Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The bell rang. Excited voices erupted from open windows; doors flung wide to permit the stamping of hundreds of happy feet. Children dashed from the school as fast as they could, eager to start their weekend. Two precious days of freedom, time away from the rigors of the classroom… two days lost in their imaginations.

Arcee knew how they felt.

The Autobot valkyrie was parked in an asphalt lot next to the school; an expensive-looking motorbike parked amongst expensive-looking compacts and SUVs. She turned her scanners in all directions, looking for one particular human child.

Fortress Maximus had recorded a short, garbled transmission from Koji’s signalling unit. He was supposed to trigger it once a day – the corrupted signal was the second time he’d used it in 24 hours. Scattorshot had asked if someone would check on the boy.

Jazz and Arcee had volunteered. She’d won the assignment because the Terrorcons were less likely to recognise her. She didn’t know Koji – he’d been born while she was off hunting Decepticon war criminals. She did, however, know his mother… very, very well.

Arcee and Misha had been close friends, even confidants, during the early years of the Terran conflict. The only two “girls” in a “boy’s club”, they’d instantly bonded. But they’d lost touch just as the Planet Key quest began. The femme had nursed a healthy amount of guilt about it – now that the woman was missing, and her son’s whereabouts were in doubt, the emotion carried an even more potent sting.

Wherever she looked, parents greeted their children. Arcee watched fondly as a blond girl ran, blue eyes shining, across to her tall, bearded man. The little one all but climbed up her father in her enthusiasm, babbling rapid-fire about all the things she’d learned. The father grinned wryly but affectionately, nodding at all the right times.

For most Transformers, such a moment would prompt questions. They’d remark on the strangeness of the emotions attached, and registered their continued disbelief at the family structures formed by organics merely because of shared genetic material.

Most Transformers… not Arcee.

Cybertronian life – a Spark – came from one of two sources: the Creation Matrix or, if you were very lucky, a fortuitous Energon bombardment. Once ignited, the Spark was placed in a blank protoform, which resided inside a stasis pod. The unique “soul” or “personality” dictated the shape, colouring and alt mode of the finished Transformer.

But if you really asked around, you’d discover a third source. One frowned upon by most Transformers, questioned by luminaries such as Red Alert and practiced by a group so small… and so “odd”… the majority of the population referred to it as a sect. A parcel of mechs and femmes that believed that, instead of a mystical ornament, or a fluke of radiation, life could come from life itself.

Arcee’s Spark was not wholly unique. She shared pink armour and a two-wheeled alt mode with the mech who raised her. She had the same black bodywork… and the fiery temperament… of the femme who guided her first years online. In human terms, she’d had parents – two Transformers who had merged fragments of their own Sparks, within a blank protoform and a stasis pod, to create another being. Life from life.

Like the little blond girl, who now giggled from beneath a flurry of paternal tickling, Arcee had spent her early life around those older and wiser than her. Like the children eager for the weekend, she’d longed for precious cycles away from her lessons.

Such things were rare, but not unheard of, amongst “normal” Transformers. Orion Pax and Rollout had spent vorns under the tutelage of Alpha Trion, making the ancient mech the father of Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus. Usually, it was only Transformers who’d chosen to form a partnership… or co-habit… that undertook the frowned-upon process.

That Arcee was the product of a mech/femme pairing was odd in itself, and undoubtedly the reason for her affairs with Rodimus and Thundercracker. The concept of romance, as humans understood it, was not unknown to Transformers; a fact to which Arcee herself could attest. It was why she and Misha had become such good friends… though aliens to one another, their relationships with Rodimus and Kicker gave them common ground.

But, usually, new Sparks came from a mech/mech or femme/femme pairing; Transformers who had bonded for life not because of romance, but out of mutual respect and devotion. Most of her “sect friends” came from rough-and-tough warriors who wanted to guarantee their fighting skills would remain available, even if they got slagged.

She allowed herself a small giggle. To a visiting human, Cybertron would appear to be a haven for “same-sex couples”.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? “Mech” and “femme” did not mean “male” and “female”. They were design-based designations, more akin to… well, to “SUV” and “compact”, like the cars around her. Mech units were stronger, more durable and packed heavier firepower. Femme units were smaller, faster, consumed less Energon and more accurate with their weapons. It wasn’t until Transformers had made contact with carbon-based life forms that the similarities to genders were noticed.

Cybertron still had its share of interesting quirks, though, before anyone’s internal dictionary had been updated. Although there’d been no discrimination – neither the Autobots nor Decepticons could afford to turn away troops – but femmes usually worked as commandoes and assassins; well away from the front lines. Command was held by mechs, as they lived long enough to rise up the ranks. And the lost colony of Speedia was a “matriarchal” society – the femmes dominated the mechs on the race track.

Or they had, until Blur came along. Arcee figured her old friend would, were he human, be androgynous given his peculiar mix of mech alt mode and femme robot mode. She sometimes wondered if Swerve had a twin brother or sister.

Arcee finished her sweep of the school grounds. There was no sign of Koji anywhere. Her concern grew; she opted to try something risky. As soon as she was sure no human eye was turned in her direction, she activated her holo-matter avatar.

Upon her return to Earth, the valkyrie had updated her avatar’s appearance. Her “rider” now looked to be a 23-year-old human female, of French-Canadian ethnicity, with waist-length black hair. She’d “borrowed” the template from an article she’d read on the Internet, telling the story of a former girl-group pop star who’d struck out on a semi-successful solo career. Ever the infiltrator, Arcee thought a touch of fame and sexuality might help extract information from recalcitrant male humans.

The pop-star-a-like sauntered across the parking lot, taking Arcee’s primary consciousness with it. Programmed sub-routines controlled her vital functions and personal security as her mind grew legs and went wandering. Even with the construct’s limited range, Arcee was able to step inside the school’s lobby and glance at a few classrooms. Still, there was no sign of Koji.

Her avatar sighed heavily as it stepped back into the cool afternoon breeze. Movement, off to the left, caught her attention. A woman and a boy were walking across the road toward another parking lot. The boy could have been Koji… it matched the description she’d been given. And the woman seemed to look a lot like Misha’s sister-in-law, Sally – right down to the orange hair.

Perhaps it had been an innocent slip of the thumb, after all?

Arcee’s avatar strolled casually after the pair, noting the vehicle into which they climbed. Actually, vehicles… the boy slid into the passenger seat of a black Trans-Am muscle car, while the woman straddled an orange and chrome chopper. Pulling her mind back into her real body, leaving the avatar to idle for a moment, Arcee quickly scanned the car and the bike. Then she cursed. Both were giving off Energon signatures.

That meant three things. One, they were Transformers. Two, because she could tell they were Transformers at first glance, they weren’t Terrorcons. Which brought up point number three: if they were Transformers, and weren’t Terrorcons, and certainly weren’t Autobots, that left…

“Decepticons,” both she and the avatar hissed.

Arcee willed the holo-matter rider back. On the other side of the road, the car and the chopper were already pulling away. She had no idea how the Decepticons had found Koji – and, worse, how they’d managed to secret themselves on Earth without catching the attention of the RID team – but scarcely cared. Neither would matter for much longer.

“Oh my God, we love you! Can we have your autograph, please?”

She found herself staring at three blushing, anxious-looking pre-teen girls. One of them had midnight blue streaks in her hair… the same fashion sense, Arcee realised, her avatar template used on stage. The kids were fans of the pop star. The downside of fame, she told herself humourlessly.

Arcee paused to scrawl forged signatures on three pieces of paper. An Autobot through and through, her conscience twisted in two directions: was it better to lie for the sake of her template’s career, or tell the truth and so crush these young, impressionable females? As with every time she’d been confronted with the problem, she had no answer.

The grateful, now squealing girls finally backed away…and the Decepticons had gone. Cursing silently, Arcee activated several devices she’d been given by Checkpoint. The Cybertronian bloodhound did good work – in seconds, she’d located trace Energon on the road and knew in which direction to head. If she moved fast enough, she’d catch up to her quarry before the trail of radiation disappeared from her sensors.

Her fake rider twisted her accelerator, and Arcee roared into the traffic.

-----

The Trans-Am and the chopper powered on, ignoring the speed limit on the damaged section of freeway. According to the local news, a car carrier had lost control and ploughed through the safety rails. Arcee scowled at the thought; that car carrier was a dear friend of hers and he’d been tricked, not out of control.

Her thoughts… and prayers… turned to Ultra Magnus, who’d been rushed back to the CR chambers. He was barely alive; his Spark dangerously close to extinguishing. His core consciousness was silent, even when probed by the chamber’s instruments, and his black box recorder was scrambled and corrupted by trauma. Troubled by the latter – which simply shouldn’t happen – Scattorshot had asked Downshift to look Magnus over.

