[G1 AU] Hate the Dark (part 7)
Dec. 11th, 2007 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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deceptikittyTitle: Hate the Dark
Arc: 'Til All Are One
Rating: R (PG in this part)
Characters: Optimus Prime, Starscream
Summary: After Cybertron's destruction, two survivors wait out their final months after crashing on a forsaken and dangerous planet.
I have no idea how long I was out of my body - a day? A week? A year? A millennia? I couldn't even bring myself to care. I wasn't sure when he was going to put me back in or if he ever would. I just knew one thing: when and if he did, I was going to rip open his chassis and yank out his spark chamber so he could see what it was like.
This was fun!
I had never before felt so at peace. Sure, I couldn't see or feel anything, and, on some level, I was beginning to miss having legs, but I just didn't care anymore. I felt like I was floating on a big, puffy cloud with my arms and legs dangling off the sides, and I imagined that if I had a face, I would have had the biggest, stupidest happy grin plastered on it. The only thing that broke the peace was when he talked to me. I quit listening to him a long time ago. Well, actually listening - I did like the sound of his voice. It resonated around me and sent a very pleasant vibration through every fiber of my being, so that just made being like this even better. I'd always liked Soundwave's voice, but Prime's...I'd always heard of some 'bots having voices like sex in audio, but I'd never actually believed it. Until now, of course. I'd stopped listening, but slag, I wished he'd keep talking.
I was worried when he first took me out of my body - who wouldn't be? I had convinced myself I was dead before he even started disconnecting my spark chamber.
Come to think of it, maybe him toying me into overload while he was taking my casing out was why I felt so giddy and...well, turned on the whole time now. Not that I was complaining. If I was going to die, this would be the way to go - happy and peaceful and feeling like I just endured the strongest overload of my life and was basking in the afterglow.
Being suddenly separated from my body was strange to say the least. I think I panicked when my vision and sense of touch were suddenly cut off, my voice with them so I couldn't scream. Without my vision, it was pitch black, and I've already gone over how much I hate the dark. The only thing I could process was fear, expecting to be shot at any moment from weapons hidden in the darkness.
Then he started talking, and I quickly realized that I had been taken away from an achy, broken, and half-functional shell and sent to a place of perpetual bliss. I'd liked his voice before, but when it started rumbling around me in a way I'd never experienced before, all the panic and fear quickly dissipated. I listened to him at first, listened to him tell me stories about Cybertron before the war, stories about the Autobots' escapades on Earth, and several other subjects I can't recall. I think he was trying to keep himself distracted as well as convince himself he was keeping me company, but I couldn't be sure exactly what he was saying most of the time. I was too busy basking in the wonderful vibrations his voice sent through me, and that was all I cared about from then on the whole time I was stuck outside my body.
He was talking again, yelling for some reason, and I tried to stretch myself out if that was possible so I could feel every word and decibel, shuddering in delight. I was ever so slightly curious as to why he was yelling, but try as I did, I just couldn't bring myself to care - it felt so slagging good I hoped he wouldn't stop. He wasn't yelling at me anyway - the vibrations were stronger when he was actually speaking to me, so I just assumed he was talking to himself. Not a good thing under most circumstances, but again - see if I cared.
He yelled again, and I shuddered again. Primus, I loved his voice. I found myself wondering if it would feel any better or just the same if it was Soundwave instead, and that thought made me wonder what it would feel like if both of them were talking to me like this, and that thought made me shudder yet again. I swear I think I would have overloaded at least three times in succession if I could have while he was yelling.
Then something happened, and the good feeling was gone. It took me what felt like an eternity to figure out what the problem was as the good vibrations faded away and were replaced by a very annoying ache on my left side of which I'd nearly forgotten the cause. The necrosis must have stopped, and I was back in my body. I numbly realized that I had even less of my body to work with than before he took out my spark casing, and there was a peculiar tingle snaking down the inside of my remaining thigh and across my throat. Why was it still so dark though? Oh, right.
Upset about being taken away from that happy void, I groggily turned on my optics, slowly registering the fact that my left one was acting funny. The inside of the cave didn't look any different at first until I noticed something out of the corner of my vision and stiffly turned my head to look at it. I knew on some level that seeing little scraps of rainbows darting around the cave meant that my central processor was being very, very slow to reboot, the rest of my systems equally slow to recover from being without my spark for so long. However, that "I give a slag" circuit still hadn't quite kicked in yet, and all I could think about was trying to catch one of the little rainbows so I could show it to Prime. They didn't want to be caught though - I weakly snatched at one of them with my remaining hand, and it squirmed away before my still half-numb fingers could close around it. I grabbed at another only to have it evade my grasp as well. Upset and determined as my systems continued to recover and my reaction speed improved, I continued to try to catch them, but the stupid rainbows just mocked me, a few flitting right in front of my face before they began to fade away. I took a moment to pout before finally taking the time to survey the cave more thoroughly.
