Author Note : Okay, not much to say about this except for that Hasbro owns Beast Wars and I make no money from it…yet...anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
A Dream Or A Nightmare
Walking to school, the seventeen year old wore her black spider tee with matching black jeans. Dangling from her belt was a key chain that had 'I may be a bitch, but I'm the pick of the litter' wrote on it. Her blue - black hair shimmered around her head. She fingered the heart shaped locket that hung around her neck absently. She came to a crosswalk, shifting the weight of her heavy backpack to the other shoulder she started to cross. Humming to the tune coming from her discman she didn't hear the horn honking at her. She turned and looked at something, a friend waving to her. The car didn't stop; her world flashed red, then black as she slipped painfully into unconsciousness.
"We've got them on the run! Predicons, advance!"
Megatron pointed his dragon head at the Maximals; they were charging their weapons when a sphere of bright light appeared in the no man land between the two warring factions. Both sides shielded their eyes until the light finally faded away. Lying in a heap on the ground was a disheveled looking female. She lifted her head slowly, and looked at the Predicons with unseeing eyes, after her eyes focused on the Predicons she saw them, tall robots with extremely large weapons, all looking at her. She screamed, stood up and started to run in the opposite direction, where she ran into the Maximals, she bumped into Silverbolt and fell down again. Both factions were too stunned to attack one another. Optimal Optimus crouched down, trying not to scare her further, he held out his hand to her. There was a sound from behind him.
"This had better be good Primal, I almost had X!" Depth Charge snarled as he pushed Optimus aside, he stopped when he saw the blue haired human on the ground.
Seeing him, the girl half crab walked, half-scurried back to where her backpack had fallen off her when the car had hit her. Digging inside it she searched frantically for something when she found it she pulled it out and pointed the small black pistol at the Maximals, then, remembering the predicons she swung the gun around to them. Her hands shook violently as she stared at them. Megatron regained his wits and raised his dragon gun and pointed it at her.
"Hello and goodbye human scum." Megatron sneered.
The girl raised the gun and fired. The shot hit Megatron in the eye, blinding him and making his shot go wild. She watched nervously to see how he would react.
Screaming in pain Megatron clutched at his eye, "Kill her, kill her!"
Her eyes widened as several guns were cocked at her. She didn't have time to react when she felt someone pick her up and hold her tightly. She looked up and saw that it was the large blue and yellow guy with the big wing like things on his back that had just shown up.
He now had those fins wrapped protectively around her. He couldn't retaliate because he was holding her, so he was slowly trying to back up behind the maximals. There was hardly any color left on his fins from the shots, and there were some wires showing. She clung to the ray-bot desperately and he held her protectively. He chanced a look down at her and saw that she was crying, she had tried to curl into a ball, he felt something tear in his fin and heard her scream out loud in agony. He saw blood starting to come from her shoulder.
He saw blood staring to come from her shoulder.
"She's been hit!" Depth Charge yelled, not really directing it to anybody but hoping for some help. He had taken too much damage, any more and he might slip into stasis. Depth Charge had fallen to his knees when he realized that he couldn't hear the sounds of guns anymore. He opened his eyes and instead of seeing a burned wasteland, he saw a paradise. There was a small forest of pines and leafy trees to the right of him, on his left there was a large pond.
"Oh God! I'm dead aren't I?"
Depth Charge looked down at the blue haired teen in surprise. It was the first time he had heard her speak. He arm was still bleeding profusely (again, I can't spell), her shirt was torn and askew, her pants were ripped and muddy and her hair was all matted to one side in a crumpled mess. He was even more surprised that he could understand her language. He set her down gently and kneeled beside her.
"How do you feel?" He asked, trying to keep his voice calm and even, he didn't want to scare her. The last thing he needed was a hysterical human.
"Sore as hell, and extremely confused."
She winced at her shoulder and took her shirt off, or more like peeled it off her, and ripped it into strips for her wound. She started to wrap it around her shoulder, Depth Charge helped when instructed to.
"How did you get here? What's your name."
"My name is Circe, and I have no idea how I got here."
Again, he tried to keep her calm, he could see that she was starting to get a little hysterical, so he decided to try something "That's an odd name."
She looked at him like he ha two heads, "I was thrown into a fricken war, than heaven, and you...whatever da hell you are, not only talks da same language as me, but all you seem to care about is my name! Are you mental or somethin'?"
