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wyntir_knightTitle: The Devil You Know
Series: G1 universe, focusing on Original characters
Rating: R
Summary: In the early days of the civil war on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime authorized several refugee vessels to take Neutrals away from the planet in hopes that they could start peaceful colonies where they would be safe. Many of these refugees were never heard from again; lost to us through time and distance. But history does record the fate of one of the vessels. The Stormchaser was three orns away from its destination when it was shot down by Decepticons in an act of cowardice and deceit. There were no survivors. That is what history tells us. But in this case, history is wrong.
Author's Note: Day 19, and nothing really to add except taht I am bouncy happy :) ... though, once again, the characters are undergoing a personality change.
33430 / 50000 words. 67% done!
Chapter 14
“What do you mean we shouldn’t continue to the city?” Windsaber demanded.
“Those who took me were headed there. I think that they want us to go. I think they’re setting up an ambush,” Syzygy replied.
“Why should we believe you?” Waverunner demanded. “You expect us to believe that you just fell out of their grasp? That you just happened to end up where we’d be sure to find you?”
“Why would I lie?” Syzygy asked. “What could I possibly have to gain from that?”
“I don’t know,” Waverunner sneered. “What did our enemies promise you?”
Syzygy looked like she had been slapped.
“Waverunner!” she cried out, scandalized. “How could you even think this? We’ve been together for vorns and I have never once lied to you! How could you believe treachery from me?”
“Stop this!” Arclight demanded. “She is injured and I need to look her over. She does not need to be interrogated!”
She turned to Windsaber and presented her bound hands.
“Now let me go so I can do my job!”
Windsaber looked at her and pursed his lips. Then, deliberately, he turned from Arclight and back to Syzygy.
“How exactly did you get away?” he asked.
“I told you, they dropped me here,” she replied.
“Earlier you said that they left you behind,” Waverunner said smugly. “Now which is it?”
“I … what?” she asked looking confused and weak. “Waverunner, what does it matter?”
“If you are a traitor then it most certainly matters,” Waverunner said. “Why should we believe you when you can’t even keep your story straight?”
“What if they left her here to sow dissent” Updraft asked.
“You stay out of this,” Waverunner growled. “I do not need you influencing the others.”
“Agreed,” Windsaber said. “We will question her without all of you here.”
He motioned for the assembled to disperse and, slowly, with long gazes the Neutrals moved away. Arclight, however, stayed put refusing to leave Syzygy’s side.
“I told you to leave,” Windsaber growled. “Now go away!”
“I most certainly will not!” Arclight said. “I will not leave her alone when she’s in the state she is. I may not be able to do as much as I need to with my hands bound, but the least I can do is keep an eye on her, and do what I can.”
Windsaber’s jaw bunched and his left optic twitched slightly as he glared at Arclight. Slowly he moved in on her, until there was only a hair’s breadth of space between them. Silently he reached down and took her hands, moving as if he was about to remove her bonds. Gently, he took her hands in his, running an index finger down her thumb and around her wrists. It seemed like he was looking for the lock to unbind her cuffs and she relaxed but did not take her eyes off the Seeker, refusing to allow the sensations he was causing to show on her face. Suddenly, his touch was not so tender. He enveloped her hand in his and began to squeeze, tightening his grip over her sensitive digits, causing her to gasp in pain.
“Now, unless you want me to divest you from your hand, you will do as you are told,” he said in a low growl.
“You can’t …,” she gasped but was cut off as he increased the pressure on her hand, squeezing until he wrenched a small cry from her vocalizer.
“Am I making myself clear?” he asked in a tone that broached no argument.
When he did not get an immediate response, he took her other hand and twisted, until he felt something begin to bend awkwardly in her wrist and the servos began to whine in protest of the abuse.
“Do you understand?” he asked again.
“Yes!” she screamed as the pain forced her to her knees.
“Good,” he replied as he let her go, leaving her to fall unceremoniously to the ground. “Come with me,” he said to Waverunner and Syzygy. “We will speak with you in private. … Oh, and Updraft?”
“Yes sir?” the pilot asked, halting his movement toward Arclight’s prone form.
