Genesis teasers
I thought that I might give you all a few teasers of what's in store for Genesis while I wait for my Co-writer-sometimes-beta Tsuya to finish the last of this chapter.
Please note that all previews may and can change when posted in the actual chapters.
Feed back on the characterizations are muchly loved. :D
Optimus inhaled deeply at the sight of the city that was before him. Behind him, his army stood. It was night - and most of the mechs would be in recharge. It was perfect. To his left was his new consort, shackled with a guard to prevent his escape. Magnus was hardly willing right now, but in time, he would be. This would see to it. This... would be his masterpiece. A city was going to burn one way or the other tonight.
Behind him, he heard his guards part, and he turned to look the new mech over, optics seeming to smirk. Ah, It was just the mech that he wanted to see.
"You know your orders. Bring him to me, unharmed and without a fuss. Should you fail... " He gestured to where Arcee was pacing, caged in by Ironhide. The femme was restless, eager for a mechs energon to spill, and Prime had no problems with tossing the flier to her should he fail in this.
“Of course my lord,” The black and red said before lifting. “I won’t fail, he trusts me, I promise,”
"Now, go, Skyfire."
The large flier bowed again at the words, optics flickering maliciously, before he stepped ahead of the band of war-hungry mechs. With a grin, he turned rockets and boosters on before taking to the sky, making a beeline for the academy. There, Skyfire would find what he was searching for. In the dark night sky, he was almost unseen but for his thrusters, inky black and blue paint melding with the sky quite well. Starscream wouldn't know what hit me, at all...
---- ---
“Maybe you should watch where you’re walking, then,” he said sharply, before turning around to start digging through the rubble again. He didn’t have the time, nor the energon to waste on some snippy mech. Starscream had been at this for awhile, the white paint of his forearms nearly completely scrapped off, revealing only bare metal.
"I was watching where I was walking." Goldy snorted, and moved closer, grabbing the others shoulder.
“Let go!” He hissed, trying to move out of the other’s grip as he felt that hand on his shoulder.
"And you shouldn't be here. It's off limits, or are you dumb?”
“I’ll go where I want, and who ever is guarding this off limit slag heap is sure doing a bad job,” he retorted to the other, still trying to get away from the mech, who, slightly larger, had hold of him. He was far too low on energon to pick a fight, and even worse, there wasn’t enough in him to escape.
"I have to agree, but a job is a job if one wants to get energon." The golden one drawled, and started to, quite literally, drag the other away from the pile. "Find another one that's not in my employers territory, flier."
“Let go!” he said with a hiss, trying to get away from the other without outright attacking the other, knowing it would be stupid. His optics brightened at the words.
“E-Employer?” he stuttered, “Y-You’re an a-a-autobot?” Panicking, fearing that this other would find out who he was, find out that there was a large reward on his head for his capture, he struggled to get away, practically screeching, “LET ME GO!”
"Hardly. Freelancer." the bulkier of the two sneered at the mere thought of joining the Autobots. "They hardly pay enough as it is. Now, stop your squirming." He sighed, gripping harder, a little bit of his radiation leaking out.
Freelancer, he rolled the thought around his CPU, that was even worse if he was just a credit monger. This mech that had him would turn him over in an instant, “N-no, just let me go, I’ll leave!” he hissed back, before giving a little shriek of pain as the other gripped him harder, along with what ever stung at his plating, “Please! Let go!” A warning popped up in his hud about radiation and he found himself most confused.
"Shut up." He growled, losing a little more radiation out from his iron tight control. "Shut up and I might not turn you over to my employers for whatever reward a 'Con might bring." He didnt state it out right, but he thought that the flier was possibly low level reward stuff. "Which I doubt is much more than I normally make in a cycle."