My left optic's image was...warped. The picture was bulbous on the top, twisted in the middle, and jagged on the bottom, and my left audio receptor was completely useless, that whole side of my head aching and itchy. Groggy as I was, I quickly figured out why, and that made me panic. The necrosis was in my slagging head. How far away was it from my central processor? I looked down at what remained of my body, and the panic only grew - I could see my spark casing through the hole in my side, most of its protective coverings gone. The stupid, ever-curious scientist in me just stared at it for a few dozen astroseconds, a thought crossing my mind that muttered "so that's what it looks like".
The less intrigued, panicking part of me was simply screaming "take me back out!"
Only then did I realize Prime wasn't in his spot across from me. He was at the entrance to the cave, and it was hard to tell with his back to me - and, thus, his headlights mostly out of view - but it looked like he had pushed the rock sealing us in away from the entrance some so he could look out. I had no idea what he was looking for - I could see from between his legs that the suns hadn't risen yet, and as awareness continued to slowly come back to me, I knew the planetary eclipse hadn't lasted long enough anyway. The flying monsters must have vacated the area a long time ago, or else his head would have been gone by now.
"Wh-- are -ou d--ng?" I rasped, almost every word interrupted by a metallic ringing that made my working audio receptor hurt. Startled by how horrible I sounded, my hand flew to my throat though I'm not sure what I was intending to do. I did know I felt a terrible sense of dread wash over me when part of my neck flaked off in my hand. It must have gotten to my vocalizer too.
He seemed startled by it too, whipping his head around to stare at me as if he was making sure that really was me. It certainly didn't sound like me. At least he didn't make me repeat myself - I don't think my audios would have liked that.
"I received a signal," he answered. It took me longer than it really should have to understand what he meant, but when I did, I felt my spark leap up in its casing. He must have guessed what I was going to ask next - either that, or he wanted to make sure he stopped me from speaking again. If I was him, it would have been the latter. "My communicator's been broken for years though, so I can only receive - I can't send a signal back," he continued. "What about yours?" Rather than subject either of us to my ruined vocalizer again, I just shook my head and pointed to the left side of my head - that's where my communicator was, and I knew already that if my audio receptor on that side wasn't working, my communicator was beyond hope. And to think I turned down Soundwave the one time he suggested installing one on both sides. Slag me.
Disappointed, he turned back to the entrance to poke his head out again, scanning the sky. "They have to be fairly close; probably locked in on the last distress call I sent out with the evacuation pod." I just nodded even though he wasn't looking at me. If whoever he was getting the signal from had done that, they would have gone to the source of the signal. The question was were they below the atmosphere trying to locate us, or were they in orbit just trying to contact us?
Prime's shoulders stiffened as he looked to the sky, head turning as if he was watching something though from his reaction, I could tell he wasn't sure if he was either seeing a vessel, seeing any of the flying creatures coming back, or his imagination was just playing tricks on him.
He left the cave entrance and stepped over to me, kneeling beside me. He hesitated before iterating the situation probably more to himself than to me. I could figure it out on my own. "We don't have many options," he stated. "I haven't received another transmission in nearly half a cycle. If we leave the safety of the cave in the hopes that someone is in the area looking for us, and the wyrms are still in the area, we're dead."
"W-'re de-- if we st-y her- --yway," I choked out. I don't know about him, but I knew I was. The longer I sat there, the worse my left optic's vision grew, the harder it became to talk, and the looser my spark casing felt in my chest as my body continued to actively rot. He also looked to be low on energy again - not dangerously so, but he would be soon. I hadn't seen any energon cubes around the cave, and the converter looked untouched and a little dusty. Apparently, he hadn't wanted to make any without me. How noble.
My response seemed to convince him, a look of grim acceptance of whatever the consequences may be passing over his masked face. He nodded once and stood to go back to the entrance to the cave and push the rock completely out of the way, leaving the entrance wide open. He then did something I hadn't expected at all: he transformed. I heard gears creak and whine probably from a combination of not being used in so long as well as the fact that he was already so low on energy - transforming takes a lot more energy than it usually does if one is already running low, especially for one as big as he. His headlights shut off for a few astroseconds once he was finished, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he blacked out from the effort, but desperate and determined, he recovered and slowly backed up to get closer to me - something he wouldn't have been able to do had he had his trailer - before opening the right door since it was closer to me.
"Get in!" he snapped, his voice strained.
I was still woozy and awkward, but I was able to slide down onto my right side and drag myself over to him as I had during my one trip outside before the planetary eclipse far too many months ago. He settled down on his wheels to try to give me a better angle so I could get in without straining so much, but it didn't help as much as he probably hoped. Still, I managed to pull myself inside by grabbing onto a small gap between his seats.