“She can get up on her own or she does not get up at all,” Windsaber said. “Am I making myself clear?”
“Yea, uh, yes, sir. I … I understand,” Updraft stuttered.
He waited until Windsaber, Waverunner, and Syzygy moved to a private area behind a piece of wreckage before moving to kneel down beside Arclight. He placed his hand on her shoulder and cringed as she flinched away from him.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly.
She didn’t reply, but he saw her nod almost imperceptibly.
“You have to stop doing that,” he said softly as he unbound her hands. “You have to stop provoking him like that. Eventually what you are won’t help you any more and he will kill you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Arclight whispered. “No one else stepped up.”
“What?” Updraft asked, leaning in to hear what she said. “What do you mean? Of course it matters.”
Arclight sat up carefully, brought the medical visor down over her optics and began to examine her hands carefully, wincing slightly as she hit a sensitive area.
“It’s obvious that nothing I do matters; not when no one will back me up,” Arclight replied bitterly, not looking up at the pilot.
“Arclight, they’re frightened. They’re fighting their own demons, and they need to focus on themselves,” Updraft said.
Arclight ignored him. Instead she pulled out a medical laser and began to fix a loose plate on her left hand.
“You’re a Neutral, you how difficult it is for them back on Cybertron,” Updraft said. “Can you blame them for not wanting to put their necks out?”
“They’re going to question her until they get the answers they want to hear. She can’t handle that. Not in the state she’s in,” Arclight replied. “They are going to kill her and no one here cares.”
“I’ve known Windsaber a long time, and I can promise you this,” Updraft said solemnly. “He knows what he’s doing. He will question her, but he won’t kill her. And he won’t let Waverunner kill her either.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure that knowledge will help when I’m patching her up later,” Arclight grumbled.
“You’re not listening to me and you’re skewing things,” Updraft replied.
“I am not skewing anything,” Arclight bit out. “And what do you know about any of this?”
“Believe it or not, I haven’t always been a Decepticon,” Updraft said, as he settled down next to her.
“You actually chose this?” she asked incredulously, finally looking up at him.
She was so shocked that she about her laser welder for a moment and scorched her wrist slightly.
“Slag!” she swore as she applied a cryogenic freeze to the burned spot. “Spawn of a glitch!”
“Are you all right?” Updraft asked as he leaned over to look at her hand.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m fine. Don’t let this stop you from explaining yourself. How do you justify choosing to be a Decepticon?”
“I’m from Tyrest. I didn’t have much of a choice,” Updraft replied. “But the truth is, we Decepticons aren’t the tyrants the Autobots would have you believe. We do want peace. We just don’t want the … oppression the Autobots are providing.”
“The Autobots aren’t oppressive,” Arclight said as she finished working on her left hand, and began to focus on the right.
“Then why aren’t you one?” Updraft asked. “I thought that all the medics had joined up.”
“I wasn’t about to let the Autobots dictate who I could and could not heal,” Arclight replied with a shrug. “No one should be denied attention just because of their faction.”
“That’s very liberal of you,” Updraft said with an impressed nod. “And I take it from that that you lived in the Neutral Territories?”
“No, I was living in Iacon,” Arclight replied.
“So … you were living in an Autobot run state but you hadn’t declared your allegiance,” Updraft said. “Well then it’s no wonder you’re not sympathizing with these people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arclight demanded.
“Iacon is one of the cushiest states to live in. You have all the advantages of Autobot rule, and as long as you don’t look too hard, you don’t have any of the disadvantaged that other Neutrals face.”
Arclight refused to respond. Instead she focused angrily on her hand.
“Look, don’t be mad,” Updraft said. “I just want you to understand what it’s like for these people, so you can understand them a bit better. It wasn’t just the war that led these people to flee. They’re lives were terrible on Cybertron. Things in Iacon were good because the Autobots ensured it. But while the Crystal Towers shon and the Engergon Pools flowed, people were starving in the outer provinces.”
“Believe it or not, I do know that,” Arclight sneered.
“Yeah, logically, but have you ever really seen it?” Updraft asked, a sympathetic tone in his voice. “It’s one thing to know it, but it’s something else entirely to really see it.”
