatronus saw it as a cowardly way to fight, but it also worked in his favor. When he gave his opponent the first shot, and the opportunity to ambush him, and still came out victoriously, he looked invincible.
There, Megatronus thought as his optics locked on a large heap of discarded body parts. My opponent is there.
It was the kind of scrap heap one would see in the aftermath of an industrial accident, when Cybertronians lay awaiting reclamation and reconstruction. It was an obvious disguise, but Megatronus had learned long ago realized that the majority of his opponents lacked tactical subtlety. It was hardly the first time an opponent of his used the same tactic his current opponent was and he doubted this would be the last time.
Above and around him the crowd thundered, cheering for the match that they had all come to see. Megatronus gave a slightly twisted grin as he threw his servos in the air above his helm and waved them, enticing the crowd into more of a furry. At the end of the match they would be cheering his name after he's won the match. No one could defeat him and he knew it.
Waving his hands in the air as if he had already won had two purposes. One was that it got the crowd on his side, they tended to favor a combatant who was full of confidence. The other purpose was to enrage his opponent. Any self-respecting bot would be angered by the sight of their opponent celebrating victory before the match had even begun. Angry opponents were careless opponents, who were dead opponents. The logic was flawless and more often than not worked just as Megatronus planned it.
From the pile of body parts erupted a single, large Cybertronian. The bot was easily twice Megatronus's mass and size and he carried a large mace. Megatronus was reminded of one of his most loyal followers. Powerful in terms of brute strength, but lacked the processing power it took to outsmart a retro-rat. The odds of this brute being any smarter than Lugnut were slim.
The brute charged Megatronus, holding its mace high, likely aiming to land a hit with it. Megatronus merely waited until the brute was within servo's reach. The brute swung his mace down toward his helm, aiming to crush his opponent's helm for an easy victory. Megatronus sidestepped and reached both hands up, grabbing the brute's outstretched servo and using the brute's momentum to toss the brute over his helm onto the ground on the other side.
The brute rolled with the toss and quickly turned, tackling Megatronus in his midsection. Megatronus gasped out some air even as he grabbed the brute's arms and spun, using the brute's ongoing momentum to aid in the process before he pried his grip off and tossed the brute through the air away from him.
Smarter than I thought, Megatronus thought, straightening as the brute landed on his backplates.
As the brute rose back to his pedes, Megatronus rolled his shoulder-joints and snarled at the mech. The brute snarled back and grasped his mace before running toward Megatronus again. Megatronus lifted his fusion cannon and aimed it at the brute before firing at the brute's chest. The brute dodged to the side, though he wasn't fast enough to clear the shot entirely and the ball of plasma hit the brute's right shoulder-joint.
Megatronus saw the brute grimace in pain, but he continued his charge and swung his mace horizontally, intending to crush Megatronus' side with a savage blow. But Megatronus was ready for such a strike, and he dodged backward just as the brute was swinging and kicked the mace-wielding servo as it passed by, throwing the brute off balance and leaving the brute's backplates open for attack.
Acting quickly, Megatronus grabbed the great sword off his own backplates and jumped onto the brute and stabbed his sword into the larger mech's backplates, just to the side of the shoulder-joint Megatronus had shot moments ago.
The brute roared in pain and turned his helm to glare at Megatronus, and quick as lightning, the brute reached up with his right servo and grabbed Megatronus by the neck and threw him through the air like a sparkling would throw a toy when in a tantrum. Megatronus lost his grip on his great sword as he was tossed, leaving the sword embedded in the brute's back.
Megatronus twisted himself in mid-air and landed on his pedes, he slid across the pit floor for nearly a dozen anos before coming to a stop, one of his servos on the ground to assist in the stopping process. He snarled, glaring at the brute as he stood up straight again.
After Megatronus came to a halt, the brute reach behind his helm and pulled Megatronus' great sword out of his backplates with only a slight grimace. The brute looked at the great sword for a moment before he looked over at Megatronus and crushed the sword in his servo, causing the crowd to give a roar of approval.
