The Legend of Elita

Chapter 2: Reflection

Elita walked Snarl all the way back to the farm. She was in no mood for riding or driving. Without the matchmaker's help, finding a proper husband will be nearly impossible. By humiliating Botanica, she had effectively ended the One family line.

When she opened the gate to walk in, she saw her father sitting on the front porch. Apparently, he had been waiting all day for them to return. He was probably expecting to hear the good news of how Elita will soon have a husband. However, Elita turned away and walked Snarl back to his pen. He took the reins off the Dinobot and sighed as she looked at her reflection in the water trough.

Elita:

Look at me

I will never pass for a perfect bride

Or a perfect daughter

Can it be

I'm not meant to play this part?

Now I see

That if I were truly to be myself

I would break my fam'ly's heart

Who is that girl I see

Staring straight

Back at me?

Why is my reflection someone

I don't know?

Somehow I cannot hide

Who I am

Though I've tried

When will my reflection show

Who I am inside?

When will my reflection show

Who I am inside?

Ratchet walked out into the garden. Arcee had told him about how Elita's attempt to impress the matchmaker, well, backfired. He spotted her sitting under the cherry trees. She had removed her makeup and the flower-like clip from her helmet's 'ponytail'. The clip was currently sitting on her lap. The look on her face clearly showed her disappointment in herself.

Ratchet walked over and sat down on the stone bench next to her. He looked up at the blossoming cherry trees and said, "Such beautiful blossoms we're having this year," said Ratchet, "No matter how old I'm getting, my optics never get tired of looking at them." He pointed at one flower that was still a closed bud. "But look, that one is late. But I bet that when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all." He took the clip and reattached it to Elita's head. Elita smiled at her father, the metaphor on the blossom not loss on her.

Ratchet smiled back at her, but then his face hardened. He heard a buzzing in the air, the kind of buzzing that doesn't come from a bee or wasp. It was from the emergency alarms. He stood up as fast as his old stabilizers would allow him. "What is it?" asked Elita.

"Trouble," said Ratchet, "Big trouble."

The two of them hurried to the front gate. Ratchet opened the gate and walked out. Arcee followed but paused and said to Elita, "Elita, stay inside."

"But-" started Elita.

"This is not a good time to go out," said Arcee before going out the gate.

Red Alert also headed towards the gate, but she paused to clear her vocal synthesizer. She pointed with her thumb towards the wall besides the gate. More specifically, the wall that was near the shack they kept Snarl's polishing equipment. Elita quickly went over there and climbed up the side of the shack so she could see over the wall.

Outside the farm's wall, a pair of Autotroopers were standing beside a skinny red robot with a large cranium plate and yellow glasses. It was Perceptor, Alpha Trion's consul and right-servo bot. Perceptor was speaking in his monotonic voice, "Citizens: I bring a proclamation from Iacon City: the Decepticons have invaded Cybertron." Several gasps came from the spectators and some of them moved back into their houses. "By order of his Supreme Majesty, one mech from every family must serve in the Autobot Army." Perceptor took out a datapad before saying, "The Atlas family."

An Autobot with drills on his shoulders named Dai stepped forward and bowed before taking the draft card from one of the Autotroopers.

"The Garry family," read Perceptor.

An older mech was about to take the draft guard when a younger one, one with arced shoulders said, "I will sever the Emperor in my father's place."

"You will do me proud, Sky," said the older mech.

Perceptor read the next draft card, "The One family."

"No," whispered Elita.

She watched her father hand his walking stick over to her mother and march towards Perceptor. There was a notable limp as he walked. He bowed before Perceptor and said, "I am ready to serve the Emperor." He held his hand out for his draft card.

"Father, you can't go!" The crowd gasped in astonishment as Elita pushed her way to the front. Elita turned to Perceptor and said, "Please sir, my father has already served in the Autobot Army and-"

The Autotroopers stepped forward and blocked her from going any further. "Your daughter is ill-programmed," said Perceptor, "She should know better and hold her speech synthesizer in a mech's presence."

Ratchet gave Elita a disapproving look and said, "Elita, you dishonor me." Elita would have protested but Red Alert pulled her back. Elita sighed with silence.

"Report tomorrow at the Elite Guard training facility," said Perceptor before the Autotrooper gave Ratchet his draft card. Ratchet then turned and started walking back towards the house. The crowd parted to let the old veteran through. Arcee offered his walking stick back, but Ratchet refused to take it. The three femmes of the family watched as Ratchet limped back inside.