When Arclight didn’t respond, Updraft placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
“Just think about it before you judge them again,” Updraft said.
Arclight stopped her work and looked around at the Neutrals and looked at them, as if seeing them for the first time. She had been on the Stormchaser to deliver these people to their new home, but she to have returned to Cybertron afterwards. These people were never going to return. They were leaving everything they had ever known is the desperate hope that they might find something better.
As she contemplated this, Windsaber, Waverunner, and Syzygy stepped out from behind the wreckage. The Decepticon and Neutral leaders looked please, and Syzygy seemed none the worse for wear.
“I have decided that there is no reason to believe that Syzygy is working with the enemy,” Windsaber said to the assembled. “However I do believe that they left her here on purpose to sow doubt and descent among us.”
He stopped and looked at the Neutrals.
“We will continue to the City, but we will do so carefully. I want this place stripped of everything of use. Make a trailer if it will help us to carry the supplies. It will slow us, but I will not take us into this blind,” Windsaber continued. “Now get to work and do so quickly. I want you all rested and ready to go at first light.”
“One thing, if I may?” Syzygy asked, turning to Windsaber. “I think I know where we are.”
“How?” Updraft asked.
“I was an astronomer back on Cybertron,” Syzygy replied. “And from what I can see of the stars here, and what I know of our path, I think we’re on Wanlorque Ceti.”
“Well that’s great!” Updraft said. “If we know where we are, then that’s a start, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Syzygy said softly. “If we are where I think we are, then we may be in even more danger than we previously thought. Wanlorque Ceti was declared off limits during the Golden Age.”
“Do you know why?” Twostrike asked.
“No. The reasoning wasn’t part of the records, just that it was no one was to make planet fall under any circumstances.”
“I think I know the reasons,” a soft spoken voice said from the back of the crowd.
“You know? Then tell us Zenith,” Syzygy said.
A black and white mech stepped forward slowly and sat, his strange multi jointed legs folding under him awkwardly.
“If this is Wanlorque Ceti, then it’s one of the so called Lost Colonies,” he said. “I read about them while I was working for the Iacon Archives back in the early days of the war.”
Series: G1 universe, focusing on Original characters
Rating: R
Summary: In the early days of the civil war on Cybertron, Sentinel Prime authorized several refugee vessels to take Neutrals away from the planet in hopes that they could start peaceful colonies where they would be safe. Many of these refugees were never heard from again; lost to us through time and distance. But history does record the fate of one of the vessels. The Stormchaser was three orns away from its destination when it was shot down by Decepticons in an act of cowardice and deceit. There were no survivors. That is what history tells us. But in this case, history is wrong.
Author's Note: Day 19, and nothing really to add except taht I am bouncy happy :) ... though, once again, the characters are undergoing a personality change.
“What do you mean we shouldn’t continue to the city?” Windsaber demanded.
“Those who took me were headed there. I think that they want us to go. I think they’re setting up an ambush,” Syzygy replied.
“Why should we believe you?” Waverunner demanded. “You expect us to believe that you just fell out of their grasp? That you just happened to end up where we’d be sure to find you?”
“Why would I lie?” Syzygy asked. “What could I possibly have to gain from that?”
“I don’t know,” Waverunner sneered. “What did our enemies promise you?”
Syzygy looked like she had been slapped.
“Waverunner!” she cried out, scandalized. “How could you even think this? We’ve been together for vorns and I have never once lied to you! How could you believe treachery from me?”
“Stop this!” Arclight demanded. “She is injured and I need to look her over. She does not need to be interrogated!”
She turned to Windsaber and presented her bound hands.
“Now let me go so I can do my job!”
Windsaber looked at her and pursed his lips. Then, deliberately, he turned from Arclight and back to Syzygy.
“How exactly did you get away?” he asked.
“I told you, they dropped me here,” she replied.
“Earlier you said that they left you behind,” Waverunner said smugly. “Now which is it?”
“I … what?” she asked looking confused and weak. “Waverunner, what does it matter?”
“If you are a traitor then it most certainly matters,” Waverunner said. “Why should we believe you when you can’t even keep your story straight?”
“What if they left her here to sow dissent” Updraft asked.