Megatronus bared his dentas before both combatants charged at each other, crying out battle cries that couldn't even be heard over the roaring of the crowd in the stands. Both combatants delivered a punch to the other at nearly the same time. Megatronus's punch connected with the brute's face first, cracking the brute's dentas as the brute's punch connected with Megatronus's face. Megatronus allowed himself to spin around with the punch, using the momentum of the punch, coupled with his prior charge, to spin fully around and jammed the barrel of his fusion cannon into the brute's tank and fired.
Megatronus's shot went straight through the brute's tank and out the other side. The brute snarled and gave one last yell before slowly falling to the ground on his front, Energon leaking from his wound. Megatronus aimed his fusion cannon at the brute's back and fired again, offlining the larger mech before he had a chance to try to recuperate. Megatronus never left an opportunity for a severely damaged opponent to take him by surprise. Once the other mech was offline, Megatronus stepped on his chassis and held his servos above his helm.
"No one defeats Megatronus!" he declared loudly over the roar of the audience. "I STILL FUNCTION!"
He strode from one end of the pit to the other, pointing randomly into the crowd. "Would you challenge me? You? Anyone! Any five of you, any ten of you, challenge me now for everything I have ever won! No one defeats Megatronus!" Back in the center of the pit, he tore pieces of the brute off the corpse and hurled them into the audience for trophies.
"Remember!" he called out. "Remember that you saw Megatronus! It is the best day of your life! Remember it!"
The crowd's adulation rained down on Megatronus like life itself, like a fresh flow of Energon through his Energon lines. He drank in their praise as they chanted his name repeatedly, even as Megatronus held his servos in the air in victory, enticing the crowd to continue their chant. As astro-kliks passed the chant intensified and something odd happened as it did so. The crowd made a collective choice to end the name on a strong syllable, effectively cutting off the final syllable of Megatronus's name. Megatronus felt a strange thrill as his name transformed, as his followers gave him a new name that no other Cybertronian had held in the past.
"MEGATRON! MEGATRON! MEGATRON!" the crowd roared so loud that the whole stadium shook with the force of it.
Yes, he thought with a grin on his face plates. I will be Megatron.
Now Megatronus was no longer. In his place stood Megatron, a mech who began without a name, who had earned his name. It wasn't a very long time ago that Megatron had been just another nameless mech slaving in the factories of Kaon and chafing underneath the crime bosses who had previously run the gladiator business. Now he had a name, and that name had transformed into what it was now, and now he was the one who ran the gladiator pits, having killed those who had run it previously. And soon he would lead the gladiators to a victory for Cybertron. He would lead them into a war that would end with him as Prime, leader of all of Cybertron, and with the caste system destroyed.
~Maccadam's Old Oil House, Iacon, Normal PoV~
Orion and Jazz sat at their usual table in the front right corner of Maccadam's. Orion had agreed to meet here instead of his apartment for old time's sake, if only because Ariel had said that she would keep Minah company. Ariel had taken Minah to her place, assuring Orion that she would be perfectly safe there with her and her two sisters, one of whom could take down any mech who might barge in and possibly harm their little friend. It did little to ease Orion's sense of unease that Minah was going to get herself hurt trying to help him.
"What we should do," Jazz said, bringing Orion out of his thoughts, "is go to Kaon and see the gladiator fights ourselves."
"Are you serious? They're illegal. It's not even legal to see one, I don't think," Orion replied incredulously.
"That doesn't seem to stop any of the bots who do it," Jazz pointed out. He drained his cube of Visco High Grade Energon and waved at the bartender for another. "We could go. If some authority discovers us I can claim it's a cultural investigation. It is what I do, you know."