“Owh! Owh! Please stop that, please, what ever that is, please!” he whined, stopping his struggling as he felt that radiation bite into his plating. He wasn’t a Decepticon, or part of any resistance, but he had a large bounty on his head. Enough to keep a mech in a stock of energon for an orbital cycle, even with the prices that the life liquid was running for. Fear played over on his face, he didn’t want to go back to Iacon, as he knew the chances were infinitesimal of escaping for a second time. Another warning popped up in his HUD, he was on his final few fumes of energon. . .
Sunstorm reined back his radiation, then smirked slightly at the fear. But he found it ugly on the mechs face, and promptly dismissed that thought. Attractive, yes, but now was not the time. He let go, then shoved him forward. "Keep moving, or I'll haul you to the gates. "
The flier wasn’t even sure he could make it much further, but he stopped his struggling, knowing it would cause him to go into stasis lock even faster. How long did he have until that? He didn’t know, he had never drained his systems so badly before. Letting his expression go slack, he concentrated mainly on just putting one foot in front of the other.
"Even if I do let you go, your just going to go into stasis. I can see it."
“What do you care?” the slightly smaller mech said bitterly, not even looking at the other as he was stopped from walking any further. Starscream made no further comment, quiet, though fearing he would be turned in anyways, in stasis and oblivious to what was going on, and that caused him more than a great bit of fear. What if he woke up in Prime’s quarters? A shudder passed through him, fear, and his systems craving energon.
"Cos you're cute." Sunstorm said without thinking much, leading the other towards a slightly better area of the rumble.. where he'd stored cubes for this shift. "And you're a flier."
“W-what?” he stuttered. Fear swallowed his ember, was the other going to? No, he assured himself, before he blurted out, “I won’t be willing, I’d rather go into stasis than interface for energon!” he hissed, starting to act like he might purposely start struggling to offline himself. Despite his poor predicament, there was only so low he would ever stoop to, or at least he believed.
- - - -
The sensors in his lab went wild, and the quizzical scientist looked up from his work, head tilting to the side. His lab was huge, full of all sorts of gadgets. Weird, crazed, bizarre or just plain cruel machines lay all around. The reading was coming from Skyfire’s lab the sensors noted, a large burst of radiation. Striding over, he rubbed his face mask, red optics flickering. Quietly he wondered what that annoyance had done now. Curiosity piqued, he sat his tools down, hands stained with oil, energon, and a multitude of other fluids from his continual work on his cpu’s folly. Going to the door, he opened it, knowing a thin sheet of dust from the door panel. It had probably been close to a fourth of a vorn since he had last left. Rarely he left, and rarely was he out long, but he always enjoyed seeing Skyfire have something blow up his face.
It took some time, but he reached that lab that was much smaller then his own. Punching in a code, hacking Skyfires' code without hardly a notice, he walked into the lab. Instantly his head fins flickered with life, seeing the creature on the berth, who looked a nightmare of a mess in more than one way. Optics flicking down, he saw that failure of a scientist. Striding in, he gave that one a sharp kick.
“Haven’t I told you not to screw with my creations, Skyfire?” he said in a thick drawl before striding over to Sunstorm, quickly going to work repairing that damaged mech, who hadn't been this bad in a long time, if Wheeljack recalled his facts right. The mech was clearly in stasis, and his core thrummed slowly, dangerously slow. Frag. Wheeljack knew if the core stopped, nothing'd hold back the radiation and eventual explosion. As the repairs progressed, the thrum got stronger, but not by much. Damage had been taken to the chamber itself; to the cabling around the ember and core.
“Idiot,” he mumbled to himself in regards of Skyfire, working on the fine machinery that Skyfire had so brazenly screwed with. Yet the madbot knew just how to fix the damage to the chamber, knew just how to get at every cable without damaging it further, unlike Skyfire. Wheeljacks' memory was crystal clear, and he remembered exactly how everything was lain out, even on the chamber, fixing it slowly.