It was an absurdly tight fit - I never would have fit with my wings, and I probably still wouldn't have if I hadn't been missing so much of my body. His stick shift stuck uncomfortably into my back, and I barley had enough room curled up over the seats, but he waited for me to try to get into a more secure position - getting comfortable was impossible - before he shut the door, bumping my foot with it. I swore inwardly when a startled yip escaped my slagged vocalizer. I hadn't expected to suddenly be restrained all along my body as best he could manage with his seatbelts, and while they rubbed against my mangled side in a not quite painful but definitely uncomfortable way, I could imagine why he was taking that precaution - I had seen the rocky slope where the cave resided, and I knew it was going to be a bumpy, if not painful, ride.
I was stuck facing the back of the seat, but I doubted I wanted to see where we were going anyway. This was all or nothing - life or death. We were both prepared - expecting to die be it from total depletion of energy or from the flying animals that inhabited this Primus forsaken world. This was a gamble of high stakes, and we both knew it, but we also knew we had to take the chance. The alternative was still death albeit a slower and much more miserable one.
He told me to brace myself, and I latched onto the hand grip on the door by my head and shut off my optics. I knew I would feel when he rolled out of the cave, but I hadn't expected to actually hear it too. His pained cries echoed around me where I lay inside him as sharp rocks dug into his undercarriage. A loud, near-deafening explosion marked the end of one of his tires, another shortly following it. His brakes screeched as he tried to control our descent, but that only made the situation worse, his back end jerking around and sending him down the rocks sideways instead of head-on. I let out a screechy yell of my own as he rolled the rest of the way down, my hand flying from its hold on his door to my side as my spark chamber threatened to rattle free of my body and the seatbelts the only reason I didn't take my own tumble inside him.
Everything went dark when we rolled to a stop on his wheels at the bottom of the slope. Even his internal lights from his dashboard went dark, the only light being the soft red glow from my own optics. He sagged on one side, the one with the flat tires, and he fell disturbingly still, his engine quiet. I waited nearly a breem, and he still didn't move. I couldn't tell how badly he was damaged from my position inside him, and the seatbelts clung stubbornly, preventing me from trying to crawl back out. The best I could do was grab the headrest of the driver's seat and hoist myself into a crooked sitting position with most of my weight on my hip, and I could only maintain that position by wrapping what I could of my arm around the headrest, clinging to it as if my life depended on it.
Nothing but darkness surrounded us. All I could see through any of his windows was the reflection of my own optics. However, I could still hear even with just one working audio receptor, and what I heard was the monsters' warbling crow. They were still fairly far away, but all the noise we made must have gotten their attention.
"Pr--e," I tried, my vocal processor neither better nor worse than before. "--ime?" He didn't move - he didn't react in any way, and I sagged a little where I was clinging to his seat and quietly stared out his back window at the darkness as I accepted the fact that the crash had finished him off - he was dead, and with the flying creatures, the wyrms as he called them, alerted to our presence, I wasn't going to be far behind him.
As I sat there staring out the back window, my fingers absently stroking the material of his headrest, I realized with some amazement that I had already fully accepted my fate. I always thought that if I was to die, it would be by Megatron's hand or possibly Shockwave's, maybe even a lab accident back when I was a scientist. I never anticipated dying on a miserable, dust ball of a planet eaten alive by creatures whose appetites and ability to digest inorganic matter defied logic while trapped inside my worst enemy. There was no point in fighting it though - even if I could get out of Prime's carcass, I couldn't escape. I couldn't see in the dark, there was nowhere to hide, and even if there was, I would be hidden for a week, two at the most, then I would die of energy depletion or by the necrosis. Maybe I could wrench my spark chamber out of my body - if I couldn't finish myself off quickly that way, I at least wouldn't have to endure being eaten alive.
That was when I saw it. I shook my head sharply to jostle my optics some, worried they were playing tricks on me, and I even shut off the left one since it wasn't doing much good anyway, but it was still there - a series of lights in the dark, distant sky. The light given off by it showed the silhouettes of dozens of the flying monsters, but they avoided the thing invading their sky as it made its way in our direction. It didn't have to get any closer for me to know what it was even before I heard the signal crackle over his truck form's primitive radio, a static-filled voice calling for him.
I was surprised at how quiet my voice was, my fingers tracing Cybertronian glyphs into the material of the back of the headrest as I tried again, this time calling him by the name he had been trying to make me use ever since I woke up too many months ago.
"Opt-m-s?"
A painful scream echoed around me as he fought his way back from the claws of death. His wheels spun in the dirt to find purchase, every light on his frame, internal and external, flared to life at its brightest setting, and his engine roared.
