Maelstrom Chapter 31
Conversations in the Kitchen: Chapter 2 D
Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original Maelstrom Comics and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.
Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex.
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!
Maelstrom 31
Conversations in the Kitchen
Chapter 2
Getting to Know Everything About you
Part D
Conversations in The Kitchen Chapter 2
Part D
Continued from Part C!
Marissa's skin lost all color. His silence was not lost on her...and her brief time with Lancer told her that this warrior didn't crack without reason - let alone cry in ball on the floor. The EDC captain blurted out what hit her the hardest, "Gang-raped? Edana? What kind of war are you people waging? Rodimus! How can we help you if you won't tell us what is going on? Enough with your damned secrets already!" Suddenly furious, Marissa shoved both of them against the wall and shook them. "TELL US HOW TO HELP YOU! TELL US!"
The pair just stared at her with hollow, wary eyes. Magnus didn't think. He just moved. Grabbing each of them by the collar like he did with Hot Rod, he simply hoisted them off the floor and threw them each into a chair. He wondered as he did why neither resisted.
"Who's bleeding?!" cried Marissa. "Where is all this blood coming from? Oh my God. CARLY! We need the first aid kit in here! Lancer your hands! Is that what those scars are from? Your own damned nails? Rodimus how can you let her do this to herself? You are crazy! You really are crazy!"
Carly appeared as if by magic with her overflowing box of band-aids but Lancer pulled away.
"Lancer don't!" Rodi cried, but there was a flash around Lancer hands. She stuck her chin out and glared at her mate, even as the scent of burning blood joined that of smoldering plastic.
"You make the scars worse every time you fry them," Rodimus growled.
"You didn't!" Marissa exclaimed. "You cauterized them? Lancer what the hell is wrong with you? We have bandages! After all this time do neither of you trust us that far?" The EDC Captain made no effort to hide how insulting she found this.
"It has nothing to do with trusting you Marissa," Rodimus whispered.
"Oh really? Well, forgive me if I don't believe you...Prime," Marissa sneered.
By this point the whole gang was lurking in the doorway. They watched as Carly, pale and tight-lipped, ignored Lancer's low growl and took the mutant's hands one at a time. She then slathered the seared punctures with antibiotics and wrapped the wounds. Lancer watched her but didn't pull away.
"If we can't help you here, maybe Optimus can," Magnus suggested.
Rodimus frowned. "We've already done enough damage. I have no idea what Optimus is like as a father, but if one of my kids had an older, half-crazed assassin of an alternate show up at my door I seriously doubt I'd take it well."
"You underestimate him," Magnus said.
"If you say so," Rodimus rejoined testily.
"So what is this crystal you need anyway?" Marissa prodded impatiently.
Rodimus opened his mouth as though to answer and then shut it again. He turned away from them all to stare out the window, his back stiff and straight, his hands clasped behind him. Carly finished taping up Lancer's hands and the assassin slid over to stand by her mate. If they were conferring mentally they gave no outward sign, but they stood there like statues for several minutes.
"You won't even tell us about a piece of that damned teleporter? And here I had this stupid notion we were friends," Marissa said harshly, breaking the silence at last.
"You don't know what you are asking," Lancer said, her voice demonic. "You need to give US the benefit of the doubt too Captain Fairborne."
"I thought you wanted to get home? I thought you NEEDED to get home!" Marissa exclaimed.
Rodimus whirled and slammed his fists down on the table. "Not at the expense of the future of this whole dimension! Our's may be doomed with or without us! What we bring with us may poison your futures too! If we are going to do this we will need Optimus' help and he will demand to know why! The things you are asking came between him and me. My partner. My best friend! We nearly killed each other! If we hadn't somehow worked it out I don't know that Cybertron would still be standing, but we nearly didn't! If the things I will have to tell him warps his view of his son in any way....I fear for the Autobots here, but I'm afraid for Hot Rod too!"
