Kick in the Head - Foreign Exchange
Title: Kick in the Head - Foreign Exchange
Fandom: Transformers
Characters/pairings: Optimus Prime/Megatron, Elita-1, ensemble
Rating: R
Summary: Even the prettiest flowers can have thorns; even the sweetest fruits can carry poison.
Warnings: Mechsmex, xenophilia, xenophobia, politics, character death.
Notes: The easy way to do 'ooh, femmes!' when you consider the XFMR's as genderless is that they're just another frame type and no one notices. So, of course, my muses decide to one-eighty that and say that Femmes are completely alien to Cybertron and EVERYONE notices.
Sketches of Elita and Chromia.
Table of Contents
o o o
"They're so... thin."
Optimus Prime nodded his agreement. The inorganic citizens of Lafemol were highly intelligent, but their planet was almost entirely silicates and silver, lacking the nickel, cobalt and iron alloys that gave Cybertron its strength. Even though the head ambassador was up to the Prime's shoulder, he could wrap one hand entirely around her body and crush her with ease.
"Not for Femme's, they're not," Senator Requisium said, faint amusement in his voice. "They told me that they knew Cybertron saw beauty in practicality instead of pretty colors and graceful forms, so they picked frames that were more, ah, practical than the usual."
Megatron let out a quiet snort of derision. "If those are practical," he muttered. "I'd hate to see what they'd call superfluous."
Optimus let out a low chuckle, stepping forward to greet the ambassadors. They were spindly, frail creatures, with multifaceted optics and high, piping voices, moving with the sort of care Optimus usually associated with mechs who had the Brittling Disease. Graceful, fluid motions, but probably afraid they'd shatter like crystal if they moved too roughly. The delicate struts that formed their bodies were all the palest of pastels, rare colors on Cybertron.
Optimus spread his arms in a welcoming gesture. "Cybertron is honored by your presence, my guests," he said, in the shrill Femme language, ignoring the twinges from his vocalizer. While the Cybertronian speech had high points of its own, it was nothing compared to what was spoken on Lafemol, and the piercing trills almost hurt for him to reach. It was a wonder they didn't shatter themselves just by talking.
The head ambassador stepped forward, the multiple facets of her optics making it impossible to track where she was looking, though Optimus got the feeling her gaze rested solely on him. "I thank you for your welcome," she said in accented Cybertronian. "Cybertron and Lafemol have long been ignorant of each other's existence, and I hope we can change that to friendship." Not allies. A notable point; too many worlds courted Cybertron for her military might, eager to turn it on their enemies despite a long-standing policy of non-interventionism. "But please," she continued, and from the research he'd done on the different expressions of the Femme's, he thought she might be smiling. "Do not stress your voice into our speech for the sake of my comfort; the fact that your people have made such an effort to not break us into splinters has been welcome and comfort enough."
Optimus found himself surprised into laughing. As they continued to exchange the usual pleasantries included in any diplomatic mission, he realized something; he liked her.
o o o
Arcee-6 was their anthropologist. Moonracer-9 was a metallurgist. Firestar-3 programmed behavior patterns into Femme's before they were first brought online. Chromia-4 was a merchant and a shrewd trader. And Elita-1 was their leader, a politician with strong ties to the current ruler of Lafemol. The numerical suffixes to their names were indicative of their place within a complex ranking system that Optimus barely grasped, and it took all of about two orns for the ranks to be dropped entirely during casual conversation.
And casual conversation happened often. Despite the vast differences in culture and lifestyles, Optimus genuinely liked all of the Femmes, and he preferred relaxing and talking to them to the stilted, painfully formal conversations that were so necessary in the political arena. Both Megatron and Senator Requisium disapproved, and the Senator had hinted that the Council disapproved as well. But neither attempted to stop the Prime from befriending the frail, sparkless creatures and openly discussing their differing cultures.
o o o
The assassin's strike happened fast. They were walking through the quartz crystal gardens, when Ironhide suddenly shoved Optimus backwards. The Prime staggered and heard cannon-fire, a Femme shriek, a bellow of pain from Ironhide, and the terrible scream of a mech in acute pain.
Ironhide had taken the blast aimed at Elita, his huge frame curled around hers and the armor on his back badly scorched. The would-be assassin lay on the ground between two great crystal croppings, his arm and face peppered with tiny metal slivers. Optimus swung his gaze back around at another outraged Femme shriek, too fast for him to catch most of the meaning, except the underlying challenge. Chromia stood practically in Ironhide's shadow, head high and arm extended. Her lower arm had modified; two spurs spread out from the wrist, connected at the ends by a fine, taut cable, forming a rather primitive projectile device that explained how the slivers had gotten to the assassin.