That had prompted protests from Armourhide but Scattorshot, to his credit, ignored them. Guarded on either side by Jazz and Smokescreen, the alleged traitor had been allowed to stabilise Magnus and ensure he was as comfortable as possible. But even Downshift’s engineering genius could not offer a solution beyond “wait and hope”. He was taken back to the brig… past the CR chamber containing Rodimus.

Arcee’s pump ached. Rodimus had been, for the longest time, the being who sat paramount in her thoughts. Of similar ages if not upbringings, they’d become very close through centuries of warfare and siege. On Earth their relationship had blossomed, buoyed by the different perspective on life provided by their human friends. But with that new outlook had come unfamiliar tensions… jealousy, resentment, mistrust… that they were ill-equipped to handle. Their ties had severed, their bond broke, and her attentions had turned toward Thundercracker.

None of that, however, meant seeing the “turbo-revving young punk” in such a state of disrepair was anything less than traumatic. They may no longer have been a couple… they may never have resolved the argument that began during the Battle of Iacon… but she wished him no ill fate. If anything, Arcee wished Rodimus would wake up so they could put those harsh words, from so long ago, to rest forever.

Ahead, the chopper signalled that it was about to turn off the cloverleaf. Arcee cleared her mind and focused, as Thundercracker had taught her, on the moment. Theirs was a relationship more like the “standard” co-habitation, even though she was a femme and he was a mech. Through Thundercracker, Arcee had become a better warrior, a stronger Cybertronian and, she felt, a more balanced being. She loved him, too, and knew that most human of feelings was reciprocated though rarely voiced. The ex-Decepticon was very… singular… in his thinking; it matched her upbringing well.

The Trans-Am led the chopper through an industrial area; Arcee followed as close as she dared. Nightbeat was the expert at pursuit, not her. She was the infiltrator, the one who gathered information so the detective and Checkpoint could follow the quarry across entire star systems, if required. Thundercracker was there to make the kill, should it be necessary. Unlike the fractured RIDs, they worked as a unit… and despite her earlier confidence, Arcee was starting to feel out of her element.

Should she call for backup? Swallowing pride was not a problem for her, but she was a little worried about dragging “the boys” out of Fortress Maximus. Truth to tell, no one in the SWAT team trusted the RID crew. Their time on Earth seemed to have left them a tad unhinged; Nightbeat, in particular, worried for Downshift’s fate were he not around to cool inflamed tempers.

Arcee decided she could handle this one alone – it was, after all, only two Decepticons. Easy pickings, given how Energon-depleted and poorly armed your average ‘con was. Gone were the old days of Decepticon empires and heavy firepower… you had more trouble with a rogue scraplet infection than you did with mangy, starving ‘cons.

She wondered where they were headed. Even if his team mates were idiots, Ultra Magnus was no fool; the Decepticons couldn’t have established a base in a city under his watchful optic. Maybe they were headed to some kind of bolthole, or perhaps even out to the docks for an aquatic transfer. Perhaps…

The Trans-Am turned abruptly, veering off to the right and into a junk yard. The chopper followed. Arcee let herself overshoot the rusting pile of wrecks and continue down the road a way. She turned off down a dirt service road and transformed, hefting her Energon longbow. They’d been driving for hours and the sun was setting; the industrial area was all but deserted. She wasn’t so naïve to face even weakened ‘cons in vehicle mode.

A scrap yard made perfect sense. She and the boys had found many a Decepticon war criminal nestled in amongst ruin and debris, scavenging energy. Blight had run on alkaline batteries for two years before they’d tracked him down. Six Shot had doubled that by shutting down his gun arm and living a monk’s life. His newfound love for all creatures hadn’t stopped him from throwing rocks at the SWAT team, though. Whoever these ‘cons were, they were following a fine tradition of loathsome foraging.

Arcee stepped over some cyclone fencing and across adjoining lots. She crouched down behind a large pile of scrap, peering around it to get her bearings. Koji and Sally were seated nearby, their hands and feet bound. She could see neither the car nor the motorbike. Her apprehension built and, once again, she toyed with the idea of backup.

What are you, a damsel in distress? chided a voice in her processor. Are you actually starting to believe this gender-based nonsense? When have you ever needed a big, strong mech to come save you?

“Back on Cybertron,” she muttered, “when Override was about to slag me.”

All right, there was one time, the indignant voice continued, and it was Thundercracker, so it doesn’t count. If, after all the battles you’ve fought, you’re not able to handle two dim-bulbs then you should turn in your longbow!

“Fine,” she told her arrogant inner voice. “Here we go.”

Keeping low, Arcee inched around the junk pile and made her way toward the humans. Neither seemed to notice her approach. For a moment, the Autobot congratulated herself on her stealth. Then paranoia crept into her circuits. She tapped her left temple; a red crystal visor slid down over her optics.

The display came to life, giving her instant analysis of her surroundings. Lots of dense metal… plenty of rust… a few rodent life-forms among the wrecks… and two holo-matter avatars. But that made no sense – Arcee’s avatar had been deactivated and…

“Oh no,” she whispered.

Something hummed above her head. She caught but a glimpse of the electromagnet before it pulled her into the air. Arcee slammed, painfully, against the broad disc and found herself pinned. Irresistible force prised open her fist; her longbow fell from her grip and landed atop Koji and Sally. The Energon weapon cleaved them both neatly in half – their bisected forms wobbled for a moment, then evaporated in the afternoon sun.

“Look what the wrench did to our little people!” a deep voice howled. “Our poor little people… she cut them up, man, sliced and diced and it wasn’t nice…”

The black Trans-Am had transformed into a squat, blocky robot. Arcee recognised him immediately: Runamuck, the Decepticon shock trooper. The junkyard setting suddenly made even more sense – the twisted lunatic admired car wrecks like some beings did works of art.

Runamuck had never been more than a bit player in the ‘con army, but that didn’t mean he was less than lethal. For one, he carried a friction rifle that increased the kinetic energy of a target’s molecules. That meant the faster you went, the quicker you melted to slag. The two-lane terror was also an unrepentant drug addict, fond of shovelling any heavy metal or “performance enhancer” into his system just for the high.

“She didn’t do that, bubba, you did,” a calmer voice interrupted. “And a good thing she did, too. As far as I’m concerned, you were getting too attached to the freaky little bastards. It’s not healthy, a mech your age wanting little holo-matter dollies to play with. Ho, ho.”

Arcee sighed heavily. “And where one goes, so does the other.”

Lugnutz walked into view. He was grinning broadly, a steampipe clenched between his mechanical teeth. The thin black device – the Transformer equivalent of a cigarette – was belching green smoke. It must have been some kind of “downer” because the creep was far more lucid than his larger friend.

“Glad it’s not me up there,” Runamuck drawled. Arcee remembered the battle charger – who’d once served as Megatron’s personal courier – was terrified of heights.

She bristled. Being caught by Lugnutz was embarrassing. Like her, the Decepticon considered espionage his specialty. He liked to call himself a “Doctor of Infiltration” and, when he wasn’t hopped up, he was good enough to hold the title. She’d fallen into his trap like a rank amateur.

“Thanks for setting all this up,” she called to them. “Saves me wasting any more time looking for you clowns. I can cross two more names off my ‘to slag’ list.”

The Decepticon peered through his dark visor, which looked a lot like a pair of Earth sunglasses. “This is what I can’t stand about the pigs,” he said, his hands in perpetual motion. “Femmes like you, hundreds of thousands of mechs, all perceiving they’ve been wronged because of some moral stance of their own that can’t abide tripping and fun and acid-tongued truth. I could etch the truth on your sanctimonious pink skid plate and it’d rust up in seconds, with you screaming blue murder all the while!”

Lugnutz, she remembered, never made sense. He spoke some kind of gonzo language of his own invention, understood only by his constant partner in crime Runamuck. His accent was thick and slow, like cold oil. What made even less sense than Lugnutz’s blather was his appearance here, on Earth. Nightbeat’s sources had placed him and Runamuck somewhere in the outer reaches.

“Tell me what you’re doing here,” she growled, trying to regain the psychological advantage, “and I’ll let you go into the cells with your leg servos intact.”

Runamuck smirked. “Spunky. The boss-mech’ll like her.”

Lugnutz was less impressed. “What a great offer,” the Decepticon chortled. “I could be locked away, then crushed and beaten and shocked and drowned and poisoned and stabbed and shot and smothered and set on fire by my own bombs!

