Chapter 5

"Fortitude"

Another day, another challenge. That was the mindset Hawkmoon had lived by for her whole life. From waking up in the New Pacific Arcology on Titan all the way to disaster in the heart of the Dreaming City, she'd always known there would be something else down the line just waiting to give her trouble. Just because she'd killed one evil didn't mean another wasn't going to crop up. It carried over into her new life too.

On the newest orn of her second life (no, wait, fourth), that challenge was school.

Daybreak's school to be exact, thank the Light. Not hers. And it wasn't so much a challenge as it was a mild chore - and not one she'd refuse. Overwatch usually left work early enough to collect Daybreak and bring him home, but he had to stay at the radio station (Stanix East - Music and Commentary) a few joors later than usual - the local equivalent of a couple hours. Way too long for Daybreak to be left standing on his own outside his school. Poor kid was still... well, a kid. Or mechling, as Phosphora and Overwatch commonly referred to him. (Mechs were Cybertronians with masculine personalities, and femmes were those with feminine personalities, so... it made some sense.)

"What time does school finish?" Hawkmoon asked. It was early in the morning, when everyone was rousing themselves for the day ahead. Well, 'rouse' wasn't quite right. Cybertronians, including her, didn't seem to suffer from the groggy aftereffects of sleep deprivation. Which was a relief. Traveler knew the Exo dreams were keeping her from getting enough shut eye. Or shut optic. Or... whatever the local term was.

"Seventh joor," Phosphora cheerily told her. "Thank you for doing this, dear. I'm sorry-"

"Oh, it's no trouble at all!" Hawkmoon smiled back. "You've housed me, fueled me, and put up with all my crazy. This is the least I can do."

"Do you know where it is?"

"Um..." Hawkmoon lifted an arm and pointed northwest. "That way?"

Phosphora laughed. "So it is! I'll mark it for you. Can you access your comm systems?"

Hawkmoon frowned and looked inward. Transformation sequences? No. Language files? No. Vocabulator? No. Ah, there it was! An internal communications array. Fancy. Very, very fancy. "Yeah, I got it."

"I'll ping you the location. If there's anything you need, don't hesitate to call."

"Got it."

"Well then... thank you again." Phosphora's warm smile was nothing short of motherly. Like a robot version of Eva Levante.

Hawkmoon's fuel tanks churned uncomfortably. Unwanted feelings rushed through her mind, each one more bitter than the last. She swallowed it down, returned the smile and said, "And again, it's no problem." She turned her head a fraction. "That okay with you?"

Daybreak offered a semi-interested nod and went back to tapping away at a datapad. He didn't seem to overly care much. Kids, Hawkmoon mused. From Earth to Cybertron, they're all the same.

Daybreak and Overwatch left first. It was... strange to watch. Very, very strange. Overwatch transformed into his car-van-rover form. Daybreak, for his part, turned into a much smaller and sleeker vehicle more akin to what Phosphora was. Was it hereditary? Was it artificial? How were alt-forms decided? At creation?

At birth?

Her knowledge of Cybertronian anatomy was deep, what with the files and chassis at her beck and call, but there was so much more she didn't know. Every day brought a new question.

Maybe those were the real challenges.

She had time to burn. A lot of time. A joor might not have meant much to normal Cybertronians, but given that a single one lasted for six and a half hours? Yeah, she was looking at an eternity of mundanity. So, in classic Hunter fashion, Hawkmoon decided to get an understanding of the planet upon which she stood. If she was going to be spending any significant amount of time on Cybertron, then she figured it would be a wise course of action to make herself familiar with it.

Which meant getting in touch with the internet. And that... wasn't as hard as she'd thought it would be. Literally just meant activating a section of her internal communications array. The Teletraan system - a planet-wide network reaching every facet of every city-state - was far beyond Sol's VanNet infrastructure- and content-wise. There was enough information available to make her central processor overheat.

So... Hawkmoon started where every self-respecting alien imposter would. Chat forums. No one knew the land quite like unruly youths and disgruntled civilians. She forged for herself a throwaway account and delved into the broiling madness of the grumbling masses.

And grumble they did. Usually about politics or sports or pets (little critters called symbiotes, like mechanical versions of dogs and cats and weird tentacle-monsters), but there was the odd tidbit of genuinely interesting information. For example: the city-state of Kaon employed a none-too-subtle slavery programme called "indentured servitude." Which was... horrifying, but more so disappointing.

Even in peacetime, people just couldn't resist the chance to be utter bastards to one another.

