The Invictus - Chapter XVII
Chapter Seventeen
~ Age thirteen ~
“Grandson, perhaps you would be willing to run an errand for me?” Positron asked his grandson.
“What is it, Grandfather?” Prowl queried, looking up from his book.
Positron tried not to chuckle-Grandson’s vocalize was beginning its upgrade into its full mech range, and left his throat circuitry raw and his voice hoarse rasp from time to time. “I noticed this morning that we are getting low on energon,” he explained. “Perhaps, if I gave you credits you could go to market and get us more, yes?”
“You… you want me to go to market alone, Grandfather?” Prowl asked in awe.
“I have faith in you, Grandson,” Positron announced, giving the youngling a few credits. “You know where we buy energon, yes?”
“Yes, Grandfather,” Prowl replied with a nod.
“Good-just get two cubes,” Positron instructed. “The kind that is supposed to be better for my spark.”
“I will, Grandfather,” Prowl promised, subspacing the credits. “Do we need anything else?”
“I don’t believe so, Grandson,” Positron replied, leaning back into his pillows. “Can you think of anything?”
“No, Grandfather,” the dark youngling replied, shaking his head. “We have plenty of everything else.”
Positron smiled. “You’re so observant, and so good with our credits, Grandson,” Positron complimented.
The black and gold youngling felt sheepish heat touch his faceplates. “Thank you, Grandfather,” he said sincerely. “I’ll be back within the megacycle, I promise.”
“No need to rush, Grandson,” Positron easily dismissed. “I will be here when you return.”
“But you need to take the medicine for your legs soon,” Prowl reminded.
“So I do,” the elder mech observed. “Do not rush, Grandson, but don’t delay either. Is this an acceptable compromise?”
“Yes, Grandfather,” Prowl agreed. He leaned over and kissed Positron’s cheek. “I love you, Grandfather.”
Positron smiled and kissed Prowl’s forehead. “I love you too, Grandson,” he replied, lying back down.
Prowl tucked the blankets around his grandfather’s chin to shield him from the chills that were beginning to plague him so and slipped out of the room and then the house in turn. The youngling transformed and took off down the path. Although Grandfather had reassured him he didn’t need to rush, so long as he didn’t dawdle, he did need Prowl to prepare and give him his medicine. Unless of course Grandfather wanted to spend the next three solar cycles telling his young grandson in his subtle, “I’m not complaining but I really am” way that his legs were still aching and tingling from the seize they’d gone through.
He reached the market, bustling with Cybertronians and merchants and wares, within a few cycles. He transformed and started working his way through the crowd, trying to find the merchant from whom Grandfather typically bought energon. He moved swift and silent through the crowd-the paranoia he’d had since he was small, that he’d be spirited away to Kaon as a servant slave, still lingered with him, like the paranoia that Grandfather would offline as he recharged, and that Prowl would bring his grey, lifeless chassis tea and energon and medicine in the morning.
He shuddered off the thought-Grandfather would not offline. Not until they could save enough credits to go to Iacon and see good doctors and get good medicine and he could be well again. Maybe it was a dream… but when asked what his goals were, Prowl’s first reply was that he wanted to help Grandfather heal. Grandfather first, then scrounge up enough to attend university to become a medic, then come home and take a permanent position in the village clinic. Yes. Yes, these goals were good and solid.
Prowl easily found the merchant as he reflected on his goals. He haggled two cubes of the purest energon he could afford, and subspaced them before the merchant could change his mind. He was a crotchety old mech with expectations about how his business was done, but he was the best supplier of the energon Prowl and Positron needed. He thanked the merchant and bowed deeply several times; the merchant waved him off with a grumble about “younglings these days” or some such thing. Shaking his head a little, Prowl turned away from the stall-
And whacked into someone. He stumbled back and looked at the person he bumped into. It was a femme, his height but thin in the waistline, and about thirteen stellar cycles. Her blue armor plating was smudged and slightly scratched, and her blue optics glinted with an almost primal nature. There was something about her that dug into Prowl’s memory core and suddenly, it hit him-
The femme fingered the gold crests above his visor, mumbling still. The longer she touched him, the more ill-at-ease he felt. “You’re so pretty,” she mumbled, a little clearer. “I like you.”-
Was this femme…?
