8.April.06

The Beginning

By: Sinead

Author’s Note: I’ve been tweaking this story for YEARS, and I’m probably still gonna tweak it. But I love it so much. It’s really a great and fun use of one of the types of story-formats that I haven’t had a chance to really use: starting in the present to tell a story of the past. I dunno why, but it feels as if it’s a more intimate view of the characters. *shrugs* Ah, well . . . I dedicate this story to Sapphire for being such a wonderful friend and sounding-board to me for all these years. I’m grateful for the time she’s taken out of her schedule to talk.

~< Part One >~

Airazor felt that she needed to talk to someone. She was out on patrol, and there was no Predacon activity whatsoever. Night was falling, so she decided to head back to the base. Before too long, she saw a most unlikely duo: A Velociraptor and a human walking together, talking animatedly, discussing a point.

“Hello down there!” Airazor called, chuckling at her rare discovery.

The two beings looked up, and Awn’néad waved. Airazor flew closer, and landed next to them, smiling.

“What brings the Goddess of the Wild to grace the humble warriors with her presence?” Awn’néad teased, bowing low.

Airazor chuckled again. “I feel like talking.”

Dinobot snorted contemptuously, then said, “There will be plenty of time to talk at the base.”

“Why don’t you go and head back. Tell Optimus that I’ll call him in a while?” Awn’néad suggested, seeing something in Airazor’s face that prompted her to pause and talk with her.

“He’ll come after you, and order you to return,” Dinobot snarled.

In answer, Awn’néad pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen out of her messenger’s bag that she carried, and wrote a brief note on it, explaining that she’d be back by nine o’clock the next morning with Airazor. “If I write a note, he’ll listen. Optimus knows my handwriting like you know my fighting style.”

“Why do you wish to stay with her?” Dinobot asked.

“Because I’d like to know her better. Just like I wanted to know you better when I first met you,” Awn’néad answered cooly.

Dinobot snarled to himself, watching her face and eyes, seeing her mother in them. After a moment though, he snorted, having to keep a front up with Airazor around. “I will deliver your message to Primal. Good night.”

And with that, Dinobot took the folded piece of paper, and ran off.

“I guess that he isn’t in the greatest of moods today,” Airazor said, smiling.

Awn’néad chuckled. “Actually, for him, that is as optimistic as he gets around you other Maximals.”

The Falcon and the human walked toward a cave in a hillside nearby. Airazor smiled, and blinked at the human. “What do you mean, by ‘you other Maximals’?”

“When I’m out on patrol with either just him, or just him and Altaire, he isn’t as harsh. He feels as if he needs to hide who he really is.”

“I still don’t understand,” Airazor said, as Awn’néad built a smallish fire. The stars shone brightly down upon the duo, and Awn’néad looked up at them, sighing before she went on.

“Maybe if I told you about my past, you’d understand better. However,” Awn’néad said, looking deep into Airazor’s eyes. “You must never tell another soul. Not even Tigatron. What I’m telling you, I’ve never really told anyone else. So, it’s considered confidential. Only Optimus, Dinobot, Rhinox, and Altaire know the full truth.”

“What about Cheetor?”

“He was younger than the others, so he couldn’t have been able to comprehend what was really going on. Not that I’m putting him down, or anything, but he wouldn’t have been able to handle everything. Even I had more than a little trouble with some things that went on.”

Airazor sighed, and said, “I swear upon the Matrix, that I will never repeat what you are going to tell me.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Awn’néad said, deep relief blazing from her emerald-colored eyes. “It all starts long before Dinobot, as you know him, became one of my Guardians. For me, it starts at a base, once called Base Rugby . . . ”

~*~

The silence was so thick, one could have cut it with a sword. There were no noises, no voices, no sounds whatsoever. And to top it off, there wasn’t any movement, either. Base Rugby was totally obliterated, sparkless shells littering the once-streets. Houses were melted into hills from the fires. They had been knocked over, turning the roofs and the walls to become the ground, leaning upon each other thirty feet above street-level.

