[G1 AU] Hate the Dark (part 3)
Dec. 11th, 2007 01:12 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 had a terrible, pounding headache which felt like Rumble worrying at the back of my cranial casing with his pile drivers, a headache that snaked its way down my neck, through my arm, and into my fingers whenever I moved my head even a fraction. The fact that the headache was so bad it completely drowned out the ache in my missing side was definitely not good. I didn't have to be medically trained to know it was a warning sign.
I needed energon, toxic or not.
Prime was tucked back in his spot in front of me to my left, his head lolled to the side as he recharged. I had to wonder if he had worried a comfortable aft-hole into that spot since that was the exact same place he dropped onto every single time he came back from hunting for the last three Earth weeks I had been out of stasis. I certainly felt like I'd made my own. After that initial panic attack in the dark about three weeks ago, I'd been afraid to move, not wanting to grind my mutilated side against the rocks again.
As the headache intensified, I finally came to the conclusion that it was probably time to take a chance.
No, not with that poison Prime kept ingesting. I was only going to resort to that if I exhausted all other options. No, I had to see what this planet was like - I had to whether he liked it or not. Slag him and his paranoia. I'm a scientist - if either of us was going to find an alternative, it would be me.
Sure, on some level I actually...ugh - appreciated his concern as well as the fact that he stopped long enough from fleeing Cybertron to grab me. After all, it's not like Megatron ever gave a flip about what happened to me. He wouldn't have spared a second glance at me, ignoring the fact that he was the one who damaged me so severely in the first place. I'm well aware of the rumors that circulated the entire Decepticon army - and possibly even the Autobot army - about relations between myself and Megatron, and I'm happy to confirm that that's all they were - rumors. The thought of myself with Megatron in such a way was sickening. Of course, there were also rumors about me, Skywarp, and Thundercracker. While much more plausible - not to mention appealing - those too were just rumors. There were also...well, suffice it to say rumors are funny things - according to said rumors, I was the whore of the Decepticon army. I find it very amusing that the only one I wasn't rumored to be with was actually the only one I was involved with.
I don't doubt Prime heard the rumors. I'd be shocked if he hadn't. I'm sure the Autobots look down on such sordid activities since they put on a front of being so disgustingly benevolent and pure. I'm just lucky the rumors hadn't started until after I had increased my rank to second in command. Even the Decepticons looked down on those who used their bodies to advance. I suspect the rumors started out of spite, but since I was as high as I could go and couldn't be shot back down by anyone but Megatron himself, I had nothing to worry about when it came to a bunch of groundless rumors despite the fact that some Cybertronians would believe any rumor thrown their way. As naive as Prime seemed to be, I wouldn't have been surprised if he was one of them.
And yet, despite that and despite the fact that we had been fighting in the war for millions of years, he saved me. Thousands of Decepticons forsook and abandoned me, not even bothering to see whether or not I really was dead. One Autobot stopped. The irony was painful.
However, I was sick of it - he was taking his concern and paranoia too far. He wouldn't even carry me to the cave entrance and let me look out regardless of the fact that he left it wide open whenever he wasn't hunting. Probably because he was there to kill any snakes that tried to come in, but still. It was time to take matters into my own hands.
Well, hand.
Carefully, I slid down onto my right side, cringing at how the movement made my headache worse. I could deal with a headache though, and testing the way my body lay against the cave floor like this made me a little more optimistic. This might actually work.
It was an exhaustive process, but I managed to use my remaining hand and foot to drag myself along the cave floor, gripping at rocks and dents in the ground and using them as leverage to pull myself along my side, my foot pushing against those same rocks to lessen the strain on my shoulder. It made my side sore, but that was more an annoyance than something worth worrying about, and I was convinced at that point that my headache really couldn't get any worse. It took me the better part of five breems to get from my spot at the back of the cave to the entrance, and I'm amazed Prime didn't wake up considering how much noise I was making. Either he was well and truly exhausted or he just wasn't as light a sleeper as I initially thought.
Whatever the reason, it gave me the opportunity to finally drag myself to the entrance to the cave where I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky for the first time once my head was outside.
Seeing the greenish-blue sky brought to mind something I had been wondering for the last two weeks - why was the sun always shining? Not once had I seen nightfall through the cave opening. At first, I had written it off as I just happened to be in recharge during the night, but after three weeks, I realized no, there was no night here. Now, that's not exactly an odd thing if a planet doesn't rotate, but since rotation is a very big factor in what makes and sustains a planet's atmosphere, life can't exist on such a planet. Nothing like the snakes, anyway, so there had to be another explanation.
Slowly setting across from me - upside down currently - were two explanations - two suns. A red one and a yellow one. That wasn't entirely unusual - it certainly wasn't the first multiple-solar system in existence. If suns were small enough or distant enough or if the planet's atmosphere was protective enough against the radiation and heat, then life could still exist on a planet with multiple suns. There was just something about these two suns in particular that made me uneasy.
The dull ache in my tired shoulder subsiding, I dragged myself further out of the cave and to the left, using the rocks by the mouth of the cave to pull myself up onto my foot. I had to lean heavily against the rock wall, but it worked even if it left my wounded side uncomfortably exposed to the outside world.
Rock the same rusty red as the cave itself could be seen all the way to the horizon. It was relatively flat save for a few cracks in the ground where the snakes probably retreated when they got overheated, and I could see tiny spires of twisted, chewed metal sticking up over some rocks, all that was left of the ship we had crashed in. Prime wasn't exaggerating when he said the snakes ate it.
There was a tiny stream not too far away, probably only still in existence despite the suns because it was almost completely concealed by rock. Sunlight probably only touched the water for a breem at a time if that long. Good for the snakes, but water alone isn't an energy source. I had already determined the red rock was as worthless as it looked.