As he lurched forward again, the scouting ship passed us directly overhead, chased by the hungry monsters, but its shields repelled what few its lights didn't. Whoever was piloting it had to have seen Prime's lights. The ship suddenly banked sharply right then coasted to the left, turning around swiftly and drifting down to the ground behind the hill ahead. Prime's flat tires flapped in defiance, but he pushed on, using every last sliver of energy he had remaining as he drove straight toward the scouting ship.
The wyrms noticed him and turned in midair to dive for us. A sharp jerk back then forward again tore my attention from the front windshield to the back where I just barely caught the sight of his jettisoned trailer disappearing into the darkness, tumbling in a rolling crash not unlike ours earlier. The sacrifice of the empty hunk of metal bought us the time we needed - the wyrms flew right past us to attack it since it was the easier target. As it disappeared into the darkness, I had to wonder where it had come from because I knew he didn't have it just a few astroseconds before. Not that it mattered - it served its purpose, and it explained why he had transformed in the first place rather than simply carrying me out and running.
He came to a sputtering, rolling stop near the base of the hill separating us from the scouting ship, gears and axles wailing in protest of the abuse he was giving them. His whole body shuddered violently from exhaustion, and his lights flickered as he fought off the urge to either shut down or die. I tried to turn over as best I could with him still restraining me, gripping his steering wheel to try to give him something to concentrate on other than how exhausted he was. I don't know if it helped, but he only hesitated there for a few seconds before pushing himself forward again, flat tires straining against the rocky hill though at least this hill didn't seem to be as riddled with uneven, sharp rocks as the previous one.
Two red pinpoints of light glowed from atop the hill, and his headlights gleamed off something metallic. I tried to see through the darkness ahead of us to determine what it was. He seemed surprised too, adjusting the lights in their place on his front to point them up the hill more to illuminate what caused the glint, and when it did, we both let out a startled noise as Ravage roared down at us to show us the way.
The sight of Ravage seemed to give him new strength, a temporary and desperate burst of energy driving him over the top of the hill where the impact of hitting level ground destroyed a third tire. Ravage darted away to leave us to follow, and now that we were over the hill, I could see the scouting ship where it sat waiting in the distance.
It wasn't actually a scouting ship - it was too big for one. The planet's choking darkness combined with the harshly bright lights shining from the ship made it hard to make out any details, but I could tell it was a small galaxy-class cruiser - capable of interstellar travel with a small crew of no more than ten and no less than four. Its design was blatantly Cybertronian in design though made of considerably more primitive materials, more than likely built at Autobot City on Earth. Ravage's presence, in addition to Rumble who stood vigilant at the midpoint between the hill and the ship, meant Soundwave had to be aboard. The real question was who else had survived and come looking for us?
The ship was surrounded by a huge wave of wyrms lurking at the edge of the vessel's light, the monsters trying to figure out how to get past the light and to what was probably the biggest meal they would have for the remainder of the planetary eclipse. Ravage ran ahead and leapt effortlessly over them, back in the safety of the light before they could even think of making a snack out of her tail. Rumble was still in the dark, but he wasn't helpless, shooting down any wyrms which had decided to ignore the ship and try their luck eating him.
As we passed him, Rumble hopped onto Prime's back, onto the section where his trailer had once hooked onto, and climbed up on top of him to kill a section of the wyrms standing between us and the ship. That was all I could watch - this side of the hill was rougher than the other, especially with three of Prime's tires flattened. I needed my arm to wrap around myself and keep my spark chamber inside me rather than holding me up so I could watch what was happening outside. My spark casing had already worked its way partially out of my mangled side, and we were too close to escaping this horrible place - I wasn't about to let the rough ground decide my fate.
I knew we were inside the ship when he once again came to a slow, shaking stop, painfully bright light and walls of metal visible through his windows. He fell totally still again, engine shutting off. I could see shadows darting all around him but couldn't make out who they were or what they were saying, but I could make an educated guess - they were more than likely rushing to get him the energon he needed before his systems completely crashed if they hadn't already. I heard Rumble climb down from atop Prime just before the driver's side door opened, and I was greeted by Frenzy's startled face.
"Starscream!" he yelped, and I couldn't help but let out a tired laugh at how surprised he seemed, like he hadn't actually expected to find me inside Prime. He clambered inside I assume to see how best to extract me from Prime, babbling the whole time as only Rumble and Frenzy knew how. "I knew 'ya were alive, but...holy slag - what in Primus' name happened t'yer lap?!" That earned another tired laugh from me, and I wanted to ask him if that was all he cared about and tell him I'd learned a few new tricks to show him, but I didn't bother. I couldn't stand to hear my own broken voice anymore much less subject him to it.
He and Rumble were careful about extracting me from Prime, both looking very disturbed at the mess of ash I left behind as well as how bits of me continued to crumble in their grip. Half in and half out of Prime, I heard more than I felt something snap inside me, and I just barely had time to look down and think, That can't be good, before I saw my spark casing fall free of my slagged side. The last rotting cable snapped, and my body ceased functioning.
