Plays of Shadow

By: Amber Dawn

Chapter 12: Shockwaves

PG: Language

Disclaimer: I don’t own Beast Wars. It belongs to Hasbro.

Rattrap stared blankly out at the darkening landscape, showing no exterior sign of the emotion that threatened to tear him apart from the inside.

Today he had said goodbye to one of the greatest friends he had ever had. Dinobot had gone out like a hero, the way he had always wanted to, leaving the rest of the Maximals gasping in his wake.

‘And leaving me with a lot of regrets,’ Rattrap thought with a trace of bitterness. ‘Ya big ugly lizard, why’d you have to leave before I could let you know what I really thought of ya?’

Rattrap thought bleakly back to that morning – had it really been only this morning? – when he’d confronted Dinobot with senseless accusations, for no other reason than he had been feeling irritable. Rattrap recalled with painful clarity the look of shocked insult on Dinobot’s face as he had pushed it one step too far, then turned his back on him. Had Dinobot pulled this stunt to prove himself, once and for all? Had Rattrap not flown off the handle, would things have turned out differently?

The short spy shook his head miserably. No, Dinobot had never needed to prove anything to anybody but himself, and no doubt that’s why he had gone so ruthlessly into that battle today. If only, Rattrap thought for the millionth time since this afternoon, if only they had arrived sooner. If only he had somehow found the words to tell Dinobot how much his friendship had meant to him throughout this entire war. If only he’d had a bit more time….

But he hadn’t, and now he had lost his chance for good.

Rattrap blew out a long, heavy sigh and wondered why he was the way he was. During his younger days, his cynical attitude and inability to trust strangers had been the only thing keeping him alive. Now the attributes stayed with him for no real reason, and while it suited him most of the time he had to admit that there were times he wished he could be as open with his emotions as the rest of the Maximals.

That was perhaps what had brought him and Dinobot to such odds and yet to such an understanding: both held their cards close to the chest, and neither was willing to lose the hand.

Thinking back to that morning again, Rattrap realized for the first time what a total ass he had made of himself. There was no reason for him not to trust Fleetshade’s intentions; after all, Airazor had approved of the kid, and nobody else seemed to have a problem with her. Just him, because he was such a stubborn fool that he couldn’t let his pride go for just a few nanos and apologize.

Frustration washed over him and he put his face in his hands. He needed to say something to Fleetshade, before his stupidity created the Maximals another enemy. The kid was just so fragile, so unlike all the femmes he’d ever known that for once he didn’t feel he had the right words to give her. Any of the femmes he had ever met would have simply belted him one for his suggestive comments, but Fleetshade had run from him! What was she afraid of? She had to know that he would never….

But she didn’t know, he realized. He hadn’t heard what she’d told Optimus this morning, but the commander had seemed disturbed by whatever she’d said. And Rattrap was sure, from his few brief glances at the girl today, that she hadn’t told Optimus everything. So Cheetor was right: the girl had obviously seen a lot in her lifetime.

Just then, a soft whooshing noise was heard, then a hiss. Raising his head, Rattrap glanced to the underside of the Axalon and saw the lift descending.

‘Speak of the Pit,’ Rattrap thought as he watched a doe bound from the lift and out onto the hard turf of the plateau on which the Maximals’ base of operations rested. The setting sun shone behind her, its light outlining her lithe form and reducing her to a dark shadow against the blood red backdrop of sky.

Fleetshade glanced both ways, but Rattrap was hidden in the shadows of the ship and she didn’t appear to see him. Rattrap sat forward, wondering if he had indeed been right and she was about to dart off in the direction of the Predacon base. He tensed, ready to follow at a distance.

But she didn’t go anywhere. Instead, he watched as she walked in slow circles, nibbling at an occasional tuft of grass growing up out of the dusty ground, once or twice raising her head to sniff the air. He would have mistaken her for a real deer but for the odd strangled noises that kept emanating from her direction. Was she crying? Man, Rattrap hated it when femmes cried.

Taking a deep breath, Rattrap steeled himself and stirred, getting to his feet.

“Hey,” he called. Fleetshade jumped with a yelp and spun to face him, deer eyes wide and frightened. She recognized him instantly and relaxed, but only somewhat.

“Yes?” she asked. The word was a challenge; she thought he was going to tell her she couldn’t be out here, he realized.

“C’mere,” he replied gently, trying to project that he meant her no harm. She hesitated, then padded slowly over to him.

“Yes?” she asked again, this time sounding like she expected him to hit her.

“I, uh-I wanted to talk to ya,” he said lamely, wondering why he was suddenly stumbling over his words. He cleared his throat as she gave him the deer equivalent of a shrug.

“Okay,” she agreed, obviously thankful that she wasn’t going to be told off. She sank gracefully to the ground and folded her forelegs expectantly in front of her. This was such a purely feminine movement, even as a deer, that Rattrap had to bite back a snort of laughter. He sat down beside her, keeping a respectful distance but still close enough that she could hear him without having to raise his voice.

“Uh, so why’re you out here alone?” he asked.

“I needed some air,” she told him shortly, then sighed. “It’s…tense in there.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“How long have you been out here?”