He realized that when she became angry she developed a light accent similar to Rattraps'.
"I'm not going to hurt you, I'm a maximal-"
She threw her good arm up in frustration, "Oh like that helps..."She grumbled. She walked around a bit, holding her injured arm.
He was finding it hard to believe that this was the same scared, defenseless little girl that he had just saved from a predicon onslaught.
"I am NOT a little girl! I'll have you know that I'm seventeen years old! "She yelled, advancing on him.
He looked at her startled; "I didn't say that."
"Yes, you did! You said that I was a scared defenseless little girl. If I was so defenseless, than how could I have shot that freak show like I did?"
"Nevermind, come on, we're getting out of here."
He tried to grab her arm but she jerked it away.
"Didja ever think that I might like it here fishface?"
"How did you know what I was?" He asked, starting to lose his patience with her.
Circe finally faltered in her tirade; paused looking confused, then scared. "I...I don't know, I just knew that you were. This is getting freaky, I wanna go home."
"I'm sorry but that's not an option."
A figure dressed in white robes stepped from the forest into the little clearing; he had long graceful white wings. He looked peaceful and kind, except for when you looked into his cold blue eyes, his eyes had a hardness to them, an underlying wisdom that bilied his calm exterior.
"Who the heck are you?" Circe yelled to the figure.
"I am part of a higher level race. We are called the Tah-ne race."
"Did you bring us here?" Circe asked, her anger flaring up again.
The figure smirked a little at her aggressiveness ~Oh yes,~ He thought ~this will be interesting.~
"Your parents named you well Circe. You have had same anger and impatience of the Circe of legend. Yes I brought you here, how or why is none of your business. I will soon be sending you back to your world," he said, nodding his head toward Depth Charge, "But I have decided to have some fun. We've been watching both of you for some time now. We know about Omicron, and the gangs, "Circe averted her eyes when he mentioned gangs, but he continued nonetheless, "And we have concluded that we would like to see how you can interact with the Maximals and predicons. We have also made things...interesting, for you may have already noticed, you each have the ability to read each other's thoughts. You will also feel what the other is feeling at any given moment chosen by us."
Circe started to laugh, "I had this dream before. Except it usually has Toby Macguire and the Green Goblin fight and..."
Depth Charge clamped a hand over her mouth to stop her ramblings. Circe glared at the ray-bot but stopped talking much to his relief. He noticed that she was tapping her boots together, removing his hand he heard her start a sort of chant.
"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's not place like home...there's no place ahh hell why won't it work? It worked for the stupid redhead and her dog!"
The man walked over to Circe and handed her a type of shirt. It was then that she realized that she only had her bra on (well, she was surrounded by a robot and a weird dude with wings, would you have remembered?) Taking the shirt gratefully, she put it on. It clung to her like a second skin, yet, it was very warm and comfortable. It was plain white, but it seemed to have a silver thread sewn into it that made it glisten in the sunlight. The sleeves came to a point by her elbows, it had a V-shaped neckline with a ribbon to tie it up with. While tying up the lace she opened the silver locket around her neck and said a silent thank you for it still being there. She looked at the picture of her mother and brother.
"They seem nice," Depth Charge told her, breaking into her remincing.
She angrily snapped the locket shut. "Lets get one thing straight, you don't listen in on my thoughts and I won't listen in on your thoughts’, kapeish?"
"Gladly, the last thing I need is some whiny human female to get in my way."
"Oh, and one other thing."
Both stopped and stared at the Tah-ne, "You will be the only one who can understand her, Depth Charge, and Depth Charge is the only one you can understand."
"This is getting weird, even for me, I demand some answers, right here, right now!" Circe spoke angrily as she strode over to him.
"Sorry, but it is time for you to return. Remember you are both responsible for each other."
He held out his hand, there was a sphere of light floating in his upturned palm. It floated over to them, growing bigger until it enveloped them, they closed their eyes against the bright light.
When Depth Charge opened his eyes he saw that he was back in the Ark. Rhinox turned half-way in his seat in front of the computers to look at him, as he stepped out of the CR chamber.
"How do you feel?"
"Fine, no thanks to Primal. "He started gruffly. "Where's Circe?" He asked suddenly.
Rhinox looked at him quizzically, "Who? Oh, the human. Rattrap is showing her to a room."
Depth Charge took off down the hallway after her.
Circe wasn't listening to Rattrap, not that it mattered, she couldn't understand a word he was saying anyway. Rattrap noticed her looking around and shook his head.