“S-sorry,” she stammered in a voice that was hardly louder than a whisper. She kept her eyes down, although they darted from side to side within their settings.
“It’s okay,” Prowl replied. “It was my fault.” He paused before asking, “Do you… remember me? We met once, at the orphanage… when I was nine.”
She looked at him blankly, shaking her head. “N-no…” she denied, shouldering past him and disappearing into the crowd. Prowl watched her go, certain it was her, but unwilling to follow and insist. He shook his head a little and started toward home again.
As was his habit, he watched the people around him as he walked. Along the wall near the market entrance, very close to where Prowl was walking and sticking out in every sense of the word, were two mechs. As he grew closer, Prowl noted that one was very old, and the other was about sixteen. The elder of the two had a crutch laid across his lap; one of his legs had been severed from the knee down, and one of his optics was unlit, indicating irreparable damage. He had an arm wrapped around his junior’s shoulders. The younger one had bandages wrapped around his helm, and his arm in a sling. He rested his injured processor on the elder mech’s shoulder, looking ready to drop into recharge at any nanoclick.
Prowl kept his optics forward as he passed, not because he didn’t necessarily want ignore their existence-on the contrary, the presence of two very obviously front-line soldiers was nigh impossible to ignore-but out of respect. Staring practically burned his optics out of their settings anymore.
As Prowl passed by the mechs, the younger of the pair lifted his helm. He held his hand out toward Prowl, a sort of soft, guttural whine emerging from his throat; his optics were tinged with sorrow. The dark youngling paused, no more than a few feet away from them. Even if they were wounded so badly, why would soldiers be begging? Why couldn’t they turn to the Army for their needs?
The elder mech lowered the younger’s hand, whispering into his audio, “No, Surge-not a youngling.”
“So hungry, Gramp,” the youngling, Surge, whined softly in reply. “I’m so hungry…”
“I know, Surge,” the elder replied, gently hugging the younger mech. “I know.” He looked up at Prowl with tired, apologetic eyes. “I’m sorry for him, sir. He doesn’t know much better anymore.”
Prowl squirmed slightly-he was far too young to be called sir just yet. “It’s okay, sir,” he replied slowly.
Surge lifted his hand again, and the elder lowered it. “I am Nitro, and this is my grandson Surge.”
“I’m Prowl,” he answered slowly, watching Surge lift his hand. “May I… help you with something?”
“I’m afraid not, sir,” Nitro replied, more than a little sadly as he lowered Surge’s hand. “There’s not much that can be done for us.”
“Surely that’s not true,” Prowl protested politely.
“Look at us,” Nitro chuckled darkly. “The army has no need for a half blind and half crippled soldier like me in their infantries, nor for a processor glitched youngling like my grandson in their trenches.”
Prowl shuffled his pedes. It was obvious, but he didn’t want to agree and risk causing offense. “Well… maybe you could do something else,” he offered lamely.
Nitro shook his head. “If the wars end, perhaps, but not now,” he sighed.
Surge whined again, nuzzling his grandfather’s shoulder. “So hungry, Gramp…”
“I know, Surge,” Nitro whispered, hugging and rocking the glitched youngling. He turned to Prowl and whispered, “It’s been some time since we ate last… Almost a decacycle.”
A decacycle without food? No wonder they looked so gaunt. “Can’t you buy something-?”
“No credits,” Surge whimpered, hugging himself.
The change Prowl had gotten from buying the energon felt heavy in his subspace. He and grandfather needed credits, too… but they also had more than enough to eat. The youngling pulled the handful of credits out of his subspace and held them out. “Here,” he said softly. “I don’t need these.” When Surge lifted his hand, Prowl laid the credits in his palm.
