Wolf by the Ears Chapter 19: Central

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, and gently nudged me to keep working on these stories. I appreciate the support and feedback.

All recognizable names and likenesses belong to Hasbro, and whoever has the distribution rights at the moment. I'm only doing this for laughs, so no money is being made. There are some adult themes, but nothing too naughty.

Optimus had been spending much of his time since coming back to Cyberton studying the historical use of slavery coding. That had lead to him researching the socio-historical context of the whole mess as well. He had always been interested in the great wars between the Autobots and the Decepticons and he had been up close and personal with the fighting, but he was starting to realize that in studying only the conflict, he was missing some of the pieces. Before the Great War, and after the Quintessons, there had been peace for a long time. Megatron had actually once worked in civilian occupations, difficult though that was to wrap his processor around.

He had been focusing on the wars and conflicts, but maybe he needed to pay attention to the other parts, too. Decepticons and Autobots were all one people. Maybe they could have peace again. Recent experiences were showing him that the Decepticons and their motivations were much more complex than he had ever realized.

Fortunately he had a gigantic, scary looking source of information right to hand. He looked over at his housemate, who's pewter, burgundy and black armor shone in the afternoon light coming though the tall windows.

"Megatron?" Optimus said.

"Hmmmm, Prime?" Came the distracted response.

"I know a lot more about how the war happened, and where the Decepticons came from, and I was wondering if you would mind providing me with a little input."

Scarlet optics finally moved from the datapad the warlord (ex warlord?) was studying. "Mmmm, hmmm. You've been most studious. It is good to see an Autobot officer so willing to broaden his horizons. What do you want to know?

Optimus moved over to the couch Megatron was sitting on, and perched on the armrest, a little way from the larger mech. He wasn't actually sure if that had been sarcasm, or if the mech was trying to flatter him as some kind of manipulation. He wasn't getting much over their bond, so the Decepticon probably didn't have any strong feelings about the conversational gambit so far..

"Do you think there could ever be peace between the factions?"

The Decepticon stared at him, surprise written on his features. "What makes you ask such a question? We are just as much at war now as we have ever been. Right now your faction has the upper servo, with the return of the Allspark and the capture of several Decepticon generals, not to mention myself, but we would never surrender to you."

Optimus winced a little. "I don't mean one side surrendering to another, Megatron. I mean peace. Real, lasting, brokered between two more of less equal sides peace."

The scowl on the Decepticon's harsh features softened, and he reached over to place one gigantic, clawed hand over Optimus's smaller, smoother one. The taloned digits were warm, and a little rough from old wear and long millennia of combat and work.

"Prime," He rumbled. "You are so very young and idealistic. Your compassion and understanding of those who are different than you does you credit." The mech's expression hardened. "But here I sit, your slave."

Optimus winced.

"And in some stinking dungeon in your citadel sit five of my mechs, condemned to Unicron only knows what terrible fates. My people are barred from Cyberton and the comfort of Primus's presence, and from the Allspark. Before that, we were considered lesser, not true Cybertronians, not true mechs. That has not changed amongst your greater population, and I doubt very much that it will." The claws tightened, not quite to the point of pain, but close.

"So to answer your question" the war machine murmured, leaning forward to speak directly into Optimus's audial receptor "no, I do not believe there can ever be true peace, only victory or defeat."

Optimus struggled to keep his faceplates from betraying how disappointing that sentiment was. "I used to think that way," he said softly. "But we've learned to live together, despite everything, haven't we? And the Decepticons accepted Blackarachnia, even though she used to be one of us. Decepticons and Autobots aren't really that different from one another, after all."

One of those great, clawed hands came to the back of Optimus's helm. He couldn't help but notice the warmth coming off Megatron's armor. It was probably just solar gain from sitting by the window, but it felt good anyway. It was strangely tempting to lean in towards the big mech...

"I would happily destroy this city, and every mech and femme in it, if it meant freedom for my kind. Do not mistake my resignation to my fate for anything else. I have not consented to any of this, Master." Megatron got up and stalked out of the room. Optimus let himself slide to the seat of the couch, trying not to find the other mech's sentiment absolutely crushing.

Well, frag.

Arcee was meditating. She had received Cyberninja training back in the early days of the War, but the technique she used now was something older, less martially based.

For a time, when she was very young, she had been a novice in the Temple of the Allspark. She had enjoyed some parts of the training, but eventually decided that it wasn't the right path for her. She was far to social a mech to spend the required amount of time in silent contemplation. She had gone from the temple into training in early youngling education, and enjoyed her job, but that didn't mean she had dropped all of the practices from her earlier life. The techniques for clearing her mind, shrugging off material concerns, and concentrating deeply had been useful many times, before, during and now after the War.