He cast a furtive glance towards the doorway and met Hot Rod's eyes by accident. The younger man seemed frightened and confused, but his blue eyes held steady. It was Rodimus Prime who looked away.
Is it wrong... he sent to his mate, to hope he has a future without all the blood on his hands?
"You can NOT seriously mean to tell me that you are giving up on getting home because you are afraid that Optimus Prime can't handle what you've told us?" Magnus exclaimed stridently. "I'm going to hurt someone!"
"Magnus, not even being tortured to within an inch of my life and several inches past my breaking point was enough to drive a wedge between me and my partner," Rodi whispered. "Nevertheless, there are things going on which drove the unflappable Optimus Prime to try his very best to put his fists through my face...and I, being so sane, stood there taking it and egging him on. If he had managed to kill me what would it have done to him? What about Lancer? My kids? The fact of the matter is I did not care. I WANTED him to do it. Am I concerned your Optimus can't handle it? MY Optimus can't handle it! For that matter, I can't handle it! So, no, I am not eager to set this dimension up with the level of love and trust which nearly led one Prime to betray his people by murdering the other, nor one to betray his people by committing suicide by proxy!"
"Hello? Blaster? Hi, it's Hot Rod. Is Optimus available? No...no emergency. I have a question to ask him. Sure...I'll wait."
Every head in the room rotated towards Hot Rod's voice. He was leaning on the door-frame, a smug half-smile on his face.
"Hot Rod," Rodimus hissed, "What are you doing?"
Hot Rod met his eyes and grinned. "Waiting to talk to my dad...and you can't take the phone away from me 'cause he already knows I'm cal...Hiya Pop! No problem. Everyone's OK. Hey! I've got a weird hypothetical question for you. ...No, I didn't break anything, honest! Listen...if you ever met another version of me from another dimension... yeah... one IS enough. Really! I agree! But if you did, and he was like a REAL asshole. ...Yeah...cussing is necessary. Trust me! But if he was like this jerk who made the 'Cons look cute, do you think you would hold it against me? No? Not even if he was a complete and utter creepizoid with a bad temper and really, really stupid priorities? You sure? Positive? OK! Just checking! .... No. No reason really. We were just talking about stuff and it came up! Do you want to ask Magnus? ... He's the same. No. Running over him hasn't changed anything. Maybe you should hit him harder next time. Juuust kidding! ... I know you're busy. Say hi to Mom for me? Thanks! Bye!"
Hot Rod hung up the phone and grinned even bigger at Rodi who had glowered at him through the whole conversation. "Dad says he'd find some way to distinguish between us, seeing as how I'M his son and all, so it's OK you're an asshole."
Rodi's mouth clamped shut and his eyes bored into Hot Rod's with a mad, green flare. If the younger man was in any way disconcerted by that he gave no sign. The "Gotcha" grin on his face never wavered, and he went so far as to wink at Lancer. Magnus, who saw killer fury on Rodimus' face wondered if Hot Rod was too stupid to be afraid or simply brave.
Lancer slid up behind her mate and put a hand on his shoulder, but she was looking at Hot Rod with a funny half-smile on her lips. Her eyes had tears in them again, but they didn't fall. "The die has been cast my love. Don't tell me you're surprised by his audacity either - you dish it out, you'd better be able to take it."
Rodi neither looked at her nor softened. "Now we'll see if they can take it," he snarled. "Sit down you moron and get ready. Ignorance really is bliss sometimes - and don't say I didn't warn you."
X
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The conversation lasted the rest of the day and well into the night. When the kitchen chairs grew uncomfortable they moved to the livingroom. At dinner time the huge order of pizza went largely to left-overs. No one had much of an appetite.
Rodimus stood - first at the end of the dinner table, then by the couch. Lancer perched beside him on the counter by the sink like some strange gargoyle. When they moved in a daze to the livingroom she did the same on the back of the couch. Marissa realized immediately that the mutant was guarding her mate again - but was it to protect him or to control him?