"Why now? We were winning until you had ta show up. "He told her irritated.
She looked at him, and tilted her head sideways at his voice, thinking he was being nice to her she smiled at him. They came to a door, opening it he gestured for her to go inside. Circe looked at inside it and stepped back a bit, shaking her head slightly.
"I'm not anybodies prisoner. "She said.
"Your not a prisoner, it's your room."
Circe looked down the hallway and saw Depth Charge walking toward them. Circe glanced inside it again, it was bare, there was barely even a bed it was a rectangular slab of metal with a small bump at the top to indicate where your head should go.
"Looks like a prison to me," She grumbled.
Rattrap looked between Depth Charge and Circe growing more confused by the minute.
"What're ya talking about Capt'n Minow? An' why are ya talking like her?"
"What'd he say? This guy's been bugging me for the last fifteen minutes. "Circe demanded, pointing a mean look at Rattrap.
"He says you're a pest, now will you please shut up."
~Oh yeah, make me you overgrown tuna!~She thought/spoke to him angrily. She was about to say more when she caught a snatch of his trail of thought.
"Who's X?" She asked innocently enough, not feeling the hate that was radiating around the thought.
He stared at her, then she watched as he said something to Rattrap, who in turn, shrugged his shoulders and left. Once out of sight Depth Charge turned back to her, and the look of open hatred and disgust on his face was enough to make Circe back up three full steps.
"Don't you ever, EVER, read my mind again, do you understand me?!" He snarled in a voice that would make even Optimus cringe.
"O...Okay, but who is X?" She asked again.
He was still staring at her.
"Fine,I promise not to do any of that mind reader shit again unless you ask me to," She said, raising her hands in mock surrender.
"X was, is a homicidal murderer, who is now called Rampage."
"Come on, surely he's not that bad, you must be exaggerating."
Depth Charge sent a wave of images to her. She inhaled sharply as visions of a completely decimated city was shown to her. She realized that she was seeing a memory, a vivid memory through his eyes. She saw dozens of bodies strewn everywhere, like forgotten toys, the pain and fear was so overwhelming that it made her legs weak and she collapsed onto the floor. But Depth Charge wasn't through yet. She heard maniacal laughter and saw a large red bot coming toward her, by now Circe was crying and shaking uncontrollably with fear. The tall bot loomed over and laughed that frightening laugh again.
"Hello old friend."
Circe was about to scream but stopped herself, instead a strangled cry escaped her lips. Depth Charge stopped the visions. He was as lost in the memory as she had been so it shocked him to realize that he was holding her tightly, actually comforting her. They were both sitting together on the floor. He tried not to read her, but her thoughts were loud and so jumbled that it was hard not to.
~No more, please no more...so much pain...so scary...he killed everyone...no one was left...why?...please no more...~
He picked her up and carried her into her new room, her loud sobs had died into soft hiccups. Laying her on the bed, he leaned against the wall beside the foot of the bed.
"I'm sorry that I showed you, you weren't prepared for that." He said, trying to sound sincere.
"I...na...ome." Circe mumbled into her hand.
"What?"
She moved until she was staring at the ceiling. "I wanna go home." Her voice cracked at the word home, making her sound extremely young. For the first time Depth charge actually thought about what she had lost when she came here. She had lost her family, friends, her home, really, she had lost everything.
~In some ways, she's suffering the same way you are when you lost your life.~A voice told him.
While he knew that was impossible, it made him feel sorry for her. He got up and started to leave.
"Where are you going?"A panicky voice asked him.
"Out."
A pause, "Please don't leave me alone."
While it wasn't hard to hear the fear in her voice, he could feel her fear as well. It was strong and it washed over him, making him slightly ill.
~Watch it, feeling fear is a Rampage trick you know.~His mind taunted him.
~I'm nothing like that creep~It's just this damned mind link.~He told himself.
"What do you want." He sighed.
"Just...don't leave me...please?" Her voice was tiny and soft but still very frightened.