“Henh. A couple megacycles.”

“Oh.” Fleetshade looked away, then turned back to him. “You two were close?”

Rattrap was caught off guard by this question and it was his turn to look away. When he faced her again, he was pinned by her wide-eyed gaze. The setting sun was reflected in them, making them shine like searchlights into a deep part of his mind.

“Yeah, we were close.” He didn’t know how much the others had told Fleetshade about what had happened today, but it had been enough.

“I didn’t know him,” she said quietly, “but a lot can be said for a ‘bot by the way he’s mourned. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Rattrap grunted, not trusting his voice to speak. Fleetshade went on.

“I’ve seen a lot in my life so far: pain, suffering, death. I’ve grieved for friends who were driven beyond their limit, physically and emotionally. But I’ve never seen war.

“I’ve heard of it, in a faraway sense. It’s one of those things you read about but never seriously think you’ll see for yourself. And yet here I am, and in the eight days I’ve been here there have been two casualties, and one near miss. I never met Tigatron or Dinobot, and yet I feel a sense of terrible grief when I see what their deaths have done to the rest of you. It just doesn’t seem right.”

Rattrap leaned back with a sigh, his legs stretched out in front of him and his weight on his elbows. “I guess it’s just somethin’ ya get used to,” he said. “You come to terms with it, ya know? Dyin’ is a part of life, and when you’re at war, you’ve gotta expect casualties.”

Fleetshade was silent for a few cycles. Rattrap, who had been looking at his feet, glanced up to find her shining gaze fixed on his. “You feel a lot more than you let on, Rattrap,” she said softly. “You pretend that it doesn’t hurt you, that you don’t grieve like everyone else does. You pretend not to trust those you feel you shouldn’t, simply because trust implies a connection with somebody. As does grief. Why do you hide your connections to people?”

Rattrap stared at Fleetshade, stunned into silence. Fleetshade had discovered in a day what it had taken him stellar cycles to figure out about himself. It was as if she could read his mind like an open data pad.

“I-I dunno,” he replied quietly, knowing denial was useless. For a moment he thought about lashing out, telling her she was wrong and not to pry. But what use would it be, if she could see right through the façade anyway?

“How can you tell?” he asked her.

She smiled her deer smile and glanced away. “I’m usually good at reading people.” Rattrap noted the emphasis on the word ‘usually’. “It comes from stellar cycles of speaking with no words, only actions and emotions. Body language, facial expression, optic contact. That’s all you need to reveal a ‘bot’s soul, if you know how to look.”

Rattrap avoided asking Fleetshade why she’d been limited to speaking without words for so long; she would tell him when she was ready. Instead he nodded. “And how ‘bout this mornin’?”

“I – I read you wrong,” she admitted. “I’m sorry, I really am. I don’t have a lot of good experience with males, and so when you said--"

“It’s okay,” Rattrap cut her off, placing his hand on one of her hooves, “I understand. I haven’t exactly lived a sheltered life either. I know how it is: you build up prejudices, walls around yourself to protect you from gettin’ hurt.”

Rattrap took a deep breath and forced out the words he knew he needed to say.

“Fleetshade – I-I’m sorry about this mornin’. I shoulda known better, but I pushed it too far. Seems I’ve been doin’ that a lot lately.”

Fleetshade blinked, then nodded again. “And you couldn’t apologize in front of the others. I get it.”

“You’re good at this,” Rattrap told her with a snort.

The deer smiled, but it was bitter. “Not as good as I should be. But I’m slowly learning that not all males are slag-sucking jerks, and that I’m in a very different world than I was in before….”

Fleetshade trailed off, lost in her own thoughts. After a few nanos she shook her head to clear it, then turned to him and flashed him the deer equivalent to a grin.

“So, friends?”

Rattrap hesitated, then returned the grin. This tortured femme may be wise beyond her age in some regards, but she was still a kid at heart. He stuck out his hand and clasped one of her cloven hooves.

“Friends,” he agreed.

Airazor sat on her bed, gazing through tear-filled optics at the hologram on her nightstand. It showed her and Tigatron walking down the beach, hand in hand, enjoying all the beauty this planet had to offer them. She remembered the day like it was yesterday: it was before they had left on their mission to find stasis pods, and Cheetor had snuck up behind them with a holograph machine. Tigatron had rushed after him to retrieve the chip, but Cheetor had managed to get away and had given the hologram to Airazor on the anniversary of her awakening on Earth. Cheetor had called it her birthday, even though the date of her real birthday was lost somewhere in the memories of her past.

Airazor picked up the delicate stand the hologram was projected from and held it to her breast, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She had thought she was getting over Tigatron’s death. It was like Fleetshade had said: her soul would take a while to heal, but the loss was no longer a gaping wound. But with Dinobot’s death today….