But he didn't understand where she had gotten the projectiles themselves until the assassin staggered to his feet and tried to run. In a single sweep of her arm, Chromia pulled one of the narrow spikes from the flared crest on her head, drew it back in the device, and fired it. The spike shattered even as it was launched, spiraling out and the mech screamed again as fractured silver penetrated his legs. He didn't try to rise again, but whimpered on the ground, vainly trying for enough purchase on one of the slivers to remove it.
Chromia drew another crest-spike and started towards the downed mech, but Ironhide stopped her with one hand. "Let me," he rumbled. "He is one of ours."
Chromia stared up at him defiantly. "As the Prime is your care," she said. "Elita is mine. Will you deny me my duty?"
The black mech paused a tick, then nodded grudgingly, and the two spread out to flank the injured mech, weaponry at the ready. Optimus, keeping an eye on them, went to make sure Elita was unharmed.
o o o
"We tried, Chromia," Moonracer said, wringing together her multiple hands. "Forge was ever so kind to help, but Cybertron lacks the right materials to match your coloring. We made a new alloy almost the right color, and it's a lot stronger and lighter, but it's-"
"It's okay, Moonracer," Chromia said, turning her head, admiring her darker crest-spikes in a steel mirror. Femme bodies didn't regenerate like Cybertronian's did; any parts removed had to be refabricated. "I like it." She cast a critical eye over Forge, with his wild color scheme. "I don't mind blending in with the populous a little more."
Elita chuckled quietly, content to watch her bodyguard preen. "Don't go too native on me, Chromia," she said playfully. Chromia made a face at her.
o o o
At first he didn't recognize the rose-hued mech standing before him. He'd gotten too used to her just-barely-not-white armor, and the pink she now sported was brilliant in comparison. "Elita," he murmured, sitting back in his seat. "You've, ah."
She perched on the edge of his desk, fluttering her various crests to watch them glitter in the light. Still very much Femme in design, but with undeniable Cybertronian touches. "An overhaul," she explained, a little rueful. "I went far longer than is recommended between armor replacements, and I do not mind that replacement being in the style of my second home."
Her second... Optimus smiled warmly, leaning forward to grasp her hand. Still so frail, but a new strength, a new confidence in alloys far more ductile than she was used to. "I am pleased to hear those words," he said sincerely. "In the many vorns you have been here, my only regret is that you might someday to miss Lafemol so much you would leave."
She looked away, toying with the edge of her thigh plating. "I do miss it," she admitted. "But Cybertron... you have a beautiful world here, my Lord Prime. I do not regret my extended stay." She looked at him sideways, and Optimus realized, with a flare of heat and a slow, sinking feeling, that he wanted her. She had become his close friend, and he was in the habit of taking those few close to him to his berth, to show them physically what he could only tell them in words. But she was Femme, sentient but sparkless, and her culture lacked anything even remotely similar to interfacing. Affection was shown in mental bonds, not gentle words and sweet caresses. Touch was as foreign to her as it was natural to him.
And even were she willing to attempt the physical, she was an alien ambassador, and he was Prime. Such a dalliance was politically unhealthy for both of their positions, and possibly physically unhealthy for her; the assassin that had attacked so many vorns before had not been the last, but merely the first in a scattered string of xenophobic Cybertronians, and Optimus knew that many privately agreed with the sentiment. Cybertron did not welcome foreigners as a whole, and were Optimus to take one as a lover, the backlash would be disastrous.
He drew his hand away from hers as neutrally as possible and sat back again. "I am glad to hear it," he repeated simply.
o o o
Rough love-making was not unknown between them; more often than not, Megatron joined Optimus in his berth when he was angry or frustrated about something, and more than once they had interfaced when angry at each other. But this was different. Megatron had come to him in sullen silence, and as Optimus tried every trick he knew to try and soothe his brother's anger, the Lord High Protector only grew worse, his hands rough and the glyphs he usually only scratched into the Prime's armor cut deep, and Optimus had no idea why.
Heavy hands pinning him down, clawing at his chest plates and Optimus wanted to snap and fight back, but that could easily take things from bad to worse. He opened his plating willingly, gently urging his brother to do the same, in hope that he could try to heal this sudden rift between them if he could see the emotions that trapped the larger mech.
