Raptrana
Part One: The Beginning
By: Sinead
Airazor felt that she needed to talk to someone.
She was out on patrol, and there was no
Predacon activity whatsoever. Night was falling, so she decided to head back to
the base.
Suddenly, she saw a most unlikely duo: A Velociraptor and a human walking
together,
talking.
“Hello down there!” Airazor called.
The two beings looked up, and Awn’néad waved. Airazor flew closer, and landed
next to
them.
“What brings the Goddess of the Wild to grace the humble warriors with her
presence?”
Awn’néad teased, bowing low.
Airazor chuckled. “I feel like talking.”
Dinobot snorted contemptuously, then said, “There will be plenty of time to
talk at the base.”
“Why don’t you go ahead, and tell Optimus that I’ll call him in a
while?” Awn’néad
suggested
“He’ll come after you, and order you to return,” Dinobot snarled.
In answer, Awn’néad pulled out a sheet of paper, and a pen out of her
messenger’s bag that
she carried, and wrote a brief note on it, explaining that she’d be back by
nine o’clock the next
morning with Airazor. “If I write a note, he’ll listen. Optimus knows my
handwriting like you know
my fencing style.”
“Why do you wish to stay with her?” Dinobot asked.
“Because I’d like to know her better. Just like I wanted to know you better
when I first met
you,” Awn’néad answered cooly.
Dinobot snarled to himself, and looked down. After a moment though, he looked
back up.
“I will deliver your message to Primal. Good night.”
And with that, Dinobot took the folded piece of paper, and ran off.
“I guess that he isn’t in the greatest of moods today,” Airazor said,
smiling.
Awn’néad chuckled. “Actually, for him, that is as optimistic as he gets
around you other
Maximals.”
The Falcon and the human walked toward a cave in a hillside nearby.
“What do you mean, ‘you other Maximals’?” Airazor asked.
“When I’m out on patrol with just either him, or him and Altaire, he isn’t
as harsh. He feels
as if he needs to hide who he really is.”
“I still don’t understand,” Airazor said, as Awn’néad built a smallish
fire. The stars shone
brightly, and Awn’néad looked up at them, sighing before she went on.
“Maybe if I told you about my past, you’d understand better. However,”
Awn’néad said,
looking deep into Airazor’s eyes. “You must never tell another soul. What
I’m telling you, I’ve never
told anyone else. Therefore, it is considered confidential. Only Optimus,
Dinobot, Rhinox, and
Altaire know the full truth.”
“What about Cheetor? He was one of your Guardians too.”
“True, but since he was a little younger, he couldn’t have been able to
comprehend what was
really going on.”
Airazor sighed, and said, “I swear upon the Matrix, that I will never repeat
what you are
going to tell me.”
“Thank you, my friend,” Awn’néad said, deep relief blazing from her eyes.
“It all starts
before Steele, or Dinobot, as you know him, became one of my Guardians. For me,
it starts at a base,
called Base Omicron . . . ”
The silence was so thick, one could have cut it with a sword. There were no
noises, no
voices, no sounds whatsoever. And to top it off, there wasn’t any movement,
either. Base Omicron
was totally obliterated.
Optimus couldn’t help but see the destruction, and he couldn’t move. His
best friend and
teacher, Stormblend, was leading a search party for survivors.
“Primus,” somebody finally whispered.
“Storm, what do we do?” Optimus asked in his youthful, scared whisper.
Stormblend sighed, and said in a tired, ragged voice, “Let’s move. There has
to be someone
alive out there. . .”
Awn’néad woke up slowly, and heard a slight whirring, which meant that a
Cybertronian was
nearby. Although her four-year-old mind didn’t know the word “Cybertronian,”
she did know that
there was someone to comfort her, and maybe take her to her mother.
“Mommy?” she called in a whisper, buried beneath a sheet of metal that once
could be called
a shelter. “I’m here, Mommy! Mommy. . .”
“And Protoform ‘X’ did all this?” Optimus asked. “Who freed him? Or,
how did he get out?”
“I have no idea. He’s been captured, but there isn’t any way to make him
talk,” Starblade
answered, trying to listen for any living being, but this younger bot, who was
his search partner,
wouldn’t stop asking those infernal questions!
“Wait!” Optimus called.
“What now?” Starblade asked, walking back to him.
“I heard something.”
“What?! From where?”
“Over by that pile of metal. Or in”
“I’ll go get Stormblend. Try to find out who it is!” Starblade said,
already running off.
Optimus picked his way through the cooling piled of metal, until he got to where
he thought
the cries came from. He saw a small hole in a long metal sheet on the side of a
small mountain of
sheet metal.
“Hello?” he called gently. “Is anyone in there?”
“Daddy?” came an answer from a young voice.