Another Maximal gone. Another friend she’d never see again, lost to this pointless war. And Dinobot had been her friend, though he had never been close to her. He was uncomfortable around females, just as Fleetshade was with males, but he had been kind to Airazor in his own gruff way. And now he was gone. Like Tigatron. How many more would fall before the Beast Wars were over? Would any of them survive? Everything was so uncertain. Airazor felt as though she were flying with no wings to hold her up, spiraling dizzyingly downward toward some unseen fate. Nothing seemed real anymore: not the solid metal of her recharge bed, not Cheetor or any of the other Maximals going about their own private grief elsewhere, not even her own body. Nothing was real but her grief and loss, awakened again in light of Dinobot’s tragedy – and triumph.

Airazor smiled through her tears, knowing with all her spark that Dinobot had fulfilled his wish to die a hero. He had saved the human race and the Maximals’ future, finally proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was one of the good guys. He had at least experienced some sort of closure, but Tigatron…he had been wrenched from this world so quickly, so suddenly – she still couldn’t justify it, still couldn’t believe her love wasn’t out there in the forest, waiting for her to return so that they could carry on their lives together.

Airazor curled up on herself with a wracking sob and the hologram projector dropped unnoticed from her grasp. It would have hit the floor and shattered had a hand not suddenly darted out and caught it as it fell.

Fleetshade straightened and replaced the projector on Airazor’s nightstand, then bent and put her arms around her friend. Without a word, Airazor leaned against her shoulder and cried until her sobs quieted to small hiccoughs, then faded completely.

Finally, the bird-bot raised her head and wiped her optics.

“Y’know,” she sighed, “I don’t usually cry this much. I’m acting like a –sniff – girl.”

Fleetshade laughed lightly. “You’re entitled to be a girl, Airazor.”

“I know. I just – sniff – hate this. I’m usually so strong, so together. But lately I’ve been a – sniff – wreck.”

“Airazor, you’ve lost somebody very close to you, and then were forced to face anther loss mere days later. Nobot expects you to be stoic and steadfast through that. If you did, you might as well be a sparkless drone.”

“But everyone else is handling it so well,” Airazor protested. “None of them broke down and cried. Rattrap seems the same as normal, and Dinobot was his best friend!”

Fleetshade smiled ruefully. “I’m sure he’d pay you not to mention you noticed that. And he’s grieving a lot more than he lets on. You just have to know where to look.”

Airazor finally nodded and smiled. She gave one last sniffle and squeezed Fleetshade’s hand.

“Thanks, Fleetshade,” she said.

“Hey,” the deer-bot grinned, “what are friends for?”

Airazor was silent. Just when Fleetshade thought the falcon-bot had somehow fallen asleep, she spoke: “When Tigatron – when he left, I felt so alone. I mean, I love the guys, but there are things they just don’t understand, you know? But now I have you, and you understand the little things that they don’t. You’re more than a friend already, Fleetshade; you’re like a sister.”

Fleetshade smiled. The Maximal had echoed her exact thoughts.

“You know,” she replied, “I’m starting to remember things about my childhood more often now. Like I knew I had two brothers back on Bedon, but now I remember that I always wanted a sister. I guess I just had to wait a few hundred stellar cycles, because now I have two.”

Fleetshade watched as Airazor puzzled this out.

“You mean me and Blackarachnia?” the bird-bot asked.

“Yeah, I do.”

Airazor gave this a moment of thought before nodding. “Yeah, I suppose you could be right.”

Cheetor walked steadily forward through the meadow, following the creature in front of him. The path they followed was marked by a soft azure light, and as the doe walked along she absorbed the light into herself, glowing brighter and brighter with each step.

“No!” Cheetor cried, trying to step forward to help her. But before he could move the light faded completely and the shadows poured forth again, enveloping them. All was darkness and he felt the weight of despair and defeat before he faded away....

Cheetor sat bolt upright, gasping for breath. Without a thought he rolled off of his recharge bed and stumbled to his porthole, which he had rigged to open outwards. Pushing it open, he leaned his head out, taking deep gulps of fresh night air and hoping that he hadn’t screamed aloud: he didn’t want to wake the others.

This was the third time this week he’d had the same dream. The first time had been the night before Fleetshade had arrived. He’d put it down to stress and forgot about it, until he’d seen Fleetshade’s beast mode. Even then he had been uneasy, but still hesitant to say anything to Optimus in case the commander thought he was getting spooked by nothing.

Then the dream had come again the night before Tigatron had been taken by that alien plant. Cheetor had resolved to tell Optimus since then, but the dreams had stopped coming. The cat-bot had taken that as a sign that the rest of its portents were just fantasy, but now Dinobot…Cheetor sighed and sagged against the edge of the porthole, plagued with guilt. If he had said something earlier, would Dinobot and Tigatron still be with them?

And now the dream had come again.

Cheetor pulled his head back inside but left the window open, letting the night breeze flow into his room. It was true that Dinobot had shattered the golden disc before he’d died, and he had done a good job of it: it was surely beyond repair. There was no way a broken object could just reform like in the dream, so what could it mean? And where had that arrow come from?

Cheetor blew out a gust of air and flopped into a chair, guilt eating him away inside. It was his fault that Tigatron and Dinobot were gone, but he wouldn’t let the same thing happen to Fleetshade. He would do at least that much right.

“Whoever they are, I won’t let them get you, Fleetshade,” he whispered to his dark room. “I promise.”