She thought it might help her processor heal from its damage too, at least a little. There had been some studies of the effects of meditation on processor maintenance, and they had been promising. If not, it certainly couldn't hurt her recovery any.

She sat motionless on the floor of the tiny room she shared with Ratchet. Space was at a premium on board even a ship Omega's size. That definitely didn't concern her at the moment, though. She concentrated on her venting, the deck plating beneath her. Part of a living mech, it was subtly alive in a way she couldn't quite define. She was so glad that Omega and Ratchet had found each other, and had survived. It was amazing, how the two of them were like missing parts of herself, that she never realized she didn't have.

She examined the thoughts and sensations as they came to her, then released them, emptying her processor as best she could. The discipline was more difficult now than it had been before her long stasis. She had sustained some processor damage that might never repair itself, but on the whole, she was a very lucky femme. She would have been scrap metal long ago if not for the codes in her memory core. The Autobots had kept her in storage because of them, even though she had been considered a lost cause, as far as ever functioning again was concerned. Of course, she had the Decepticons and Shockwave to thank for her current good health. It was a bit ironic, but the Universe was like that, sometimes.

Right, trying to clear her processor. You'd think she was a novice again, with how difficult this was. Her research into recent history had been disturbing, and she was still working on putting her shattered lifestream together, so she was here, trying to commune with Primus. She needed all the help she could get.

It was just... So much had changed. So many mecha she had known were gone. And now there was Ratchet, and Omega Supreme.

The giant mech was always sweet and kind in their interactions. She was glad that they were able to continue their association, since they had a great deal in common, and besides, she liked him. His calm and responsible personality was restful to be around, and softened Ratche's crotchety act. That reminded her, she needed to get her medic into a maintenance facility as soon as it was feasible. There was no good reason for him to be looking so battered and run down. If the medic wouldn't take decent care of himself, she would... insist. Omega would definitely back her up.

Arcee sighed. Perhaps still meditation was beyond her at the moment. There were some moving versions, as part of the Cyberninja curriculum. She would try those next.

Someone knocked on the door.

Arcee cracked open an optic. So much for quiet time. On the other hand, it wasn't like it was proving productive. "Come in." She said.

A small yellow form was waiting. "Hi Arcee" said Sari. "How come you're all glowy?"

"Sari, are your optics malfunctioning? Arcee asked. "I'm not glowing"

The little techno-organic's optical ridges scrunched up over her olfactory sensor. "Sure you are. I mean, it's not bright or anything, but you're glowing a little blue. It's pretty."

Arcee looked down at her chassis. Nope, no glow. Perhaps Sari was seeing in a bandwith that she couldn't detect? The young femme was techo-organic, and from what she understood, the Allspark had been largely responsible for her creation. She might have better senses than a teacherbot who had been hastily upgraded with a scout's sensors.

"We should ask Ratchet to take a look later." Arcee said. "Is something wrong, Sari? You don't normally come in here."

The youngling hopped up on the berth and sat on the edge, swinging her legs. "We're going back to Iacon soon, right?" she asked.

"Yes, that's the plan. We only had a few days leave, and I know the others are concerned about Optimus Prime being alone with Megatron."

"Can you take me to the place the Allspark belongs? I think I need to go there."

"The Allspark? The pieces that all of you brought back are still at Autobot command."

"No, I don't want to go there, that's just a bunch of dumb politicians and jerkfaces like Sentinel. I want to go to the big pretty building with all the carvings and arches and stuff. The one with the minaret thingies and all the bots with white paint jobs and blue highlights. That's where the Allspark wants to be, and I think it wants me to go there." Sari said matter of factly.

Ooookay. Ratchet definitely needed to check Sari over, but... She had just described the Temple of the Allspark, and as far as Arcee knew, she had never been there. Possibly some mech might have mentioned it, but that seemed sort of unlikely.

"Ah, Sari, has somebot shown you pictures of the Allspark Temple?" Arcee asked cautiously. "That sounds like the place you want to go." Perhaps there was a mundane explanation, after all...

Arcee had seen a few things over her functioning that she could only ascribe to higher powers. Since Sari's existence happened to be one of them, she wasn't going to discount something like extrasensory perception in her, but she also wasn't going to assume that the little femme hadn't just seen a documentary or something. It wasn't unprecedented for the Allspark to communicate directly with mecha, but it was plenty rare, and some instances had been false.