Sighing again he walked back over and sat on the bed, he leaned back against the wall behind it. Feeling no shame in being frightened out of her mind, Circe crawled onto his lap. He found her to be surprisingly light. She leaned against him and started to relax, he put his arms around her to keep her from falling off. For a split second he was reminded of when his own daughter would run into his room late at night after a bad dream. He would hold her much like he was holding Cicre now, until she felt better or fell asleep. He loved those days, that was, until X had destroyed his life. Circe was having a similar memory of her own father, but hers had a different ending ,her father was taken away by demons as well. But we know this demon better as alcohol. She had loved her daddy, until he would get drunk and beat her senseless, until mommy had died in a car crash with him and her and her brother were separated at the orphanage. She loved her daddy, she hated her daddy, she missed her daddy.
Circe was staring to drift off to sleep. Moving her gently as not to wake her, Depth Charge laid her back onto the bed. Circe opened her sleep filled eyes partway and looked at Depth Charge.
"Daddy?" She whispered, then closed her eyes as sleep over took her.
Depth stood there, frozen. She had sounded so much like his own daughter, so much like Jade that for one blissful moment it was his daughter. And they were back on Omicron, while mentally he knew it was impossible, his heart spoke otherwise.
A younger, happier Depth Charge sat in a chair, reading the news/He preferred to read it than to watch it, he felt that television was to impersonal these days. An energy storm raged outside, a bolt of lightning hit the ground. He pitied anyone that was foolish enough to be out in in such weather. Luckily all buildings were protected against such storms. FLASH! Another bolt of lightning, closer this time. The power in his house flashed on and off in warning then plunged him into darkness.
"Dammit!" He muttered under his breath, setting the newspaper down.
"At least Jade's asleep, that way I don't have to worry about her being-"
"Daaaaadiiiiieeeeee!!!!"
"-Scared." he finished, resting his head in his hand, he looked toward the hallway where the scream had come form and said: "It's just the storm honey, go back to bed."
"Daddy? I'm scared." the voice was closer this time.
He looked and saw the thin outline of his daughter. Jade was roughly around ten years old by human terms. Another flash lit up the room, illuminating the both of them. he could see her easily now. She stood about four feet tall. The child was small but she had an gracefulness to her as well. She had long metallic black hair, her torso held her namesake Jade color, it was tinted with a lighter green along the edges. One green mingling into the other. The green ran along her body and mixed into another color on her arms, legs and head. The color was faint but was a smoky silver color. The green was gone, and yet looking again made you wonder if it wasn't just a darker color of green. The bright sparks of blue inside her dark blue optics darted back and forth between her father and the storm outside nervously. She hugged her tattered teddy bear closer. Since she was old enough to understand, the human race had always fascinated her, so as a birthday present for her fourth birthday Depth charge had bought her one, specially made of course, just for her. She had refused to part with it ever since.
He opened his arms as Jade ran over to him.
"Shh," He whispered, rubbing her back, trying to sooth the frightened maximal. "Come on, everything's alright."
He picked her up and carried her back to her room, lying her on the bed he sat beside her. Absently stroking her hair until she fell back asleep.
Depth Charge shook his head as the comforting memory faded in front of his eyes. Leaving him alone again in a cold steel room. He paused before leaving listening to Circe's slow even breathing. Once more he thought of how alike Jade and Circe were. If Jade would still be alive, they would be about the same age.
He wondered what kind of a bot she would have become. Probably a historian, he mused, she loved the humans that much.
"Depth charge come to the main deck, I'd like to have a word with you." Primal's voice came over the com link.
Depth charge clamped a hand over the link to muffle the sound, and looked over to Circe to see if she had woke up. She remained motionless in a deep sleep. He walked outside and waited for the door to slide shut before replying.
"What do you want Primal? I'm too busy right now for one of your slagging speeches." He growled.
There was an aggravated sigh on the other end, then: "Will you just get in here!"
Having a moment to spare before he returned to his hunt for X,Depth Charge joined Primal on the main deck. Optimus was waiting when Depth Charge appeared, Primal was ready for an argument but he proceeded anyway.
"I'm told that you can understand her. "Optimus tried tentatively, he knew that he was treading on thin ice whenever he talked to Depth Charge.
Depth Charge was about to tell him about the encounter with the Tah-ne but thought better of it. Besides, he didn't think Primal would buy it, being as stiff necked as he was.
Instead he said: "I studied their language back on Cybertron." Sure, that seemed plausible, he thought.
"Oh, very well." Primal dismissed Depth Charge who promptly left in search of Rampage.
Depth Charge headed directly for the ocean. Never once questioning his tracking device for Rampage. Swimming through the waters in beast mode he stopped.