“You stay out of this,” Waverunner growled. “I do not need you influencing the others.”
“Agreed,” Windsaber said. “We will question her without all of you here.”
He motioned for the assembled to disperse and, slowly, with long gazes the Neutrals moved away. Arclight, however, stayed put refusing to leave Syzygy’s side.
“I told you to leave,” Windsaber growled. “Now go away!”
“I most certainly will not!” Arclight said. “I will not leave her alone when she’s in the state she is. I may not be able to do as much as I need to with my hands bound, but the least I can do is keep an eye on her, and do what I can.”
Windsaber’s jaw bunched and his left optic twitched slightly as he glared at Arclight. Slowly he moved in on her, until there was only a hair’s breadth of space between them. Silently he reached down and took her hands, moving as if he was about to remove her bonds. Gently, he took her hands in his, running an index finger down her thumb and around her wrists. It seemed like he was looking for the lock to unbind her cuffs and she relaxed but did not take her eyes off the Seeker, refusing to allow the sensations he was causing to show on her face. Suddenly, his touch was not so tender. He enveloped her hand in his and began to squeeze, tightening his grip over her sensitive digits, causing her to gasp in pain.
“Now, unless you want me to divest you from your hand, you will do as you are told,” he said in a low growl.
“You can’t …,” she gasped but was cut off as he increased the pressure on her hand, squeezing until he wrenched a small cry from her vocalizer.
“Am I making myself clear?” he asked in a tone that broached no argument.
When he did not get an immediate response, he took her other hand and twisted, until he felt something begin to bend awkwardly in her wrist and the servos began to whine in protest of the abuse.
“Do you understand?” he asked again.
“Yes!” she screamed as the pain forced her to her knees.
“Good,” he replied as he let her go, leaving her to fall unceremoniously to the ground. “Come with me,” he said to Waverunner and Syzygy. “We will speak with you in private. … Oh, and Updraft?”
“Yes sir?” the pilot asked, halting his movement toward Arclight’s prone form.
“She can get up on her own or she does not get up at all,” Windsaber said. “Am I making myself clear?”
“Yea, uh, yes, sir. I … I understand,” Updraft stuttered.
He waited until Windsaber, Waverunner, and Syzygy moved to a private area behind a piece of wreckage before moving to kneel down beside Arclight. He placed his hand on her shoulder and cringed as she flinched away from him.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly.
She didn’t reply, but he saw her nod almost imperceptibly.
“You have to stop doing that,” he said softly as he unbound her hands. “You have to stop provoking him like that. Eventually what you are won’t help you any more and he will kill you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Arclight whispered. “No one else stepped up.”
“What?” Updraft asked, leaning in to hear what she said. “What do you mean? Of course it matters.”
Arclight sat up carefully, brought the medical visor down over her optics and began to examine her hands carefully, wincing slightly as she hit a sensitive area.
“It’s obvious that nothing I do matters; not when no one will back me up,” Arclight replied bitterly, not looking up at the pilot.
“Arclight, they’re frightened. They’re fighting their own demons, and they need to focus on themselves,” Updraft said.
Arclight ignored him. Instead she pulled out a medical laser and began to fix a loose plate on her left hand.
“You’re a Neutral, you how difficult it is for them back on Cybertron,” Updraft said. “Can you blame them for not wanting to put their necks out?”
“They’re going to question her until they get the answers they want to hear. She can’t handle that. Not in the state she’s in,” Arclight replied. “They are going to kill her and no one here cares.”
“I’ve known Windsaber a long time, and I can promise you this,” Updraft said solemnly. “He knows what he’s doing. He will question her, but he won’t kill her. And he won’t let Waverunner kill her either.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure that knowledge will help when I’m patching her up later,” Arclight grumbled.
“You’re not listening to me and you’re skewing things,” Updraft replied.
“I am not skewing anything,” Arclight bit out. “And what do you know about any of this?”
“Believe it or not, I haven’t always been a Decepticon,” Updraft said, as he settled down next to her.
“You actually chose this?” she asked incredulously, finally looking up at him.
She was so shocked that she about her laser welder for a moment and scorched her wrist slightly.