Megatron didn't comply, straddling the Prime's waist and pinning his wrists above his head with one hand. The other hand drew through the outer corona of his spark, dangerously slow. "Have you done it?" Megatron demanded, jerking harshly on the edge of the spark chamber. "Have you shared your berth with that, that Femme?"
Pain and anger and loathing abound in the question, and Optimus felt his spark thread with shame and despair. "I have not," he answered. He teetered, debating, but he had always been honest with his brother, and he wouldn't start lying now. "I have considered it," he admitted. "But Femme's are not physical creatures, and there are our positions to consider."
Murderous thunder in Megatron's face, and Optimus fought to not shrink back. Never had he had the full force of his brother's anger turned on him. "You considered it?" Megatron hissed, his claws painfully tight. "I have consented to you sharing your berth with so many who are beneath you," Only five in their long lives, but Optimus didn't dare argue back, not when Megatron looked like that. "So many who do not deserve you, and you considered tainting yourself with a sparkless drone pretending at the greatness of our kind?"
Optimus lifted his chin, calmly defiant. "We have had this discussion before," he said firmly. 'It is not a matter in which one can force their opinion on another."
Megatron's chest plates snapped open and he surged forward, their armors clanging noisily and Optimus hissed in pain when their sparks connected. Love and hate, protectiveness and disgust and sickening jealousy, and Megatron's voice in his audial. "You are mine," the Lord High Protector hissed. "Your body, your spark, mine. Not your bodyguard's, not that pathetic Femme drone's, not even Primus owns you above m-"
The flare of light was heatless, and Optimus felt no force from it, but Megatron was slammed backwards, fully off of the berth. Optimus lay still for a moment, stunned by the resounding echoes in his head; heatless, forceless, but not voiceless, and the collective will of the Prime's beat in his processor. He sat up, looking down at his equally stunned brother. "My spark belongs to Primus above all," he whispered sadly. "It has since long before we were sparked, and when I die, I will enter the Matrix as those before me have. All may know me; none may own me."
Megatron only looked at him for a long moment, before he rose silently and left.
o o o
He had meant to keep it to himself, but when Elita asked him, in gentle tones, what bothered him, he found himself confiding in her. Not all of it, not the true depth of Megatron's dislike of the Femme's, not of the Matrix rejecting his brother, but enough.
And he regretted it once he saw the way her optics shifted and the sudden formality in her pose, her moods as familiar to him as any mech's. "I think," she said quietly, an undercurrent of pain in her musical voice. "That we have forgotten ourselves and our duties. We have a responsibility to our own people before, before each other. She rose, already drawing back into herself, but the brief, anguished look she gave him was enough. "I will not split the rulers of Cybertron for my own selfish needs; I will not come between you and your brother."
And then she was gone. And a tiny part of Optimus whispered that, since he thought to be so greedy to try and have them both, it was only fitting punishment to have driven them both away.
o o o
He listened to the blue Femme's report in despair. Most of the foreign ambassadors on Cybertron had left as soon as Megatron had turned against the Council, but there were still a few awaiting their own kind to retrieve them, three vorns later. It was thought they would not be attacked, that Megatron would not be so foolish to risk igniting a second war so soon after declaring war on his own kind.
But he had led the attack on the embassy himself, ripping through anyone who got in his way. Some had managed to escape. They escaped because Megatron was distracted, and as Chromia described - thankfully brief- how Elita had taken on the Lord High Protector alone, charging him and raining silver-hot spikes down on him, until he caught her and tore her apart, Optimus fought to hide the deep ache in his spark. "I cannot begin to apologize for your loss," he started, with a deep bow. "I deeply regret my lapse in judgment and my inability to protect you from Megatron's hatred. From now on, your safety will be my personal priority, until Lafemol can retrieve you."
"No." He looked up in surprise. Arcee had spoken, but Chromia and Moonracer flanked her, equally grim. "Elita was our friend and benefactor," the tiny Femme continued. "To flee without repaying that debt would be a disservice to her memory." Abruptly, she knelt, paying respect in the Cybertronian way. "We would follow your command until we see Megatron brought to justice. Please, accept our allegiance."
He moved to protest, but he was already calculating how long it would take to reformat their frames in entirely Cybertronian alloys, to train them in the harsher battle-tactics necessary to fight Megatron's forces and he couldn't possibly be seriously considering this, could he?
Looking down at the delicate Femme's, he decided that yes, he was. Their friend had been brutally murdered, how could he deny them the justice they desired? Heavy of spark, he nodded.
