Alien By Perspective
"Easy! Take it easy! I hate personal violence, especially when I'm the person!" – Blake's 7
Chapter 4
The parade of sleek, custom vehicles drove in the aforementioned formation all the way out to the open desert roads of Nevada, where clear stretches of red rocks had steam coming off of them, the occasional small lizard darting between the short and stubby, rough wild plants. Atalanta was certain that the 4 Autobots escorting her out of Tranquillity were having their own tactical conversation away from her 'untrustworthy' audios on their own private com frequencies, but for her the entire drive was muted. Eventually, after driving down the dusty yet smooth double carriage road for 10 minutes with no organics in sight, Atalanta's HUD screen barked out an error message, informing her that her navigations systems were being scrabbled. The open window of her road map (graciously supplied by the internet) was dashing in and out of readable view in static frizzles of black and white.
Her entire frame tensed and flared its sharp outer panels like a hissing feline in agitation. The two Autobots on either side of her tensed as well, however soon recovered when Bumblebee commed her on the open frequency.
: Just protocol, Atalanta. HQ's about to send a ground bridge.
: Got it. Sorry, just didn't expect it.
Another deeper, smoother male voice answered, the red Dodge to her left bouncing on its axels as if it was gesticulating.
: You didn't think we were going to bring you along to base and find out it's coordinates, did'ja femme?
: Never gave it much thought, cowboy. Atalanta answered, biting back a harsher retort that would probably bite her the social ass later. 'Cliff' as she believed he was called, just snorted, but otherwise didn't reply. Moments later, the femme motorcycle commed them.
: Alright, base has just opened the ground bridge. Neut' we're going to drive through, and don't even think of pulling anything, or you'll have a hell of a lot of plasma blasters to dodge.
: Primus, do I look like a terrorist to you?
The blue Ford jumped into the conversation. His voice was light and youthful like Bumblebee's, perhaps a little older.
: Well, you're paintjob is pretty scary looking, I mean, it's all dark and stuff and you've got all these spikes, which a lot of the Con's have. Not that it doesn't look nice! You look great! Wait no – I mean you do, but I didn't mean to say that! I'm sorry! I understand that some femmes don't like being looked at like that, and I'm really sor-"
:BLUESTREAK! Shut it, this isn't the time to make a new friend! The motorcycle snapped. Atalanta internally cooed, this mech was cuter than Bumblebee!
: Sorry Arcee.
Bluestreak wilted closer to the ground as they approached a mass of the swirling green ground bridge portal. Atalanta, feeling pity for him and mischievous enough to rattle Arcee up a little, commed back soothingly.
: Bluestreak, right? Don't worry about it, I'mma more hands on kind of femme, so no offense taken.
: Gee thanks, I mean that's great how forgiving you are I sure hope you aren't really a Decepticon-"
Bluestreak's eager reply was cut off by another scolding order from Arcee as they passed through the ground bridge portal. Similar to looking directly at a fireworks display, Atalanta's optics blurred, her headlamps blinking a little to clear them. She slowed down a little when she noticed the others had, though only she had swerved a little on the landing. They were now ploughing down a different road, drawing up to the large gate of a military designed wall. The soldiers at the gates, after recognising their allies, opened them. This process was repeated twice more, each gate attached to smaller but equally well-manned frontiers. After passing through the final one, Atalanta took in the sight of the colossal military base in front of her. She had seen barracks for armies going to war in the cosmos smaller that this!
Though her visits always seemed to involve breaking in or out of them. Usually the latter, in all honesty.
Many giant concrete buildings attached like large branches to a centre point where the main base was, while various hangers and strips of landing areas sat like islands around it. A long way away from the outer walls, a humid, more natural outland could be seen, large gatherings of trees trailing around rocky hills. The edges of shallow white beaches could be seen poking out in the distance as the heavy sun boiled the left over fuel in Atalanta's tanks. Her energon readings nagged her, only added to the stress that she could normally easily dismiss.
Hundreds of humans ran around, all busy at work, most in some sort of military garb, most looking up at the passing transformers as they passed. A few smiles and waved at the Autobots, who returned their greetings, while Atalanta gained a lot of fearful, curious and wary expressions. Despite the seriousness of the situation, her concentration split from having to carefully manoeuvre her pedes around the humans, she couldn't help but preen. She had always been a bit of a stubborn show off, and was pretty proud of her new badass exterior.
However the most amazing sight was not all of this for Atalanta.
Before her, Cybertronians were walking around the base, most venturing to the side of the base and hanger that Atalanta assumed had been assigned to them.
Most buildings were obviously built to easily allow access to both races. She could understand why the others were wary of her looks now; most had bright, colourful designs, none with an extra animalistic appendage as far as she could tell.