“All these things have happened, Arcee, and probably they will happen again. So I’ll pass. You see, I have learned a few tricks along the way, a few random skills and simple Autobot avoidance techniques – but mainly it has been luck, I think, and a keen attention to karma, along with my natural femme-ish charm.”

As he babbled, Arcee considered her options. Without the use of her arms, she could neither reach nor throw her Energon daggers. Transforming would likely tear her armour to shreds. But the magnet held no power over her alt mode’s rubber tyres… one of which nestled against her back in robot mode, while the other split in two and stood tall above her shoulders. Two tyres that had been upgraded, long ago, by Downshift so they could sprout diamond-hard Energon spikes.

Thanks, Downshift, she thought silently. No matter what anyone else says… no matter what comes to light, at the end of all this… you’ll always be my friend.

Arcee fired her engine and spun her wheels. Small, red darts pushed up through the tyres and ground into the flat, featureless underside of the magnet. Normal steel was no match for the energy-based weapons; quickly, the metal shredded. With nothing to stop them, the Energon spikes dug into the magnet’s inner workings and destroyed them, deactivating the pull while flinging metal shards and electrical sparks at the Decepticons.

Lugnutz scampered out of the way, but Runamuck was not as quick. The battle charger took several blue bolts directly in the face and keeled over backwards. His oversized arms and legs flailed spastically, and his rifle slipped from his grasp.

Landing neatly on both feet, Arcee sprang across the yard and snatched up the ivory weapon. It was too big for her “delicate femme” chassis so she gripped it with two hands, bracing its tapered rear against her shoulder. She brought it around and snapped off a volley of shots; Lugnutz, frustratingly, danced between them all and answered with a salvo from “Dutch”, his assault rifle.

Oh, how she hated that stupid gun. It looked like a trumpet, for Primus’ sake!

It was Arcee’s turn to break for cover – she dragged Runamuck’s weapon along behind her and tossed a handful of Energon knives in her wake. That kept Lugnutz from zeroing in on her position just long enough for the valkyrie to set herself up, behind a pile of rusting refrigerators, and bring the friction rifle to bear once more.

This time, Lugnutz was slag out of luck. Arcee caught him in the dead centre of his chest. No worse a place could she have hit. Just falling over was enough momentum to start the friction reaction; Lugnutz’s chest was already smouldering and, in his alt mode, that body part served as an auxiliary fuel tank.

“You twisted bitch,” the infiltrator spat.

The explosion was beautiful and terrifying. Arcee ducked as one of Lugnutz’s arms sailed past her, and fought back a laugh as a wheel rolled by. Dropping her visor into position, she peered through the conflagration. The ‘con wasn’t dead – his armour still had colour – but he was well and truly offline. With Runamuck down as well, it was time to pull out the restraining bolts, “bag ‘n tag” her quarry and head for home.

Confident her rival was down for the count, Arcee attended first to Runamuck. The dark-coloured mech was lying face down. She grabbed his shoulder and hauled him over – smoke billowed from his burned features. His optics were black… but for only a moment.

“Hah!” he cried, throwing a right-handed punch at her.

Arcee was too quick and, despite his longer reach, Runamuck’s attack missed its target. The fists hovered, in mid-air, right in front of her face.

“Come up short, big guy?” she sneered.

There was a click and a blur of movement. Runamuck’s bulky forearm detached from his superstructure and swung out, clobbering her in the face. She’d forgotten that, as a battle charger, he could extend his alt mode for on-road battle… and that those extensions could be used as melee weapons in robot mode, too!

Her head snapped back and her vision filled with static. The fender had caught her across the bridge of her olfactory sensor – the traditional weak spot of femmes. Mechs couldn’t handle a jab to their neural cluster; femmes couldn’t handle having their noses broken. Dimly, she realised Transformers weren’t all that different from humans in some ways.

Arcee’s thoughts lost all lucidity as internal sub-routines fought to restore her equilibrium. A punch in the face wouldn’t kill her, nor would it send her into stasis lock. But it would debilitate her long enough for an enemy to gain the upper hand. Front-line femmes… the few of them around… spent a lot of programming time looking for ways to get around that most basic flaw in their design.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Opting for discretion over valour, Runamuck slung his partner over his back, transformed and took off. By the time Arcee regained her senses, they were well out of sight, and just out of range of her scanners. She sat up in the dirt, pulled her knees to her chest plate and gave the ground a good thwacking.

“Dammit,” she groused to no one in particular. “Remind me why I wanted to come back to Earth, again?”

In the distance, sirens sounded. A late-shift worker had likely alerted police to the fireworks – Transformer battles weren’t the quietest thing to have in your suburb. Arcee folded herself up and re-activated her holo-matter rider. The mirage slid into place and they took off; bound for the city and the mountains beyond.

She was only partly annoyed. An infiltrator’s job was to learn things quickly and quietly, then survive long enough to pass that information on to waiting audio receptors. It was kind of like being a war correspondent, only your publications were often marked “optics only” and circulated around just the high command. Though she’d failed to ascertain the whereabouts of Koji, she’d learned something of equal import: there were Decepticons on Earth, and they weren’t the scavenging kind.

Of that, Arcee was certain. Lugnutz and Runamuck seemed too assured of themselves, too cocky, to be bottom-feeders. Whatever the duo were, they weren’t war criminals. And they’d mentioned a “boss-mech”, which could only mean trouble.

“The sort of trouble,” she mused darkly, “where a two-way guerrilla war erupts into a three-way dance of death.”

Chapter Text

“Mechs!”

Strika drove her shoulder into the door, sending it flying, and stomped onto the purple plains of Gigalonia. Her massive tyre feet made the ground shake; she slapped at the air with her needle-like fingers, just out of fury.

“Moronic, small-brained, over-plated fools!”

She transformed, folding her massive bulk until it resembled a brown-and-tan, six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle. As her primary cognitive functions downloaded into the “spare head” above her alt mode’s front bumper, she accelerated away.

“I’d like to obliterate every last one of them,” she seethed. “Slag them all to the Pit!”

Driving usually helped… but not this time. Strika quickly realised there was nowhere on her home world she could go to forget what had just happened… no dark cave or cool mud pile would soothe the burning shame she felt.

Once again, Omega Supreme had made a fool of her.

She loathed the sanctimonious Autobot. Even more than she was repulsed by Optimus Prime’s sentimentality; even more than she was disgusted by Bulkhead’s weakness; the Gigalonian spokes-femme hated Omega Supreme’s pompous grandiosity. The way he asserted his dominance over the native population… the way he lauded his ability to fly… the way he spoke of battle, of warfare, like he was the only one to have ever seen combat… it sickened her.

Largest of the Autobots – equal in stature to a mid-sized Gigalonian – Omega had no time for those he considered to be inferior warriors. His distaste for her was not solely based on femme design; her companions Wrecker Hook, Scavenger and Blastcharge fared no better in his estimation.

Strika, however, had somehow earned his greatest scorn. And, today, he’d made certain she knew that her greater size was no advantage in a fight. Challenged to a sparring match, he’d dispatched her easily. “Unyielding resolve has no conqueror”, he’d said, and it was obvious he felt Strika’s resolve was lacking.

Wheels churning, she took a sharp turn and headed past what was laughingly referred to as the “catacombs”. Much of the surface of Gigalonia had been hollowed out, over the centuries, thanks to Blender. The mad builder had murdered his leader, Metroplex, then sought the power of the planet’s core to energise the purple Planet Key.

“It’s always mechs, isn’t it?” she sighed bitterly. “Blender kills Metroplex, Omega Supreme helps save the day, Optimus Prime takes over. But nothing changes.”

The refill crews were on break. Strika watched as hundreds of Gigalonians took leave of their posts to fuel up. Theirs was the hardest and most dangerous job on the planet: pouring tonnes of ore and soil into the catacombs. A hollowed-out planet was a dangerous place, and there were fears the ground beneath the Grounders would one day swallow them whole. In the face of daily cave-ins and landslides, the refill crews worked steadily to guarantee a future for all of Gigalonia.

Strika would have admired them, if not for their cultural ignorance.

A group of petite-looking femmes ran across to the mechs. Though as tall and massive as their fellow Grounders, the femmes were clearly designed for different purposes. Their legs and upper torsos were fitted with extra fuel tanks; their spines were thicker to support containers of Energon cubes. They called to individual mechs with pleasant whistles and twitters, beckoning them over.

Strika kept driving, working to suppress the shudder that ran through her frame. All these vorns, and she still could not abide the gap between mechs and femmes. A quirk of design specification had, stupidly, had given birth to two distinct classes.