Fandom: Transformers
Characters/pairings: Optimus Prime/Megatron, Elita-1, ensemble
Rating: R
Summary: Even the prettiest flowers can have thorns; even the sweetest fruits can carry poison.
Warnings: Mechsmex, xenophilia, xenophobia, politics, character death.
Notes: The easy way to do 'ooh, femmes!' when you consider the XFMR's as genderless is that they're just another frame type and no one notices. So, of course, my muses decide to one-eighty that and say that Femmes are completely alien to Cybertron and EVERYONE notices.
Sketches of Elita and Chromia.
Table of Contents
o o o
"They're so... thin."
Optimus Prime nodded his agreement. The inorganic citizens of Lafemol were highly intelligent, but their planet was almost entirely silicates and silver, lacking the nickel, cobalt and iron alloys that gave Cybertron its strength. Even though the head ambassador was up to the Prime's shoulder, he could wrap one hand entirely around her body and crush her with ease.
"Not for Femme's, they're not," Senator Requisium said, faint amusement in his voice. "They told me that they knew Cybertron saw beauty in practicality instead of pretty colors and graceful forms, so they picked frames that were more, ah, practical than the usual."
Megatron let out a quiet snort of derision. "If those are practical," he muttered. "I'd hate to see what they'd call superfluous."
Optimus let out a low chuckle, stepping forward to greet the ambassadors. They were spindly, frail creatures, with multifaceted optics and high, piping voices, moving with the sort of care Optimus usually associated with mechs who had the Brittling Disease. Graceful, fluid motions, but probably afraid they'd shatter like crystal if they moved too roughly. The delicate struts that formed their bodies were all the palest of pastels, rare colors on Cybertron.
Optimus spread his arms in a welcoming gesture. "Cybertron is honored by your presence, my guests," he said, in the shrill Femme language, ignoring the twinges from his vocalizer. While the Cybertronian speech had high points of its own, it was nothing compared to what was spoken on Lafemol, and the piercing trills almost hurt for him to reach. It was a wonder they didn't shatter themselves just by talking.
The head ambassador stepped forward, the multiple facets of her optics making it impossible to track where she was looking, though Optimus got the feeling her gaze rested solely on him. "I thank you for your welcome," she said in accented Cybertronian. "Cybertron and Lafemol have long been ignorant of each other's existence, and I hope we can change that to friendship." Not allies. A notable point; too many worlds courted Cybertron for her military might, eager to turn it on their enemies despite a long-standing policy of non-interventionism. "But please," she continued, and from the research he'd done on the different expressions of the Femme's, he thought she might be smiling. "Do not stress your voice into our speech for the sake of my comfort; the fact that your people have made such an effort to not break us into splinters has been welcome and comfort enough."
Optimus found himself surprised into laughing. As they continued to exchange the usual pleasantries included in any diplomatic mission, he realized something; he liked her.
o o o
Arcee-6 was their anthropologist. Moonracer-9 was a metallurgist. Firestar-3 programmed behavior patterns into Femme's before they were first brought online. Chromia-4 was a merchant and a shrewd trader. And Elita-1 was their leader, a politician with strong ties to the current ruler of Lafemol. The numerical suffixes to their names were indicative of their place within a complex ranking system that Optimus barely grasped, and it took all of about two orns for the ranks to be dropped entirely during casual conversation.
And casual conversation happened often. Despite the vast differences in culture and lifestyles, Optimus genuinely liked all of the Femmes, and he preferred relaxing and talking to them to the stilted, painfully formal conversations that were so necessary in the political arena. Both Megatron and Senator Requisium disapproved, and the Senator had hinted that the Council disapproved as well. But neither attempted to stop the Prime from befriending the frail, sparkless creatures and openly discussing their differing cultures.
o o o
The assassin's strike happened fast. They were walking through the quartz crystal gardens, when Ironhide suddenly shoved Optimus backwards. The Prime staggered and heard cannon-fire, a Femme shriek, a bellow of pain from Ironhide, and the terrible scream of a mech in acute pain.
Ironhide had taken the blast aimed at Elita, his huge frame curled around hers and the armor on his back badly scorched. The would-be assassin lay on the ground between two great crystal croppings, his arm and face peppered with tiny metal slivers. Optimus swung his gaze back around at another outraged Femme shriek, too fast for him to catch most of the meaning, except the underlying challenge. Chromia stood practically in Ironhide's shadow, head high and arm extended. Her lower arm had modified; two spurs spread out from the wrist, connected at the ends by a fine, taut cable, forming a rather primitive projectile device that explained how the slivers had gotten to the assassin.