Young Optimus couldn’t help but see the destruction, and he couldn’t move. His teacher and adoptive father, Stormblend, was leading a search party for survivors.

“Primus,” somebody finally whispered. “First Omicron . . . now . . .”

“Storm, what do we do?” Optimus asked in his youthful, scared whisper. Even though he was twenty, by human standards, he was still young by Cybertronian statutes.

Stormblend sighed, and said in a tired, ragged voice, “Let’s move. There has to be someone alive out there . . .”

~*~

Awn’néad woke up slowly, and heard the slight whirring which signified that a Cybertronian was nearby. Their bodies were living machines with constantly-moving metal parts. That they had reduced the noise to a mere whisper was an accomplishment to be rejoiced over. For years, the humans living upon Cybertron had wondered how their predecessors lived around Optimus Prime and the Autobots without going deaf.

Although her four-year-old mind didn’t know the word “Cybertronian,” she did know that there was someone to comfort her, and maybe take her to her mother.

“Mommy?” she called in a whisper, buried beneath a sheet of metal that once could be called her house’s roof. She was in what was originally her attic room, but didn’t want to go into the rest of the house, for fear of the shadows that lurked there. “I’m here, Mommy! Mommy. . .”

~*~

“And Protoform ‘X’ did all this?” Optimus asked. “Who freed him? Or, how did he get out?”

“I have no idea. He’s been captured, but there isn’t any way to make him talk,” Bladestar answered, trying to listen for any living being, but this younger bot, who was his search partner, wouldn’t stop asking those infernal questions!

“Wait!” Optimus called.

“What now?” Bladestar asked in a groan, walking back to him.

“I heard something.”

That shocked him. “What?! From where?”

“Over by that pile of metal. That house. Or in.”

“I’ll go get Stormblend. Try to find out who it is!” Bladestar said, already running off, glad that there might be even one survivor.

Optimus picked his way through the cooling pile of metal until he got to where he thought the cries came from. He saw a small hole, maybe a foot across, in a long metal sheet on the side of a small mountain of sheet metal. It was obviously too small for anyone to go in through it . . . or out.

“Hello?” he called gently into the hole. “Is anyone in there?”

“Daddy?” came an answer from a young voice.

“No,” Optimus replied, voice saddened. “My name is Optimus.”

“Where’s my Mommy? Where’s my Daddy?” the child in the metal wailed. “I want Mommy!”

“Shh, it will be okay,” Optimus said gently.

The child sniffed. “You promise?”

“On my Spark.”

Stormblend came running up next to Optimus, and the two bots looked at each other.

“A human child is in there, alive,” the young bot said. “I dunno who she is, yet.”

“Then let’s rip that sucker offa her!” Bladestar said, indicating the sheet of metal, holding an axe up and grinning.

“Wait! She’s only around four or five years old!”

Bladestar’s grin vanished completely. “You’re kidding me.”

“By Primus and the Matrix, I am not lying.”

Bladestar sighed, and held the axe out for Optimus to take. “Then you do it. You’ll be more gentle than I would.”

Optimus nodded, took the axe, turned, and said into the pile of metal, “You haven’t told me your name yet.”

“A-Awn’néad,” the child said, sniffing. “My Mommy’s name is Sinead. Where is she?”

“Primus,” Stormblend whispered in a quaking voice as Bladestar uttered a colorful oath in Cybertronian. If Awn’néad was here . . . where were Sinead and Ian? Optimus frowned at the rough language, but was too worried for this little girl to say anything.

After calming his trembling Spark, he called softly, “Alright, Awn’néad, now I’m going to get you out, okay? Then we’ll find your Mom.”

“Okay,” the young child named Awn’néad said faintly.

Optimus eased the edge of the axe into a small seam, and tried to pop the sheet of metal off. All that the action produced was a chip on the blade’s edge.

Slag, Optimus thought, and tried a new tactic. . .