I glanced back at the suns which were steadily dropping below the horizon and felt a sense of dread hit me. There was something wrong here. Something very wrong.
I looked up above me at the rock wall and was pleased to note that the cave was very close to the top of the rocky cliffs. In fact, there were enough jutting rocks for me to climb up and at least poke my head over the top despite my condition. The throbbing in my head just made me worry if I had enough strength left for the effort.
There was no escaping it though - I had to try. Using the turbine in my foot to give me a boost, I started the long, painful, and arduous process of pulling myself up the uneven slope. It took nearly a cycle, and I was in agony by the time I was nearly there. I'd managed to scrape my bad side against some of the rocks, and my hand, knee, and right side were a mess of cuts from gripping and pulling at rocks sharper than I originally thought. I was almost there though, and while I may be many things, I'm not a quitter.
The suns were almost completely below the horizon behind me by the time I finally made it to the apex of the rocks, and I had to take a moment to rest as warnings started flashing in front of my optics. Had I stayed in the cave like a good little cripple, I may have lasted another week before running dangerously low on energy, but I'd burned all that spare energy in my determination to get over the Primus forsaken hill. I could hear Prime below me calling my name in a panic - it was about time he woke up and noticed I was gone. I was already here though, so I forced my head back up to complete the task I had set out to do even as I listened to Prime scrambling out of the cave below to find me. When I finally lifted my head again to view the other side, I wasn't pleased.
I'm not really sure what I expected. It looked exactly the same on this side as it did on the other except it wasn't as flat. Spires of rock reached up to the sky like fingers, clustered together in groups of five to eight all over the landscape. I could tell they were hollow from the holes in the sides and the very top of each spire. For an astrosecond, I was curious as to why they were hollow and what might possibly be inside. Only an astrosecond though because that's all it took for me to notice another problem.
A bright blue sun rose before me as the red and yellow suns set behind me. No wonder there was no night. I noticed something else rising with the blue sun, and the sense of dread grew. There was something very familiar about this. It wasn't until I looked back over my shoulder at the red and yellow suns and finally saw an ominous arch of space debris arcing over the suns that it hit me.
I knew this planet.
I hated this planet.
All the planets in the galaxy, and Prime picked this one to crash on.
"Oh no..." I muttered in spite of myself before my head fell forward, my optics shut off, and I blacked out from lack of energy.
When I woke up, nearly a full orn later according to my chronometer, I was back in the cave, lying on my back and staring up at the ceiling. Strangely, my headache was gone, and it shouldn't have been considering how low on energy I was when I blacked out. It didn't take me long to notice why though.
Prime, for once, was in a different spot - this time, he was parked a little closer to the cave entrance with his leg stretched across the width of the cave, no doubt so he'd wake up immediately if I tried anything again. A cable snaked its way from his chest to mine, and, muddled as I was from blacking out, it took me a little longer than it normally would have to realize what he was doing.
Once I did though, I grabbed the cable and jerked it out of me, closing the connection. I was not so helpless that I needed to siphon his energy, blacking out from overexertion aside. Stupid, self-sacrificing moron. It took more effort than I would have liked to push myself back up into a sitting position against the wall, wriggling my aft back into the spot I had indeed worn into the ground.
Sensing the severing of the connection, he lifted - no, forced - his head up and looked at me, his working optic flickering a little. One hand rolled up the cable and placed it back inside himself while his other hand fed himself an energon cube to try to compensate for what I'd taken. He didn't say anything for a while, either too exhausted, too angry, or both to even try to form the words.
So, loudmouth that I am, I broke the silence.
"Even an evacuation pod that old should have had warnings in the system about this planet being off limits," I snapped though it didn't come out as heated as I would have liked. He just stared at me, and I couldn't tell if he was confused or if he had even heard me at all.
"What do you mean?" he finally croaked after what I said managed to register. "Why did you do that? I told you it's too dangerous..."
"I didn't get eaten, did I?" I grumbled in response before shaking my head and changing the subject. "I told you - I was an explorer and a scientist before the war. I've been to this planet before - I left explicit instructions when I got back to Cybertron that every single star chart on the planet, no matter how seemingly insignificant and unused, mark this planet off limits. Even you had to have seen the warning in the computers!"
He sighed and shuffled back over to his usual spot, convinced I wasn't going anywhere this time. "There were even more warnings on the grey planet, and the other was a gas giant - nothing to land on. We weren't in range with the brown one that didn't have warnings assigned to it."
I'd forgotten about the grey one. I had more warnings assigned to it for a good reason. Still, both were hateful chunks of space debris.
"If you've been here before, why didn't you say so earlier?" he asked. I almost spat back at him that it was because he refused to let me see outside the slagging cave, but then I remembered the snakes. He must have assumed I would have recognized them.
"It's been millions of years, Prime - those snakes must have evolved here during that time. They weren't here when I mapped this planet." He nodded at that and fell quiet.
Angry and upset, I just shut off my optics and rubbed my forehead for a moment, this headache caused from anger rather than low energy. "The rings," I finally said, surprised at how level and quiet my voice was. Prime gave me a confused glance. "How long have the rings of the gas giant been on the horizon? The one with the two suns."
He was quiet as he thought about that, and I knew he was curious as to where I was going with this. "A week, almost," he finally answered, tilting his head at the defeated sigh I gave.
"Give it another week, and this planet will be thrown into a pitch black night lasting a year," I told him. He wasn't concerned. Yet.
"I can see in the dark even with just one optic."
"That's not the point. The snakes aren't the only predators here unless the things that killed my partner at the time have evolved out of the food chain." He was staring at me intently and, I suspect, worriedly. "There were creatures here that could fly, and they only came out when it was dark because light in any form burned them. They were like the snakes - they could eat anything."