Surge looked into his palm with surprise. “F-for us?” he asked softly. When Prowl nodded, the young ex-soldier smiled widely.
Nitro clasped his hands and bowed as deeply as he could to Prowl. “Thank you, sir,” he said sincerely. “Thank you… You’ve saved us both.”
Prowl shuffled his pedes and drew his head into his shoulders. “I don’t know about that, sir,” he said softly.
“I do know, sir,” Nitro said sincerely. “Thank you so much…” Surge’s thanks were nonverbal as he cradled the palmful of credits to his chest hull and considered them as if they were a holy artifact.
Prowl modestly dismissed the thanks again, but allowed Nitro to bless him, before saying his goodbyes and leaving. He felt compelled to look over his shoulder at the pair again. He saw Surge helping his grandfather to his pede and hugging him tightly, still ecstatic at the prospect of eating after what was no doubt a long decacycle. The energon they’d get with the credits, Prowl knew, wouldn’t be the greatest of prospects, but they looked hungry enough to eat the soil from the ground if it meant filling their intakes.
For a chilling moment, as Nitro leaned on Surge’s shoulder and the pair hobbled off into the crowds to find an energon merchant, Prowl could have sworn he saw a hunter green mech with a titanium cane, and a black and gold youngling in their places.
~*~*~*~
“I’m sorry I took so long, Grandfather,” Prowl apologized with a bow as he stepped into his grandfather’s room. “Market was so crowded you could hardly cycle a breath without knocking into another person.”
“This is can believe, Grandson,” Positron consoled, stroking his grandson’s helm. “But no matter-you are home now, and I am thankful. Did you get the energon?”
“Yes, Grandfather-two cubes, just like you asked,” Prowl confirmed. “I put them in the kitchen.”
“And did you bring back the change also?” Positron asked.
Prowl paused. Uh-ohh… “Ahh… I did not, Grandfather,” Prowl answered, bowing his head.
“Why, Grandson?” Positron asked with concern. “Did someone take it from you?”
“N-no, Grandfather!” Prowl denied, scrambling t cover his tracks. “It’s just that the energon was far more expensive this time.”
“It was, Grandson?” Positron questioned. Prowl nodded. “Did you get it where we always have?”
“Yes, Grandfather,” Prowl replied.
“Hmm,” Positron mused. “That is very unusual, is it not, Grandson? He did recognize you as my grandson, yes?”
“Yes, Grandfather-he even called me by name,” Prowl answered.
“Did he say why even we were not exempt from these new prices?” Positron asked, pulling his blankets up around him a little more.
Something about his eyes… Prowl couldn’t lie to the loving mech in front of him. “That… That’s not true, Grandfather,” he confessed with a bowed head. “I’m sorry I told you a lie.”
“I had the feeling you were telling me an untruth, Grandson,” Positron clucked. “Why? Or rather, what happened to the credits?”
Sighing, Prowl explained how he came to meet the soldiers, Surge and Nitro. “They hadn’t eaten in so long, Grandfather-they would have eaten dirt to stay full!” Prowl cried. “They could have been us, Grandfather-I saw you and me when I looked at them!” He bowed his head, tears sliding down his cheeks. “You may punish me for lying however you wish, Grandfather-I won’t protest.”
Positron sat up with a small, stifled groan and pulled Prowl into a hug. “No punishment is needed, Grandson,” he whispered, stroking the youngling’s helm. “You have done something good for others, and I would be a fool to punish you for that.”
Prowl stifled a whimper as he gently hugged him back. “I love you, Grandfather,” he whispered.
“I love you too, Prowl,” Positron replied. He paused, then softly added, “I know that you think we have a hard time of it; but now I hope you know… there are so many more who are worse off than we. They need your love and compassion as much as the next, Grandson-they are the children of Primus, the same as you and I.”
Cheap ending is cheap. -_-;;;