Rodimus showed little emotion throughout his recitation, especially at first. Tension pulled his features taut and robbed his mobile face of expression. He looked old, and not at all like Hot Rod. His eyes changed the most.
From the day Lancer and Rodimus arrived they had all made casual note that Rodi's eyes were greenish, while Hot Rod's were vivid Autobot blue. Hot Rod's eyes stood out from his complexion and his reddish hair so clearly that they still sometimes seemed to glow as a Transformers eyes would. Rodi's - when you could even see them under his unruly bangs - seemed to change with the light and his mood from aqua to green. Today, from the moment Hot Rod called his father till the end of his long story, Rodi's eyes burned emerald. Green. Green like acid. Green like venom...and they too seemed to glow like his mate's did. It turned his face from eerily familiar to just plain eerie.
The assassin pair laid out their lives. They covered what they knew of the origins of Cybertron and Vector Sigma. They covered Vector Sigma's manipulation of both sides of the war - drawing exclamations of outrage from all their audience. Rodimus went over Optimus' death and briefly described his first, faltering term as Prime. Optimus' revival, the partnership, and the gruesome events leading up to it were explained in slightly more detail. Lancer made sure to point out the connection between early criticism, Rodi's unrealistic expectations for anyone named Prime, and his festering death wish.
From there they described the first years of the partnership and how it had strengthened things on Cybertron. Then came the Jabez.
Rodimus cooly described how he was taken, how Goldbug (Bumblebee!) had been taken by accident too. How they were tortured, and tortured, and tortured. Details were overly abundant. Acid in their fuel lines. Complete removal of their body shells for unhindered access to their neural networks. Dissections down to their cores that were repeated over and over, with the re-buildings just as painful. Rodimus described how he fought to notice everything and fought to suppress his screams of agony in a vain effort to escape or at least spare Goldbug just a little as if he were describing a quarterly inventory. These were facts - not an emotional outcry.
He was made human - and the torture went on. Goldbug was made human, and Rodimus made detached note to his audience that this was the point his mind splintered.
Rodi's normally expressive voice went on in a dead monotone as he continued to describe precisely the things that were done to them (mostly Goldbug). He might have been reading a laboratory report. That he remembered everything in detail, down to the length of the needles in inches, was grimly apparent to his listeners. That the voice talking to them was the part of him that lived through it was plain too.
Spike listened, and wept silently. Bumblebee was still his best friend. Most of what Rodimus reported was focused on Goldbug. Parts that related to Rodi were recounted only in passing, when they were relevant somehow, or when Goldbug hadn't been in the room. Mostly Prime only retold what happened to himself to illustrate how Goldbug got it worse. For Spike to sit and listen to such horror in terms of his cheerful, loyal friend was all he could stand. Rodimus' merciless voice droned on about Goldbug's decent from trying to reason with the Jabez, to pleading, to incoherent roars, to catatonia. Spike's tears were as much from un-ventable fury as from grief. Telling himself his Bumblebee was fine did no good whatsoever. Looking around the room told Spike the others were experiencing similar rage and sorrow. Carly clutched his hand. Her fingers were icy.
Rodimus went on with his cold report. He informed them of the crystals the Jabez used in everything. Crystals like the Matrix. He told them Astrotrain had been there too, although Rodi never realized it at the time.
Then came his introduction to Conversion and the slave trade. The first time he'd seen young humans have their brains cored out and replaced with microchips was relayed in the same impeccable detail as the rest. Lancer helped him give an overview on the uses of humans as a whole and mutants in particular for the Jabez and their Sponsors. They also explained that the Jabez were responsible for interfering in human evolution and were suspected of seeding the human race on Earth in the first place.
"We humans and Transformers - we are similar because we share the same blueprint."