The mechs were dominant; they worked in the mines, produced the energy, held the top political places and drank in the oil bars. Gigalonian culture held that every mech was entitled to pick a femme “for his keeping” and, in turn, she would provide for him.

The life of a femme involved cleaning purple mud from armour, stocking Energon and lubricant supplies, tending to her mech’s maintenance needs and other tasks as he so chose. They were, in Strika’s opinion, little better than slaves… yet every femme she knew went about her menial duties with a carefree, brain-dead laugh.

She wondered, briefly, what the Autobot called Arcee had made of it. Them she remembered the tale old Devastator had told… of a “little pink thing” nearly tearing off his arm… and realised she already knew.

Acceleration carried her out over the wasteland. They were where she truly belonged – not so-called society. She’d been our of her stasis pod for less than a vorn when she vowed never to follow the “path of all femmes” and submit to the rule of a mech.

Metroplex had been different – he ruled everyone, as was his right – and so Strika swore fealty to him and no other. Eager to impress, she’d undergone radical changes to her chassis and armaments. Determined to become indispensable, she took on the jobs no one else wanted – like prospecting in remote areas. Exploring and exploiting chinks in the planet’s rocky surface became her specialty and, through that, she earned the respect of the mechs with whom she worked. Over time, they forgot she was a femme.

“As did I,” she muttered darkly.

Foolishness had almost cost her life millions of years ago, when a Flyer tribe had attacked her. She’d been out on a solo prospecting mission, as was her custom, far from the cities and potential help. Having spent so much time among mechs, she’d forgotten the limitations of her core design. A thousand tiny blows packed the power of one mighty blast; her much-valued armour had been stripped from her. Broken, exposed and vulnerable, Strika had been held captive by the disgusting little savages for cycles – tortured, dissected and examined – before she could escape.

Horribly, the lessons learned from her systems had given the Flyers blueprints for their Molediver battle suits. Privately, Strika feared it had also given Rumble and Frenzy the information they’d needed to assassinate Metroplex and use his body as a puppet.

Guilt, still vile and bilious, rose in her sump. Her resolve was far stronger than her self-pity, however – no matter what Omega Supreme thought – and she calmed the nausea by force of will alone. Despite the Autobot’s determination to remind her she was “just a femme”… Strika knew her strength. Next time, she would show it to him.

The sandy plains led to the canyons and narrows of the mesa region. Here, thick purple mud accumulated on the outside of stone pillars far taller than any Grounder. The rich silt was the by-product of Gigalonian mining; it rose into the air as dust, mixed with the moist atmosphere and clung to any tall structures… including the native population.

No one save the Flyers had any use for it – the vermin ran their primitive hydro-electric plant on a river of mud, generating the Energon they needed to survive. Of course, they were so pathetically hapless they couldn’t gather the mud themselves; the bleeding fuel pumps in the Team Bullet Train provided that service.

Strika knew all of this… had opposed it, loudly, to deaf audio receptors… and so was deeply puzzled by the sight that met her optics.

There was activity around the base of the thickest, tallest mesa. Grounders rarely came here… the soil beneath the mesas was incredibly dense and useless for mining. And, judging from the tiny purple dust plumes in the distance, the industrious being before her was most definitely a Flyer.

Fury evaporated the little guilt still caught in her sump. Her front fender twisted in an ugly parody of a snarl. With a thought, Strika summoned two long, cobalt demolition missiles from sub-space and loaded the launchers mounted on her upper rear. She transformed and skated forward on her tyre feet. Strika lowered the missiles into position and flexed her lethal fingers, eager for the confrontation.

She was disappointed, then, to find no one at the base of the mesa.

Strika carefully examined the area. A normal Grounder’s optics would have lacked the finesse to study a small region, but Strika had been retrofitted for the task. There was no use knowing how to exploit chinks if you couldn’t see them.

There were little tracks running in all directions, but they matched no Flyer design she’d ever seen. The indentations were too flat, too squared-off, to belong to one of the scuttling spider-tanks she despised. Odd marks, too, could be seen in the sides of the mesa… scratches made by five-fingered hands that sprouted, from their knuckles, some kind of gun-like protrusion.

The marks were particularly numerous in a certain area; Strika tapped it with a pointed finger and the mesa’s rocky wall slid away to reveal an ornate metal passageway. The opening was even taller than her.

Red lights, mounted on either side of Strika’s face and in the centre of her forehead, flared into brilliant life. Making sure her face plate filters were activated – best not to take chances with poison or metal-eating gases – she entered the tunnel.

It was poorly lit but, instantly, she could tell it was of Transformer design. Ancient Transformer design, from the look of it. Gilded walls and polished, silver floors were etched with cogs and gears; relief decorations showed Force Chips and Planet Keys interconnected by a web of energy. The deeper she went, the more alien the symbols became. She recognised only the Grounder and Flyer insignias, and they were in an unfamiliar context – worn on the faces of two powerful-looking mechs standing, shoulder to shoulder, with a carving of the late Metroplex.

“What is this place?” she demanded of the empty space.

No explanation was forthcoming. She stamped her foot, experimentally, on the floor. Dust eddied and whirled before her headlights, but nothing new was revealed. A thick wall blocked her from going any further; she began to look for another pathway. As she turned, her lights brushed over something small, metallic… and in motion.

As she peered closer, it leaped at her face. One of her head lamps shattered, with a jolt she realised the creature was punching them. The femme looped her fingers around her attacker’s midsection – the being was slightly larger than her palm would be, fully outstretched – and pulled him off. He did not wait for her to take action, instead gouging her hand with something attached to his arm.

She yelped and dropped him; the smaller creature ran into the shadows. Even so, she managed to get a good look at him – burnished orange torso, silver head and chest, red arms, boxy black legs. From size and appearance, it would seem Strika had found the mech who’d been in front of the mesa.

“Come out, you spawn of a glitch,” she bellowed.

Again, the ball of fury tightened in her sump. Strika redirected her internal power couplings, causing Energon to dump and build in the blue guards over her wrists. At the same time, she formed each hand into a scoop. She threw her arms back, hard, and two semi-solid orbs of energy dropped into her fingers. With a growl of frustration and exertion, she brought her arms up over her shoulders and flung the globes into the dark.

Golden light evaporated the shadows and crumbled the ornate wall sculptures; Metroplex melted before her optics. Her attacker darted from the half-ruined statue and made a break for cover; Strika hurled more Energon balls at it. The fifth or sixth orb connected with the little wrench’s right leg and lifted him off the ground – he bounced off the ceiling, then a wall, and crumpled onto the floor.

Strika studied him; he was no Flyer. In fact, he didn’t look like much of anything. He was a mech, albeit a small one, with a bubble shield obscuring his face plate. He wore a large black backpack and did indeed have guns that stretched from his elbows past his fists. Guns that were, now, trained on her.

She dodged just in time – unexpectedly powerful plasma bolts narrowly missed her head. The little critter was up and moving again, hurriedly climbing another statue. Strika lashed out with her long fingers but missed him by a microchip; he made it to the sculpture’s shoulders unmolested and appeared to… get smaller.

With a loud groan and the rending of metal, the statue came to life. Strika watched, horrified, as it revealed itself to be a well-built mech blistering with weaponry.

It was not as tall as her but boasted thicker armour, a more powerful build and an aggressive demeanour. Its chassis was draped in silver and cobalt plating; its weapons and missiles were the deepest crimson. One arm ended in a two-pronged energy weapon, the other a vicious-looking claw; its head, she realised, was the transformed version of the very same beastie she’d been chasing. The mech looked just like Omega Supreme.

“Omega Sentinel online,” the newcomer announced. It had the same pompous tone as the Autobot but was more distant, as if devoid of emotion. “Prime directives confirmed. Omega Lock under assault from hostile forces.”

“Calm yourself,” she ordered, raising a hand threateningly. Though smaller than her, the new mech was advancing fearlessly. “I mean you no harm – I simply wish to know how you came to be here. See,” she pointed to the Grounder insignia on her chest, then to the identical logo on his left shoulder, “we are of the same allegiance!”

“Statement: Attacker’s configuration is without precedent in data tracks,” Omega Sentinel said, as if ignorant to her pleas. “Conclusion: lethal force required.”

Strika transformed and drove at Sentinel, crashing into him. The juggernaut did not give an inch. Her bodywork bent painfully as she accelerated, drying to pry him from the ground with inertia… but it was to no avail. With strength impossible for a being his size, Sentinel grabbed her in his claw and lifted her from the ground, turned in place, and hurled her through a solid steel wall.

