Alien By Perspective
"If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others." – Phillip K. Dick
Chapter 2
Light peeled away the darkness as consciousness claimed me again. It tightened its hold in pulses, each flash accompanied with a blast of burning pain and a jolt of impact, skipping along in my landing. Like a scratchy DVD, this continued for several bumps, until whatever cocoon I was in seemed to drag along the ground longer each time, and soon the erratic rolling of the pod slowed into a grinding landing.
I moaned, tensing and relaxing all my muscle groups until I was satisfied that I could move out of the tight foetal position that I was in. My eyes blinked furiously with a tiny 'ting' sound each time; my vision sharpened to my relief, only true to Primus and Unicron's word, new computerized, angrily bright messages popped onto my HUD screen. They were colour coded in a pattern I couldn't recognise yet, with entwined, jaggered lines that must have been the glyphs that made up the Cybertronian script. To my relief, I could easily understand them, and I was soon immersed in exploring the interactive world on my screen. English seemed to be 'downloaded' as well, and the various languages that I had come across in my life were as well, though they had numeral bars such as '23%' next to them, respective of how much of the language I knew.
I drew my attention to the error messages that kept reopening themselves, even after I had minimised them. One of them strongly advised that I performed a 'systems check', so I accepted and was swiftly bombarded by more statistics.
Systems check…connecting…completed.
HUD: online.
Memory core: intact.
Self repair: online.
Hydraulics: online.
Running stability check…completed. Operational.
Spark coding initialized…completed.
Communications: online.
Transformation Cog: operational.
Cooling systems: online. Maximum capacity
Sensors: scanning area…scanning…scanning…completed.
Location: Earth, organic based planet.
Self defence protocols: initialised.
Weapons system: operational.
Feral mode: offline.
Exterior shell: mesh wounds.
Medical check up advised.
Energon levels: depleted. 63%
Analysing function files…
Designation: Atalanta
Would you like to change your designation?
Yes/No
No.
Affiliation: Neutral.
Function: To be determined.
Alternative mode: Grounder. To be determined.
Everything seemed…normal wasn't the right word, since none of this was familiar to me. However I didn't feel the twinge of great remorse for my lost humanity; I was too excited, because all this new information proved that I was in fact a non-organic sentient robot! A Cybertronian!
Sure was a big leap from a 6-foot bounty hunter.
Eject from space pod?
Yes/No
Yes.
The pod I was in didn't leave me any room to move; various tubes and casings that were attached to my frame immediately detached with loud hisses of air, followed by the grunting of gears within the spherical walls. The geometrical carvings were similar to the orb I had been floating in the void, however these were far less complicated, more like tiny seams in the metal. A gasp of these seams opening let the pressurized air escape as I drew in as deep a breath I could into my tanks, despite the fact that I didn't need to. It was trilling to hear and feel it whooshing through my systems, as the punchy scents of pine trees, recently drenched soil and the pang of minty shrubbery hit me. I couldn't have ever comprehended the individual particles of each odour as I could with my human nose; did all Cybertronians have such enhanced senses?
My hearing was sharpened as well; while not unbearably loud, my audio processors were constantly whirring and rotating on their axels upon my head, 'zooming' in on each sound and almost instantly categorizing it. It was phenomenal, liberating even. I felt like laughing at the sheer awe I was in.
I instinctually crawled out of the pod as soon as the exit had finished opening to take in the sight of the crowd of trees I had landed in. They were spacious in between them, and the sound of a road could be heard up ahead. I vaguely remembered Earth motorways to reside on the ground, made of concrete or tarmac, and to be painted with yellow and white signs. In space settlements, especially the ports, many materials and designs were used, depending on the largest culture in the Sector. I just hoped that the traffic and driving wasn't as bad as it was there!