That was true. It was the reason Orion Pax had ever met Jazz in the first place. It was Jazz's job to make sense out of all of the communications that Orion sorted through in the Hall of Records. Jazz had come into the Hall of Records looking for this or that piece of information from Orion so much that the friendship just formed. It was a discouraged friendship with them being different castes, but it was also an inevitable friendship. Orion was admittedly a little intimidated by Jazz's carefree attitude toward life and authority. Being in a higher caste, Jazz could get away with more, though he was a lot more interested in getting away with things than Orion ever was. Where Jazz saw an opportunity to bend the rules, he took it and always just a little further than was wise.
Orion took a sip of his own Visco. "Kaon is all the way on the other side of the planet. I've never been anywhere near there," he said. He had meant to be dismissive, but his words came out more wistful than anything.
Orion hadn't seen much of Cybertron. He had only been to a few places outside of Iacon in fact. He had heard transmissions from every nook and cranny, every tower and station on the planet. But he hadn't been to very many of the places he monitored transmissions from. He wondered if the bots who worked in the factories of Kaon had been to any more places than he had. He figured it was unlikely. They spent the majority of their time building machines, just as he spent the majority of his making data. Were they really so different? When he told Jazz his thoughts, the cultural investigator laughed.
"Yes, Orion, you're very different," he said. "Your job won't kill you and when you're no longer able to do your job, you won't get scrapped."
His words were like a physical blow and Orion winced. "You're not pulling any punches," he observed.
"Those who are fortunate should know how fortunate they are," Jazz said simply. Then he sipped at his Visco and waited for Orion to get his thoughts together.
"I wonder if I could get in contact with him," Orion said out loud.
"With who? This Megatron?" Jazz asked. He shrugged. "Possibly. Why would you want to?"
"You don't find him interesting?" Orion asked.
"I find everything interesting, it's my job," Jazz said. "But like you said our little friend said when you talked with her about it, things are not always what they seem. What if you meet him and he's not what you expect?"
"I will deal with that if the time comes," Orion replied. He looked thoughtful for a moment. "History moves in cycles. I've seen that much rooting around in the archives."
"I though you weren't supposed to be rooting around in the archives?" Jazz asked with a twinkle in his optics that was hidden by his visor. "Careful you don't push your boundaries." He said before finishing off his Visco.
"How can I not?" Orion asked. He finished off his own Visco. "I have a mind. I can think, and analyze."
Jazz waited the perfect amount of time before replying with a cheeky, "If you say so."
~Meanwhile, Mina's PoV~
I wasn't sure what to expect when Ariel said that she was taking me to where she lived with her sisters. She told me about them on the way though, making it look like she was talking on her internal communications while doing so. She had an older sister, Chromia, who was in the royal guard and who loved her weapons. She was a rough and tumble femme, from Ariel's description I knew I would likely get along with her. She also had a younger sister, Arcee, who was still a youngling. She had been put in the same caste as Chromia, which was lucky since if she had been placed in a different caste from either of them then she would've been taken to be raised by strangers.
"You mean they sometimes will put bots in different castes than their family?" I asked, looking a little irate as we walked into an empty turbo-lift in her apartment complex.
"Yes," Ariel replied, as the door shut and she pressed a few buttons. The lift began moving upward as she continued. "I was actually raised separately from Chromia due to my caste difference. Though once she could, she came found me and the three of us have lived together since."
"Hmph," I huffed a little. "That's such a stupid reason to split up a family. Wait, the three of you? What happened to your parents?"
Ariel sighed. "They haven't been a part of our lives since Arcee was a sparkling," she said. "Chromia and I have been the ones raising her almost since she was born."
"Oh," I replied sadly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be, it's not your fault," Ariel said.
"Ok," I said.
I was silent the short remainder of the trip to the apartment she lived in with her sisters. It was only a few floors above the one we had entered the building on, not quite as high up as Orion's was in his building. The windows didn't show as far of a view before being interrupted by other buildings. Her apartment was bigger than Orion's, which made sense seeing as how he lived by himself and she lived with two other bots. Speaking of her sisters, I saw them the moment we entered and after they turned to greet their sister, they saw me. Ariel then launched into an explanation in her native language that I had no clue how to follow.