"Protoform X within a ten ft. radius." His tracker told him. He looked around, seeing nothing but a few scattered seaweed vines and sandy bottom for miles. It was then that he realized that there was no other sea life. Not taking any chances he transformed, pulling out his remora gun he stood at full alert. He moved ahead a few paces, still puzzled that his tracker said X was here when he clearly wasn't. There weren't any rocks for him to hide behind. He stopped again and consulted his tracker. It beeped at him in alarm.
"Protoform X within a two ft. radius."
"What the slag?" He looked around at nothing again, he was about to move on when he felt something shift beneath his feet. He tried to transform but a large claw grabbed his ankle and hauled him beneath the sand, and into the tunnel trap the crab-bot had set. Lying on his back the sand shifted again and began filling up the space occupying his body at an alarming rate. He felt his gun being ripped from his hand, his disc bomb coughed and sputtered, he could hear machinery grinding, the opening already filling up with sand making it completely useless.
In his panicked state he began clawing desperately with his hands. He would not allow himself to die, not while X still lived. But the sand was deep and heavy and it seemed that every handful he pushed away, more took it's place. He knew that X wasn't helping, the creep is probably pilling on more sand. Depth charge thought disgustedly. He could faintly hear the maniacal laughter that indicated the crabs presence. The laughter gave Depth charge renewed strength as he started to dig even harder.
Circe was having a horrible nightmare, it felt like there was an increasing pressure pushing down her, to the point where it was hard to breath. She clawed at the invisible force desperately trying to get free. She was getting short of breath and the pressure increased, causing her lungs to scream for oxygen. Throughout this dream she could hear something in the background, it was growing steadily louder until she could define it as laughter. Then a loud voice filled her head with a deafening shout, saying one word over and over again that when the pressure suddenly left her she sat bolt upright in bed and screamed it herself. Depth Charge shoved aside more sand, letting in light, two more handfuls and he was free. One thought raced through his head as he saw the outline of X's body against the light.
Vengeance! His mind screamed, it was suddenly reinforced with a louder voice, be he had no time to think about that. X was still here.
Rampage had stopped piling the sand on. He knew that he couldn't hold his old playmate down there for long, but it was fun to get him mad. He laughed again as he watched Depth Charge lunge from the sandy grave at his throat. He waved the stolen remora gun in a no-no fashion.
"How did you like the bed I made for you, old friend? I needed to get the right measurements for the real thing."
Depth Charge took a swipe at him, his fist hitting Rampages' jaw, knocking the transformed crab off balance. Depth Charge quickly used this fleeting opportunity to put him in a headlock. Rampage drew his leg up and kicked the ray-bot in the gut, Depth Charge winced a little at the pain, but held on, trying to slowly twist Rampages head off. Rampage was struggling when he picked up on something.
"Fear!" The crab-bot spoke, astonished.
"What did you say creep?"
"There's so much fear, but it's not your own. It belongs to another, and-"He paused, feeling it himself, "Your feeding off it!"
To stunned to answer, his hands slowly came off Ramage's neck as he stared at him. Rampage started to simply walk away when he turned back to look at the very stunned ray.
"Maybe you and I are not so different after all, old friend."
Circe sat in bed, the nightmare erased from her mind. In it's place was a feeling of complete and utter confusion, yet, she had no idea why she felt so confused. Lying in bed the feeling passed, but it wasn't gone, it turned into something of disgust that settled itself in the pit of her stomach and refused to move. Moving to roll onto her stomach she yelped in pain. Sitting up she moved her fingers gently over a tender area over her abdomen. She saw a large bruise developing where her fingers had just inspected. The bruise was coming in in dark shades of red, purple and blue. She layed back down on her back. Closing her eyes she tried not to think about how closely the bruise resembled a footprint.
Rampage was sitting in one of the caves that he came to to get away from the predicons. It was his sanctuary where not even Depth Charge nor Dinobot could get him. He looked around, he had a small treasure of odds and ends in it. Leftover bones from meals, pieces of Depth Charge that he had managed to tear from the manta ray, he tossed the remora gun onto the small pile. And walked over to a ledge-like shelf where he kept his collection of human things. A small green porcelain doll with the right arm missing dressed in a ripped silk sequin dress. The small calibur gun that he had picked up from Circe, with three clips still in it. And one old, tattered teddy bear. He picked the bear up gingerly, afraid that it might fall apart. The crab laughed a soft remorseful laugh.
"And you thought that you were the only survivor."
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