I felt childish wonder and giddiness overcome me. Despite never wanting to return to this planet, I could admit that it was extremely exciting, especially as I could now explore it as an alien myself. What had changed? As far as I knew, humans hadn't discovered the existence of aliens yet, but then again that was in my old dimension, there was a chance that adding Cybertronians to the mix would've changed that. Could human governments be successful in covering up an alien war that had come to their planet? Were they even aware?
My enhanced senses quickly relayed to me that there were no organisms larger than rodents in the area, however my eyes were heavily squinting. If this was the effect of the Xeno's coding, them perhaps I would be more comfortable in darker environments. In my HUD screen, I managed to adjust my 'optics' to a dimmer setting, yet they were still powerful enough to sharpen the difference between molecules of dust. With a bit of playing around, I found that to me amusement, like a console I could zoom in and out as well.
I took in another deep vent that I didn't need, purely for the comfort of habit and the tingling feeling as it cleared my insides. I rocked back onto the balls of my feet, hands splayed out in front of me. I focused in their every detail, and they were truly intricate. The main plating was a gun grey metal, ominous and separate into many sections so that when I twisted my wrists and wriggled my mechanical fingers, the only difference I could notice form my old ones were to slight murmuring of grinding metal within me and the gritty earth that fell into the cracks to my protoform. Various clusters of wires, insulated circuit boards and more flexible, muscle like strips of metal that joined each and every plate together could be seen through the miniscule gaps. Upon my knuckles were bronze oval plates, and below them elongated, triangular grooves followed the ridges of the tendons on my hand. Smaller, proportional triangles lines them, though these seemed to be made of a see through cover that show the glowing blue light from beneath.
The fingers themselves ended in thick claws, which could be retracted into the grippable pads of my fingers. They seemed tough, not extremely long but deadly sharp.
At the wrists, the plating opened up to connect to the gauntlet like armour on my lower arms. To my fascination, they resembled the exoskeleton of a Xenomorph, thick ridges and spikes at the end to cover my elbows. My upper arms lacked the ornamentation to favour the more angular armour that I would expect for a Cybertronian.
I pushed myself swiftly into a standing position, yelping a little before I regained my balance. Everything was so small! My helm reached the top of some of the smaller trees. How tall were pines again? Instinctually, my processor started scanning my data files, before returning to tell me that I didn't know. An option to connect to the World Wide Web popped up, and I accepted. Being on the human Internet was a new thing for me; luckily, many cultures that relied on technology had similar databases for general knowledge. Though after skimming through all the search results on this 'Google' browser, I noticed that a lot came from civilian, opinioned posts and debates, not official government data files like I was used to. I made a mental note to explore the internet later, after discovering that smaller pine trees were usually around 20 feet. I estimated that I was a little over that, my posture strong and tall.
Walking was a little unnerving; the organic matter felt a lot different, the dirt and twigs sliding below my stabilizing pedes a constant. My walk was swifter and surprising stealthy, another trait I attributed to my Xeno coding.
Like an athlete warming up for a sprint, I stretched my new limbs this way and that, occasionally running a few steps or jumping as high as I could, landing with a grace a had never possessed before. During this, it came to my attention that my increased balance was due to an extra limb on my back; my tail was almost identical to that of a Xenomorphs, but for the green under plating below the grey exoskeleton. It ended in a deadly point, mimicking the curve of my claws, along with jaggered spikes like the ones on my arms. It flicked around me, constantly suspended. It was long and flexible, and already I could pick up on how my movement and emotion affected it.
On further inspection, rib like armour covered where my human ribs once were, running down to connect with my flat abdominal plating and the humming vents on my waist. I shuddered as I ran my hands over them; they were sensitive, and made a delicious twinkling sound against my claws. Where my breasts once were, plates of a slightly darker alloy followed the curves and fit into the seams on the dark protoform and exposed wiring around my chassis. The same pattern covered my posterior's curves, ending in jaggered lines that matched the armour on my legs. My stabilizing pedes were like that of a thin shoe, however the cables and pumps in my legs could arch into a more feline shape, bow legged and fit for moving on four limbs.