The yellow youngling shrugged. "Nope, but if there are pictures, I wouldn't mind seeing them. I've been having dreams about it. A lot. There were all these cool carvings with these blue and red stones or something inlaid in them, and they were in this building with super high ceilings and lots of columns, and a central room that I keep seeing the Allspark in, but it doesn't look the way it really does now, 'cause it's bigger."

Arcee was just going to admit to herself right now that that was kind of intimidating, and get it out of the way so that she could focus on the practical bits that she could actually do something about.

"We're heading back to Iacon soon, Sari." She said. "I would be happy to take you to visit the Allspark's Temple. It's a good place for young mecha to visit, with a lot of interesting history and art. You can talk to some of the priests and monks there, if you want."

"Yeah, that sounds good." The youngling agreed. "I... think I'd like to have Jazz come, too. It's the kind of thing that Prowl would have done, but he's not here, and I don't think he'd mind if I brought Jazz along."

Arcee smiled at the small yellow femme. "Sure, Sari. Who am I to stand in the way of you communing with the Allspark, and bringing whomever you want? We should all try to answer our own callings, after all."

Ratchet's legs folded beneath him, as though his struts had turned to gel. "Primus, Omega, my friend, I would never, ever do that to you."

"Ratchet, I would trust you with my spark. I would far prefer to follow your orders, than any mech the council might choose. And this way, It would be my choice, and not any others'." The voice became even softer. "And... of all mechs, I would like to share my spark with you."

Oh. Oh. Ratchet levered himself to his knees, and reached over (such a short distance!) to lay his hands on the column that held his friend's spark. His hands were battered, old, if not actually rusty, he noticed. The contrast with the pristine metal of Omega's core was stark.

"Omega, you deserve to have as full a range of experiences as any mech. You don't need a code-hack abomination like that code to have a lover, or share sparks."

"Ratchet, where would I find a mech who wanted me? I am a giant war machine from a past age, an out of date relic. Besides, I don't want some stranger. The only mecha I want are you and Arcee."

Oh.

"What makes you think that Arcee and I wouldn't want to be with you?" Ratchet asked. He felt ashamed, that it had never occurred to him that the mech whose constant companion he had been for so long might harbor deeper feelings for him than friendship. "And starting off with sparks is a little extreme, don't you think? I know you have a full sensor suite in your internal servos, there's no reason not to start out the same way most mechs do, with tactile. In fact, I think I insist."

"Ratchet..."

This was going way too far, way too fast. "No-one is going to use that slave code on you, because I am the only one with your access codes, and if the council or anyone else tries to take them from me, I give you my full and complete permission to grab the others and get the frag out of here. And slag anyone who tries to stop you from leaving, too. Try not to permanently offline anyone on our side unless it's absolutely necessary, but if it comes down to you or them, I'm choosing you. In the meantime, I need to speak to Arcee in private, because I really can't speak for her without talking to her first, and I don't want her to think I'm going behind her back, since that would be hurtful."

"But..." Omega obviously wasn't going to let the whole sparkbonding thing go.

"Now, I know you have the ability to touch objects and mecha who are inside your alt mode. There's no reason for you to be shy about that, especially with me." Said Ratchet. "Before you even think about your spark, there's a whole world of sensory input that you should explore, and as both your friend and a medic, that's what I would recommend, the way I would to any mech who's looking for a little experience."

"I don't want to make you or any of the others uncomfortable" said Omega. He sounded uneasy, like he was thinking about doing something forbidden.

Ratchet snorted. "I seriously doubt you could do anything that would worry me, Omega. I've been around the system enough to know what kinds of thing I like, and I'm not exactly shy about telling a mech if they do something I don't like. If you want to touch me, go right ahead. I won't mind."

A pair of the great ship's internal servos emerged from panels in the walls. They were delicate things, long, slender flexible limbs that would allow Omega to do maintenance or emergency repairs here in his core. They reached for Ratchet and stopped, obviously hesitating.

Ratchet reached out and gently ran one of his own battered hands along the smooth, flexible metal of Omega's servo. It arched into his touch. He grasped the other one and guided it to his plating, an open invitation for Omega to twine it around him.

"You... really you don't mind? That I want to be with you?"

"Why would I mind?" Ratchet asked, his voice gentle. "It's an honor. I care about you, and I'm a little worried that you're selling yourself short, fixating on an old wreck like me. I don't want you to worry about being any mech's slave. That's an abomination before Primus, and will happen over my grayed-out husk."