~*~

Awn’néad shivered, and listened to the scraping sound that had been going on for more than a half hour. Quite suddenly, though, she saw the small hole begin to be pulled wider, as a chunk was cut out of the siding around it, and pulled away, upwards towards whoever was saving her.

Maybe he found Mommy. I hope he did, Awn’néad thought in her four-year-old way. . .

~*~

Optimus was finally able to pull a small section away from the sheet, and saw that there was a floor, seven feet under the roof. He handed Bladestar the axe.

Stormblend and three others then helped Optimus pull half of the sheet away, and Optimus lowered himself into the “pit,” the attic of the roof they were standing upon. He looked around him and saw a dark shadow hiding with the shadows. It was Awn’néad. She was crouching in a corner, watching him with wide, frightened eyes.

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured, trying to look non-threatening to the small child. He knew her. He had known her since her birth. He hoped she would remember him, since he had been off schooling for the last year, and had seen her only once.

“Opti?” she asked, her voice quavering with intense worry. He saw recognition in her eyes. She remembered him.

Optimus nodded, kneeled down, and held his hands out to her. I wonder what’s with this name-shortening thing? he thought, as he inched slightly closer. Awn’néad ran to him, crying, while he held her gently. Once her crying eased off, he said, “Let’s go, okay? Do you want to get out of here?”

Awn’néad nodded, and said, “Don’t leave me ’lone. Mommy’s Guardian left me ’lone here, to go look for her.”

“I won’t,” Optimus said, his voice grave. “I’ll never leave you alone. I swear by the Matrix.”

And with that, he picked her up, activated his personal jets, and flew slowly up, then landed as gently as he could, once they were out of the pit. . .

~*~

“Depth Charge?” Stormblend said, after tending to her minor wounds. “Depth Charge left you? Did he say where he was going?”

Little Awn’néad shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Just after Mommy.”

There was a pause, and Stormblend said, “Me and Optimus will be right over there. We won’t leave you, I promise.”

“Okay.”

As soon as the two bots were out of earshot, Stormblend said in a low tone, “We found her father.”

“Good Primus . . . Is he alive? Ian . . .”

Stormblend shook his head slowly, covering his optics, knowing that he couldn’t temporarily delete the memory until he was ready to deal with the reality of the destruction, since the Elders needed evidence. The sight of Ian’s dying body would haunt him for years to come. So would the two promises that the human had extracted from the Maximal. “We’re presently looking for Sinead, but I’m starting to doubt that anybody else is alive. Primus, but I hope she’s okay. We were right on the brink of another breakthrough with the whole prejudice controversy. As well as another crackdown on that circle of terrorists.”

“Stormblend! We found ’em! Hurry!” a voice yelled. It was BladeStar, and he was already running away, spreading the news.

Optimus ran over to Awn’néad, picked her up, and followed the bots that were beginning to gather on the far side of the base. Seven minutes later, there was a circle of both bots and humans directly ahead of them. Within two more minutes that group parted and made an isle for Stormblend to get to the other side of the ring.

In the center there was a large bot kneeling at the head of a flame-haired human female, holding her small hand within his.

“Forgive me,” he whispered.

“There isn’t anything to forgive,” she replied softly. “But . . . remember your . . . your vow . . . about my daughter . . .”

“I will, Sinead . . . Primus, I will.”

Optimus saw the woman’s face, and so did Awn’néad.

“Mommy!” she yelled, squirming out of Optimus’ hold on her, and ran to her mother’s side.

Optimus followed her slowly, his mind numb with grief. The woman who was lying down, was Awn’néad’s mother, Sinead, it was true.

Sinead was one of the first human colonists to unify Cybertronians and humans to almost a symbiotic state. She was as cherished as Rodimus Prime had been after the Cybertronian Wars ended. Her husband, Ian, had helped her in the final years, and the two had been inseparable.