“No,” Optimus replied, a little sadly. “My name is Optimus.”
“Where’s my Mommy? Where’s my Daddy?” the child in the metal wailed.
“I want my
Mommy!”
“Shh, it will be okay,” Optimus said gently.
The child sniffed. “You promise?”
“On my Spark.”
Stormblend came running up next to Optimus, and the two bots looked at each
other.
“A human child is in there, alive,” the young bot said.
“Then let’s rip that sucker offa her!” Starblade said, indicating the
sheet of metal, holding
an axe.
“Wait! She’s only around four or five years old!”
“You’re kidding me.”
“By Primus and the Matrix, I am not lying.”
Starblade sighed, and held the axe out for Optimus to take. “Then you do it.
You’ll be more
gentle than me.”
Optimus nodded, took the axe, turned, and said into the pile of metal, “You
haven’t told me
your name yet.”
“A-Awn’néad,” the child said, sniffing. “My Mommy’s name is
Sinead.”
“Primus,” Stormblend said, and Starblade uttered a colorful oath in
Cybertronian. Optimus
frowned at him.
“Alright, Awn’néad, now I’m going to get you out, okay?” Optimus said.
“Okay,” the young child named Awn’néad said faintly.
Optimus eased the edge of the axe into a small seam, and tried to pop the sheet
of metal off,
but it didn’t work.
Slag, Optimus thought, and tried a new tactic. . .
Awn’néad shivered, and listened to the scraping sound that had been going on
for more than
a half hour. Quite suddenly, though, she saw a small pinprick of light that
lengthened slowly.
Maybe Optim. . . Optimu. . . Maybe Opti found Mommy. I hope that he did, Awn’néad
thought in her four-year-old way. . .
Optimus was finally able to pull a small section away from the sheet, and saw
that there was
a seven-foot pit under it. He handed Starblade the axe.
Stormblend and three others then helped Optimus pull half of the sheet away, and
Optimus
lowered himself into the pit. He looked around him, and saw a dark shadow hiding
with the shadows.
It was Awn’néad. She was crouching in a corner, watching him with wide,
frightened eyes.
“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured, trying to look non-threatening to
the small child.
“Are you Opti?” she asked, her voice quavering with intense worry.
Optimus nodded, kneeled down, and held his hands out to her.
Awn’néad ran to him, crying, while he held her gently. Once her crying eased
off, he said,
“Let’s go, okay? Do you want to get out of here?”
Awn’néad nodded, and said, “Don’t leave me ’lone. Mommy’s Guardian
left me ’lone here.”
“I won’t,” Optimus said, his voice grave. “I’ll never leave you alone.
I swear by the Matrix.”
And with that, he picked her up, activated his personal jets, and flew slowly
up, then landed
as gently as he could, once they were out of the pit. . .
“Depth Charge?” Stormblend said, after tending to her minor wounds. “Was
Depth Charge
his name?”
Little Awn’néad nodded. “Uh-huh.”
There was a pause, and Stormblend said, “Me and Optimus will be right over
there. We
won’t leave you, I promise.”
“Okay.”
As soon as the two bots were out of earshot, Stormblend said in a low tone,
“We found her
father.”
“Is he alive?”
Stormblend shook his head slowly. “We’re presently looking for Sinead, but
I’m starting to
doubt that anybody else is alive.”
“Stormblend! We found her! And Depth Charge!” a voice yelled.
Optimus ran over to Awn’néad, picked her up, and followed the bot that yelled
the news.
There was a circle of both bots, and humans ahead of them. They parted, and made
an isle
for Stormblend to get to the center.
In the center, there was a large bot, kneeling at the head of a flame-haired
human female,
holding her hand, which was dwarfed by his.
“Forgive me,” he whispered.
“There isn’t anything to forgive,” she replied softly.
Optimus saw the woman’s face, and so did Awn’néad.
“Mommy!” she yelled, and ran to her mother’s side.
Optimus followed her slowly, his mind numb with grief. The woman who was
lying down,
was Awn’néad’s mother, Sinead, it was true.
Sinead was one of the first human colonists to unify Cybertronians and humans to
almost a
symbiotic state. She was as cherished as Rodimus Prime was, after the
Cybertronian Wars ended.
Her husband, Ian, had helped her, and the two were inseparable.
Finally, Optimus was close enough for Sinead to see his face. He knelt, and
Sinead found his
eyes.
“You saved my daughter’s life, and I want you to take care of her. You will
be her Guardian,”
Sinead said. “Just as Depth Charge was my Head Guardian, you will be Awn’néad’s.”