"But..."

"Yes, my friend?" Ratchet leaned his cheek against the column that housed Omega's spark. The cable-like limbs twined around him in an affectionate embrace, and Ratchet leaned into them, enjoying the warmth and closeness, and more than anything else, the absolute trust of one of the greatest war machines the Autobots had ever created. No matter what else happened between them, he would always strive to be worthy of that trust.

"I don't want you to go."

Ratchet smiled. "Then I'll stay here with you for a while."

The Decepticon Seeker clones had mostly been left alone by the Autobots. Occasionally, a scientist or two would come and scan them, or they would be collected by the guards and deposited in a lab for scans, but that was really about it.

Ramjet had recently been escorted back from a trip to the medical science wing, where some of the scientists and medics had been taking readings off his systems and code. Upon his return to the cell, he looked at his brothers and solemnly informed them that Perceptor had absolutely not put his pede down as the lead of the Science Division and had them declared minors who had been illegally drafted into the Decepticons.

Sunstorm had told his brothers that the great and wonderful Perceptor was his, and servos off. Naturally they ignored him.

Ramjet still couldn't seem to avoid lying all the time, but he had gotten pretty good at getting information across anyway. Apparently the science bots were fascinated by their glitches, and by the fact that Starscream had been able to create them from his own code using just protoform and the energy from some tiny shards of the Allspark.

There was also the fact that the Allspark's power had lingered. None of them had deactivated when their shards were pulled out of them to re-merge with the Allspark. According to the medbots' readings, the three of them had more-or less normal Transformer sparks now. Red Alert had told them that their sparks were like new sparkling sparks, before they developed fully. Then she had given them rust sticks to eat, and said that she would pat them on the helms if it weren't for the fact that it would require a ladder.

Red Alert and Wheeljack had even come to the Seekers' cell to visit them. Apparently, being the reason Wheeljack actually left his lab was some kind of honor. The two Autobots had sat the three of them down and told them that they thought the trio might grow out of their glitches in time.

The Allspark had been broken when they were created, but it had never created mecha who didn't have the ability to experience a full personality range before. Red Alert had bluntly told them that they had requested an audience with the Allspark for all of Starscream's clones, in the hope that the presence of the entire relic (more or less) would fix their glitches.

Unfortunately it seemed that that wouldn't happen anytime soon, because the other Autobots were hogging it. Ramjet hoped that the Autobot nerds were right, because his brothers were annoying. Especially Skywarp.

None of them knew what had happened to the elite Decepticons. Skywarp had hysterics and tried to hide under occupied berths whenever the topic was brought up. They had heard one thing, though. The guards thought they were going to have some kind of programming installed in them, to keep them out of trouble. At first, none of the stern-faced Autobots who guarded them had said anything in their presence, either to them or each other, but gradually, they loosened up. Sunstorm figured it was either because of how wonderful and charming they were, or because they had been dismissed as a threat. It was probably because Skywarp thought even the smallest of Autobots was scary, and Sunstorm and Ramjet were basically treated like defective sparklings.

He really missed flying. Sunstorm did too, though he was always talking about how wonderful other bots were at flying. Skywarp missed using his warp drive. The Autobots had slapped some kind of suppressor on him, which was of course scary.

Ramjet wondered what it would feel like, to be fixed. Would the code the guards had discussed be different than whatever the Allspark was supposed to do? He kind of wished Slipstream or Starscream were here. They always seemed to know what was going on.

Well, there wasn't really anything he or his brothers could do about it, one way or another. Hopefully they could get out of this cell and go fly again soon.

Shockwave was hooked into machines and bound with stasis cuffs, and he had a very, very Bad Feeling about what was going to be done to him. For one thing, a couple of the most hardline anti-Decepticon councilors were present, along with that arrogant twit, Sentinel Prime.

The Prime was puffed up with his own ego, a swagger in his step. That was never a good sign to anyone he had power over. Not for the first time, Shockwave longed to wipe that smirk off his blue face.

Primus, he hurt all over. He wasn't sure if the guards had beaten him up for a reason, or just because they could, and no-one would care. He was probably one of the least popular mechs on the planet right now. They didn't seem to be gearing up to execute him at the moment, since there would be no point in bringing him to this lab if that was the plan, but things were not looking good. Shockwave struggled futilely against his bonds, a terrible premonition coming over him. Then he saw the item in the servos of one of the orderlies, and froze in horror.

The mech had a slave collar in his servos.