Two of her tyres exploded, two more shredded. Both of her missiles broke, and her “second head” caved in between the optics. Despite the pain, Strika forced herself to transform and, somehow, managed to land on her still-intact feet. Dazed and panicked, she skated into the gloom. Though she knew not what lay before her, it had to be safer than standing toe-to-toe with Omega Supreme’s insane twin!

“Metroplex not present,” the mech declared. “Conjecture: command structure negligible. Opinion: initiative to be used. Self-designated goals and targets to apply.”

Metroplex? she thought.

It made sense. Every Gigalonian knew the purple world was not their native land. Their people had come, aeons ago, from the “home world”, Cybertron. Metroplex had been amongst those pioneers, as had the mech and femme who shared their Sparks to create Strika. Indeed, knowledge of Cybertron had allowed Blender, Rumble and Frenzy to deceive the Grounders for so many millions of years. Despite all that, no one seemed to know exactly how the Grounders had come to Gigalonia… that secret had been lost when the last of the ancient ones lapsed into permanent stasis lock.

Is it possible, Strika wondered, that I am inside the ship that brought my ancestors here from Cybertron? And this… thing, this proto-Omega Supreme, is a form of ancient watch-mech? A guard?

She could hear, behind her, the tell-tale sound of transformation, followed by the noise of two engines. She cursed violently. Like the Autobot she knew, Omega Sentinel was comprised of two vehicles: an air/sea battle cruiser and a crane rig. Behind her, the canons on the cruiser opened fire and blew more pieces from her chassis, while the rig’s claw snapped menacingly.

I’m finished, she despaired. Would that I could best Omega Supreme in combat, I would have stood a chance. His superior will have little problem annihilating a mere femme incapable of fending off a pack of starving Flyers!

“Unyielding resolve has no conqueror.”

The voice wasn’t real, she knew that… but she heard it loud and clear nonetheless. For those who’d fought alongside him in the trenches of Iacon, Omega Supreme’s motto was no doubt a powerful rallying cry. For Strika, it was acid poured into an open wound… insult to injury. A dark mirror of her tormentor chased her, his supercilious words rebounded throughout her processor… she was equal parts terrified and furious.

Long ago, I vowed I’d never serve a mech, she thundered. In my haste to escape, I dishonour that vow… and myself. Giving into fear is submission by another name, and I will have none of it!

Bellowing a war cry, Strika pivoted and heaved a volley of Energon balls at Omega Sentinel. The two vehicles had to steer erratically to avoid injury. They could not, however, avoid each other also and collided with explosive force. Strika flexed her legs and leapt into the air, transforming as she came down. Just before her vehicle mode landed atop the crash scene, she spun her ruined wheels. They bit into exposed circuitry like a keen saw. Crane and cruiser shrieked with one voice and began to transform.

The femme was waiting. As metal folded and shifted, she peppered every joint and surface with tiny time-delayed Energon balls. As the tiny red-and-orange warrior emerged from the cruiser’s command deck, Strika laid an explosive “egg” on larger robot’s neck.

Never would this tactic have worked against Omega Supreme – he was far too canny a warrior to transform within an enemy’s reach. Omega Sentinel, by contrast, was a single-minded protector – a program in an almighty powerful shell, not a true Transformer.

Any chink that was exposed could be exploited, for he lacked the initiative to hide them. And exploiting chinks was what Strika did best.

“Detected: unexplained Energon build-up,” the giant said, wobbling back to upright position. “Initiating scanning procedure. Scanning: multiple foreign Energon deposits detected. Suggested action: trans…”

He never got to finish the sentence. The first of the “eggs” exploded, tearing his claw arm loose. A chain reaction of detonations thundered down the centre of his chest plate, splitting him into his components. More “eggs” severed his legs and other arm. Strika made certain she was looking the dying giant right in the optics for the final explosion; she relished the utter disbelief on his face plate moments before his head evaporated.

As pieces hit the floor, she looked around. Omega Sentinel’s throw, and the resultant chase, had taken her deep into the bowels of what she was convinced was a star cruiser. “Why,” she asked aloud, “would anyone wish to unearth our history?”

She scratched, absently, at a mild irritation on the back of her neck. Then another, under her arm. More irritation flared across her chest plate and shoulders – had she picked up a form of rust-spot rash, crashing through that wall?

“All enemiezzz of the True Path will die,” a tiny voice buzzed. A neon green and purple helicopter – no bigger than a wasp, to her – was weaving in and out of her bodywork, firing off miniature missiles. She had to strain to hear it.

“Buzzsaw not going to let big ladybot ruin all of Predacon’zzz planzzz,” the ‘copter cried indignantly. “Buzzsaw been on zzztupid purple planet for too many yearzzz, juzzzt want to be going home azzz zzzoon azzz pozzzible! Big ladybot not delaying Buzzsaw’zzz flight, not for anything!”

With the flick of a finger, Strika swatted the pest. The ‘copter hurtled into one of the ornate walls, coughed piteously, and dropped to the floor with a plink.

“I’m afraid your further egress stands in contrary to my desires,” someone yelled.

Again, her progress was blocked – somewhat – by a tiny creature. This one was an odd being whose body displayed elements of both technology and organic life. It was vaguely reptilian and its face was a nightmare of fangs, lips and exposed wiring.

“This is fast becoming an annoyance,” she deadpanned.

“Then I would do all I can to spare you further consternation,” it said, “by bidding you turn back, and leave the Omega Lock, lest consequences result. I have no wish to engage in a pugilistic debate with you, Grounder.”

“Consequences?” Strika laughed. The unarmed lizard-bot stood no taller than one of her foot tyres. “What possible consequences could you bring to bear on me?”

“Long years of study,” he replied, his tone that of a lecture, “have revealed to me that many of the theories we hold to be truth are but the understandings of feeble minds. Conversely, that which we would decry as myth and legend is based around an indisputable core of truth; such that its potency should be unquestioned.

“Throughout this continuum and the myriad other realms – constituting, in their totality, reality both as it is and should be known – there are more ‘things’, to use a common vernacular, than one such as yourself could conceive of given your processor.”

Strika glowered. “Did you just call me a mere femme?” she thundered.

“Not at all, dear lady,” the lizard hissed. “My meaning is simply this: what you do not know will kill you.”

Mottled arms spread with and clawed the air with long talons. The space around them exploded with white light, driving knives of pain into Strika’s optics. Waves of heat scalded her and stripped paint from her bodywork. Forcing her optics open, she could just make out the shape of the lizard as he raised his arms above his head… and slammed the bubbles of white energy together.

The combined energies leaped and writhed with dizzying force. Gravitational pressures whipped up, like a cyclone, in the enclosed space to buffet Strika. The eruption of power hit the gilded walls and rebounded, slamming into her from both sides. One of her arms crushed instantly, rendering it useless. Both knees bent at angles not included in her design specs. Her armour… her precious, empowering armour… was torn free and flung into the tempest, then carried away into the darkness.

“No,” she croaked.

The gale force died down. She fell to the floor; the winds had been the only thing keeping her upright. Her jaw slammed into unyielding metal and a wave of nausea rushed through her neural net; no other system would respond to stimuli. Her brain, though addled, was fully functional… in a body that was all but dead weight. Her optics worked, though they were likely dim to an outside observed. She could see one of her useless arms; so much paint had been stripped from it that raw, grey steel was exposed. Quite literally, she looked like death, even though her Spark was still aflame and her processor still whirred.

For all the good that does me, she wailed silently, as a quadriplegic.

Her attacker dropped his arms, favoured her with a fetid grin and tended to his fallen comrade. The ‘copter, who had been knocked offline by the impact, was dazed. “How did freaky lizard bot take down big ladybot without gunzzz?” it asked.

“My working knowledge of this vessel’s peculiarities is expansive, nearly voluminous,” the talkative creep replied. “There are in-built defence systems, above and beyond our late friend the Omega Sentinel, that I might employ should the need arise.”

Internal defence system? Unlikely, she thought. That felt more like the power of a Force Chip, albeit on an infinite scale. The lizard wishes to hide something from his dull-witted friend.

“What we do with big ladybot?” the ‘copter asked. “Can’t juzzzt leave her there.”

“We can,” the lizard corrected him, “and will. She is of no further concern to us, as this section of the Omega Lock will be uninhabited during our journey. Within cycles, the Flyers will have amassed enough Energon to power the engines. Thus we will rocket forth from this dismal rock and make all haste to Cybertron, where this craft can be reunited with its creator and execute our design.”

“Zzztill…” the ‘copter was not convinced. “Leavezzz big mezzz lying around the place. Predacon not too keen on wazzzte, you know.”