"How are you so sure about the darkness though?" I knew he didn't doubt what I was saying - he just wanted to know for himself.
"While we were here, we determined that the planets and the suns form a line every few years - our estimate was half a vorn. The gas giant blocks off the red and yellow suns, and the grey planet blocks the blue sun. It causes a full, planetary eclipse for at least a year."
Silence passed between us for a long time after that. He was trying to cope with what I told him while I set myself to thinking, staring down at the cave floor in thought.
"And I didn't think I could hate this planet any more than I already did..."
I had to grin at that simply because that was exactly what I thought so many millions of years ago the last time I was here. Dark humor and all.
"We might be able to use it though," I offered. He was instantly listening, watching me. "If the flying creatures haven't evolved out of existence, I assume the snakes branched off from them - they may have the same chemical in their bodies that the converter's able to use to make energon."
"What about the toxin that corrupts the energon? If they're related, the flying ones probably have it too."
"There's no guarantee they don't either. And even if they do, it might be in smaller amounts." Prime nodded, liking where I was going with this train of thought and likely seeing what I meant - smaller amounts of the toxins we could develop an immunity to over time. The energon he made now was just too corrupted. "The only problem is they're dangerous, most likely even more so than the snakes. And they fly, so they could get in here more easily than the snakes unless you leave the rock in front of the entrance the whole time."
"There's also the problem of it being dark," he pointed out. I'd hoped he wouldn't point that out. I commended him for not asking for an explanation at any point since it happened, but I really wished he hadn't brought it up. "I can use my headlights from my alt form while I'm here - they don't burn enough energy to worry about - but there's no light source for when I'm hunting."
"I'll live," I grumbled. He clearly didn't like that any more than I did, but truthfully, there was no alternative. Even he had to admit defeat there.
He started quietly laughing after a moment which caught me by surprise. What was so funny? I immediately took offense out of habit, puffing up defensively as I demanded, "What's so funny?"
It took him a moment to respond, neither malice nor condescending contempt in his expression as there would have been in Megatron's. "It's just this is the longest conversation we've ever had," he finally answered before chuckling again.
That surprised me. Both because he felt the need to point it out and because it was true. Talking was never a popular pastime among Decepticons - not talking just for the sake of conversation, anyway. Sure, there were some who talked all the time probably because they liked the sound of their own voices. Ask any Decepticon, and they'll probably tell you I'm the same way though that couldn't be further from the truth. Contrary to popular belief, I despise my voice. I inwardly cringe every time I hear myself, and many times, I wished I could get a new vocal processor for a better voice. I almost did too, on Cybertron before the war, but Skyfire talked me out of it, saying it would change me too much.
But Prime was right - we'd never done anything more than exchange insults and battle cries before, and even after I came out of stasis, I still kept my mouth shut most of the time more out of habit than contempt. Except around Megatron, Skywarp, and Thundercracker, I didn't talk much. I might have around Soundwave, but I didn't need to - slagger could read my mind, after all. I had a feeling Prime was used to being around others more talkative than I.
"I'm sorry - I shouldn't have said that, should I?" he said after I stayed quiet for a while.
And I was probably right.
"I'm...not used to conversation," I reluctantly admitted. I wouldn't even call what we'd been talking about a true conversation, to be honest. I would have called it a strategy meeting.
"Normally, I'm not either," he admitted. "I kept my office quiet so I could hear myself think, and I spent dozens of cycles at a time there. Still, when I could get away, it was nice to have someone to talk to." He looked away then, his voice trailing off as his optic dimmed, probably thinking about Cybertron. It was hard not to even if I didn't care on as many levels as he did. I only lost Skywarp and Thundercracker who were already dead before they were ejected from Astrotrain - he lost the entire Autobot army.
I looked away as well, studying the rock wall for probably the millionth time since I came out of stasis. "I wouldn't know." What was I supposed to say? Did I not just tell him I'm bad at conversation? He didn't seem to want to push the subject anyway, staring outside forlornly, probably reminiscing. It was that observation that made me realize exactly why he was so paranoid about keeping me in this Primus forsaken cave and as far away from the snakes and any other dangers lurking around the corner.
He was afraid of being left alone.
Given the circumstances, stranded on a dustball planet surrounded by sharp-toothed monsters that could eat literally anything with no way of escaping, I can't say that I'd be too thrilled about being all by myself either. But I was still used to solitude, often spending days brooding in my quarters - or the brig, depending on Megatron's mood - rarely interacting with anyone with the occasional exception of Skywarp and Thundercracker when they invited me to one of their little "parties". Even before then, I spent countless cycles alone in my work as a scientist with only Skyfire calling me every so often to check my progress in my many, many experiments. I just don't do well with others.
Prime wasn't accustomed to that though. He was used to having someone depend on him just as I was used to not being so helpless. The Decepticon in me found the notion of fear of being alone absurd and laughable. The scientist in me couldn't blame him. Maybe in another life, I could have been the same way. A disturbing thought, but a curious one nonetheless.
That did it - I needed to get my mind on something else.
"Come here," I snapped, earning a startled and confused look from him. He crawled over to me anyway though, just as naive and unsuspecting as ever. Once beside me on my left, I made a motion with my hand. "Turn around." Once again, he obediently and unquestioningly did as he was told despite the confused expression he gave me. Oh, if only he knew.
Pity he didn't. It gave me just the right opportunity and leverage to grab him by the right side of his head and smash the left side into the rock wall.
I almost laughed at the startled and pained howl that echoed through the cave - almost. What did get me to laugh were the foul Cybertronian oaths he swore at me as he scrambled back away, cradling the left side of his head. I honestly hadn't expected him to have that foul a mouth - he could have made even Dirge stop and stare with some of the phrases he snapped at me. Granted, I did deserve it...