Finally, Optimus was close enough for Sinead to see his face. He knelt, and Sinead found his optics. She smiled, recognizing him. Years upon years ago, she had saved his life, and had always been there if he ever just needed to get away from the media that hounded him, simply because he was Optimus Prime’s sole direct descendant.

“You saved my daughter’s life, and I want you to take care of her. You will be her Guardian,” Sinead said. “Just as my Depth Charge was once my Guardian, you will be Awn’néad’s.”

Optimus bowed his head, and Awn’néad was laying next to her mother, who painfully and lethargically rested her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. The young bot said, “I swear by Primus, the Matrix, and the sources of everything that is good, that I will guard Awn’néad with my life.” Sinead’s pained eyes closed, and Optimus kept reciting the ancient oath that a Cybertronian took when vowing to protect a young child, to “adopt” them. “Nothing will separate us, and nothing will harm her, without proof of my death. She will be cherished as you were cherished; loved, as you were loved. I, Optimus now swear to be Awn’néad’s Head Guardian, and forever protect her with every atom of my Spark.”

Silence filled the previous site of Base Rugby.

Sinead’s life flew away from the circle of beings on angel’s wings. She was joining her husband, and the two were now together for the rest of eternity.

Sinead, the one who in eleven short years had united the Cybertronians and humans again after two hundred of years of segregation and hate, was dead.

At first, it was only one single voice, then all the voices were united as if there was only one massive being there. The circle of Cybertronians and humans cried out in grief.

Awn’néad seemed to know that her mother’s soul wasn’t within her body, such a simple vessel for such a complex, beautiful being. She raised her head, looked at Optimus and held her arms out to him. Optimus picked her up and kneeled down a pace away, holding Awn’néad on his lap while she cried for both of them, for Optimus couldn’t shed a tear. It was a rule of nature on Cybertron: Cybertronians couldn’t produce tears.

Depth Charge looked like scrap, but he spoke to Optimus, as well as the rest of the search party, his voice hoarse, cracking with emotional pain and anguish. “Sinead and Ian weren’t easy to separate, and now they are together again. They left something, someone, behind. It is our responsibility to raise young Awn’néad, so that she will not become like how others would want her to be, but how–” His voice broke, and it took him a moment to find it again. “But who she wants to be . . .”

~*~

Nobody left Base Rugby until midnight. When they started to drift away to where they could get some rest after such a harrowing, grief-stricken day, it was in pairs and groups, not one person wanting to be alone. With the exception of a few bots and humans, the rest of the official search party was searching for the casualties, and recording who they were so that their families could be notified. Sinead and Ian were already buried. They were together, in the same single grave, right where Sinead took her last breath. That was what Ian wanted, and was the first promise that he had gotten out of Stormblend.

Awn’néad had fallen asleep as twilight had fallen. Optimus was talking with one of the Maximal Elders in their citadel by hologram.

“And Sinead asked you, a mere youngster, to be the Head Guardian of her child?” Nightbreeze, the Head Elder, asked. She was strangely distressed, even more so than any of the other Elders, which seemed odd since she always kept a cool head while they were the ones that over-reacted most of the time. Not many knew how deep her connection with Sinead and Ian was; how much she cared for Ian. Not many knew that she and Optimus spoke informally with each other; she acted as an aunt to him.

“Rather,” Optimus said, “She ordered me to. And I promised that I’d never leave Awn’néad.”

Nightbreeze thought for a moment, then said, “Do you have any witnesses?”

Stormblend walked into the range of the holographic projector. Then it was BladeStar, and finally, Depth Charge.

“Depth Charge . . . ” Nightbreeze whispered, her optics staying in their guarded, but still distressed expression.

“Yeah . . . ” Depth Charge replied dully. “It was a massacre. We’ll talk later, face-to-face. I have some details to tell you that I don’t want others on this end to overhear.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Pity won’t get Awn’néad a decent Guardian,” he snapped harshly. “This kid is far better for her than anyone else that I know of. Myself included. I need time to heal. You know that.”