“My dear Buzzsaw,” the lizard leered, “whatever makes you think our fallen femme will go to waste? That she is no longer our concern does not speak to the use others may find within her desiccated, Sparkless remains.”

They left Strika as she plumbed the depths of her internal repair system in vain – everything was offline save her mind, eyes and Spark. She could not rouse her emergency distress beacon, which would have summoned every Grounder in a 1000km radius. Just as she had been all those millions of years ago, she was trapped and…

… no. Not alone. Horribly not alone.

She heard the tapping first. Then the scuttling. Scraping noises came next, as they always did, before the cackling began. Had she any sensation, revulsion would have rippled through her lame body as a phalanx of Flyers climbed onto her. Blue, red and yellow vermin scurried around her, dipping their spider-like heads into her wounds, scavenging whatever they could find. One yellow Flyer hung back from the rest… he stood near her optics, clicking his robot-mode fingers to make sparks of electricity jump in the air.

“I doubt we’ll learn anything new from this old bag,” he said snidely, “but there’s no harm in checking, is there?”

With a chorus of giggles, the gathered Flyers activated their shoulder-mounted cutting blades. Strika could not truly feel their serrated undersides biting into her chassis… could not cry out in anguish.

But that was all right. Her mind screamed for her.

Chapter Text

It was refreshing, Chromia thought, to come across a mech she couldn’t twist around her little finger.

That was one reason she enjoyed a duty that, when you thought about it, was as menial as you could get. Ordering a femme to go on the weekly supply run was… well, as mech as you could get. Given all she’d been through in her life (to ensure she was a combat-ready, front-line warrior), she should have been insulted.

Instead, Chromia was grateful for the quiet, trouble-free couple of hours provided by each week’s supply run.

For one, it was a chance to get away from the slobbering, over-heated mechs of the True Path. Their attitudes, of late, made Chromia’s circuits glitch. She was used to being stared at (she was one of the most beautifully-designed Transformers of all time, who wouldn’t stare?) but not like this. The Terrorcons… especially those who had undergone the Transmetal process… leered at her like a scrap of Energon, or a commodity to be controlled, or a plain to be conquered.

She’d lost count of the number of times she’d found Wreckloose skulking in the corner of her room (just watching). Of how often she’d found Battle Ravage following her (dreamily inhaling her exhaust fumes). Of how regularly small fights would break out as she entered or exited a room (clashes between technorganic animals, puffing their chests or plumage to catch her attention).

It was the organics, she’d decided. She’d opted to do a bit of research and disgusted herself with the details of organic copulation (how grotesque!) and reproduction (how messy – all those fluids!). That sort of base, animalistic thinking must have been transferred to the Terrorcons. Repugnant as it was, they were… on heat.

Repugnant, yes, but the concept of seduction was not alien to her. Though nothing like the fleshy grinding of organic life, Transformers felt desire. For them, it was based on appreciation for another’s capabilities, intelligence or hardware. Often it was attraction to a specific design, not unlike the human idea of sexuality (she herself had a thing for edges – the more keen, or serrated, the cut of a wing or shape of an armoured limb, the more she liked it).

Chromia’s alt mode was fast, armed to the teeth and powerful. Her robot mode was lithe, curved in the midsection and wicked sharp on the extremities. Her design was such it appealed to a broad range of femmes and mechs – meaning she could charm her way into any place and walk out, every time (with exactly what she wanted). Seduction was not alien to her… it was a weapon.

Except on the supply run, and when it came to Swindle.

He was the second thing she enjoyed about the supply run. Not because she fancied him (Primus, no – he was built like a box) but because he presented a challenge. The black marketeer was a greasy professional; his only interest the art of the deal and his only desire a bargain. Swindle scarcely cared what shape a chassis was, so long as he could sell it for a profit (and add another name to his bulging file of suckers).

Each and every week, Chromia tried to use her charms to draw a better price out of Swindle. Each and every week, she went home disappointed and he went home rich. It was their game and she enjoyed it as much as she had tormenting Sharkticon and, now, twisting Snarl into an emotional wreck (manipulation was the thing, after all).

She pulled into dock and activated her holo-matter avatar. Knowing the importance of “sex and dazzle”, Chromia had chosen a 23-year-old French Canadian pop star as her humanoid “self”. It had been a good selection. Signing forged autographs was fun, and befuddling hapless, lust-crazed males was even more delicious. Half the negative tabloid press stories about the singer were Chromia’s fault (gleefully, she was manipulating life forms she’d never even met!).

Her avatar, clad in a spectacularly small black leather bikini, waved to a man on the dock. He was balding, heavyset and unshaven, dressed in a white singlet and ugly tracksuit pants. A thick gold chain was looped around his neck, its medallion dangling atop his hairy chest. The man sat in the driver’s seat of a battered yellow military jeep; its Decepticon symbol was partly obscured by caked-on mud.

“Hey there,” she crooned, causing her avatar to arch seductively and sigh. “It’s really hot today, eh? God, it’s the sort of weather where you could just get naked.”

Swindle’s expression didn’t change. The “holo-man” nodded, once, as he got up and walked to the rear of the jeep. The Decepticon was towing a small, tarp-covered trailer. Beneath the flimsy material was this week’s shipment of Energon and ammunition. It couldn’t have come at a better time – the Terrorcons were scarily low on stock following that Flame Convoy ruckus.

“No trouble finding the place?” Swindle asked. His dupe looked about constantly, wary of being detected by Autobots or, worse, Decepticons. Rumour held Starscream had no idea his munitions manufacturer was furnishing the “other side”. Knowing the Air Commander as she did, Chromia doubted such initiative would be rewarded.

She willed her avatar to climb up on the deck and drape itself around Swindle’s dupe. “I’d never have any trouble finding you,” she said breathily. “You’re almost magnetic, you know that? Not to mention…” she dropped to a whisper, “gorgeous.”

Swindle bristled. “Save the venom for the next mech you bite,” he growled. “You want sweets, you pay the piper. Smooth talk’s for rubes, and rubes are my customers not my staff. Got it, lady femme?”

Chromia pouted adorably. “Bah, you’re no fun. Not even when you pick your avatar off a late-night cartoon.”

The con’s holo-eyes widened. “You watch this show?”

“Terrorcons on heat,” she said despairingly. “It pays not to sleep. And a girl’s got to find something to occupy her time, even if it is a talking meatball.”

She was lying, of course – not about watching the show (that was sadly true… mindless human drivel) by about why she didn’t take rest cycles at night. Lusty Terrorcons were easily dispatched – but a homicidal, revenge-obsessed Sharkticon? Now that was a different matter.

It stank, having lost such a useful tool. Chromia had forced Sharkticon into her service when he was at his lowest ebb – exhausted, starving and at the mercy of a weakling Autobot miner. The proud, secretive serial killer had no choice but to submit to her whims and, for 10 years, she’d gotten much mileage out of him. Sharkticon had slagged a couple of potential rivals for her… pulled the overtime and extra duties with which she couldn’t be bothered… taken her place on hairy reconnaissance missions. He’d performed tasks (both degrading and violent) and she’d gotten the credit. All thanks to his obsession with secrecy, with hiding his natural predator’s skill.

Until recently, anyway, when he’d kicked her skid plate in her own quarters. In the time since, Chromia had endured all the beatings she could take at the hands of her unhinged former flunky. Now, she made it her practice to take “naps” far away from the base (and when he was on duty). Until Snarl was good and warped… ready to first take on Sharkticon, then take his place as her smitten little mech-toy… discretion was the better part of valour.

“Chromia!”

The grating voice yelled directly into her head, splitting her processor with pain. Oh, how she loathed the new inter-Terrorcon radio system Sky Shadow had developed, thanks to his new “insight” into Autobot technology.

“Chromia! Respond immediately!”

“Put it on pause for a klick,” she told Swindle. “The boss is calling.”

She pulled her primary consciousness back out of the avatar. A small virtual view screen opened up on the inside of her left optic. Predacon’s less-than-flattering features glared at her. “Have you completed your task, Chromia?”

“For the glory of the Path,” she replied, as sweetly as she could, “I have.”

“Hmmph,” the zealot groused. “You will now focus your efforts on these co-ordinates. There is an item of some value located there… a fragment of the gods, shall we say. Yes. Satellite images located it; you will retrieve it and make all speed to the Transmetal chamber. End transmission.”

And just like that he was gone, leaving behind telemetry. More bread crumbs to follow, she sneered. One of these days, he’ll have to clue us all into his master plan, and this random slag we do will make some sense!

She turned her attentions back to Swindle. Unfortunately, she was no longer in the mood for flirtation. “Your account’s been credited, as always,” she said.