"What was that for?!" he demanded furiously.
"It was annoying me," I replied calmly, favoring him with an amused grin which just grew wider when he blinked a few times and jumped, startled upon finally noticing he could see with his left optic again. "No pain, no gain, as the humans you like so much say."
"...you could have warned me." A sulky Optimus Prime is a very, very amusing thing, and I couldn't hold back my laughter anymore, laughing until my torn side ached. The more he pouted, the harder I laughed until it finally hurt too much to keep it up, and I trailed off into a fit of Skywarp-esque giggles before finally regaining some semblance of composure.
The offended glare he was giving me almost made me start again.
"What?" I asked defensively on the pretense of being offended by his unthankful attitude. It might have worked better if I could have wiped the grin off my face. "You'd rather be stuck with just one working optic for who knows how long?"
"You very well could have done even more damage!"
"Would I do that?" I couldn't help snickering.
Obviously deciding that I wasn't going to feel sorry for my actions no matter how much he tried to guilt trip me, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, still sulking even as he asked, "How'd you know that would fix it?"
I stretched out my leg in an attempt to make myself more comfortable. "When you get thrashed around on a near daily basis, you tend to learn what parts shake around in what way inside you given the right strength and angle applied." I frowned when I was finished with that statement. I hadn't actually meant to say that, but it just slipped out, and I flinched when I noticed he had stopped sulking and was looking at me with what looked annoyingly like pity.
I didn't want his pity.
I told him as much, and he looked down at his lap. That didn't work as well as I'd hoped - his pity had just grown. "What would you have done to an insubordinate trying to overthrow you every chance he got?" I demanded. His pity bothered me - I didn't need nor want his pity. I didn't want to explain myself either, but I wanted his pity even less.
He actually thought about that for a moment rather than throwing in my face the fact that I had more or less asked for it. Some part of me wanted him to, wanted him to quit being so...so infuriatingly good. Everybody has flaws - I knew he had to have some of his own. Nobody's perfect.
"I'd...probably let him try to prove himself, and if he could really do a better job than I..." he finally answered, his tone uneasy and trailing off. He'd never had to think about anything like that before. The Autobots all followed him so blindly.
"Then you're just as unimaginative and boring as you're rumored to be," I scoffed. "You really wouldn't fight to protect your position?"
This time, he was the one who became defensive. "I wasn't always a soldier either, Starscream. Nor was I a scientist or an explorer or anything else glamorous. Before I was Prime, I was just a dockworker...an ordinary Cybertronian with an ordinary job and an ordinary name. Sometimes, I wish I could be just that again and leave this whole, pointless war behind me. So no, I wouldn't fight to protect my position. I fight because I have to, because I don't want anyone else to throw their lives away, not for power."
Okay, I asked for that.
I was in the process of trying to come up with a response when he continued, "Megatron is power hungry - that's all he cares about, and I suspect that tainted the Decepticons...isn't that all the Decepticons want?"
My turn to be defensive. "On some level, yes, but you forget that we have the same goal in mind - we just go about it differently than you. The Autobots do it diplomatically, the Decepticons militarily. Megatron's become so obsessed with defeating you and the Autobots, the war is more about the personal vendetta between the two of you than it is about what the war is supposed to be about - restoring Cybertron to its former glory!" I stopped there. I could have preached on and on, but...there wasn't any point anymore, was there? Cybertron was nothing but debris. No amount of energon could restore it now... "And this argument is pointless," I stated, sinking back against the wall and letting my annoyance filter out through my vent. He didn't need to question why.
"I hate to admit it, but you're right," he sighed and leaned his head back to stare up at the ceiling of the cave. "Even though Cybertron is gone, Megatron won't let the war end...not as long as either of us is alive."
"It doesn't make any difference now. Look where we are. And here we'll stay likely until we both shut down and never wake up again." His pained expression told me he wanted to argue that, wanted to believe in that flimsy Autobot concept they call hope, but even he had to admit I was right to be pessimistic and that he was only deluding himself if he didn't allow reality to set in.
"Theoretically," he said after a while, startling me where I was almost in recharge. "Theoretically...if we were found. If we were rescued..." He took a moment to figure out how he wanted to word his next question. "Would you return to the way things were?"
It wasn't the best way he could have worded it, but I knew what he meant, and I thought about it long and hard. First on my agenda, after restoring my body, of course, would be to get revenge on Megatron for the state he left me in for the last quarter of a vorn. After that though? I really had no idea. Without Cybertron, there was no point in fighting the Autobots anymore even if the two factions never saw anything the same way. We'd probably go our separate ways to find new planets to call home. Autotron and Deceptitron - just the thought almost made me snicker. However, the majority of the Decepticons would be just the same way as they were before the destruction of Cybertron - slathering, power hungry wolves. I estimated it was only because of Megatron's stubbornness that we had lasted so many millions of years in the first place. Of course, I didn't expect to be defeated too easily either and pictured myself leading the Decepticons for a long time.
Of course, it then registered that there most likely were no Decepticons left. Save for the occasional spy here and there on Earth, the Decepticons had held complete control over Cybertron, and that was where they all were. Sure, Prime and I had managed to escape from Cybertron itself, but admittedly, we were lucky. As he said, Unicron tried to devour every single evacuation ship as dessert. Not many survivors of the initial destruction could have survived that as well.
No, the Decepticon faction was as good as dead. The Autobots still had forces left on Earth though, forces with which to find a new home. Even if it meant being a prisoner due to war crimes, it had to be better than being dead or fighting the continuation of a dead war sure to fail. I'm ambitious and greedy and possibly immature, but I'm not stupid.
"No, Prime," I finally answered. "I don't think I would."
We didn't exchange another word for the rest of the day.