Arc: 'Til All Are One
Rating: R (PG in this part)
Characters: Optimus Prime, Starscream
Summary: After Cybertron's destruction, two survivors wait out their final months after crashing on a forsaken and dangerous planet.
I have no idea how long I was out of my body - a day? A week? A year? A millennia? I couldn't even bring myself to care. I wasn't sure when he was going to put me back in or if he ever would. I just knew one thing: when and if he did, I was going to rip open his chassis and yank out his spark chamber so he could see what it was like.
This was fun!
I had never before felt so at peace. Sure, I couldn't see or feel anything, and, on some level, I was beginning to miss having legs, but I just didn't care anymore. I felt like I was floating on a big, puffy cloud with my arms and legs dangling off the sides, and I imagined that if I had a face, I would have had the biggest, stupidest happy grin plastered on it. The only thing that broke the peace was when he talked to me. I quit listening to him a long time ago. Well, actually listening - I did like the sound of his voice. It resonated around me and sent a very pleasant vibration through every fiber of my being, so that just made being like this even better. I'd always liked Soundwave's voice, but Prime's...I'd always heard of some 'bots having voices like sex in audio, but I'd never actually believed it. Until now, of course. I'd stopped listening, but slag, I wished he'd keep talking.
I was worried when he first took me out of my body - who wouldn't be? I had convinced myself I was dead before he even started disconnecting my spark chamber.
Come to think of it, maybe him toying me into overload while he was taking my casing out was why I felt so giddy and...well, turned on the whole time now. Not that I was complaining. If I was going to die, this would be the way to go - happy and peaceful and feeling like I just endured the strongest overload of my life and was basking in the afterglow.
Being suddenly separated from my body was strange to say the least. I think I panicked when my vision and sense of touch were suddenly cut off, my voice with them so I couldn't scream. Without my vision, it was pitch black, and I've already gone over how much I hate the dark. The only thing I could process was fear, expecting to be shot at any moment from weapons hidden in the darkness.
Then he started talking, and I quickly realized that I had been taken away from an achy, broken, and half-functional shell and sent to a place of perpetual bliss. I'd liked his voice before, but when it started rumbling around me in a way I'd never experienced before, all the panic and fear quickly dissipated. I listened to him at first, listened to him tell me stories about Cybertron before the war, stories about the Autobots' escapades on Earth, and several other subjects I can't recall. I think he was trying to keep himself distracted as well as convince himself he was keeping me company, but I couldn't be sure exactly what he was saying most of the time. I was too busy basking in the wonderful vibrations his voice sent through me, and that was all I cared about from then on the whole time I was stuck outside my body.
He was talking again, yelling for some reason, and I tried to stretch myself out if that was possible so I could feel every word and decibel, shuddering in delight. I was ever so slightly curious as to why he was yelling, but try as I did, I just couldn't bring myself to care - it felt so slagging good I hoped he wouldn't stop. He wasn't yelling at me anyway - the vibrations were stronger when he was actually speaking to me, so I just assumed he was talking to himself. Not a good thing under most circumstances, but again - see if I cared.
He yelled again, and I shuddered again. Primus, I loved his voice. I found myself wondering if it would feel any better or just the same if it was Soundwave instead, and that thought made me wonder what it would feel like if both of them were talking to me like this, and that thought made me shudder yet again. I swear I think I would have overloaded at least three times in succession if I could have while he was yelling.
Then something happened, and the good feeling was gone. It took me what felt like an eternity to figure out what the problem was as the good vibrations faded away and were replaced by a very annoying ache on my left side of which I'd nearly forgotten the cause. The necrosis must have stopped, and I was back in my body. I numbly realized that I had even less of my body to work with than before he took out my spark casing, and there was a peculiar tingle snaking down the inside of my remaining thigh and across my throat. Why was it still so dark though? Oh, right.
Upset about being taken away from that happy void, I groggily turned on my optics, slowly registering the fact that my left one was acting funny. The inside of the cave didn't look any different at first until I noticed something out of the corner of my vision and stiffly turned my head to look at it. I knew on some level that seeing little scraps of rainbows darting around the cave meant that my central processor was being very, very slow to reboot, the rest of my systems equally slow to recover from being without my spark for so long. However, that "I give a slag" circuit still hadn't quite kicked in yet, and all I could think about was trying to catch one of the little rainbows so I could show it to Prime. They didn't want to be caught though - I weakly snatched at one of them with my remaining hand, and it squirmed away before my still half-numb fingers could close around it. I grabbed at another only to have it evade my grasp as well. Upset and determined as my systems continued to recover and my reaction speed improved, I continued to try to catch them, but the stupid rainbows just mocked me, a few flitting right in front of my face before they began to fade away. I took a moment to pout before finally taking the time to survey the cave more thoroughly.