“And you?” Nightbreeze said, indicating Stormblend.

“Optimus is just as trustworthy and faithful to the Maximal cause as his namesake, Optimus Prime, was to the Autobot cause. He will take good care of Awn’néad,” Stormblend answered.

“Trustworthy enough to earn the recognition of his true second name?” Nightbreeze said, as if Optimus wasn’t there.

Stormblend thought for a moment, then said quietly, “Yes, he’s ready.”

“Very well.” She turned to the young Optimus, and said, “I, on behalf of the Maximal Elders, now bequeath you with your surname, Prime. Your may change it if you travel and acquire a beast mode, as I have acquired a flying fox when I visited Earth in my younger years. When you arrive back in Cybertropolis, you will come to the Elders’ Citadel and the proper ceremonies will take place.”

Optimus acted like everybody anticipated he would. He didn’t jump up and down as any other youngster his age would have. Instead, he bowed, and said, “I am deeply honored.”

“I trust that you have taken the Oath?” Night breeze asked.

“Yes, I have. The whole search party witnessed it.”

“You will need to determine the first Sub-Guardian as soon as possible,” Nightbreeze said solemnly. “You know that you’ve taken on a tough job of raising her, and there might be some attempt of assassination upon your behalf. I don’t mean to scare you, but it is always wise to plan in advance.”

“We have already talked about that . . . everything about that subject. Stormblend, my teacher, has volunteered.”

“The teacher following the student’s commands? That is not wise.”

“I agree,” Stormblend said. “However, Optimus still needs a mentor, and someone to look for advice, and I said that I would. I would also teach Awn’néad, and any others who wish to hear. Ian . . . Ian asked me to teach her.”

“Primus . . . I see. But you do not mind being led by one of your students?”

“Optimus is responsible for his age, and he’s heard it many times before. I trust him. If he does not react with maturity or with throw orders around, then I shall assume temporary command until a solution has taken place, and a solid reform is made.”

Nightbreeze closed her eyes, and said, “I trust your judgement, Stormblend. I will meet you all later.” Her gaze met Depth Charge’s one last time.

He glared back. “I am requesting a mission when I arrive there.”

“Acknowledged. We shall discuss it then.”

The hologram faded without even a formal dismissal, and BladeStar slumped. “Man, am I glad that’s over with.”

“Congratulations on your promotion, Optimus Prime,” Stormblend said, his voice filled with pride for his young student. His face, however, was tired and sad.

“Hey, yeah, congrats,” BladeStar said, half-smiling and giving the younger bot a thumb’s-up. He needed to go home to his wife, but . . . he needed to ensure that Sinead’s child would be safe, first. He was going to guard her from the shadows, just as he had guarded Sinead in the shadows, whether any Maximal Guardian or teacher or mentor said or thought otherwise. That was his self-appointed job, and he had done it well enough in the past.

“I really hate to get a philosophical on you guys; that’s usually Stormblend’s job. But, you know, what’s in a name? I’m still me,” Optimus said.

“You’re the youngest bot in your line to earn that title,” Depth Charge said slowly, looking at Awn’néad, who was trembling slightly. He reached over and pushed her hair gently out of her face to stroke her cheek tenderly. Bowing his head, he closed his eyes, and remembered how he had asked Sinead if she would live. She couldn’t hear him on the frequency he had addressed her upon. He knew she could hear him on that level, but . . . she hadn’t responded . . .

~*~

“Sinead . . .”

“I couldn’t hear you . . . but X didn’t get it . . . the . . .”

“I know, Sinead, hush, please, don’t strain yourself. Hold on . . .”

Sinead shook her head, wincing. “Charge, I . . . my work here . . . I’ve done as much as I can. The rest is all up to my little girl, when she’s old enough.”

“But . . .”

“She has the gift, now. The laptop is in the house . . . under the pillow in her room. I hid it there. When she knows she ready, she’ll come back, one day, and find out everything.”