My shoulders were lethal looking, a spiral of sharp metal circling a flatter plane in the centre. Various glowing tubes ran the inside, the protrusions large yet not blocking my peripheral vision.
Curiosity got the better of me on how my face looked. I knew I had a robotic version of hair, as I could ruffle it in my servos and hold it out to examine. It seemed as long as my old hair, a faded, rusting auburn shade that fell in long wild curls. I was happy of that at least. While I had constantly had it in a braid before, I had always liked my hair. As if on queue, a curved rod following the shape of my skull shot out from the base of my neck, gathering the synthetic fine wires in one shift movement and clasping the entire bunch into a high pony tail. I jumped at the suddenness of it, and couldn't help but giggle as I felt the mechanical version of a hairband lock into place and flatten into hiding.
I sprinted the short distance back to the space pod in my eagerness, and in its shiny reflection, I saw my new face for the very first time. It was surreal to say the least.
Like my abdomen, my face was covered in a light grey layer of smooth plating, which made me wonder if Cybertronians even had acne; they must have puberty, right? All my facial features were proportional to what they had been in the flesh; a firm nose with signs of perhaps some Asian heritage, almond shaped eyes and dark, symmetrical brows. My lips were still full and voluptuous, but now in a strikingly dark shade that seemed to be black with flecks of browns and greys. My eyes were somewhat nostalgic; blue, the same almost glassy shade, but rimmed with miniscule gold plating and small purple lights around the rim. What once were the whites of my eyes were simply more ivory plating that disappeared into the corners of my lids. The valves and vents that made up my neck seemed to interconnect and smooth out to form the sharp precipices of a facial mask. A matching headband sat like a low tiara as my chevron, with a few ringlets of my wired hair falling over them. The sharp points of my audio fins stood perpendicular to where my ears once were, always whirring and rotating vertically, relaying information back to my audio processors.
Every single inch of my body was covered in Cybertronian glyphs, most of them in the language of the ancients. They seemed to say things about me, like 'warrior class' and 'hunter', though were embarrassingly honest, such as 'stubborn' and 'fire tongue'. Both Unicron and Primus had left their marks on me, as well as 'shaper', 'unity', and the foreboding 'end'. It seemed they were pretty serious about me doing my part in their, now my war.
For all the illegal acts I've done, I wouldn't consider myself 'evil'. I never enjoyed killing for no reason, and that was only if they were trying to kill me. Every time I got stuck in the centre of battles, I always sided with the ones trying to save the community or whatever, so it was natural that my first course of action would be to decide to join the Autobots, because from what I've heard from that little history lesson with P and U, while the Cons started off fighting for equality, they were far too corrupt, and had been for a long time. The Autobots just seemed to want peace, and while I didn't particularly like being associated with humans (I know, the irony), I could begrudgingly accept that I was wrong to fight for the side that wanted to pulverise them.
Oh the woes of racism.
The question would be where to find them; the twin deities had mentioned that the human who originally helped them, Samuel Witwicky, had lived with his family in Tranquillity, Nevada when it all started on Earth; however when the Autobots contacted him to act as a sort of liaison, which he declined before the fiasco in Egypt, he had just started University. Where of course, was a mystery to me; it seemed irrelevant at the time to even mention that he went university, let alone where. I knew that NEST had now been formed, but again, the means to contact them was unknown to me.
After a frustrated moment of plotting, I decided that my best (albeit weakest) lead would be to go to Tranquillity and find out if he still lived there, or if his family did. Thankfully, the telling of this saga like war had informed me that the humans called the Cybertronians 'transformers' due to our ability to adapt our alt modes and blend in by scanning and reformatting them to mimic earth vehicles. I couldn't help my giddy excitement; I had vague memories and had seen images of human vehicles; though mainly cars on the freeway, and the large cruise ship that I had been washed off all those years ago.