One week later, darkness descended on the planet.
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 had a terrible, pounding headache which felt like Rumble worrying at the back of my cranial casing with his pile drivers, a headache that snaked its way down my neck, through my arm, and into my fingers whenever I moved my head even a fraction. The fact that the headache was so bad it completely drowned out the ache in my missing side was definitely not good. I didn't have to be medically trained to know it was a warning sign.
I needed energon, toxic or not.
Prime was tucked back in his spot in front of me to my left, his head lolled to the side as he recharged. I had to wonder if he had worried a comfortable aft-hole into that spot since that was the exact same place he dropped onto every single time he came back from hunting for the last three Earth weeks I had been out of stasis. I certainly felt like I'd made my own. After that initial panic attack in the dark about three weeks ago, I'd been afraid to move, not wanting to grind my mutilated side against the rocks again.
As the headache intensified, I finally came to the conclusion that it was probably time to take a chance.
No, not with that poison Prime kept ingesting. I was only going to resort to that if I exhausted all other options. No, I had to see what this planet was like - I had to whether he liked it or not. Slag him and his paranoia. I'm a scientist - if either of us was going to find an alternative, it would be me.
Sure, on some level I actually...ugh - appreciated his concern as well as the fact that he stopped long enough from fleeing Cybertron to grab me. After all, it's not like Megatron ever gave a flip about what happened to me. He wouldn't have spared a second glance at me, ignoring the fact that he was the one who damaged me so severely in the first place. I'm well aware of the rumors that circulated the entire Decepticon army - and possibly even the Autobot army - about relations between myself and Megatron, and I'm happy to confirm that that's all they were - rumors. The thought of myself with Megatron in such a way was sickening. Of course, there were also rumors about me, Skywarp, and Thundercracker. While much more plausible - not to mention appealing - those too were just rumors. There were also...well, suffice it to say rumors are funny things - according to said rumors, I was the whore of the Decepticon army. I find it very amusing that the only one I wasn't rumored to be with was actually the only one I was involved with.
I don't doubt Prime heard the rumors. I'd be shocked if he hadn't. I'm sure the Autobots look down on such sordid activities since they put on a front of being so disgustingly benevolent and pure. I'm just lucky the rumors hadn't started until after I had increased my rank to second in command. Even the Decepticons looked down on those who used their bodies to advance. I suspect the rumors started out of spite, but since I was as high as I could go and couldn't be shot back down by anyone but Megatron himself, I had nothing to worry about when it came to a bunch of groundless rumors despite the fact that some Cybertronians would believe any rumor thrown their way. As naive as Prime seemed to be, I wouldn't have been surprised if he was one of them.
And yet, despite that and despite the fact that we had been fighting in the war for millions of years, he saved me. Thousands of Decepticons forsook and abandoned me, not even bothering to see whether or not I really was dead. One Autobot stopped. The irony was painful.
However, I was sick of it - he was taking his concern and paranoia too far. He wouldn't even carry me to the cave entrance and let me look out regardless of the fact that he left it wide open whenever he wasn't hunting. Probably because he was there to kill any snakes that tried to come in, but still. It was time to take matters into my own hands.
Well, hand.
Carefully, I slid down onto my right side, cringing at how the movement made my headache worse. I could deal with a headache though, and testing the way my body lay against the cave floor like this made me a little more optimistic. This might actually work.
It was an exhaustive process, but I managed to use my remaining hand and foot to drag myself along the cave floor, gripping at rocks and dents in the ground and using them as leverage to pull myself along my side, my foot pushing against those same rocks to lessen the strain on my shoulder. It made my side sore, but that was more an annoyance than something worth worrying about, and I was convinced at that point that my headache really couldn't get any worse. It took me the better part of five breems to get from my spot at the back of the cave to the entrance, and I'm amazed Prime didn't wake up considering how much noise I was making. Either he was well and truly exhausted or he just wasn't as light a sleeper as I initially thought.
Whatever the reason, it gave me the opportunity to finally drag myself to the entrance to the cave where I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky for the first time once my head was outside.
Seeing the greenish-blue sky brought to mind something I had been wondering for the last two weeks - why was the sun always shining? Not once had I seen nightfall through the cave opening. At first, I had written it off as I just happened to be in recharge during the night, but after three weeks, I realized no, there was no night here. Now, that's not exactly an odd thing if a planet doesn't rotate, but since rotation is a very big factor in what makes and sustains a planet's atmosphere, life can't exist on such a planet. Nothing like the snakes, anyway, so there had to be another explanation.
Slowly setting across from me - upside down currently - were two explanations - two suns. A red one and a yellow one. That wasn't entirely unusual - it certainly wasn't the first multiple-solar system in existence. If suns were small enough or distant enough or if the planet's atmosphere was protective enough against the radiation and heat, then life could still exist on a planet with multiple suns. There was just something about these two suns in particular that made me uneasy.
The dull ache in my tired shoulder subsiding, I dragged myself further out of the cave and to the left, using the rocks by the mouth of the cave to pull myself up onto my foot. I had to lean heavily against the rock wall, but it worked even if it left my wounded side uncomfortably exposed to the outside world.
Rock the same rusty red as the cave itself could be seen all the way to the horizon. It was relatively flat save for a few cracks in the ground where the snakes probably retreated when they got overheated, and I could see tiny spires of twisted, chewed metal sticking up over some rocks, all that was left of the ship we had crashed in. Prime wasn't exaggerating when he said the snakes ate it.
There was a tiny stream not too far away, probably only still in existence despite the suns because it was almost completely concealed by rock. Sunlight probably only touched the water for a breem at a time if that long. Good for the snakes, but water alone isn't an energy source. I had already determined the red rock was as worthless as it looked.
