Chapter 16
The Drifter Sideways
"...Sideways?" Stripes raised an optic ridge, lowering his cannon. "The names I hear just keep getting more and more creative."
"Creativity is in the eye of the beholder." Sideways replied. "To us Cybertronians, it is second nature."
"I guess so." Stripes said. "So what brings a 'bot like you all the way out here on the fringes of known space?"
Sideways leaned casually against the rock face. "I just kind of drift from place to place, wherever the current takes me."
"Just wherever the wind takes you, eh?" Stripes smiled. "Sounds like you must have some tales of your own to tell, more or less heard the tales of others."
"I have heard many tales, of both fame and infamy." Sideways said. "All through my existence, and throughout my travels. But I just… don't settle down, if you catch my drift."
Stripes face seemed to soften a bit. This guy had seen some mileage. He had also done something he had always dreamed of doing: traveling from one place to the next, just following the current where it took him. "If I may ask, Just how long have you been traveling solo?"
Sideways gazed at the sky. "...I left Cybertron shortly after I was conceived and learned enough to survive on my own. That was… at least two-hundred-and-five thousand vorns ago, during the age of rust on Cybertron..."
Stripes raised his optic ridge. "This may seem like a silly question, but are you familiar with human time units?"
Sideways simply nodded.
"How long would two-hundred-and-five thousand vorns be in human years?" Stripes asked.
Sideways looked at Stripes. "Over seventeen million."
Stripes' optics widened. "You are that old?!" He exclaimed.
"Don't be surprised." Sideways said. "Back in the day, I had seen our kind live for five times that lifespan. I guess after all I've heard about Cybertron in my travels, I'm probably one of the lucky ones, anyway. After I left, I heard a large planetary war broke out and extinguished the planet. We have been scattered to the winds, sadly..."
Stripes looked to the sky. It was getting dark. "Perhaps… yet hope can prevail, if given the chance… Just what caused you to leave Cybetron, if I may ask?" He asked.
Sideways looked up to the sky. His optics were dull, a sad shade of violet. "...I've always told others that it's none of their concern, but it's about time I told someone this. I would at least hope for someone to understand, at least. Before my time comes, whenever that is. I travel, or did travel, for Cybetron's security, and for hope that it would not be harmed. Stripes, even thought I do not want anything to do with it, I've been born of evil… I am a spawn of something very, very terrible, and very destructive… A being that could mean the destruction of our race, and the cosmos itself..." A tear of lubricant ran from one of Sideways' optics.
Stripes looked at Sideways. "A spawn of evil? What do you mean?"
Sideways then looked back to Stripes, fear in his optics. It took him all the courage in his spark to say the next five words. Words that would shake Stripes to the core, change Sideways' path in life, and set both their destinies in motion.
"…I am the offspring of Unicron."