My left optic's image was...warped. The picture was bulbous on the top, twisted in the middle, and jagged on the bottom, and my left audio receptor was completely useless, that whole side of my head aching and itchy. Groggy as I was, I quickly figured out why, and that made me panic. The necrosis was in my slagging head. How far away was it from my central processor? I looked down at what remained of my body, and the panic only grew - I could see my spark casing through the hole in my side, most of its protective coverings gone. The stupid, ever-curious scientist in me just stared at it for a few dozen astroseconds, a thought crossing my mind that muttered "so that's what it looks like".
The less intrigued, panicking part of me was simply screaming "take me back out!"
Only then did I realize Prime wasn't in his spot across from me. He was at the entrance to the cave, and it was hard to tell with his back to me - and, thus, his headlights mostly out of view - but it looked like he had pushed the rock sealing us in away from the entrance some so he could look out. I had no idea what he was looking for - I could see from between his legs that the suns hadn't risen yet, and as awareness continued to slowly come back to me, I knew the planetary eclipse hadn't lasted long enough anyway. The flying monsters must have vacated the area a long time ago, or else his head would have been gone by now.
"Wh-- are -ou d--ng?" I rasped, almost every word interrupted by a metallic ringing that made my working audio receptor hurt. Startled by how horrible I sounded, my hand flew to my throat though I'm not sure what I was intending to do. I did know I felt a terrible sense of dread wash over me when part of my neck flaked off in my hand. It must have gotten to my vocalizer too.
He seemed startled by it too, whipping his head around to stare at me as if he was making sure that really was me. It certainly didn't sound like me. At least he didn't make me repeat myself - I don't think my audios would have liked that.
"I received a signal," he answered. It took me longer than it really should have to understand what he meant, but when I did, I felt my spark leap up in its casing. He must have guessed what I was going to ask next - either that, or he wanted to make sure he stopped me from speaking again. If I was him, it would have been the latter. "My communicator's been broken for years though, so I can only receive - I can't send a signal back," he continued. "What about yours?" Rather than subject either of us to my ruined vocalizer again, I just shook my head and pointed to the left side of my head - that's where my communicator was, and I knew already that if my audio receptor on that side wasn't working, my communicator was beyond hope. And to think I turned down Soundwave the one time he suggested installing one on both sides. Slag me.
Disappointed, he turned back to the entrance to poke his head out again, scanning the sky. "They have to be fairly close; probably locked in on the last distress call I sent out with the evacuation pod." I just nodded even though he wasn't looking at me. If whoever he was getting the signal from had done that, they would have gone to the source of the signal. The question was were they below the atmosphere trying to locate us, or were they in orbit just trying to contact us?
Prime's shoulders stiffened as he looked to the sky, head turning as if he was watching something though from his reaction, I could tell he wasn't sure if he was either seeing a vessel, seeing any of the flying creatures coming back, or his imagination was just playing tricks on him.
He left the cave entrance and stepped over to me, kneeling beside me. He hesitated before iterating the situation probably more to himself than to me. I could figure it out on my own. "We don't have many options," he stated. "I haven't received another transmission in nearly half a cycle. If we leave the safety of the cave in the hopes that someone is in the area looking for us, and the wyrms are still in the area, we're dead."
"W-'re de-- if we st-y her- --yway," I choked out. I don't know about him, but I knew I was. The longer I sat there, the worse my left optic's vision grew, the harder it became to talk, and the looser my spark casing felt in my chest as my body continued to actively rot. He also looked to be low on energy again - not dangerously so, but he would be soon. I hadn't seen any energon cubes around the cave, and the converter looked untouched and a little dusty. Apparently, he hadn't wanted to make any without me. How noble.
My response seemed to convince him, a look of grim acceptance of whatever the consequences may be passing over his masked face. He nodded once and stood to go back to the entrance to the cave and push the rock completely out of the way, leaving the entrance wide open. He then did something I hadn't expected at all: he transformed. I heard gears creak and whine probably from a combination of not being used in so long as well as the fact that he was already so low on energy - transforming takes a lot more energy than it usually does if one is already running low, especially for one as big as he. His headlights shut off for a few astroseconds once he was finished, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he blacked out from the effort, but desperate and determined, he recovered and slowly backed up to get closer to me - something he wouldn't have been able to do had he had his trailer - before opening the right door since it was closer to me.
"Get in!" he snapped, his voice strained.
I was still woozy and awkward, but I was able to slide down onto my right side and drag myself over to him as I had during my one trip outside before the planetary eclipse far too many months ago. He settled down on his wheels to try to give me a better angle so I could get in without straining so much, but it didn't help as much as he probably hoped. Still, I managed to pull myself inside by grabbing onto a small gap between his seats.