Later that evening, Elita approached her father's room. Ratchet may have a deep sense of honor and pride in his planet, but she hoped he could be reasoned with. There was no need for him to fight in the war. However, when she reached the living room, she paused. She heard the soft hiss of metal panels sliding aside. She peeked around the corner and stared at amazement.

Ratchet was standing in front of a sizeable containment unit. It was currently opened and revealing the great treasure of the One family. The Beast Armor was the only one like it in the knowledge of anyone who knew of it. The armor had been handed down through several generations of the One family, father passing it on to sons. However, when only Elita was born, Ratchet kept it locked away. The Beast Armor was very special. Not only did it provide protection to its wearer and could easily repair itself from any danger, but it allowed its owner to take on an altmode based on an organic creature and gain the benefits from that animal.

Right now, Ratchet was wielding the spiral sword that came with the armor. Many stellar cycles ago, Ratchet had served during the last war, one that barely managed to keep an alien invasion from taking Cybertron. In those days, Ratchet was mainly a field medic tending to the wounded. Even in retirement, Ratchet has taken the role of the community's home practice doc-bot. But when the darkest hour seemed at hand, Ratchet used the Beast Armor and took on the mantle of the Dinobot Warrior. His might and cunning contributed greatly to repelling the alien threat. Even today, there was an occasional glimpse of the raptor in his optics. Ratchet wielded the sword with the long-programmed practice that had been drilled into him stellar cycles ago. For a brief moment, Elita felt that she had nothing to worry about.

Suddenly, Ratchet cried out in pain and dropped the sword. He clutched at a sparking hole in his arm. It was an old wound he had received during the war. Elita had heard many times of how Ratchet earned that wound when he first met her mother, from when he defended her from the traitorous bot, Lockdown. The wounds seemed to be contained to just his arm and broken crest, but it ran far deeper than that. There were some days when the entire left half of his body ceased to function for a couple of cycles. Elita turned away. Her father was too old, too badly-wounded to ever fight on the battlefields again. He wouldn't stand a chance against the Decepticons.

At the dinner table that night, the family was unusually quiet. Elita's embarrassment at the matchmaker's would have been enough to kill off conversation, but Ratchet being drafted made it seem insignificant. There were several long nanokliks of uncomfortable silence. Eventually, Elita couldn't stand it anymore. She slammed her cup on the table and said, "You shouldn't have to go!"

"Elita!" said Arcee.

"There are plenty of young mechs to fight for Cybertron!" cried Elita.

"It is an honor to protect my planet and my family," said Ratchet.

"So, that's it then?" snapped Elita, "So you'll die for honor?"

"I will die doing what's right!" snapped Ratchet, standing up.

"But-" started Elita.

"I know my function!" snapped Ratchet, "It's time that you learn yours!"

Elita's optics widened for a moment before she turned and ran out of the room. Arcee turned to her husband and said, "Dear, maybe we should…"

"There's no point in fighting in," said Ratchet, "Just leave her alone. It will take time for her to understand."

Outside, a thunderstorm was raining. Elita was sitting at the base of a large statue of a dragon carved from stone. Elita couldn't bear to face her father again. There was no way she could convince him otherwise of staying out of the war. She felt so useless. She couldn't impress the matchmaker and there was no way to make her father from joining the army.

She paused for a minute. That one mech, Sky, stood in for his older father to serve in the army. But Ratchet had no sons, only her… 'What am I thinking?' she thought, 'That's practically suicidal, in more ways than one. Besides, they would be able to tell that I'm a femme. Unless the Beast Armor could hide it…'

She put her thinking on hold when she saw a pair of silhouettes in the window. Her parents were talking. Elita lifted her head and watched. Hopefully, her mother was trying to convince her father to stay out of the fighting. But then Arcee's shadow turned away and her body language clearly suggested sadness. Ratchet's shoulders seemed to slump before he reached over and turned out the lights. If anything could be judged from it, it was that even Arcee couldn't reason with Ratchet. Elita's face hardened as she knew the only that could be done. 'I know my function now,' she thought before getting up.

The first thing she did was go to the family shrine. She lit a stick of incense and placed it on the burner. She prayed a silent prayer to her ancestors over what she had to do before going out. However, Chip, who had been released from his cage earlier, watched Elita and followed after her.