“Slag!” she swore as she applied a cryogenic freeze to the burned spot. “Spawn of a glitch!”
“Are you all right?” Updraft asked as he leaned over to look at her hand.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m fine. Don’t let this stop you from explaining yourself. How do you justify choosing to be a Decepticon?”
“I’m from Tyrest. I didn’t have much of a choice,” Updraft replied. “But the truth is, we Decepticons aren’t the tyrants the Autobots would have you believe. We do want peace. We just don’t want the … oppression the Autobots are providing.”
“The Autobots aren’t oppressive,” Arclight said as she finished working on her left hand, and began to focus on the right.
“Then why aren’t you one?” Updraft asked. “I thought that all the medics had joined up.”
“I wasn’t about to let the Autobots dictate who I could and could not heal,” Arclight replied with a shrug. “No one should be denied attention just because of their faction.”
“That’s very liberal of you,” Updraft said with an impressed nod. “And I take it from that that you lived in the Neutral Territories?”
“No, I was living in Iacon,” Arclight replied.
“So … you were living in an Autobot run state but you hadn’t declared your allegiance,” Updraft said. “Well then it’s no wonder you’re not sympathizing with these people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arclight demanded.
“Iacon is one of the cushiest states to live in. You have all the advantages of Autobot rule, and as long as you don’t look too hard, you don’t have any of the disadvantaged that other Neutrals face.”
Arclight refused to respond. Instead she focused angrily on her hand.
“Look, don’t be mad,” Updraft said. “I just want you to understand what it’s like for these people, so you can understand them a bit better. It wasn’t just the war that led these people to flee. They’re lives were terrible on Cybertron. Things in Iacon were good because the Autobots ensured it. But while the Crystal Towers shon and the Engergon Pools flowed, people were starving in the outer provinces.”
“Believe it or not, I do know that,” Arclight sneered.
“Yeah, logically, but have you ever really seen it?” Updraft asked, a sympathetic tone in his voice. “It’s one thing to know it, but it’s something else entirely to really see it.”
When Arclight didn’t respond, Updraft placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
“Just think about it before you judge them again,” Updraft said.
Arclight stopped her work and looked around at the Neutrals and looked at them, as if seeing them for the first time. She had been on the Stormchaser to deliver these people to their new home, but she to have returned to Cybertron afterwards. These people were never going to return. They were leaving everything they had ever known is the desperate hope that they might find something better.
As she contemplated this, Windsaber, Waverunner, and Syzygy stepped out from behind the wreckage. The Decepticon and Neutral leaders looked please, and Syzygy seemed none the worse for wear.
“I have decided that there is no reason to believe that Syzygy is working with the enemy,” Windsaber said to the assembled. “However I do believe that they left her here on purpose to sow doubt and descent among us.”
He stopped and looked at the Neutrals.
“We will continue to the City, but we will do so carefully. I want this place stripped of everything of use. Make a trailer if it will help us to carry the supplies. It will slow us, but I will not take us into this blind,” Windsaber continued. “Now get to work and do so quickly. I want you all rested and ready to go at first light.”
“One thing, if I may?” Syzygy asked, turning to Windsaber. “I think I know where we are.”
“How?” Updraft asked.
“I was an astronomer back on Cybertron,” Syzygy replied. “And from what I can see of the stars here, and what I know of our path, I think we’re on Wanlorque Ceti.”
“Well that’s great!” Updraft said. “If we know where we are, then that’s a start, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Syzygy said softly. “If we are where I think we are, then we may be in even more danger than we previously thought. Wanlorque Ceti was declared off limits during the Golden Age.”
“Do you know why?” Twostrike asked.
“No. The reasoning wasn’t part of the records, just that it was no one was to make planet fall under any circumstances.”
“I think I know the reasons,” a soft spoken voice said from the back of the crowd.
“You know? Then tell us Zenith,” Syzygy said.
A black and white mech stepped forward slowly and sat, his strange multi jointed legs folding under him awkwardly.
“If this is Wanlorque Ceti, then it’s one of the so called Lost Colonies,” he said. “I read about them while I was working for the Iacon Archives back in the early days of the war.”