"I was made human to further Jabez designs on Earth," Rodimus said. "We know from the files recovered by Lancer's friends that the Jabez had many plans for me. Astrotrain was their test run - their guinea pig. Everything they did to us, they did to him first to see if he would survive. I was the prize catch. They were careful with me. As both a human and an Autobot I've been modified. I'm faster, more fuel efficient, I heal very quickly. They modified my pheromone production and my fertility as a human. I was meant to go back as a Convert, lead my Autobots in ways the Jabez could exploit, and provide them with human offspring with a high probability of mutancy."
"Pheromones?" Marissa asked.
Lancer answered. "He can seduce anything on two legs if he tries, Marissa, and if the tests are accurate, he's got about a 98% chance of getting them pregnant if they are healthy. The pheromones cause spontaneous ovulation no matter where you are in your cycle. If you can get pregnant, you will."
"But you...only have two kids," Marissa pointed out, wondering if she was being too personal.
"It's me. I was told I couldn't get pregnant - otherwise we'd have a hundred kids by now. My body is always channeling energy - it takes more than ordinary sperm to run that gauntlet. Rodimus is probably the only man even capable of getting me pregnant...and it took a long time."
"But...I still can't believe a zombie...a...a..Convert? I can't believe something like that can be seductive no matter how they smell!"
"You have no idea how sophisticated those chips can be," Lancer said. "A Convert can keep up all its old personality. High end Conversions can go home to their loved ones and live for years undetected. They even adapt. It doesn't change the fact that they are dead and completely under their programer's control. Astrotrain fathered 76 offspring that we know of in the time he was loose...that we know of. There are many suspicious disappearances of women and even a few men he encountered. We suspect he Converted them and shipped them off. He operated for just under two years. Of the kids we know of, 83% are mutants class 3 and above. The odds of that being chance are impossibly high. ....We are doing what we can to guard them all, but we've lost three to slave runners already. They are all under ten years old."
Rodimus took the long, shocked pause to mean he could continue. He voice still never wavered.
"Goldbug was an extra, brought in by mistake. They used him to see how far they could push things, because he was expendable. What they did to me, they did to him more with no concerns for his survival. They tested my ability to heal by breaking my fingers. They tested his by pulling him apart by the arms and legs with a winch. They tore him nearly in two."
Lancer took over again to describe her team-mates and the Maelstrom. She described finding Rodimus and rescuing him, only to be lost and marooned due to a malfunctioning teleporter. Rodi's reluctant recovery and the formation of their link didn't take long to describe, nor did their disastrous attempts to keep their relationship a secret once they got home. Rodimus annotated his plans for a covert war and Optimus' foreknowledge of it through the Matrix. He made impassive note of his return to robot form. Lancer covered her inelegant departure from Cybertron.
Marissa protested. "Why Lancer? Why would you leave him? How could you leave him? He had so much on his plate and...and...you two.... You two were meant to be together!"
Lancer snorted. "What else could I have done? First of all I had to be sure the bastards that had him were dead! If he had any hope of running his gambit against the Jabez and the slavers it was secrecy! It still is secrecy! I am a known Jabez adversary with a bounty on my head. If the Jabez suspect the Maelstrom is working with the Autobots it is over for Cybertron. They will wipe the planet clean. You are all so amazed that I'm a mutant but in our world I am one of many. The Jabez breed us like cattle in fucking factories! They take women with genetics they like and inseminate them over and over. The lucky ones are Converted first. The Sponsors maintain standing ARMIES of Converted mutant with abilities far past mine.
Besides, I had no way of knowing at that point that our link was unbreakable, or that he could go back and forth to being human. What would I do there? Hide out in his quarters until he's off duty? Pretend to be just friends? We aren't just friends...and it only took Optimus about five minutes to see through us. Rodi is who he is and I wouldn't change that, but I am not strong enough to hang around loving a man I can't help and I can't touch. It's hard enough now, when my mind is with him always, but my body is usually in the next parsect. Do you think I felt that was best for him either? What will you do when Magnus goes home? Kiss his ankles?"
Marissa winced. "I'm trying to make the most of the time we have," she whispered huskily.