But he didn't understand where she had gotten the projectiles themselves until the assassin staggered to his feet and tried to run. In a single sweep of her arm, Chromia pulled one of the narrow spikes from the flared crest on her head, drew it back in the device, and fired it. The spike shattered even as it was launched, spiraling out and the mech screamed again as fractured silver penetrated his legs. He didn't try to rise again, but whimpered on the ground, vainly trying for enough purchase on one of the slivers to remove it.
Chromia drew another crest-spike and started towards the downed mech, but Ironhide stopped her with one hand. "Let me," he rumbled. "He is one of ours."
Chromia stared up at him defiantly. "As the Prime is your care," she said. "Elita is mine. Will you deny me my duty?"
The black mech paused a tick, then nodded grudgingly, and the two spread out to flank the injured mech, weaponry at the ready. Optimus, keeping an eye on them, went to make sure Elita was unharmed.
o o o
"We tried, Chromia," Moonracer said, wringing together her multiple hands. "Forge was ever so kind to help, but Cybertron lacks the right materials to match your coloring. We made a new alloy almost the right color, and it's a lot stronger and lighter, but it's-"
"It's okay, Moonracer," Chromia said, turning her head, admiring her darker crest-spikes in a steel mirror. Femme bodies didn't regenerate like Cybertronian's did; any parts removed had to be refabricated. "I like it." She cast a critical eye over Forge, with his wild color scheme. "I don't mind blending in with the populous a little more."
Elita chuckled quietly, content to watch her bodyguard preen. "Don't go too native on me, Chromia," she said playfully. Chromia made a face at her.
o o o
At first he didn't recognize the rose-hued mech standing before him. He'd gotten too used to her just-barely-not-white armor, and the pink she now sported was brilliant in comparison. "Elita," he murmured, sitting back in his seat. "You've, ah."
She perched on the edge of his desk, fluttering her various crests to watch them glitter in the light. Still very much Femme in design, but with undeniable Cybertronian touches. "An overhaul," she explained, a little rueful. "I went far longer than is recommended between armor replacements, and I do not mind that replacement being in the style of my second home."
Her second... Optimus smiled warmly, leaning forward to grasp her hand. Still so frail, but a new strength, a new confidence in alloys far more ductile than she was used to. "I am pleased to hear those words," he said sincerely. "In the many vorns you have been here, my only regret is that you might someday to miss Lafemol so much you would leave."
She looked away, toying with the edge of her thigh plating. "I do miss it," she admitted. "But Cybertron... you have a beautiful world here, my Lord Prime. I do not regret my extended stay." She looked at him sideways, and Optimus realized, with a flare of heat and a slow, sinking feeling, that he wanted her. She had become his close friend, and he was in the habit of taking those few close to him to his berth, to show them physically what he could only tell them in words. But she was Femme, sentient but sparkless, and her culture lacked anything even remotely similar to interfacing. Affection was shown in mental bonds, not gentle words and sweet caresses. Touch was as foreign to her as it was natural to him.
And even were she willing to attempt the physical, she was an alien ambassador, and he was Prime. Such a dalliance was politically unhealthy for both of their positions, and possibly physically unhealthy for her; the assassin that had attacked so many vorns before had not been the last, but merely the first in a scattered string of xenophobic Cybertronians, and Optimus knew that many privately agreed with the sentiment. Cybertron did not welcome foreigners as a whole, and were Optimus to take one as a lover, the backlash would be disastrous.
He drew his hand away from hers as neutrally as possible and sat back again. "I am glad to hear it," he repeated simply.
o o o
Rough love-making was not unknown between them; more often than not, Megatron joined Optimus in his berth when he was angry or frustrated about something, and more than once they had interfaced when angry at each other. But this was different. Megatron had come to him in sullen silence, and as Optimus tried every trick he knew to try and soothe his brother's anger, the Lord High Protector only grew worse, his hands rough and the glyphs he usually only scratched into the Prime's armor cut deep, and Optimus had no idea why.
Heavy hands pinning him down, clawing at his chest plates and Optimus wanted to snap and fight back, but that could easily take things from bad to worse. He opened his plating willingly, gently urging his brother to do the same, in hope that he could try to heal this sudden rift between them if he could see the emotions that trapped the larger mech.
