A/N: Woohoo chapter 2 is up! Thanks to all that review, read, and made this story a favorite. This has got to be one of the more challenging stories I have written to date, and the fact that you like it makes me want to write more. :) I'm doing some rather different things with the concepts of Drones in this story. I apologize if it isn't very much cannon as the story progresses. Just how this plays out in my head.
Much love to Razorgaze, my beta for all things Transformer. :) She's amazing and her story "Our Debt" is worth the read. It's linked in my profile page. I know you will love it as much as I do!
Disclaimer: Hasbro owns everything at this point. I claim only any OC that may appear. Please don't sue. This is purely for fun. No money is being made.
Chapter 2
I stayed in the storm drain tunnels for five standard earth cycles. It had only taken two of those cycles to repair the damage fully, now that I had nanites of my own. That was another bizarre surprise on a journey of extraordinary revelations. I had my own nanites and could only assume that they appeared at the same time the spark in my chest had become self-aware. It took some getting used to, having them crawling around inside my parts. But after a while they became like a subroutine in the back of my processors, always there and yet no longer of real concern.
At least, with them, I wasn't alone.
Two cycles of repair left me plenty of time for private contemplation. I was a femme now, that much was painfully obvious. And that lent a whole new level of problematic equations for me to puzzle through. I was a femme and I was alone, a neutral for lack of better terminology. I would need things in order to maintain my existence. An energon supply, parts for when my nanites couldn't quite repair any damage I might incur, and some form of … of companionship.
Having gone from being the lesser in a symbiotic relationship for my entire existence, the notion of being truly alone was terrifying. No, it was beyond terrifying. It was spark-breaking. And the presence of my nanites couldn't keep that terror at bay for long. I was going to have to remove myself from hiding soon. To do that, I was going to need something else.
A new name. A new face. A whole new identity. After all, if I could not join with my own kind, I could attempt to mingle with the fleshlings.
It pleased me to no end to actually craft my own image for the first time. Alice had been the amalgamation of every human femme on the planet that boys like Sam would have found irresistible. The blond hair, the blue eyes, the model-thin body. Even a slightly exotic and overly accentuated accent to her words. All crafted by Soundwave, of course, and all designed to get me closer to the boy.
This time I got to choose. I can't express how happy that made me.
I went with reddish-brown hair this time, sun-kissed skin with a very faint sprinkling of freckles across the nose and cheeks. Wide, hazel-green eyes and a generous pouty mouth, shamelessly stolen from Mikaela, of course. I figured that she owed me that much from trying to run me down. Regardless, I found the combination pleasing. My fleshly body was athletic this time instead of rail-thin, just about five pounds overweight for my so-called height and build. I wanted to look real this time, not like some over-the-top sexual creature.
My objective was to blend in, not to stand out this time around.
And then I took the time to scan the telephone conversations of the human femmes around me. It all seemed to revolve around college classes, which boy was the cutest, and where to find the best deal on the trendiest clothing. Credit cards maxed out and troubles with money abounded, too. I was going to need to get to a computer terminal soon. I needed a name, something called a social security number, and a lot of these plastic credit cards. I also needed to enroll in this educational facility.
On the fifth day of my self-awareness, with my spark racing so badly I thought it would explode out of my chassis, I emerged from my storm drain and prepared myself to join the human world.