Just to spite the mental segregation, her tail started swirling around the air with more vigour than before.
She was marched towards the largest hanger. As she passed the Cybertronians, she bite back to urge to show her sadness at the glares and cut off, cold gazes. While she couldn't blame them, she couldn't help but sulk. This certainly wasn't the hello she was hoping for after fucking dying, agreeing to help their gods out, changing species, crash lands and then driving for a day straight to track down the Autobots through the Facebook supplied information of a greasy University student. Perhaps she should've just gone and blown something up to get their attention; it would certainly save time and not wear her poor tires down as much.
A few had wary but friendlier expressions on their faces, though they kept their distance as well, watching her every move. Atalanta got to see more of the femmes as well, there were noticeably less of them; most were shorter than the full grown mechs, and even in their thick battle armour, they were all streamlined and smooth contours. Their features were similar to a human's, with curved lips and large eyes. Most seemed to hold the same proportions to be considered attractive.
Bumblebee gave Atalanta a gentle push to keep up the pace. She gave him a small thanks and hastily followed as they walked her into the main hanger, that was buzzing with both organic and robotic life. Huge ramps connected to a raised block in the end for the humans so that they could converse easily with the transformers. Various workers typed away at a small group of computers, while mechanics were bustling around some transformers while in their alt modes. The few that were, quickly transformed and moved out of the way when they entered, eying Atalanta intently.
At the main platform of the building, an incredibly tall mech turned to face them. Without ever seeing him before, Atalanta knew just from the Primus and Unicron's words that this was the living Prime. Optimus Prime, in all his honourable glory. She could see what all the fuss was about, her processor slightly stalling at the presence he commanded. There was an old wisdom in his eyes, as well as a polite kindness that was directed at her.
Unlike many of the mechs that were either shorter or similar to her in height, Optimus Prime towered over her, his body coated in red and blue flames, standing tall and proud like the freedom fighter he was to the Autobots.
It was utterly paralysing, meeting him in person, and reminding me that he was a mech of Primus. And then he spoke, in an incredibly deep, steady voice.
"I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. I understand that you have been seeking us. What is your name?"
"Atalanta." she said bluntly. "I want to join your fraction, I want to fight with you." Details could be explained later.
He nodded. "I see. You will have to be questioned privately, and your loyalty assured, Atalanta. Jazz; take your team and our guest to sector 2. I will be along shortly."
Or now; not like she had a choice, Atalanta grimly thought.
A couple of bots walked forward; most were on the shorter side for mechs and held lithe frames, but were by no means puny. Rather than thick muscles and hard plating, they had bouncier joints and grapple style weapons attached to them. What seemed to be the leader of them swaggered forward, head high and adorned with a sapphire visor that tucked behind his pointed audio fins. The mech held his shoulders back with confidence and his armour was completely silver, stylishly gleaming and several shades lighter than Atalanta's own. His hips were fitted with compact pockets like a utility belt, the rim made up of a thick, detachable rope like wire. The 'v' shape of his torso was exaggerated by his broad shoulders, where extra, looser plating indicated that this bot could mount some sort of weapon there. He gave her a chilled smile, his confidence making Atalanta wary, her eyes watching him as intently as he watched her.
"You got it, Prime. C'ommon, femme, follow ol' Jazzy an' tha crew" His accent was smooth, a mix between a rough street sound and something cooler, with harsher consonants. To her, Jazz sounded like the old first mate to the Captain, who had been one of the last of the Teakins, though it was more likely that this bot had picked it up from humans in a particular region that she hadn't come across.
She stiffly followed him, or rather, he somehow walked next to her while still leading the way. His team followed tensely behind, in a similar formation to the one that she had driven here in. Everybody was watching. Usually she'd be a lot more jovial and sarcastic, maybe poke someone in the ribs or hum some obnoxious tune, but now she was full of nerves and silent. Her usual humour seemed to have been sucked out her. Was this permanent? Paley, Atalanta grimaced with forlorn. How much had she really changed?
I Know this is uber short –insert apology here- but as school's started again, I've haven't had a lot of time (I know what you're thinking, 'oh that old excuse') and figured it would be better to get at least something out there to retain activity in the progression of this story.
A short summary of what's happened in the wonderful world of moi:
I'm redoing a couple of exams that I want to do better in; nothing horrendous, just a couple of Bs that I want to improve for Uni and shizzle.
School play- OOOHHHHHH we're doing GREASE! I don't even care if it's a cliché for school, it's DANNY ZUKO BABBBBAAAAY!
I picked up art as an alevel. Casual.
Forgetting to call and say I'm staying over after party + skinhead friend dropping me off at 5 in the morning = frenzy of Asian mother
I've picked up busking in the street again :D
As usual, please review, and thank you for staying tuned!
Love,
Renzin xo