Depth Charge was shaking with tearless sobs. “Sinead, don’t leave me . . .”

Sinead smiled sadly up at her Head Guardian, her bodyguard, her closest friend in the universe . . . even closer than Ian. “Love, don’t cry. All good things have an end. This is my end.” She reached up to rest her hand upon his cheek, over the breathing mask he had to wear due to the accident all those years ago. “I love you, and you know that.”

“Titan . . . I found Titan here . . . he’s . . .”

Sinead’s face went slack. “No, not . . . not Titan . . . he . . . he said he’d teach Awn’néad when she was old enough . . .”

“He was still alive when I saw him. His wife . . . she’s only two months pregnant. He said to watch out for her. And I will. He’s already buried here.”

“I . . . I would like to be buried here, too, but . . . what of little Steele?”

“I’ll try to talk to the boy when he’s old enough. He should know how his father protected you, and what he did.”

Sinead winced, groaned, and Depth Charge rested his hand upon her abdomen. He felt nothing . . . no life. “The child . . .”

“Gone. Dead. This was what happened in the first dream I had, all those years ago, when I was thirteen. I dreamt of this carnage.”

“Sinead, Primus, I’ll hunt Xarthka to the ends of the universe, just for . . .”

“For me?” Sinead asked softly. “No. For the bases Omicron and Rugby. Not for me.”

“Only for you, Sinead. You . . . Primus . . .”

“Watch over Awn’néad.”

He nodded, and rested his forehead against Sinead’s, deactivating his optics, and whispering for her alone, “I love you.”

“I know . . . and I’ve loved you for so long. I’ve always loved you. I . . . always . . . will. Don’t cry, now. Be strong for Awn.” They heard the first yells of their discovery, and Depth Charge sat straight, watching Sinead, holding her hand in his, and swallowing. Sinead rested her free hand upon their joined ones, and said, “Just don’t get bitter. Please. Treat her with all the love you had for me. That’s all I ask.”

“Not to be her Head Guardian?”

“No. You . . . you wouldn’t do that. You couldn’t. You’d compare her to me. Neither of us want that.”

“Sinead . . .”

“I know, Charge, I know.”

There was a formidable crowd around them now. Sinead heard the pounding feet of a heavily-built Maximal, and the crowd parted in a hurry, to let . . . Stormblend . . . Optimus . . . Awn’néad . . . oh, little Awn’néad . . . she shouldn’t have been brought. She didn’t need to see her mother a bloody mess, unable to see through one eye, both her legs broken in numerous places, and gashes all over her frame.

Awn’néad burrowed closer to her mother, regardless of what Sinead looked like . . .

And Sinead kissed her daughter one last time . . .

She looked up at the night sky, her lips moving, breathing a name. “Ian?”

~*~

Depth Charge looked at the child, who was awake again, looking up at him. Sighing, he picked her up and cradled her, humming a lullaby that Sinead often sang to the girl to send her to sleep. The human child fell asleep again, and Depth Charge trembled, remembering how he had done this, as Sinead often had nightmares of her own past, and had fallen back asleep within his arms. But it was not his job to raise this young child, this time. He looked to Optimus, and held Awn’néad out. “If she ever comes to serious harm . . . I think I might have to kill you.”

Optimus took the human child and whispered, “I’d kill myself long before you could find me.”

“That’s actually good to know,” Depth Charge said, standing. He looked at Stormblend, who he had worked with before, and said, “I’m . . . I’m going to go sit with Sinead.”

Stormblend nodded, and the Maximal walked off brokenly. Optimus looked to his teacher, then asked, “Will he be all right?”

The technician shrugged, and walked over to smile at the human nestled against Optimus’ chestplate, changing the subject. “Well, I’d say that this is the first relationship with a female that won’t get you slapped.”

Optimus blanched, then sighed, and chuckled, despite himself. “You never know.” He smiled at the young girl, deep asleep, then said, “Let’s go home.”

Click here for part two