Lancer nodded. "That's exactly what I did, and when it was over I let him go...or at least I tried. We blocked each other out and I took off. Everything I have ever heard about telepathic connections says time and distance will sever them, but we are apparently a special case."
Rodimus, who stood like stone during this exchange gave no sign it applied to him. He went on to describe his early evaluations of the situation on Cybertron. Complacency where humans were concerned was rampant in their security and slave runners by the hundreds were taking advantage. He also explained that Magnus and Marissa were running their own covert investigation into a slaving operation on their own - although they didn't realize that was what they had on their hands. He told them how these separate investigations and Magnus' increasing paranoia led Magnus to stumble onto one of Rodi's first assassination missions.
With no emotion whatsoever, Rodimus explained how he had planted a micro-explosive on the fuel tank of a slaving vessel and killed all the humans on board - including the Converted cargo. He described his City Commander's response to that, as well as his own careful consideration of assassinating Magnus. Not long after that, there was a similar consideration of Marissa's fate.
The Ultra Magnus of this dimension stared at the Prime confronting him. He considered Rodimus a friend...a rare sort of friend who was not only his equal in combat, but in suffering. A confidant - something Magnus had damned few of. If Rodimus was waiting for some kind of outburst over a debate about killing Magnus' twin, Rodi didn't get one. For a long moment they sized each other up - the gladiator City Commander and the Assassin Prime. Neither blinked. Neither blanched.
Rodimus went on with his soliloquy. The first nucleus of the council,, the subjugation of Vector Sigma, the revival of Elita One, the Quint genocide, and the arguments leading up to the Quint genocide.
"How?" Magnus wanted to know. "How did you get rid of them all?"
"I took Magnus, Marissa, and Jazz on a fast ship. We'd find one Quint cruiser, kill the Sharks, torture the Quints for information, and kill all but one. I'd pretend to botch the kill on that Quint and hit it with a slow-acting poison. We'd put a homing device on board and withdraw out of sensor range. Then we'd see where it ran for help...and start over."
"That's it? Just the four of you?" Magnus exclaimed. Surely it wasn't so easy.
Lancer answered.
"Magnus, it was mostly just him. Optimus insisted on the others. The Sharkticons are no match for what his three teachers taught him. The Jabez, being human, and me."
"Wha...what do you mean by that? I understand you taught him to be an assassin but..."
"Do you take more care now that you are human and your limbs can't just be replaced?" Lancer asked very quietly.
"Yes...we all know it's easier to get hurt right now but..."
"When you are a robot again you will discover several things. One, you will instinctively guard yourself better because you spent time as a squishy, but you will also notice injuries you do get don't hurt as much as you remember. Your sensor levels won't seem nearly as acute." She saw the Autobots exchange glances around the room and went on.
"Rodimus didn't just spend a year as a human. He was tortured as a human. He is required by First Aid to check in after every engagement, no matter how small, because he's let injuries bleed his energon nearly dry. He doesn't feel pain as a Transformer anymore. The Sharks could hardly lay a claw on him, but even if they did he didn't feel it. It wasn't...it wasn't much of a contest."
"We had to get rid of them," Rodimus said. "They were the only ones capable of linking me to the Jabez lab the Maelstrom destroyed after they rescued us."
"Us?" Hot Rod cried, interrupting for the first time. "Is Bumb...I mean Goldbug still alive? Is he home?"
"He lives on the Maelstrom. He will not come home. He will not try being an Autobot again. He will not smile, or speak more than he has to. He calls himself Shellshock...and he kills Slavers." Rodimus' voice was too flat to be cold, but Hot Rod shivered anyway.
No one else interrupted so Rodimus continued. "Through this time, my council was starting to harass me about my health. I was having... episodes. My energy levels would drop off suddenly. I would grey down as if in death for minutes at a time. I have no memory of this. I was convinced they were lying to me, but it was the effort of separating from Lancer that was draining me. She was having similar spells, but she was alone and had no one to tell her what was happening.