Both her sisters were blue, though they were different shades of blue. It was easy to know which one was who since it was clear the smaller one was Arcee, her being the youngling. Arcee was a darker blue than her eldest sister and she also had pink on her wrists, legs, the sides of her head and a small pink crest on her forehead that extended past the top of her head. She also had small wing-like appendages on her back that were clearly more for looks than function. She was looking at me with immense curiosity as Ariel explained my presence to her and Chromia.
Chromia was a lighter blue than Arcee was and she lacked the wing-like appendages. She had a hardened look in her optics, possibly from her job in the royal guard, but I got the distinct feeling there was more to it than that. She glanced at me periodically while Ariel explained and I couldn't quite tell how she felt about my presence. After Ariel finished talking there was silence for a few minutes as the three gathered on what appeared to be a couch and Ariel deposited me on a small table in front of them.
"Hi!" Arcee said happily, waving. It wasn't hard to tell she was still very young compared to her sisters.
I smiled and waved back, not quite as enthusiastically. "Hi," I replied.
"Who are you? I'm Arcee!" Arcee said happily. Her sisters smiled and just let us talk.
"I'm Mina," I answered. "Nice to meet you."
"So," Chromia said now that Arcee was satisfied with a proper introduction. "What brings you to Cybertron?"
"Fate? Chance? I have no idea," I said, holding my hands out helplessly as I shrugged. "It just…happened. I'm about as clueless as you all are for what brought me here. Not to mention why. I mean, out of everyone on Earth if someone had to come here, I don't understand why it was me. I don't believe it was just random, but I can think of no good reason for it."
"I believe it was Alpha Trion who said some bots are just destined for great things," Ariel said. "I spoke with him about you recently, while paying a visit to Orion."
"You've been visiting Orion?" Chromia and I asked at the same time. Chromia gave me a little smirk before we all looked at Ariel. Arcee giggled.
"My sister has a…um…" Arcee whispered to me, but seems to not know the correct word to use from the bot's limited knowledge of English.
"I believe that would be crush," I whispered back and we both giggled.
"I can hear you two, you know," Ariel said indignantly before chuckling.
That sent Arcee into a laughing fit and I couldn't but to join in when Chromia laughed as well. Ariel just glared at the three of us, though I could faintly hear what sounded like cooling fans over our laughter.
"Ok, ok," I said once we calmed down enough to talk. I looked at Ariel. "What did you talk to Trion about me? Unless you don't want to tell me, I'm ok with that."
Ariel chuckled. "We just had a discussion about your appearance here," she said. "We both feel there's a reason you are here. He seemed to know something about your future, but he wouldn't spill."
"You know, he did the same thing to me earlier today," I said. "We were talking and he seemed to know something Orion's gonna go through but wouldn't even give me a clue. And looking at his book didn't help, I can't read Cybertronian to fight my way out of a paper bag."
"Paper bag?" Chromia asked, raising an optic ridge.
"Human expression," I said. "Basically means I can't do it. Considering it would be very easy to escape a paper bag, you literally have to be unable to do anything to not be able to get out of one. Plus, I don't think anyone ever made a paper bag big enough to put a person inside…"
Chromia and Ariel chuckled at my attempt to explain the expression. Arcee had gotten distracted by the bag I had dropped on the table during our introduction and I glanced over in time to see her poking it.
"What's this?" Arcee asked.
"That is my bag," I said. "I use it to carry stuff with."
"Oh, kind of like we use subspace," Arcee said.
I chuckled. "Yes, but what I understand your subspace is near limitless," I said. "My backpack only holds so much. I wish I had packed some snacks in that thing when I left home for work, but I had no idea my trip home would be interrupted by whatever it was that brought me here." I chuckled, shaking my head. "And at the time I felt drawing supplies took precedence, because I didn't expect to need to worry about food."