I glanced back at the suns which were steadily dropping below the horizon and felt a sense of dread hit me. There was something wrong here. Something very wrong.
I looked up above me at the rock wall and was pleased to note that the cave was very close to the top of the rocky cliffs. In fact, there were enough jutting rocks for me to climb up and at least poke my head over the top despite my condition. The throbbing in my head just made me worry if I had enough strength left for the effort.
There was no escaping it though - I had to try. Using the turbine in my foot to give me a boost, I started the long, painful, and arduous process of pulling myself up the uneven slope. It took nearly a cycle, and I was in agony by the time I was nearly there. I'd managed to scrape my bad side against some of the rocks, and my hand, knee, and right side were a mess of cuts from gripping and pulling at rocks sharper than I originally thought. I was almost there though, and while I may be many things, I'm not a quitter.
The suns were almost completely below the horizon behind me by the time I finally made it to the apex of the rocks, and I had to take a moment to rest as warnings started flashing in front of my optics. Had I stayed in the cave like a good little cripple, I may have lasted another week before running dangerously low on energy, but I'd burned all that spare energy in my determination to get over the Primus forsaken hill. I could hear Prime below me calling my name in a panic - it was about time he woke up and noticed I was gone. I was already here though, so I forced my head back up to complete the task I had set out to do even as I listened to Prime scrambling out of the cave below to find me. When I finally lifted my head again to view the other side, I wasn't pleased.
I'm not really sure what I expected. It looked exactly the same on this side as it did on the other except it wasn't as flat. Spires of rock reached up to the sky like fingers, clustered together in groups of five to eight all over the landscape. I could tell they were hollow from the holes in the sides and the very top of each spire. For an astrosecond, I was curious as to why they were hollow and what might possibly be inside. Only an astrosecond though because that's all it took for me to notice another problem.
A bright blue sun rose before me as the red and yellow suns set behind me. No wonder there was no night. I noticed something else rising with the blue sun, and the sense of dread grew. There was something very familiar about this. It wasn't until I looked back over my shoulder at the red and yellow suns and finally saw an ominous arch of space debris arcing over the suns that it hit me.
I knew this planet.
I hated this planet.
All the planets in the galaxy, and Prime picked this one to crash on.
"Oh no..." I muttered in spite of myself before my head fell forward, my optics shut off, and I blacked out from lack of energy.
When I woke up, nearly a full orn later according to my chronometer, I was back in the cave, lying on my back and staring up at the ceiling. Strangely, my headache was gone, and it shouldn't have been considering how low on energy I was when I blacked out. It didn't take me long to notice why though.
Prime, for once, was in a different spot - this time, he was parked a little closer to the cave entrance with his leg stretched across the width of the cave, no doubt so he'd wake up immediately if I tried anything again. A cable snaked its way from his chest to mine, and, muddled as I was from blacking out, it took me a little longer than it normally would have to realize what he was doing.
Once I did though, I grabbed the cable and jerked it out of me, closing the connection. I was not so helpless that I needed to siphon his energy, blacking out from overexertion aside. Stupid, self-sacrificing moron. It took more effort than I would have liked to push myself back up into a sitting position against the wall, wriggling my aft back into the spot I had indeed worn into the ground.
Sensing the severing of the connection, he lifted - no, forced - his head up and looked at me, his working optic flickering a little. One hand rolled up the cable and placed it back inside himself while his other hand fed himself an energon cube to try to compensate for what I'd taken. He didn't say anything for a while, either too exhausted, too angry, or both to even try to form the words.
So, loudmouth that I am, I broke the silence.
"Even an evacuation pod that old should have had warnings in the system about this planet being off limits," I snapped though it didn't come out as heated as I would have liked. He just stared at me, and I couldn't tell if he was confused or if he had even heard me at all.
"What do you mean?" he finally croaked after what I said managed to register. "Why did you do that? I told you it's too dangerous..."
"I didn't get eaten, did I?" I grumbled in response before shaking my head and changing the subject. "I told you - I was an explorer and a scientist before the war. I've been to this planet before - I left explicit instructions when I got back to Cybertron that every single star chart on the planet, no matter how seemingly insignificant and unused, mark this planet off limits. Even you had to have seen the warning in the computers!"
He sighed and shuffled back over to his usual spot, convinced I wasn't going anywhere this time. "There were even more warnings on the grey planet, and the other was a gas giant - nothing to land on. We weren't in range with the brown one that didn't have warnings assigned to it."
I'd forgotten about the grey one. I had more warnings assigned to it for a good reason. Still, both were hateful chunks of space debris.
"If you've been here before, why didn't you say so earlier?" he asked. I almost spat back at him that it was because he refused to let me see outside the slagging cave, but then I remembered the snakes. He must have assumed I would have recognized them.
"It's been millions of years, Prime - those snakes must have evolved here during that time. They weren't here when I mapped this planet." He nodded at that and fell quiet.
Angry and upset, I just shut off my optics and rubbed my forehead for a moment, this headache caused from anger rather than low energy. "The rings," I finally said, surprised at how level and quiet my voice was. Prime gave me a confused glance. "How long have the rings of the gas giant been on the horizon? The one with the two suns."
He was quiet as he thought about that, and I knew he was curious as to where I was going with this. "A week, almost," he finally answered, tilting his head at the defeated sigh I gave.
"Give it another week, and this planet will be thrown into a pitch black night lasting a year," I told him. He wasn't concerned. Yet.
"I can see in the dark even with just one optic."
"That's not the point. The snakes aren't the only predators here unless the things that killed my partner at the time have evolved out of the food chain." He was staring at me intently and, I suspect, worriedly. "There were creatures here that could fly, and they only came out when it was dark because light in any form burned them. They were like the snakes - they could eat anything."