Lancer took over again and described the wall between their minds, and her conviction that if she could just get far enough, and hold the wall long enough, that their link would die. She admitted that she was also prepared to die taking on the Jabez who tortured her mate, but they were already vaporized by the Maelstrom....and she was pregnant.
She briefly described going into hiding and giving birth to Edana alone.
Rodimus resumed with the conspiracy his council ran against him when the Maelstrom made contact. He retold of their search for Lancer as if she were a stranger, not his mate. He recounted his first, shocked sight of her and the baby on the screen of an Autobot shuttle, the rage he had felt which sent her powers into overload, and how the blast had called the bounty hunters. In the same dead voice he told his audience how the slavers would spear and drug his mate, how her desperate battle nearly killed her, and how their desperate battle to keep her alive had nearly killed him. He told of his return to human form to be with his Lancer in the same droning voice he'd used for the torture chamber.
It wasn't until he began describing his first time holding Edana as a human man that his voice finally broke into something more normal. He blinked, shuddered, and smiled just a bit as he told them about it. Lancer, who still perched on the couch next to where he stood, sighed and slipped off the back and onto the seat. For a moment she rested her forehead on his hip and he reached down to smooth down the tendrils of hair that escaped from her braid.
Rodimus sighed too, and went on with the Autobots working partnership with the Maelstrom, the discovery of Astrotrain the Convert, Marissa and Magnus' engagement, and Kup's response to that.
"He blamed me for everything he sensed in Rodimus," Lancer said softly. "And his hatred spilled over onto Edana. My friend Claudia is an empath and she has no doubt that if the baby and I had been alone with Kup he would have tried to kill us."
"That makes no sense!" Hot Rod exclaimed.
Rodimus shrugged. "Now you start to see what I was worried about. "Our universe has a shortage of sense if Kup thought he could somehow regain our old friendship by murdering my mate and my kid!"
"But it doesn't sound like Kup at all!" Hot Rod protested. "Even if he was mad at you and Lancer he wouldn't be mad at a little baby! He...he just wouldn't!"
Rodimus arched an eyebrow at his twin, "Don't be naive, Hot Rod. You wanted to hear this...be grown up enough to accept what this stuff does to people."
"I agree with Hot Rod," Magnus said firmly. "What you've described is horrible, but every person you have mentioned is familiar. Kup is the first one you've said anything about whose character doesn't seem to match! Maybe he IS different in your universe, but in ours he loves Hot Rod, loves youngsters, and is more adaptable than you describe! He's one of our oldest veterans and he didn't get that way by being inflexible."
Arcee and Springer nodded in agreement, and even Foul Play mentioned that her people described Kup as cagey and quick on his feet.
Rodimus could only frown and shrug. "I can't understand why everyone else would match so well but not Kup. When I was young... when I was Hot Rod... if you had asked me to name an Autobot who was most like a father to me, I would have named Kup. Optimus was the Prime on high - I was just a newly activate punk Autobot. He barely noticed me. Kup was my mentor and my friend. I really miss that friendship, but I rarely speak to him now, and when I do it is just as Prime. Maybe, maybe if we hadn't been quite so close it would have been different."
The Autobots continued to protest, as did Spike, but Rodimus wasn't done yet, and he wasn't interested in exploring his fall-out with Kup.
He outlined his plans for minding the Decepticons on Char almost apologetically. "We've taken over all of their sensory devices and rigged their base with our own. We supply them with targets to raid for energon and do our best to protect them. Unfortunately the best I can say right now is that if the Jabez come for us en-masse then the explosives we have rigged to blow Char to space dust is a kinder death than they would get from a Slaver.
Foul Play paled and blinked with shock. "You are protecting them?!"
Rodimus shook his head and looked guilty. "I'm using them. I'm using them exactly like Vector Sigma did. They are my excuse for everything from my security upgrades to all of our new activations receiving Elita's training. Elita's training being Lancer's training of course. Lancer trained her, she trained her personal troops, and now they are giving the Autobots remedial help. My army is becoming an army of assassins and they don't even know it. They sure as hell don't like it either, but I don't give a shit about their grumbling. It's the best I can do for the 'Cons right now Foul Play! They are sitting targets."