Megatron didn't comply, straddling the Prime's waist and pinning his wrists above his head with one hand. The other hand drew through the outer corona of his spark, dangerously slow. "Have you done it?" Megatron demanded, jerking harshly on the edge of the spark chamber. "Have you shared your berth with that, that Femme?"
Pain and anger and loathing abound in the question, and Optimus felt his spark thread with shame and despair. "I have not," he answered. He teetered, debating, but he had always been honest with his brother, and he wouldn't start lying now. "I have considered it," he admitted. "But Femme's are not physical creatures, and there are our positions to consider."
Murderous thunder in Megatron's face, and Optimus fought to not shrink back. Never had he had the full force of his brother's anger turned on him. "You considered it?" Megatron hissed, his claws painfully tight. "I have consented to you sharing your berth with so many who are beneath you," Only five in their long lives, but Optimus didn't dare argue back, not when Megatron looked like that. "So many who do not deserve you, and you considered tainting yourself with a sparkless drone pretending at the greatness of our kind?"
Optimus lifted his chin, calmly defiant. "We have had this discussion before," he said firmly. 'It is not a matter in which one can force their opinion on another."
Megatron's chest plates snapped open and he surged forward, their armors clanging noisily and Optimus hissed in pain when their sparks connected. Love and hate, protectiveness and disgust and sickening jealousy, and Megatron's voice in his audial. "You are mine," the Lord High Protector hissed. "Your body, your spark, mine. Not your bodyguard's, not that pathetic Femme drone's, not even Primus owns you above m-"
The flare of light was heatless, and Optimus felt no force from it, but Megatron was slammed backwards, fully off of the berth. Optimus lay still for a moment, stunned by the resounding echoes in his head; heatless, forceless, but not voiceless, and the collective will of the Prime's beat in his processor. He sat up, looking down at his equally stunned brother. "My spark belongs to Primus above all," he whispered sadly. "It has since long before we were sparked, and when I die, I will enter the Matrix as those before me have. All may know me; none may own me."
Megatron only looked at him for a long moment, before he rose silently and left.
o o o
He had meant to keep it to himself, but when Elita asked him, in gentle tones, what bothered him, he found himself confiding in her. Not all of it, not the true depth of Megatron's dislike of the Femme's, not of the Matrix rejecting his brother, but enough.
And he regretted it once he saw the way her optics shifted and the sudden formality in her pose, her moods as familiar to him as any mech's. "I think," she said quietly, an undercurrent of pain in her musical voice. "That we have forgotten ourselves and our duties. We have a responsibility to our own people before, before each other. She rose, already drawing back into herself, but the brief, anguished look she gave him was enough. "I will not split the rulers of Cybertron for my own selfish needs; I will not come between you and your brother."
And then she was gone. And a tiny part of Optimus whispered that, since he thought to be so greedy to try and have them both, it was only fitting punishment to have driven them both away.
o o o
He listened to the blue Femme's report in despair. Most of the foreign ambassadors on Cybertron had left as soon as Megatron had turned against the Council, but there were still a few awaiting their own kind to retrieve them, three vorns later. It was thought they would not be attacked, that Megatron would not be so foolish to risk igniting a second war so soon after declaring war on his own kind.
But he had led the attack on the embassy himself, ripping through anyone who got in his way. Some had managed to escape. They escaped because Megatron was distracted, and as Chromia described - thankfully brief- how Elita had taken on the Lord High Protector alone, charging him and raining silver-hot spikes down on him, until he caught her and tore her apart, Optimus fought to hide the deep ache in his spark. "I cannot begin to apologize for your loss," he started, with a deep bow. "I deeply regret my lapse in judgment and my inability to protect you from Megatron's hatred. From now on, your safety will be my personal priority, until Lafemol can retrieve you."
"No." He looked up in surprise. Arcee had spoken, but Chromia and Moonracer flanked her, equally grim. "Elita was our friend and benefactor," the tiny Femme continued. "To flee without repaying that debt would be a disservice to her memory." Abruptly, she knelt, paying respect in the Cybertronian way. "We would follow your command until we see Megatron brought to justice. Please, accept our allegiance."
He moved to protest, but he was already calculating how long it would take to reformat their frames in entirely Cybertronian alloys, to train them in the harsher battle-tactics necessary to fight Megatron's forces and he couldn't possibly be seriously considering this, could he?
Looking down at the delicate Femme's, he decided that yes, he was. Their friend had been brutally murdered, how could he deny them the justice they desired? Heavy of spark, he nodded.