Elita crept into her parents' rooms. They were both in sleep mode, so Elita tiptoed as carefully as possible. She reached the table on her father's side of the bed. She took the draft card and replaced it with her flower clip. She then moved quickly and silently out of the room.

Her next stop was the living room where she opened the container for the Beast Armor. Locking the door, she then removed the decorative pieces of her own armor before putting on both the inner layer, which acted as basic cover, and the outer layer, which was the main layer, of the Beast Armor. With the armor on, she walked outside. According to the ancient files, she must select an organic beast mode to copy off of before scanning it and modifying her altmode. Her father had the advantage of being in the wilds and was able to scan the velociraptor form he used from an ancient fossil, but Elita will have to make due with whatever lifeforms were available for scanning. An antenna extended from her helmet and a bright light swept over the courtyard. As it scanned the surroundings, it showed a few holograms depicting the creatures available for scanning. Elita turned down the birds since Autobots don't normally fly with very few exceptions and it was possible for the other Autobots to mistake her for a Decepticon. The mouse, the slug, and the tortoise didn't seem like useful forms for battle, not to mention they wouldn't make very good choices on terms of aesthetics. The gecko she felt was too close to her father's raptor form.

As she was looking through the insects and other arthropods, she stopped when she looked at one creature. It was a spider, which had spun its web on one of the bushes. Elita considered for a moment. Spiders aren't very attractive creatures, particularly up close. However, they are very strong and fast for their size, capable of climbing nearly any surface, and their ability to generate silk and venom are very useful. Not to mention there was a certain mystique to the arachnids. Elita selected that form but used the features of the Beast Armor to make several alterations to it, particularly how it would affect her robot mode. It couldn't make her into a boy, but it could at least hide that she was a girl. After the necessary modifications were made, she started the download.

She winced as the Beast Armor began to fuse to her robotic body on a microscopic level. The actual armor could be detached for cleaning or medical treatment, but the organic symbiosis would take a longer time to remove. The armor bulked up around her torso, covering the feminine curves of her body with purple technorganic carapace. The gauntlets on her arms as well as her boots sprouted large claws. Her back bulged before eight pairs of spidery legs grew from it. Then her helmet covered her face, giving it the appearance of a spider's eight eyes and mandibles. All and all, her new robot mode strongly resembled that of a spider, particularly the spider's head on her chest.

Then Elita walked to the stables and opened the door. Snarl took one look at her and reared back in fright. Elita quickly went up to him and calmed him down. Once Snarl recognized her, he allowed her to saddle him up. Then the two of them walked towards the gate. They paused for a moment to look back at the house, but Elita knew what had to be done. She jumped up onto the Dinobot's back and rode out through the gates and down the road.

However, Elita had not gone unwatched. Chip had been watching her the whole time and only his small size and inability to keep up with her kept him from following her down the road. But another presence was also aware of what was going on as the eyes on the top of the stone marked for the eldest known ancestor in the shine began to glow blue as a signal was sent out from it.

That signal was focused on Red Alert who suddenly sat up in bed. She immediately knew something was wrong, but did not what it was yet. She got up and walked over to her niece's room. However, when she looked inside, the bed was empty. She quickly headed for Ratchet and Arcee's room and said, "Elita is gone!"

The married couple woke up almost instantly. "What?" said Ratchet before looking at his bedside table. Instead of the draft card, he saw the flower clip. He picked it up and muttered, "It can't be." He got out of bed and hurried towards the Beast Armor container. But when he opened it, he found it empty.

Ratchet ran out into the courtyard and yelled, "Elita!" However, the rain was still pouring and he tripped on the slick stone. He looked up to see the gate still open. "No," he whispered.

Arcee went to Ratchet's side and said, "You must go after her. She could get killed!"

Ratchet put his servo on Arcee's shoulder and said grimly, "If I reveal her, she will be." The two parents hugged each other, overcome with worry over their daughter.

Red Alert was watching from the porch and was well aware of the danger towards her niece. She sighed and whispered, "Ancestors, hear our prayer, watch over Elita."

There's another chapter. There are quite a few Transformers references in here, namely that of Dai Atlas and Sky Garry's cameo appearances. Also, the Beast Armor's a reference to Beast Wars. As you can probably guess, Ratchet's previous persona was based on Dinobot, the Predacon-turned-Maximal, not the sub-group. Elita's current technorganic form's based off of Tarantulas. Anyhow, the story's going to really pick up from here so keep an eye out for the next update and please review.