"But...you did the best you could for them...even after all the wars,"
Foul Play stated. The situation was ugly for her people, but even she knew he couldn't just invite them into his council.
Rodi's eyes flared green again. "The wars are not their fault. I blame the Jabez, I blame the Quints, but mostly I blame Vector Sigma for that! It could have warned us! United us! Instead it used us by keeping Cybertron in such chaos that we weren't worth bothering with. It could have steered us towards the slavers when they first came in without even revealing itself! Instead it figured the Jabez were less likely to investigate Cybertron if things were easy there. I'm sure it helped foster the horrible blind spots in our security and our thinking! Now Cybertron is infested with entrenched slaving operations and instead of being able to just go in there to step on the snot-fuckers like I want to we have to be careful and sneaky about it. I have to devise clever ruses, make their deaths look like accidents, or rival slave-gangs. It takes time to set up, and while I plan more little kids get raped and have their brains cored out. Then I have to deal with what's left over, and most of the time it means that I have to kill the merchandise. I'm no better than the damned slavers. Sometimes I think I'd like to go back to being insane - there's a certain clarity involved with that. I really wish my people could breed like yours do! I want to smash Vector Sigma to bits and free us from it for once and for all!"
Foul Play shook her head. In her mind, at least he was trying.
Marissa opened her mouth to say something but he was already moving on. He explained how they were trying to bring some form of freedom to the next generation of Transformers by forcing Vector Sigma to program them randomly, leading to some real wild cards and even desertions to the Decepticon ranks.
Finally he confessed how Arcee and Springer had fallen into the council, but not before Rodimus had again been forced to consider assassinating two of his people. This time though, Optimus knew about it. Rodimus again pulled no punches in his description of the fight between himself and his partner. He didn't gloss over his own frame of mind - heart-sick of all the killing and looking, perhaps, for a way out.
There was no doubt that Rodimus baited Optimus by insulting and egging him on. Still, Magnus felt Optimus' reaction was extreme. Not that he couldn't see Optimus laying into Rodi. The Optimus of this dimension and he had been in a brief but serious brawl themselves. Magnus was a gladiator. He took no pleasure in fighting, but when he had to he made no apologies for his tactics on the battlefield. Optimus had a more idealistic style of fighting and leading which Magnus found restrictive and occasionally stupid. They argued bitterly about it numerous times before it degraded into violence.
They hadn't exchanged more than a few blows when they both realized how detrimental and foolish it was. Since that time they continued to disagree and to argue, but they were careful not to let it go too far.
Apparently, Rodi's suggestion of eliminating Springer and Arcee's twins in his dimension was much, much too far for that Optimus Prime to cope with. Rodimus explained that he had somehow managed to keep his partner in the dark about a lot of things he had to do. Upon finding out, Optimus reacted even worse than Rodi had feared. The listeners were forcibly reminded of Lancer's assertion that Rodi didn't feel much pain in robot form. How else could he just stand there letting Optimus rain blow after blow on his face without flinching or defending himself?
Rodi admitted if Op had killed him that he wouldn't mind. It hadn't been until Lancer had intervened by reminding him that she and Edana would most certainly mind that he stopped needling his partner into more violence.
The aftermath was almost as ugly as the actual fight according to Lancer. She did applaud her Marissa's meeting agenda looking to replace BOTH Prime's with pocket calculators. In their universe Magnus had explained quite seriously to Optimus that at least calculators were good for something.
The Magnus in Carly's livingroom snorted. He counted that a score.
"What did you say to that?" Magnus asked.
"Nothing," Rodi said. "Not a damned thing. I was so far gone I hardly heard it. Not fair is it? That was a good dis."