Arcee chuckled. "Chromia tells me I should expect anything," she said.
"Indeed," I said. "But it's hard to expect something like being suddenly transported what was probably several hundred light-years away from home in the blink of an eye. I didn't even get to say bye to my dysfunctional, but good family."
"You miss your family?" Arcee asked.
I nodded. "Very much," I said. "But I try not to let it keep me down. I might see them again someday." I smiled, though I knew they could probably tell it was a sad smile even though my visor hid my eyes. I had learned that the bots could be very perceptive when they wanted to be.
"Like I might see Danni and Opi one day?" Arcee asked.
I glanced back at her older sisters to see Chromia had gained a hard look at the mention and Ariel was looking sad. I looked back at Arcee.
"I apologize, but I am unfamiliar with those words," I said in a subtle subject change. I didn't want to tell Arcee what those expressions told me.
"Danni is short for Danniluk, the femme creator, and Opi is short for Opiluk, the mech creator," Ariel explained.
"Ooohhh, so like parents," I said. "We called them Mom, short for Mother, and Dad, short for Father, where I came from."
"What were your creators like?" Arcee asked.
"My mom was really nice," I said, smiling.
"What about your dad?" Ariel asked.
I shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Well, he wasn't the worst dad," I said, saying about the only positive thing I could think to say about him.
Chromia and Ariel shared a look, as if reading the truth I didn't say in my statement. Luckily though, they didn't mention anything.
"What about siblings?" Arcee asked.
I smiled, happy for this topic. "I have two," I said happily. "Though my sister is married so I guess you could say three. They are all older than me."
Arcee smiled. "My siblings are both older than me too," she said.
"Oh really?" I asked in a slight accent, gaining a giggle from Arcee. "I would've never guessed. Thank-you for telling me."
"You welcome!" Arcee said. I let the minor grammar error slide since she was new to English.
Chromia rolled her eyes at my joking, though she did look amused. Ariel looked about ready to fall over in laughter. Oh it was good to be around a kid.
"So what do you have in your bag?" Arcee asked, her attention returning to my backpack.
"A few things," I said, sitting down and pulling it to my lap. "Want to see? I can show you what my family looks like….Well, most of my family."
"Sure!" Arcee said happily.
I couldn't help but grin. It was so nice to see a happy face after seeing everyone else so serious. I think Jazz and Wheeljack are the only ones I ever saw really enjoy themselves and it was always when they were bending the stupid rules. I shook my head to bring me back to the present as I pulled out my sketchbook. I vaguely wished I had my scrapbook with me, but since I didn't I only had one picture of family to share. I was always more interested in drawing cartoons than real life stuff until I had arrived here.
Journal Entry #56 Good Times
In the future I knew I would always look upon my times with the three sisters as good times. Arcee was young and seemed to be very happy living with and learning from her sisters. Arcee grew on me the quickest of Ariel's sisters, but Chromia was definitely working her way to friend status as well.
The only complaint I could find from my time with them that day was that I lost my visor. We were talking and then started laughing and my visor fell to the floor where it got crushed by a laughing Arcee's foot. I wasn't so worried about the broken visor as much as the femme with a piece of glass wedged into her foot. It was a quick fix though and the broken pieces got cleaned up. I don't mind losing it. Wasn't really worth what I had paid for it.
We talked more and just hung out while waiting for Orion and Jazz to be done at that place they went to, I have no idea how to spell it. Ha. Imagine that. I can't spell an alien name. But hey! I'm just as new to their words that I can pick up on as they are to English. I shared my pictures with them as well, and Arcee so observantly noted that Ariel's helm was lopsided in my drawing. How embarrassing.
I wasn't sure how many good times we would have in the future but I was glad for the ones we did.
~Mina Castina