I accessed my HUD screen again, scrolling through the menus until I came to the data file under 'alternate mode'.
Initiate transformation sequence?
Yes/No
Yes.
A girlish squeal escaped me as my metal body instantly responded to the command; warming up and buzzing as I felt the seams of my plating spin and replace themselves. My centre of gravity was suddenly thrown off, and I rolled forward a little in my new horizontal structure. I was bulky and long; two wheels at both ends, and my exoskeleton had shifted to morph me into a bullet sort of shape, with my optics at the front. Primus, it was freaking cool! I brought up the blue prints of myself as I spun in circles around the area, large clouds of uprooted dirt in my midst.
I was a little upset that I would have to blend in as a human vehicle; this one was so beautiful! It was low on the ground, like a motorcycle, which gave me the clue to look for something of a similar size; according to my data files, the process of transformation was made possible due to the inventions of the T-cog and subspaces.
The process of researching the Internet was a little bizarre; I wasn't used to all the adverts that popped up everywhere, demanding that I buy numerous useless products that I could only guess about. What even was an iPhone? After being side tracked enough to find out, I started wondering why I would need to shoot at interactive bulls eyes to win one. It was starting to dawn on me how much I had missed since I was last here.
Eventually, I found a motorbike that I could approve of; the Cooks Custom Rambler was a design masterpiece and quite frankly I was shocked that humans could make such an impressive transport. It was low and long like my current alt mode, however when I tried to download and scan the schematics, an error message jumped up to inform me that I was too large for transform into it. With a huff and a growl, I continued the search.
The vastness of this Internet was starting to frustrate me. I was getting ready to say 'screw it' and risk all the exposure, when I came across a piece of machine work that made my vents hiss in surprise.
In a rushed flurry, I bought up the designs and scanned them, almost shouting in relief when they were accepted and I felt my plates warm up again as they morphed. Automatically, a female holoform appeared in my seat, completely covered in black and face hidden from view in her helmet. After I had finished, I preened for a while, brought up a route and map to take to Nevada, which I was about a day away from, and sped down to the nearest road as an 'innocent' Triumph Rocket III Roadster, albeit an extremely customised one.
The metal was gun grey like my armour, and my hair had wrapped around the handles and flattened, so that I looked like a thick layer of red paint. My exoskeleton and tail wrapped over and around the body, the seat emerging form my back, while my arms and legs wrapped around the wheels. My tail curved around the exhaust pipes and back, so that I looked like a running Xeno with wheels. Safe to say, my resentment towards the Xenos was dwindling, considering how badass I felt.
Here you go, the crash landing! She's finally 'home', as it were, and looking rather swanky as a femme! If any were wondering about he new alt mode, it's a mix between the Triumph and an custom bike I saw that someone had made on the internet, which you can find if you google 'alien motorbike' or 'xeno motorbike'; its basically a normal bike, but the body is designed to look like a xeno. Atalanta in my mind looks like a cross between the two, however without the giant xeno cranium.
A little more on her height; according to Bay, the original team of Bots were this tall:
Jazz : 13 feet tall
Bumblebee: 17 feet tall
Ratchet: 24 feet tall
Iron Hide: 26 feet tall
Optimus Prime: 28 feet tall
Megatron: 34 feet tall
So Atalanta is roughly 20-21 feet, making her in between Ratchet the hatchet and Bumblebee. In the movie-verse, the other femmes all transformed into bikes like Atalanta, however they were a lot smaller bikes and in bipedal mode were tinchy compared to the mechs. I thought with my OC's tougher character, it suited her to be unusually tall, especially since she was taller than average as a human, and so much of her new body resembles her own. As you guys have probably noticed, she's a lot more humanoid than the natural Cybertronians, especially with her 'hair', as its flexible.
Anyway, thank you for reading, please review, and of course, I only own my OCs, the transformers stuff belongs to Hasbro, Bay blah blah blah…
Bye!
Renzin xo