Born of Risen Apes, not Fallen Angels
Dahlia awoke to a throbbing and beeping. "Ow, ow..." Moaning, she stumbled over a stray bedsheet, collapsing onto the thin carpet of her room.
Blearily, she opened her eyes to see the metallic device.
Her eyes flared open. She stumbled back, eyeing the device warily. It looked like an orb with wires sticking out of it, and Dahlia inferred that those wires... someone had plucked them out, she imagined. With great strength. Who had done it?
The beeping was from her cellphone, beside the device. She pawed at it with fingers stiff with cold, the Samsung device informing her smugly that there was three more hours to her daily prescription before the gaming session.
Her head hurt, but her gaming instincts were sharp. She would manage.
Now to locate the long-sleeved turtle-neck... and the violin...
The metal object was disturbing. She tried not to think about it.
"Dahlia!" Amrit rose to greet her in the same effusive manner he seemed to carry. "You did not bring the keyboard?"
"Hi Amrit," she greeted at the door of their meeting. "It broke. No, I brought my violin."
She went around to greet the others; Mike in a Pokémon shirt and jeans, Andy in a Captain America target-shield T-shirt, and Erika, the other girl in the group.
"Who's the GM again?" Erika blinked, her eyes faraway as she tried to recall.
"Amrit is," Dahlia reminded her.
"It's a good thing," Mike chipped in. "At least Amrit gives us nice empty rooms, enemies we can kill, no fiendishly difficult puzzles. And no one died."
"I died," Dahlia rebutted. "Of boredom. And my last thought was always 'where was that monster keeping his Artefact Of Doom?'"
It took a while before the Scion campaign got started by Amrit, taking off from where they left off in the midst of fighting a Band of Fomori.
"Casting Divine Threnody," Dahlia announced. "The amplified song cast through the relic, Orpheus's Lyre. Dice roll-"
"No, I cast Redirect with one Legend point," Amrit stuck his tongue out.
"Fine," Dahlia scowled as she rolled the dice, grinning as she clocked in her move. "Redirect forces me to use Hymn of Victory, using six Legend points to boost all members moves for the next five rolls."
"So which song is it?" Amrit teased as she picked up her violin and bow, which had seen quite a bit of use every music-influenced dice roll Dahlia made.
"I think Macross Frontier might be good," Dahlia drew a breath, starting to bow the violin.
Aimo aimo nedel rushe,
Now toll the bells of victory,
for this place is my new planet.
Aimo aimo nedel rushe,
Now wave our flags above our heads,
for this place is the new land of God...
The sudden earthquake threw her off. "What on earth...?"
"The earth wants to hear ya sing, girl," Andy gave an exaggerated wink. "That, or your soprano needs work."
"-nothing," Ratchet was saying. "We've tested the signal amplification gestalt. There remains nothing that should allow a human to influence, much less control us. Optimus, we must isolate Dahlia Su Daji for her own safety."
The mood hanging over Diego Garcia and its inhabitants of extraterrestrial origins was tense, a string stretched to limits that, if struck, would produce the highest of notes before snapping.
"From whom?" the Autobot leader questioned, his optics bearing a surprisingly human-like faraway look. "From the Decepticons? The humans? Us? The difference between protective custody and imprisonment is a clear threat."
"That female could reprogramme any of us, and had done so," Ratchet argued back. "I do not know how long that programming might be, and I do not care to know. Other Autobots might come someday, and when they find out about her existence, not all of them shall be as pacifist as us."
"We have the gestalt device," the larger Autobot insisted. "She is no longer a threat."
"And how did she get it?" Ratchet pointed out, calmly and with reason. "Some parts of fallen Cybertronians could have been lost in Mission City, but we have the relevant part now. You... this makes no sense."
"I sense... a spirit much like Prowl."
Ratchet tensed. "A... spirit like Prowl? There's no replicating that mech."
"That I acknowledge," Optimus earnestly replied. "I may be a Prime in name, and yet... I sense it. That woman is... dangerous."
"But in this case the female is no longer a danger, and we have regular contact with her via Captain Graham-" Ratchet paused. "Did you hear that?"
If it could, Optimus's spark would have sunk. "Did we get all the metal?"
The earthquake stopped. They crawled out, Dahlia awkwardly positioning her violin. The RPG players exchanged looks for a brief moment, noted the orange soda, and started playing again.
Hours later, Dahlia finally excused herself, muttering about being out late at night being potentially unsafe and hoisting her violin case over her shoulder. She muttered all the way back to her apartment, before considering the scene outside. Her hands were only marginally shaking as she dialled her speed-dial.
"David?" she whispered. "You remember those buddies of yours? Yes, their... buddies seem to be camping out around my apartment block."
"Ms Su, we meet too often like this," the deep voice of Optimus Prime spoke through after a moment of static. "I would first like to know if anything in your house is composed of metals not of Earth origin."
"Anything in my-" Dahlia cut off. "Why?"
A susurration of static echoed. "The explanation is long, but some artefact in your possession grants the power to control, possibly reprogram my kind. We are... attracted to the music, so to speak."
Dahlia swallowed. "You mean, when I was playing the violin... you guys heard that?"
"We are..." more static "...under its effect, so to speak."
"What did it do?"
"Declaration of territory..." static "...possibly, every Cybertronian on the continent have decided to congregate. The programming is incomplete at the moment, but its effects are no less debilitating."
Dahlia watched as a giant metallic bird fluttered down from the skies, squawking. The streets were empty, or there would have been a crowd. "Does the song sound like this? Aimo aimo nedel rushe, uchinarase ima shouri no kane o... koko wa arata na ware no hoshi..."
"That sounds... close enough."
"So... if I was to finish the song, what will happen?" her tone was part curious and part half-panic.
"Most likely, the city will become a haven of Cybertronian activity. We need a song to nullify the effects, and I cannot help you as we have been physically incapacitated in our temporary medical bay to prevent collateral damage in reaching San Francisco."
Dahlia privately thought that chains had been at work. "Optimus Prime..."
"Yes?"
"... never mind" Dahlia clicked her tongue, holding her mobile by her shoulder as she handled the violin case, pulling violin and bow out to let the case clatter onto the side-walk. "Music works on variations in pitch and frequency to create an emotional response in a human's cerebral cortex. Assuming similar responses... assuming similar responses, sending another signal could disrupt the previous one."
She set the mobile down, switching to the speaker function. "Can you hear me?"
"Hurry the slag up!" another voice joined, made tinny by static and possibly a hack.
Setting bow to strings, Dahlia mentally reviewed her song before pulling the bow. I put a spell on you...
With a violin solo of 'I Put A Spell on You', the Decepticon group of flying creatures – sadly, drones more than actual Decepticons – was successfully detained around one of Chinatown's apartment buildings, upon which the arrival of a black Topkick transforming into a cannon-toting mech arrived with an official letter bearing the stamp of the Non-Biological Extraterrestrial Space Treaty. It also came with Captain Graham awkwardly handing said letter in the wreckage of what used to be the face of an apartment building to the musician, who promptly set about making arrangements to move.
Dahlia Su Daji was coming to Diego Garcia.
The song was Aimo from Macross Frontier.
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