“Prime’s going to mad at you, Skyfire...” the inventor said to stasis-locked mech on the floor. It would take some time, but Wheeljack was able to fix the damage, even making a few improvements on a few details of Sunstorm’s design. After about half a joor of repairs, Sunstorm started to come to, his radiation kicking up, then setting down. He groaned, shifting against the binding and hands that touched him, optics flashing open. In his disorientation as start up programs that hadn't booted up in a long time, he failed to recognize the face of his Creator, and he lashed out.
“Now c’mon, I just fixed that." Head fins flicked brightly as he saw some of the newly repaired panels crackle from radiation. “Now I’m going to have to fix that again, stop it,” Hands moved to get at his tools again. He didn’t expect to be remembered, but he had yet to see the point in using Sunstorms' full designation. Though with his creation freaking, it would look like he would have to. And do more repairs and remove the cuffs. Foolish Skyfire.
"Sunstorm Mark 13 GP159 SUN713A 1586472. You will stop this tantrum immediately.” His voice came out clear, as he smacked the golden seeker on the head lightly, his optics and head fins brightly lit with crimson. Sunstorm jerked, optics dimming then brightening as his full name was said, and he stilled, blinking up at the mech. He knew that face, and whined at the hit.
"C-Creator...?" That's all that he knew Wheeljack as. As 'Creator'. "W-why are you...?" He was horribly confused, as the last time he'd seen the other was a long time ago. A very long time ago. Another life almost, but he was glad to see him. Picking up on the subtle gladness, the headfins dimmed and Wheeljack gave a light clap.
“Oh ho, you do remember, I built you well, I knew I did, though I’m surprised you recognize me,” he said tapping a digit to the plate over his face. It had been a very long time, indeed, as Wheeljack hadn’t had a face in a very long time. “Now, that you’re calmed, let’s get these off,” he said lightly, removing the bindings and restraints, obviously not in fear that his own creation might turn on him, before he went to repairing those newly wrecked plates. After all, All genesis mechs were like emberlings around the one that made them - overrides and hidden programming insured that, and it had been Shockwaves' idea after what had happened at another lab. Terrible thing that, the creation killing the creators, but then thankfully expiring. Who knew what kind of damage it could have done if it had survived. Though in away, it had been the basis for Genesis. Only they had gone further, testing impossible string theories. The results had been seven well trained, highly battle ready and almost impossible to beat mechs.
But then something had happened that had sent Ace over the edge, killing his Creator before he himself was taken down by the 12th mark of Sunstorm. Stryka had been decommissioned as her creator expressed an interest in discontinuing in the experiment. He didn't know what happened to her, and really didn't care. Nightbird had simply offlined due to too much tampering with the CNA by Jhiaxus. A pity really, but oh well. They where only experiments. The real survivors had been the four that had remained.
"You... You changed...Did something happen, Creator?" Once the bindings and restraints were off, he relaxed, and promptly made sort work of a large stack of data pads as he discharged his built up radiation. There wasn’t even the slightest jerk or jump from the strange mech as the seeker blew those data pads up. Though he was jerked back to the now, his thoughts trailing off. Oh well, they were not important.
“My own curiosity,” he replied with a light chuckle, head fins giving a flicker. “Hmmm, you always were my favorite, good to see that little extra I gifted your CPU worked... Nothing that I would be surprised with Jhiaxus and Tarantulas tried the same thing with their creations. Fools really...” he mused, as he started replacing the melted plates with freshly cut ones, his work so meticulous, perfect, yet quick and deliberate. Sunstorm nodded, and held still when work was being done.
"And you got a new face for it.." He pouted a bit, but then shrugged it off. "If you say so... But... I think that I'm the only one from Genesis left alive, Creator. Does that mean that I am the successful one?" He knew something about the experiment, but not enough. And he didn't know why he was telling this to the other. Perhaps a dormant program had been onlined, he didn't know, he had so many in him that it was hard to keep track of. "Also.. he.. he asked about us..About Genesis.." He pointed to Skyfire with a scowl.