He explained himself as best he could without ever trying to shift the blame away. "I hated him. Absolutely hated him for not being able to handle it. I was the one up to my knees in human blood every damned night. If two Autobots had to go down to stop that some day I would do it. I would HAVE to do it...and I have to be able to not just consider it, but go through with it."
"You have, haven't you?" Marissa asked. "You have had to kill some of your own."
"We have lost two Autobots to Conversion...and yes. I was the one to deal with that. Optimus...my Optimus...he still doesn't know."
"You didn't tell us that," Hot Rod hissed.
"Kid...if you think I'm going to tell you every last fucking detail you are even dumber than I was at your age. Of course I'm not telling you everything. I won't tell you their names either, so do not ask."
"Who were they?" Hot Rod demanded.
Rodimus ignored that. "I want you to see how bad it got between him and me. I want you to know I considered bringing some of the dead little kids I was dealing with to put on his desk. I thought about forcing him to watch me go over their bodies to see what was done to them before and after they were Converted. Lancer talked me out of it. We patched it up finally, but it feels....patched. So much rests on our ability to trust each other and work as a team, and we nearly blew it. Hot Rod! I don't pretend to know your future, or your relationship with your father, but the scars from this fight are still there in him and in me. If we crack... do we take Cybertron and Earth down with us? I need you to step up for a minute here. I need you to GROW up for a minute here!
Don't you see what this dimension represents to us? It's a chance for the people that we love to have a healthy future that may be impossible in our universe no matter what we do! I really want you to think that over. Is your father gonna roll with this, or is he going to look at you and wonder deep down if you are capable of becoming a monster like me?"
"Rodimus," Marissa said, "You are not a monster."
Rodimus didn't answer her. He just stared at Hot Rod.
"What did you do with Springer and Arcee?" Hot Rod asked.
"A fate worse than death...we brought them into the council and saddled them with all of our bureaucratic bullshit and paperwork."
Springer snorted.
Rodimus turned those unnerving green eyes on the triple changer. "You think I'm joking? You know the whole reason they got on to us was because we lost track of our friendship with them. I thought I was doing a decent job with keeping up morale and pretenses and all. Yeah right. They moved in together. They went ahead and got "unofficially" mated and no one on the damned council knew a thing about it for weeks. My present to them was to suck them into this nightmare and dump all the paperwork none of us big shots had time for on them. They run Metroplex as a team, go home, and fill out all the damned forms Op, Magnus, and I can't find time to deal with. I even made them the official liaisons to the Paradronian Cultural Commission. No action. No down-time. Just non-stop crap. Their reward for living together is to see each other less than when they were just dating."
"Is it helping?" Arcee demanded.
"Huh?" Rodimus said, sounding tired.
"Is it helping make up for that horrible complacency? Is it helping you close down the slaving rings?" she asked harshly.
"Well, it is a little..." Rodimus admitted.
"Then it's worth it!" Arcee jumped up suddenly, put her nose less than an inch from Rodi's face and poked him repeatedly in the chest. "Do you seriously think for a second it isn't worth it Rodimus Prime? Paperwork? If paperwork means less of those...those evil monsters get away with using MY home planet as an auction-house for little babies like Daniel sign me up! And I will speak for my twin too...if my death means less kids die I volunteer! You hear me? Stop them! Stop them! Do whatever you have to do!"
"In case you were wondering, Rodimus Prime Sir, I'm with Arcee on that one," Springer said, standing up to back her up.
She took his hand, but turned fierce blue eyes on Magnus. "You're going to check on this aren't you? You are going to make SURE it isn't happening here."
"Of course I am," Magnus vowed. "You didn't need to ask."
"Are you done?" Arcee asked Rodimus, "Or is there more to this horror flick?"
"Pretty much," Rodimus said. "Things are status quo right now. We snip away at their web a strand at a time and hope they won't notice it's us. We were making progress when we left, and the only reason we left was because Elita walked in behind me and I nearly blew her head off before I realized who she was. This was an enforced vacation."
Continued in Part E