"How are you so sure about the darkness though?" I knew he didn't doubt what I was saying - he just wanted to know for himself.
"While we were here, we determined that the planets and the suns form a line every few years - our estimate was half a vorn. The gas giant blocks off the red and yellow suns, and the grey planet blocks the blue sun. It causes a full, planetary eclipse for at least a year."
Silence passed between us for a long time after that. He was trying to cope with what I told him while I set myself to thinking, staring down at the cave floor in thought.
"And I didn't think I could hate this planet any more than I already did..."
I had to grin at that simply because that was exactly what I thought so many millions of years ago the last time I was here. Dark humor and all.
"We might be able to use it though," I offered. He was instantly listening, watching me. "If the flying creatures haven't evolved out of existence, I assume the snakes branched off from them - they may have the same chemical in their bodies that the converter's able to use to make energon."
"What about the toxin that corrupts the energon? If they're related, the flying ones probably have it too."
"There's no guarantee they don't either. And even if they do, it might be in smaller amounts." Prime nodded, liking where I was going with this train of thought and likely seeing what I meant - smaller amounts of the toxins we could develop an immunity to over time. The energon he made now was just too corrupted. "The only problem is they're dangerous, most likely even more so than the snakes. And they fly, so they could get in here more easily than the snakes unless you leave the rock in front of the entrance the whole time."
"There's also the problem of it being dark," he pointed out. I'd hoped he wouldn't point that out. I commended him for not asking for an explanation at any point since it happened, but I really wished he hadn't brought it up. "I can use my headlights from my alt form while I'm here - they don't burn enough energy to worry about - but there's no light source for when I'm hunting."
"I'll live," I grumbled. He clearly didn't like that any more than I did, but truthfully, there was no alternative. Even he had to admit defeat there.
He started quietly laughing after a moment which caught me by surprise. What was so funny? I immediately took offense out of habit, puffing up defensively as I demanded, "What's so funny?"
It took him a moment to respond, neither malice nor condescending contempt in his expression as there would have been in Megatron's. "It's just this is the longest conversation we've ever had," he finally answered before chuckling again.
That surprised me. Both because he felt the need to point it out and because it was true. Talking was never a popular pastime among Decepticons - not talking just for the sake of conversation, anyway. Sure, there were some who talked all the time probably because they liked the sound of their own voices. Ask any Decepticon, and they'll probably tell you I'm the same way though that couldn't be further from the truth. Contrary to popular belief, I despise my voice. I inwardly cringe every time I hear myself, and many times, I wished I could get a new vocal processor for a better voice. I almost did too, on Cybertron before the war, but Skyfire talked me out of it, saying it would change me too much.
But Prime was right - we'd never done anything more than exchange insults and battle cries before, and even after I came out of stasis, I still kept my mouth shut most of the time more out of habit than contempt. Except around Megatron, Skywarp, and Thundercracker, I didn't talk much. I might have around Soundwave, but I didn't need to - slagger could read my mind, after all. I had a feeling Prime was used to being around others more talkative than I.
"I'm sorry - I shouldn't have said that, should I?" he said after I stayed quiet for a while.
And I was probably right.
"I'm...not used to conversation," I reluctantly admitted. I wouldn't even call what we'd been talking about a true conversation, to be honest. I would have called it a strategy meeting.
"Normally, I'm not either," he admitted. "I kept my office quiet so I could hear myself think, and I spent dozens of cycles at a time there. Still, when I could get away, it was nice to have someone to talk to." He looked away then, his voice trailing off as his optic dimmed, probably thinking about Cybertron. It was hard not to even if I didn't care on as many levels as he did. I only lost Skywarp and Thundercracker who were already dead before they were ejected from Astrotrain - he lost the entire Autobot army.
I looked away as well, studying the rock wall for probably the millionth time since I came out of stasis. "I wouldn't know." What was I supposed to say? Did I not just tell him I'm bad at conversation? He didn't seem to want to push the subject anyway, staring outside forlornly, probably reminiscing. It was that observation that made me realize exactly why he was so paranoid about keeping me in this Primus forsaken cave and as far away from the snakes and any other dangers lurking around the corner.
He was afraid of being left alone.
Given the circumstances, stranded on a dustball planet surrounded by sharp-toothed monsters that could eat literally anything with no way of escaping, I can't say that I'd be too thrilled about being all by myself either. But I was still used to solitude, often spending days brooding in my quarters - or the brig, depending on Megatron's mood - rarely interacting with anyone with the occasional exception of Skywarp and Thundercracker when they invited me to one of their little "parties". Even before then, I spent countless cycles alone in my work as a scientist with only Skyfire calling me every so often to check my progress in my many, many experiments. I just don't do well with others.
Prime wasn't accustomed to that though. He was used to having someone depend on him just as I was used to not being so helpless. The Decepticon in me found the notion of fear of being alone absurd and laughable. The scientist in me couldn't blame him. Maybe in another life, I could have been the same way. A disturbing thought, but a curious one nonetheless.
That did it - I needed to get my mind on something else.
"Come here," I snapped, earning a startled and confused look from him. He crawled over to me anyway though, just as naive and unsuspecting as ever. Once beside me on my left, I made a motion with my hand. "Turn around." Once again, he obediently and unquestioningly did as he was told despite the confused expression he gave me. Oh, if only he knew.
Pity he didn't. It gave me just the right opportunity and leverage to grab him by the right side of his head and smash the left side into the rock wall.
I almost laughed at the startled and pained howl that echoed through the cave - almost. What did get me to laugh were the foul Cybertronian oaths he swore at me as he scrambled back away, cradling the left side of his head. I honestly hadn't expected him to have that foul a mouth - he could have made even Dirge stop and stare with some of the phrases he snapped at me. Granted, I did deserve it...