Those bastards led her to her first inquiry: swear words. Won't get far without those. She went into a forum full of foul-mouthed mecha(people) and came out with an vastly expanded vocabulary. "Fragger" and "scrap" were now her two favourite phrases. Two new weapons at her disposal. Physically ineffective weapons, true, but weapons nonetheless.

Hawkmoon missed having actual weapons. Walking around unarmed, in her experience, was just asking to get shot. Of course, she tried not to think about that much. Thinking about having weapons led to thinking about the weapons she'd previously owned, which led to thinking about where she'd stored them, which led to thinking how she accessed her digital vault, which in turn led to thinking about Gecko. And thinking about Gecko crushed her.

So no, thinking about her lack of physical weaponry was a no-go, and she hastily moved back to scouring Teletraan for something new to mull over.

Wildlife. More specifically, the kinds of wildlife she should worry about. Larger symbiotes of a feral variety were most common on the list, but they were supposedly restricted to the wide stretches of nothing between city-states. The worst of all not-people were to be found in the Sea of Rust.

Which made her a very, very lucky woman. Femme. Robot. Whatever.

The dangers of wild animals turned to an inquiry into the dangers of the environment. Acid rain, rust storms, techo-virus outbreaks - the works. A whole new frontier of elemental dangers. It was a miracle she'd survived long enough to reach civilization.

Then again, there was the Cybertronian resilience working in her favour. For all the threats posed by the world around her, most of them were trivial and easily shrugged off - but only if the Cybertronian affected was in good health. And... she was probably in good health? Hawkmoon felt great, in any case. Her firewalls were intact, her vents and internal workings were patrolled by ever-vigilant nanites (which acted just like lymphocytes and antibodies would in an organic body) and her mind was free of malicious viruses.

Everything was going just fine. Aside from the being-on-an-alien-planet-in-an-alien-body, but that was largely out of her han- servos. Whatever they were called. The grabby things on the ends of her arms.

Alien languages were hard.

She left half a joor early and took the long scenic route. There wasn't much to see - Stanix was rather mediocre once the culture-shock wore off - but see it all she did. Square buildings, a perfect grid of roads and streets, the odd mecha, and even the rare symbiote. Mostly those of the domesticated variety, operating in gardens or alleys close to their owners' abodes. There were bird-like and bat-like creatures who flew around and roosted on roofs, but they weren't quite as common as their counterparts on Earth were. Maybe the local ecosystems just operated differently.

Did Cybertron have an ecosystem? How did ecosystems work with mechanical lifeforms? How would they begin? Who even made the Cybertronians? The Traveler? The Vex? Something else?

Her processor was already hurting. With a huff, Hawkmoon forced her attention outwards - right back to perusing the bland suburbs of the Stanix lowlands. The school was the only thing breaking the mold of squat rectangular buildings composed of metal, glass, and the odd crystal formations. Even then, it wasn't a stark contrast, especially when it came to shapes - the school looked like a geometric mess of cuboids. It was fascinatingly ridiculous.

There were other mecha waiting to collect their little anklebiters, but she was unique in being the only one with wings. Not a single other Seeker was in sight, and that earned her a few curious looks. Nothing so close as to what Knockout did, thank the Traveler, but a few unwanted optics still lingered.

A sharp whistle was all the warning Hawkmoon had for the sudden onset of speeding robot-children pouring out of the front of the school. Some came out already in alt form, wheels shrieking. Or was that the teacher chasing after them? Hard to tell. A particularly rowdy group of mechlings were pushing and prodding at-

Hawkmoon strode ahead, fearless and daunting. She made sure her optics were extra bright and extra narrowed. The mechlings saw her coming, gawked, and quickly backed away. All but the one who had Daybreak's arm in his servo.

"Let him go," she ordered in an icy tone. Just for emphasis, she pointed at him with one of her very, very sharp talons.

The bigger mechling looked up with a scowl. Upon seeing her, the scowl gave way to disbelief. "Seek-"

"I told you to let him go."

A shadow fell over her. A mech - a proper adult - stepped up behind them. He wore a reluctant smile. "Is there a problem?"

"Is there a problem?" Hawkmoon repeated slowly. Her optics darted to the mechlings.

"Ah, they're just having fun."

Daybreak did not look like he was having fun.

"Who are you, anyways?" The mech asked, tilting his helm forwards.

Hawkmoon met his optics and adopted the dangerous, hostile visage every self-respecting Hunter mastered. "He lets go. Or I make him let go."

The mechling, without a word from his - father? Creator - let go of Daybreak and looked away.

"C'mon," Hawkmoon said more quietly. Daybreak silently followed her away. They walked without a word until the sounds of the school vomiting out all its brats faded away to a distant din.