It was an absurdly tight fit - I never would have fit with my wings, and I probably still wouldn't have if I hadn't been missing so much of my body. His stick shift stuck uncomfortably into my back, and I barley had enough room curled up over the seats, but he waited for me to try to get into a more secure position - getting comfortable was impossible - before he shut the door, bumping my foot with it. I swore inwardly when a startled yip escaped my slagged vocalizer. I hadn't expected to suddenly be restrained all along my body as best he could manage with his seatbelts, and while they rubbed against my mangled side in a not quite painful but definitely uncomfortable way, I could imagine why he was taking that precaution - I had seen the rocky slope where the cave resided, and I knew it was going to be a bumpy, if not painful, ride.
I was stuck facing the back of the seat, but I doubted I wanted to see where we were going anyway. This was all or nothing - life or death. We were both prepared - expecting to die be it from total depletion of energy or from the flying animals that inhabited this Primus forsaken world. This was a gamble of high stakes, and we both knew it, but we also knew we had to take the chance. The alternative was still death albeit a slower and much more miserable one.
He told me to brace myself, and I latched onto the hand grip on the door by my head and shut off my optics. I knew I would feel when he rolled out of the cave, but I hadn't expected to actually hear it too. His pained cries echoed around me where I lay inside him as sharp rocks dug into his undercarriage. A loud, near-deafening explosion marked the end of one of his tires, another shortly following it. His brakes screeched as he tried to control our descent, but that only made the situation worse, his back end jerking around and sending him down the rocks sideways instead of head-on. I let out a screechy yell of my own as he rolled the rest of the way down, my hand flying from its hold on his door to my side as my spark chamber threatened to rattle free of my body and the seatbelts the only reason I didn't take my own tumble inside him.
Everything went dark when we rolled to a stop on his wheels at the bottom of the slope. Even his internal lights from his dashboard went dark, the only light being the soft red glow from my own optics. He sagged on one side, the one with the flat tires, and he fell disturbingly still, his engine quiet. I waited nearly a breem, and he still didn't move. I couldn't tell how badly he was damaged from my position inside him, and the seatbelts clung stubbornly, preventing me from trying to crawl back out. The best I could do was grab the headrest of the driver's seat and hoist myself into a crooked sitting position with most of my weight on my hip, and I could only maintain that position by wrapping what I could of my arm around the headrest, clinging to it as if my life depended on it.
Nothing but darkness surrounded us. All I could see through any of his windows was the reflection of my own optics. However, I could still hear even with just one working audio receptor, and what I heard was the monsters' warbling crow. They were still fairly far away, but all the noise we made must have gotten their attention.
"Pr--e," I tried, my vocal processor neither better nor worse than before. "--ime?" He didn't move - he didn't react in any way, and I sagged a little where I was clinging to his seat and quietly stared out his back window at the darkness as I accepted the fact that the crash had finished him off - he was dead, and with the flying creatures, the wyrms as he called them, alerted to our presence, I wasn't going to be far behind him.
As I sat there staring out the back window, my fingers absently stroking the material of his headrest, I realized with some amazement that I had already fully accepted my fate. I always thought that if I was to die, it would be by Megatron's hand or possibly Shockwave's, maybe even a lab accident back when I was a scientist. I never anticipated dying on a miserable, dust ball of a planet eaten alive by creatures whose appetites and ability to digest inorganic matter defied logic while trapped inside my worst enemy. There was no point in fighting it though - even if I could get out of Prime's carcass, I couldn't escape. I couldn't see in the dark, there was nowhere to hide, and even if there was, I would be hidden for a week, two at the most, then I would die of energy depletion or by the necrosis. Maybe I could wrench my spark chamber out of my body - if I couldn't finish myself off quickly that way, I at least wouldn't have to endure being eaten alive.
That was when I saw it. I shook my head sharply to jostle my optics some, worried they were playing tricks on me, and I even shut off the left one since it wasn't doing much good anyway, but it was still there - a series of lights in the dark, distant sky. The light given off by it showed the silhouettes of dozens of the flying monsters, but they avoided the thing invading their sky as it made its way in our direction. It didn't have to get any closer for me to know what it was even before I heard the signal crackle over his truck form's primitive radio, a static-filled voice calling for him.
I was surprised at how quiet my voice was, my fingers tracing Cybertronian glyphs into the material of the back of the headrest as I tried again, this time calling him by the name he had been trying to make me use ever since I woke up too many months ago.
"Opt-m-s?"
A painful scream echoed around me as he fought his way back from the claws of death. His wheels spun in the dirt to find purchase, every light on his frame, internal and external, flared to life at its brightest setting, and his engine roared.
As he lurched forward again, the scouting ship passed us directly overhead, chased by the hungry monsters, but its shields repelled what few its lights didn't. Whoever was piloting it had to have seen Prime's lights. The ship suddenly banked sharply right then coasted to the left, turning around swiftly and drifting down to the ground behind the hill ahead. Prime's flat tires flapped in defiance, but he pushed on, using every last sliver of energy he had remaining as he drove straight toward the scouting ship.