“How wonderful to hear you in a business mood,” the creep grinned. “This week, let me say, it’s been a pleasure. See you in seven days, hmm?”

Chromia didn’t bother answering – there was no fun in it. Next week would be different (she’d finally get under his armour, she just knew it!). Swindle reversed, dumped the goods into her cargo hold and drove off without a backward glance. She followed, gunning her main turbine and making for open water.

-----

“Keep snapping, boys – there’s plenty for everyone!”

It took concentration to re-shape a holo-matter being. As a tool, they were very much WYSIWYG – “what you see is what you get”. Clothing, for example, was not a layer atop the simulated flesh but part of the avatar itself (if you got close enough, you’d see where “material” merged with “skin”). But for those willing to put in the effort, and spend a little time getting to know their technology, the benefits were plentiful.

The fake human flashed and flaunted her simulated breasts for the men on the next boat over. Chromia, meanwhile, worked on salvaging Predacon’s prize.

They have cameras – wonderful! she enthused. There’d been no choice but to play seductress this time. She’d arrived at the co-ordinates only to find herself sharing water with a luxury yacht. The strapping young men aboard were most interested in a pretty young girl sailing what looked to be a combat skiff.

“It’s the latest thing,” her puppet had called. “The Hummer of the waves, baby!”

They’d accepted that. And, thanks to bare “flesh”, they’d ignored the pulley system Chromia had deployed to retrieve the object. She cackled just a little, making a mental note to check the entertainment channels later on. Surely one of those boozed-up bozos had a video camera and the need for a quick buck.

Chromia concentrated on the job… which, she had to admit, was a little disconcerting. She’d checked and double-checked the co-ordinates Predacon had sent, and they matched the island on which they’d all battled Flame Convoy (a fragment of the gods, indeed). Yet there was no sign of the deserted spit of sand… no palm trees, not even a floating coconut. It was, to say the very least, damn creepy.

Still, she wasn’t about to let that botch her mission. Life as a Terrorcon was pretty sweet. Less regimented than the stifling Decepticon forces, plenty of mooks to twist (when they weren’t on heat), and Earth was a nicer place than Cybertron any day of the week. As much as her natural inclination was to raise hell and ruin lives, she knew she needed to protect her spot.

Unlike some people, she knew the value of allegiances.

Seeing Thundercracker again had brought up old (and uncomfortable) feelings. Chromia still remembered how much they’d had in common – a love of explosions and a snide attitude toward authority. She thought of what a hot couple they’d been – she was gorgeous and manipulative, he was dreamily lethal. Sometimes she’d reminisce about the hapless Autobots they’d terrified on the battlefield (including one little pink femme Chromia had recently come to loathe). They’d been such a perfect match, she’d even changed her name (not that he’d known that).

Sadly, their similarities were only armour-deep, while their differences went right to the strut. “Thunderblast” was a willing cog in the Decepticon war machine. As long as she got Energon, munitions and something to shoot, she was happy. Being surrounded by screw-loose processors she could torment was a bonus prize. But Thundercracker, he droned on and on about “the Decepticon ideal”! She could still hear her response (“We have an ideal besides mayhem?”) which, of course, went down like an Autobot off the Tower of Pion.

“Down?” she gasped.

Panicking, she realised she was sinking. There was a drag on the salvage line – and loaded with cargo like Chromia was, there’d be no way her turbines could compensate. Quickly, she willed her holo-chick to follow an automated sub-routine (file #143: incorrigible flirt), cracked her hull and raised the mini-bulkheads.

“Shell formers”, like Chromia, could leave their alt-modes behind (even when heavily-laden with goodies) and take off as robots – albeit robots missing half their armour and 80 per cent of their weaponry. Still, being left with a smile and a pulse blaster was better than being dragged under by whatever had snagged her salvage line.

The purple uni-beam, mounted in the centre of her chest plate, activated and lit her way. Small turbines on her calves sped her progress… even though she wasn’t completely sure she wanted to meet the dweller in the depths. Her mind ran through a thousand different possibilities, from Autobots to a zombie Flame Convoy.

But there was nothing there. Nothing save the object she’d been sent to recover. It lay on the ocean floor, half-buried in sand and caught securely in her tow line.

She switched off her uni-beam and clamped the pulse blaster to her leg. The large, dark sphere looked as if it had been wrapped in silver bands and carved with inscrutable symbols. Its surface was punctuated with open “window” panels, set in between the argent swirls. The orb was big but hollow (she could tell when she rapped her knuckles on it).

Whatever had once been inside the ball was long gone; she couldn’t guess why Predacon wanted it. Nor could she figure out why someone would be playing tug-of-war with her for it.

The waters eddied, looping seaweed around her ankle. She bent down to remove it… only to find it wasn’t seaweed. A single jet-black finger had snaked around her joint, blazing the trail for four more. An obsidian hand held her tightly as the ocean floor ruptured and vomited up Sharkticon!

“Oh, for the love of frack,” she spat angrily.

The aquatic warrior pulled himself out of the sand and hung her upside-down. Emerald eyes glowing malevolently, he looked her chassis over… her weaker, unprotected inner chassis… and shook his head disapprovingly.

“Hardly your Sunday best, isn’t it?” he sneered, brushing errant bits of sand from his boy work. The grains floated away in the ocean current. “But that is why I wanted to speak with you right now.”

Chromia folded her arms and scowled. She was terrified of another beating, but determined not to show it. “What do you want, fin-face?”

He smiled. “Closure.” The word dripped from his face mask like liquid Energon. “An end to our old deal, Chromia. And, call me crazy…”

“Frelling insane is what you are!”

“… but the synchronicity of meeting, like this, appeals. After all: I was weak and vulnerable when we met, as you are now. I was low on Energon and poorly armed – descriptors that would fit you, currently. I was on a mission of replenishment and survival, just as you were before Predacon diverted you here.”

“Predacon is going to kill you, idiot,” she threatened. “He wants that bauble over there, and he wants the supplies I’m carrying, so…”

Her words caught in her throat. Sharkticon had taken a piece of metal from his subspace pocket and held it up. It was a battle-scarred Autobot insignia.

“A gift from the late Signal Flare,” he muttered. “Another bit of synchronicity. His death left me in your servitude and, now, his remains will guarantee my freedom and seal my revenge.”

Chromia’s optics widened. “You can’t do this!”

“Of course I can, silly femme,” he chuckled affectionately. “I’ve been covering up murders for centuries. When I’m done here, Predacon will have no problem believing you were slagged by… Nightbeat, perhaps. You’ll be written off as a casualty of war and my past 10 years will be little but an unpleasant memory.”

“You don’t have to do this,” she pleaded, changing tactics. “I swear I won’t tell anyone about you – the deal’s off, all right? Contract cancelled. I’ve suffered enough beatings to know what you’ll do if I try and play you again. Please!”

Again, Sharkticon shook his head and tutted. “We both know how unlikely that is, pet,” he crooned. He brought up his arm, baring the jagged blades set into his gauntlets. “Now shhh... this will be long and painful, and you’re going to need all your energy for screaming.”

He slashed with his right arm; it was his first mistake. Without her shell, Chromia was far more flexible and supple than normal. She spun her waist joint, turned back-to-front and reached for her heels. She slammed her fists into Sharkticon’s; he yelped and let go of her. Calf turbines activated, kicking up a pair of mini whirlpools as she righted her alignment. The femme sped away, her wake muddying the waters – quite literally – in front of her attacker’s optics.

Chromia kept firing, desperate to keep Sharkticon off her tail. In the past she’d watched, gleefully, as he’d taken out her personal targets; reveled in his utter depravity and cold-oiled callousness. Never had she wanted his murderous attentions turned on her – and especially not underwater. A boat she may be, but her home was above the waves. Down here, the mech was every inch her superior.

She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw he wasn’t there. A rocky outcrop beckoned; Chromia slipped behind it and took cover.

“It’s not going to work, Chromia,” Sharkticon called. The water was interfering with her audio receptors – she couldn’t tell from which direction his voice came. “You can’t escape me for long. Without your shell, you’re weak… nearly defenceless. You’ll run out of Energon quickly. You’re cut off from ammunition. Face it, femme – you’re already slagged. Hiding will just add another few vorns to your torment. That much I promise.”

She shivered. Why oh why had she tried to enslave one of Cybertron’s greatest hunters? What possessed her to cage a beast that had wiped out hundreds, if not thousands, of Transformers without anyone having noticed? Hubris, stupid hubris. Now she was going to die, her plans undone or unfinished, at the bottom of a wretched ocean – her grave marked by a dead Autobot’s insignia!