"You didn't have to do that," Daybreak said after a time. Hawkmoon rounded on him. He tensed up. She winced and knelt in front of him.

"Arm."

He held out his arm. There were a few light dents where the other mechling had squeezed. "Astron never goes farther than this. It's alright."

"No it isn't."

"Are... are you going to tell?"

"Do you want me to?"

"No." Daybreak quickly shook his head.

"Then make me a deal. You won't deal with this Astron's scrap any longer."

"I can't-"

"You can. I know his kind: he's a pushover who likes to push. Give him a sharp bite and he'll back off."

Daybreak's blue optics widened. "A bite?!"

Hawkmoon clicked her glossa against her teeth-like things. Denta? Denta. "Not an actual bite. I meant in terms of words. A speedy, uncompromising threat or retort. But hey, if you want to show him who's boss, be my guest. Go for the elbow. Always takes them by surpr-"

"I'm not going to bite him!"

"Suit yourself." She straightened. "Want to walk or roll?"

"Not fly?" He asked hopefully, sullen attitude forgotten.

"As if! Your creators would kill me, and I happen to like living."

"Walking's fine." Daybreak went right back to his juvenile sulking.

"Then we walk."

And so walk they did. Slowly. Daybreak was only a kid, after all. And kids typically had short legs.

When they got home, they went their separate ways. Daybreak grabbed his datapad and retreated to his room to cool off, and Hawkmoon sat at the table and buried her helm in her servos. She tried to pretend the tingling at the base of her helm was just the beginning of a processor ache, not... something else. Something Exo-related. Another senseless dream, maybe.

A thought struck her. Maybe without the Light to keep her going, she was reverting to the dreaded effects of DER. It would have been the icing on the cake - pretending to be an amnesiac and then actually contracting amnesia. But that was only if she reset.

If she didn't...

Hawkmoon clenched her denta. She couldn't allow it to happen. Death was preferable. She'd seen it happen to others before and had no intention of ever letting the same befall her. Voices crackling, limbs thrashing, internal mechanisms literally tearing themselves apart... No. Never. She couldn't let it.

But... maybe it wouldn't happen. Hawkmoon certainly hoped so, but there was no way to tell. Her body was alien, not Exo, so... it could have been better or worse than before. Maybe everything was fine. Or maybe she was living on borrowed time.

Hawkmoon snorted quietly. Living on borrowed time. That was her in a nutshell. Human, Exo, Risen, Cybertronian. What was next? Vex Gatelord? She'd make a pretty badass Gatelord, all things considered. Though if it meant she would be hooked up to the rambling madness of their soulless Nexus, she'd take a hard pass on it.

The front door opened. Phosphora walked in, dropped a box of something just inside, and looked at her with a relieved smile. "Hello. Did everything go alright?"

Hawkmoon forced a pleasant expression on her faceplates. "Just fine. Daybreak's up in his room."

"Good, good. Any trouble?"

"None," she lied.

"That's great. I'd heard some mechlings were being rough with him, before, but... this is good." Phosphora took the seat opposite her. "How are you?"

"I'm doing well."

"Are you?"

"Meh."

"I suppose that's warranted." Phosphora's smile fell by a fraction.

"Probably," Hawkmoon agreed. She stood up and pushed the chair in. "If it's alright, I'd like to get a fly in before..."

"Oh, go ahead. Thank you for collecting Daybreak."

"It was nothing. Just me trying to earn my keep."

Phosphora's servo touched Hawkmoon's shoulder, stopping her in place. "You'll always be welcome here. Don't forget that."

"I won't," Hawkmoon replied. "And... thank you."

She flew south. Right to the edge of Stanix and then further beyond, into the vast expanse of nothing between it and Helex. Hawkmoon went on and on, breaking the sound barrier without issue and then some ways further. She only slowed when she found an outcropping of metal and rock to transform over and perch on.

The ability to fly was... it was a freedom unlike any other. Had she the ability to return to Earth, she knew she would be the envy of every Hunter. The skies were hers to explore. She could reach anywhere.

Her optics gradually climbed up to the darkening sky above. But what of space? Can I survive out there?

Can I go home?

Hawkmoon violently shook her helm. There was no point fantasizing about something so far out of reach. She had no idea where Cybertron even was, let alone if it was close to Sol. The cosmos was too vast. She could have spent entire Cybertronian lifetimes combing through it and come back with nothing to show for her efforts.

She sat with her back against the rock's peak and offlined her optics. I wish... But I made the wrong wish. Now I'm here. Now I'm... different. I'm such a fool. Oh Gecko...