The wyrms noticed him and turned in midair to dive for us. A sharp jerk back then forward again tore my attention from the front windshield to the back where I just barely caught the sight of his jettisoned trailer disappearing into the darkness, tumbling in a rolling crash not unlike ours earlier. The sacrifice of the empty hunk of metal bought us the time we needed - the wyrms flew right past us to attack it since it was the easier target. As it disappeared into the darkness, I had to wonder where it had come from because I knew he didn't have it just a few astroseconds before. Not that it mattered - it served its purpose, and it explained why he had transformed in the first place rather than simply carrying me out and running.
He came to a sputtering, rolling stop near the base of the hill separating us from the scouting ship, gears and axles wailing in protest of the abuse he was giving them. His whole body shuddered violently from exhaustion, and his lights flickered as he fought off the urge to either shut down or die. I tried to turn over as best I could with him still restraining me, gripping his steering wheel to try to give him something to concentrate on other than how exhausted he was. I don't know if it helped, but he only hesitated there for a few seconds before pushing himself forward again, flat tires straining against the rocky hill though at least this hill didn't seem to be as riddled with uneven, sharp rocks as the previous one.
Two red pinpoints of light glowed from atop the hill, and his headlights gleamed off something metallic. I tried to see through the darkness ahead of us to determine what it was. He seemed surprised too, adjusting the lights in their place on his front to point them up the hill more to illuminate what caused the glint, and when it did, we both let out a startled noise as Ravage roared down at us to show us the way.
The sight of Ravage seemed to give him new strength, a temporary and desperate burst of energy driving him over the top of the hill where the impact of hitting level ground destroyed a third tire. Ravage darted away to leave us to follow, and now that we were over the hill, I could see the scouting ship where it sat waiting in the distance.
It wasn't actually a scouting ship - it was too big for one. The planet's choking darkness combined with the harshly bright lights shining from the ship made it hard to make out any details, but I could tell it was a small galaxy-class cruiser - capable of interstellar travel with a small crew of no more than ten and no less than four. Its design was blatantly Cybertronian in design though made of considerably more primitive materials, more than likely built at Autobot City on Earth. Ravage's presence, in addition to Rumble who stood vigilant at the midpoint between the hill and the ship, meant Soundwave had to be aboard. The real question was who else had survived and come looking for us?
The ship was surrounded by a huge wave of wyrms lurking at the edge of the vessel's light, the monsters trying to figure out how to get past the light and to what was probably the biggest meal they would have for the remainder of the planetary eclipse. Ravage ran ahead and leapt effortlessly over them, back in the safety of the light before they could even think of making a snack out of her tail. Rumble was still in the dark, but he wasn't helpless, shooting down any wyrms which had decided to ignore the ship and try their luck eating him.
As we passed him, Rumble hopped onto Prime's back, onto the section where his trailer had once hooked onto, and climbed up on top of him to kill a section of the wyrms standing between us and the ship. That was all I could watch - this side of the hill was rougher than the other, especially with three of Prime's tires flattened. I needed my arm to wrap around myself and keep my spark chamber inside me rather than holding me up so I could watch what was happening outside. My spark casing had already worked its way partially out of my mangled side, and we were too close to escaping this horrible place - I wasn't about to let the rough ground decide my fate.
I knew we were inside the ship when he once again came to a slow, shaking stop, painfully bright light and walls of metal visible through his windows. He fell totally still again, engine shutting off. I could see shadows darting all around him but couldn't make out who they were or what they were saying, but I could make an educated guess - they were more than likely rushing to get him the energon he needed before his systems completely crashed if they hadn't already. I heard Rumble climb down from atop Prime just before the driver's side door opened, and I was greeted by Frenzy's startled face.
"Starscream!" he yelped, and I couldn't help but let out a tired laugh at how surprised he seemed, like he hadn't actually expected to find me inside Prime. He clambered inside I assume to see how best to extract me from Prime, babbling the whole time as only Rumble and Frenzy knew how. "I knew 'ya were alive, but...holy slag - what in Primus' name happened t'yer lap?!" That earned another tired laugh from me, and I wanted to ask him if that was all he cared about and tell him I'd learned a few new tricks to show him, but I didn't bother. I couldn't stand to hear my own broken voice anymore much less subject him to it.
He and Rumble were careful about extracting me from Prime, both looking very disturbed at the mess of ash I left behind as well as how bits of me continued to crumble in their grip. Half in and half out of Prime, I heard more than I felt something snap inside me, and I just barely had time to look down and think, That can't be good, before I saw my spark casing fall free of my slagged side. The last rotting cable snapped, and my body ceased functioning.