“You’re nothing but the power of suggestion – a ghost story, a horror movie,” Signal Flare had spat. “Sneaking and lurking and killing from the shadows. Face to face, you’ve got no sway, no abilities… you’re just a fish in a net.”

Her head jerked up at the memory. “The little drip was right,” she breathed. “Sharkticon’s the sum of his reputation, nothing more. Every kill he’s got came out of deception; he’d sneak up on mechs who thought it was safe to turn their backs! He’s no hunter – he’s an eater of carrion… every bit the coward he pretends to be!”

Sharkticon was an extremely effective myth; a legend for a craven weakling to hide behind. Chromia, however, was a Decepticon warrior. A master manipulator. One of the famed (and justly feared) front-line femmes. But above all, she was a Decepticon who’d been trained by the best hand-to-hand combatant in the history of Cybertron – and a femme who’d shared that warrior’s recharging bay, and all his secrets.

She grinned. Though Sharkticon didn’t know it, the tables had just turned.

It took concentration to re-shape a holo-matter being. As a tool, they were very much WYSIWYG – “what you see is what you get”. But for those willing to put in the effort, and spend a little time getting to know their technology, the benefits were plentiful. And, with the proper concentration, immediate.

Chromia’s half-naked avatar dove into the water. As the fake pop-star swam further down, toward the ocean floor, she began to change shape. With every stroke she turned a little greener… her form elongated a little more… her soft curves hardened. By the time it came into Sharkticon’s scanner range, the holo-matter creation looked nothing like a French Canadian pop star and, instead, vividly resembled…

“Bulkhead!”

Sharkticon’s panic was palpable. The Terrorcon lifted his arms and spun his launchers into place. Two green-hued missiles rocketed toward the (in reality poorly-crafted) doppelganger and buried themselves in it. “Bulkhead” winced as he floated slightly to the side… revealing himself to be paper-thin. That was the problem with holo-matter: you only had so much of it to use and, if you went big, you also had to go skinny.

Munitions exploded and dazzling light flashed through the water. Sharkticon, who had cycled his optics for the darkness of the ocean, was instantly blinded. Chromia wasted no time – she scrambled from her hiding place and jumped on her former servant’s back. She drove the spikes on her knees up into his armpits, and buried the heels of her boot-like feet into his thighs. There she clung, wrapped around his shell-like back, and emptied her pulse blaster into his head.

Four of her shots did damage but his armoured helm was too thick – many more simply glanced off. Though blinded, Sharkticon was still able to move, and he slashed at her with his gauntlets. He connected with her left arm, severing nerve cables. The limb went dead and he laughed, smelling the oil in the water. Sharkticon brought his elbows back, trying to impale Chromia with his arm blades. He missed but only barely – steel shavings floated from her chassis and were whipped away.

“Cute trick, femme,” he growled, trying to degauss his optics, “and a nice try.” Two more missiles locked into place within his launchers. “Your last try.”

“It would be,” she rasped, “if you hadn’t just played into my hands one last time, chump.” Chromia pulled her legs from his frame and lowered her pulse blaster. As she activated her turbines, she pumped three shots into the right-hand launcher.

Detonation.

The shockwave threw her further back than a turbine ever could. Chromia savoured the sight of her patsy… her tormentor… being shredded by his own weaponry. She waited until the fireworks died down and then floated back.

Mighty hunter had well and truly become pathetic prey. His nigh-on indestructible shell had turned against him, catching much of the explosive impact and propelling it back toward him. Both his legs, and most of his abdomen, had disintegrated; his left arm was shattered, his right arm hanging from a mass of melted wiring. Parts of his chassis were already steel grey but the colour change was slow, as if he were dying molecule by molecule.

“You’ve got to love the synchronicity of it, don’t you?” Chromia sneered, leaning in close. “Ten years ago, I learned all about you by watching your annihilation of an Autobot assault team. You thought yourself the butcher of the bogs, all high-and-mighty. And I’m sure your favourite kill, that day, was Storm Jet. How clever you were, turning his own arsenal against him. Detonating another warrior’s payload is such a courageous, strong thing to do now, isn’t it?”

She stood up and gave his dismembered corpse a good kick. “I should be thanking you, really. For centuries, I thought I needed a mech in my life – for companionship, protection and back-up. Thundercracker started all of that and, when he left me, I did whatever I could to lure other mechs into my web… like you, fin-face.

“But here we are. You’re on your skid plate, having been annihilated by me. All by my lonesome! Puts quite a new spin on things, doesn’t it? Maybe I’ve been thinking too small, all these vorns – downplaying my own abilities. If I can take down a gutless coward like you, what’s to stop me working my way up to, say, a real hunter like Battle Ravage? Or a zealot like Predacon? Heck… what’s to stop me going for top spot, rather than just playing games behind the scenes?”

Chromia bent down and gave Sharkticon a kiss on the cheek. He gurgled, trying vainly to speak.

“Hush, little fishy,” she soothed. “I could thank you by taking this pulse blaster, shoving it into one of your wounds and ending your misery.”

The killer’s optics widened imploringly. He made muffled noises and tried to nod.

“I should… but I won’t,” she snickered. “You had your wicked way with me far too many times of late, Sharkticon, so mercy’s out of the question.”

She plonked herself down on the ocean floor, crossed her legs and spent a pleasant hour watching Sharkticon die. The way his armour turned from orange and blue to dull grey… the slight pulsing, then fading of his optics… the static discharge she felt, all across her bodywork, when his Spark extinguished… it was mesmerising.

“On the whole, this has been a pretty good day,” she sighed.

Chromia hefted the sphere under one arm (she was right; it was as light as a feather) and swam back to her shell. The human males on the nearby yacht were peering closely at her alt mode, no doubt looking for the pop star who’d dove into the water more than an hour earlier. Suddenly, she was sick of their dumb faces.

The air around her rippled as sub-space pockets opened. In seconds, her deck cannon, missile launcher and Energon torpedos were back in their rightful places. The jocks had less than a minute to comprehend their fates before she opened fire, reducing the boat to splinters and their weak organic bodies to pulp.

“Ciao, darlings,” she called lightly.

-----

“Magnificent,” Predacon said reverently.

“I know I am, boss,” Chromia replied, stretching her chassis lazily across the Transmetal control console.

“Not you, simpleton,” he growled, “this. The device that, soon, will be known as the crowning glory in the arsenal of the True Path!”

She snorted. “It’s a big hollow ball. So flipping what?”

Predacon’s nostrils flared. He raised his hand as if to strike her. Chromia met his outrage with a cool, even look. She set her jaw defiantly while keeping her relaxed, seductive pose. “So. Flipping. What.”

The zealot flinched and lowered his hand. “We’ll discuss your… less than devout… attitude later,” he rasped. “There are more important matters to which I must attend.”

“Oh, goody,” she deadpanned.

He ignored her and turned around, opening his arms wide. It was as if he sought to embrace all the other Terrorcons in the room – meaning every other Transformer that had sided with the high priest of technorganics. All the cultists, from little Side Burn up to creepy ol’ Bludgeon, were there. All save Sharkticon… and if anyone noticed his absence, no one commented.

“What Chromia has recovered, this day, is the empty Spark chamber of the fallen god known as Flame Convoy,” he proclaimed grandly. “Yes. Older Transformers, such as he, contained their life forces within Matrix-like devices. It was not until after the exile of the 13 that Transformer life as we know it – a Spark suffusing every inch of a chassis – came to exist. This I have learned through my connection with the Green Planet Key… the object that fires the great forge of the Plasma Energy Chamber.”

Chromia scanned the crowd, locked optics with Snarl, and winked. The white wolf of Animatros demurred, unsure how to respond. The femme laughed (just because she didn’t need a mech didn’t mean she couldn’t cultivate one, just in case).

“And like that mighty chamber, this Spark core is composed of metal at its most ancient and – dare I say it? – primal. More than anyone here, it is a piece of the flesh of Primus itself; divinity in corporeal form. As we all know, creation was but the start of the evolution we Transformers must undergo, if we are to achieve perfection. Transmetal is a step further along that Path and this… this is nirvana.”

The Terrorcons leaned in. The devout were breathless (Skid-Z would’ve been in fits, were he still online). The sceptics were intrigued by an object of such power. Chromia was just bored; the sooner Predacon shut up, the sooner she could have a long, relaxing oil bath. Maybe she’d ask Snarl to help balance her floatation tanks.

“More than a Spark core, this orb is a driver,” Predacon cried, his voice reaching a crescendo. “One that, combined with the holy Transmetal process, with bring about the advent of the ultimate Cybertronian life form: the Transmetal II!”