"What was that for?!" he demanded furiously.
"It was annoying me," I replied calmly, favoring him with an amused grin which just grew wider when he blinked a few times and jumped, startled upon finally noticing he could see with his left optic again. "No pain, no gain, as the humans you like so much say."
"...you could have warned me." A sulky Optimus Prime is a very, very amusing thing, and I couldn't hold back my laughter anymore, laughing until my torn side ached. The more he pouted, the harder I laughed until it finally hurt too much to keep it up, and I trailed off into a fit of Skywarp-esque giggles before finally regaining some semblance of composure.
The offended glare he was giving me almost made me start again.
"What?" I asked defensively on the pretense of being offended by his unthankful attitude. It might have worked better if I could have wiped the grin off my face. "You'd rather be stuck with just one working optic for who knows how long?"
"You very well could have done even more damage!"
"Would I do that?" I couldn't help snickering.
Obviously deciding that I wasn't going to feel sorry for my actions no matter how much he tried to guilt trip me, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, still sulking even as he asked, "How'd you know that would fix it?"
I stretched out my leg in an attempt to make myself more comfortable. "When you get thrashed around on a near daily basis, you tend to learn what parts shake around in what way inside you given the right strength and angle applied." I frowned when I was finished with that statement. I hadn't actually meant to say that, but it just slipped out, and I flinched when I noticed he had stopped sulking and was looking at me with what looked annoyingly like pity.
I didn't want his pity.
I told him as much, and he looked down at his lap. That didn't work as well as I'd hoped - his pity had just grown. "What would you have done to an insubordinate trying to overthrow you every chance he got?" I demanded. His pity bothered me - I didn't need nor want his pity. I didn't want to explain myself either, but I wanted his pity even less.
He actually thought about that for a moment rather than throwing in my face the fact that I had more or less asked for it. Some part of me wanted him to, wanted him to quit being so...so infuriatingly good. Everybody has flaws - I knew he had to have some of his own. Nobody's perfect.
"I'd...probably let him try to prove himself, and if he could really do a better job than I..." he finally answered, his tone uneasy and trailing off. He'd never had to think about anything like that before. The Autobots all followed him so blindly.
"Then you're just as unimaginative and boring as you're rumored to be," I scoffed. "You really wouldn't fight to protect your position?"
This time, he was the one who became defensive. "I wasn't always a soldier either, Starscream. Nor was I a scientist or an explorer or anything else glamorous. Before I was Prime, I was just a dockworker...an ordinary Cybertronian with an ordinary job and an ordinary name. Sometimes, I wish I could be just that again and leave this whole, pointless war behind me. So no, I wouldn't fight to protect my position. I fight because I have to, because I don't want anyone else to throw their lives away, not for power."
Okay, I asked for that.
I was in the process of trying to come up with a response when he continued, "Megatron is power hungry - that's all he cares about, and I suspect that tainted the Decepticons...isn't that all the Decepticons want?"
My turn to be defensive. "On some level, yes, but you forget that we have the same goal in mind - we just go about it differently than you. The Autobots do it diplomatically, the Decepticons militarily. Megatron's become so obsessed with defeating you and the Autobots, the war is more about the personal vendetta between the two of you than it is about what the war is supposed to be about - restoring Cybertron to its former glory!" I stopped there. I could have preached on and on, but...there wasn't any point anymore, was there? Cybertron was nothing but debris. No amount of energon could restore it now... "And this argument is pointless," I stated, sinking back against the wall and letting my annoyance filter out through my vent. He didn't need to question why.
"I hate to admit it, but you're right," he sighed and leaned his head back to stare up at the ceiling of the cave. "Even though Cybertron is gone, Megatron won't let the war end...not as long as either of us is alive."
"It doesn't make any difference now. Look where we are. And here we'll stay likely until we both shut down and never wake up again." His pained expression told me he wanted to argue that, wanted to believe in that flimsy Autobot concept they call hope, but even he had to admit I was right to be pessimistic and that he was only deluding himself if he didn't allow reality to set in.
"Theoretically," he said after a while, startling me where I was almost in recharge. "Theoretically...if we were found. If we were rescued..." He took a moment to figure out how he wanted to word his next question. "Would you return to the way things were?"
It wasn't the best way he could have worded it, but I knew what he meant, and I thought about it long and hard. First on my agenda, after restoring my body, of course, would be to get revenge on Megatron for the state he left me in for the last quarter of a vorn. After that though? I really had no idea. Without Cybertron, there was no point in fighting the Autobots anymore even if the two factions never saw anything the same way. We'd probably go our separate ways to find new planets to call home. Autotron and Deceptitron - just the thought almost made me snicker. However, the majority of the Decepticons would be just the same way as they were before the destruction of Cybertron - slathering, power hungry wolves. I estimated it was only because of Megatron's stubbornness that we had lasted so many millions of years in the first place. Of course, I didn't expect to be defeated too easily either and pictured myself leading the Decepticons for a long time.
Of course, it then registered that there most likely were no Decepticons left. Save for the occasional spy here and there on Earth, the Decepticons had held complete control over Cybertron, and that was where they all were. Sure, Prime and I had managed to escape from Cybertron itself, but admittedly, we were lucky. As he said, Unicron tried to devour every single evacuation ship as dessert. Not many survivors of the initial destruction could have survived that as well.
No, the Decepticon faction was as good as dead. The Autobots still had forces left on Earth though, forces with which to find a new home. Even if it meant being a prisoner due to war crimes, it had to be better than being dead or fighting the continuation of a dead war sure to fail. I'm ambitious and greedy and possibly immature, but I'm not stupid.
"No, Prime," I finally answered. "I don't think I would."
We didn't exchange another word for the rest of the day.
One week later, darkness descended on the planet.