Optimus held Sinead’s other hand, and Awn’néad was lying next to her. The
young bot said,
“I swear by Primus, the Matrix, and the sources of everything that is good,
that I will guard
Awn’néad with my life.” Sinead’s eyes closed, and Optimus kept reciting
the oath. “Nothing will
separate us, and nothing will harm her, without proof of my death.
“She will be cherished as you were cherished; loved, as you were loved.
“I, Optimus now swear to be Awn’néad’s Head Guardian, and forever protect
her with every
atom of my Spark.”
Silence filled the previous site of Base Omicron.
Sinead’s life flew away from the circle of beings, on angel’s wings. She was
joining her
husband, and the two were now together for the rest of eternity.
Sinead, the one who united the Cybertrionians and humans again, after hundreds
of years of
segregation and hate, was dead.
At first, it was only one single voice, then all the voices were united, as if
there was one
massive being there. The circle of Cybertronians and humans cried out in grief.
Awn’néad seemed to know that her mother’s soul wasn’t within her body,
such a simple
vessel for such a complex, beautiful being. She raised her head, looked at
Optimus and held her arms
out to him. Optimus picked her up, and kneeled down, holding Awn’néad on his
lap, while she cried
for both of them, for Optimus couldn’t shed a tear. It was a rule of nature on
Cybertron:
Cybertronians couldn’t produce tears.
Depth Charge looked like scrap, but he said to Optimus, as well as the rest of
the search
party, “Sinead and Ian weren’t easy to separate, and now they are together
again. They left
something, someone, behind. It is our responsibility to raise young Awn’néad,
so that she will not
become like how others would want her to be, but how she wants to be. . .”
Nobody left Base Omicron, until midnight. With the exception of a few bots and
humans,
the rest of the search party was searching for the casualties, and recording who
they were, so that
their families could be notified.
Awn’néad had fallen asleep as twilight had fallen, and Optimus was talking
with one of the
Maximal Elders in their citadel, by hologram.
“And Sinead asked you, a mere youngster, to be the Head Guardian of her
child?”
Nightbreeze, the Head Elder, asked.
“Rather,” Optimus said, “She told me. And, her daughter’s name is
Awn’néad. I promised
both of them that I’d never leave Awn’néad.”
Nightbreeze thought for a moment, then said, “Do you have any witnesses?”
Stormblend walked into the range of the holographic projector. Then it was
Starblade, and
finally, Depth Charge.
“You are Depth Charge?” Nightbreeze asked.
“Yeah, I am,” Depth Charge answered dully.
“I’m sorry.”
“Pity won’t get Awn’néad a decent Guardian. This kid is better for her
than anyone else that
I know of.”
“And you?” Nightbreeze said, indicating Stormblend.
“Optimus is just as trustworthy and faithful to the Maximal cause, as his
namesake, Optimus
Prime, was to the Autobot cause. He will take good care of Awn’néad,”
Stormblend answered.
“Trustworthy enough to earn a second name?” Nightbreeze said, acting as if
Optimus wasn’t
there.
Stormblend thought for a moment, then said, “Yes, he’s ready.”
“Very well.” She turned to the young Optimus, and said, “I, Nightbreeze
now entrust you
with the surname, Prime. Your may change it if you travel, and acquire a beast
mode, as I have
acquired a Flying Fox, when I visited Earth in my younger years. When you arrive
back in
Cybertropolis, come to our citadel, and the proper ceremonies will take
place.”
Optimus acted like everybody anticipated he would. He didn’t jump up and down,
like a
youngster would. Instead, he bowed, and said, “I am deeply honored.”
“I trust that you have taken the Oath?” Night breeze asked.
“Yes, I have. The whole search party witnessed it.”
“You will need to determine the first Sub-Guardian as soon as possible,”
Nightbreeze said
solemnly.
“We have already talked about that. Stormblend, my teacher, has
volunteered.”
“The teacher following the student’s commands? That is not wise”
“I agree,” Stormblend said. “However, Optimus still needs a mentor, and
someone to look
for advise, and I said that I would. I would also teach Awn’néad, and any
others who wish to hear.”
“You do not mind being led by one of your students?”
“Optimus is responsible for his age, and he’s heard it before. I trust
him.”
Nightbreeze closed her eyes, and said, “I trust your judgement, Stormblend. I
will meet you
all later.”
The hologram faded, and Starblade said, “Man, am I glad that’s over with.”
“Congratulations on your promotion, Optimus Prime,” Stormblend said, his
voice filled with
pride for his young student.
“I really hate to get a philosophical on you guys, that’s usually
Stormblend’s job. But, you
know, what’s in a name? I’m still me,” Optimus said.
“You’re the youngest bot to earn that title,” Depth Charge said slowly.
Optimus sighed, and went over to where Awn’néad was lying. He picked her up,
and said,
“Let’s go home. . .