SHARDS

Written by Richard ”Commander Destrik” Bonomi

Edited by: Sinead 

Part two: Awakening to the Recruitment Drive 

 

DISCLAIMER!!!

I do not own Beast Wars in any way shape or form, in addition I do not own the rights for Mage: The Ascension. Today’s special thanks goes out to Sinead for a character bio that I needed to work with and I also thank whoever reads this because this chapter doesn’t have too much to do with BW, however a little more than last time. 
 

Scene one: Technological Terror 

 

The night eventually came to an end and the sunlight shone upon the now well populated streets of Boston once again. With the hustle and bustle of people going to work at their various places, there was no time for people to look at the young man collapsed against the wall in the alley.

Like a heartbeat, the body shook from time to time, given what seemed about a thirty second pause in between. The body, whose face was hidden by long, dark brownish-black hair, began to move after what seemed like a seizure. Destrik, slowly but surely, sat up. He was completely unaware of his surroundings, more focused on trying to get warm.

It felt different now. Although it was the middle of November, and a cold morning at that, somehow he was keeping warm. It felt that his need to stay warm somehow allowed him to curl up in some manner to survive the cold night while merely asleep. The sun, now shining upon his body, felt like it was giving him energy to stand. Since it felt almost like a power source, he stayed in the sunlight for the first half hour of his semi-consciousness, while he tried to wake his mind up.

Finally, nearly fully awake, he lifted his left arm to look at his watch. He was surprised to find it not working, charred, and somewhat melted around his arm. It was then that he remembered everything. The fight, the shock, even the strange ball of electricity traveling through the wire, it all came back.

Am I dead? He asked himself, looking his body over to find minor burn-marks around his arm and shoulder area. What happened? It’s like . . . something didn’t happen at all. I felt pain, but . . . this isn’t right . . . something is totally messed up, here.

Looking around, he made his way out of the alleyway which ended up being about a half block from where Horizon was. Walking by Horizon, there could be seen a lot of yellow tape reading POLICE LINE- DO NOT CROSS. After that were two officers standing in front of the building and another man in a black suit with sunglasses.

Could that be an FBI agent? Destrik asked himself. Should I go talk to them about what happened? I got a good view of those people and all . . .

Destrik, confused, merely stayed at the police line staring blankly for a few minutes, attempting to decide whether to step forward and talk about what happened or not. Even though he was feeling strange about everything, he could not help but feel something else, something elusive . . . something terrifying from inside the nightclub. Something was in there; something that mystified him completely. It felt weird, but a certain pull dragged him past the yellow line and towards the entrance. This, like anything else he did, failed to not only gain the notice of the two officers, but to bring their attention back to the monotonous duty of having to fill the detail.

“I got this one, Jake,” The officer said offhandedly as he approached Destrik to block him from entering the building. Raising one hand to Destrik’s chest, the officer stopped him from continuing. “Ok sir, if you would please, you would be better off if you stepped back from this area. Please mind your own business and get out.”

Destrik only mumbled “What’s in there?” as he blindly tried to continue to walk past the officer, now clearly dazed. “Something weird calls.”

 The officer was now clearly angered. 

“Sir, if you do not stop I will have to detain you,” The officer warned without result as Destrik continued to attempt to get by. “Sir, you have five seconds to stop, or I will arrest you now . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”

 Not even giving the one count, the officer reached for his cuffs as he pushed the young man down to the ground. Surprisingly, this took whatever dazed look out of Destrik’s eyes and replaced them with an angry, bright green glow. As soon as his body hit the pavement, his arms separated, knocking the officer who tried to restrain him off balance and subsequently to the ground. When the officer attempted to look up, the last thing he saw was something that resembled the bottom of a shoe. The other officer quickly took out his night stick and attempted to swing at Destrik. However, just as the officer rose his arm to strike, Destrik quickly shoved his elbow into the other officer’s ribs. The officers, both groaning on the ground and in obvious pain, were totally wasted and incapacitated. Destrik, not even paying attention, walked into the once blocked-off club with his eyes glowing green and his footsteps echoing out a deliberate, dangerous pace.

Inside the club was the large, heavy-set, blonde-haired man from the night before, whose attention was firmly directed upon Viper. A cold and angered look polluted the tall man’s face as he paced, asking the bartender questions. When the door slammed open, the attention turned from the interrogation to the newcomer. Destrik, letting his eyes take seconds to adjust to the dark interior of the club, saw the blonde haired man. With not even the slightest sound, Destrik charged at him with inhuman sprinting speed.

“Des?” Viper softly asked himself as he saw the familiar friend of his with eyes glowing that strange, bright green.

The blonde-haired man wasted no time with the newcomer, yet waited until the last second to react towards his charge. Just as the now berserker Destrik was about to strike, the blonde haired man turned and swung a beer bottle at his head. With a loud crack and shatter the bottle broke and Destrik was sent spinning the ground. The blonde haired man dropped the rest of the bottle he held to the floor, and stomped a foot onto Destrik’s chest in a successful attempt to pin him down.

“Interesting, this must be another agent of those incompetent fools. Let’s have a look at what you are, yes,” The man said, putting on what seemed like a monocle on his right eye, looking at the almost-unconscious boy. After a few seconds the man spoke up, “And what a prize we have here, another one with unlimited amounts of fifth essence permeating the air around him. This will be an advantage of mine in the future against . . . them.”

“Sir, don’t arrest him, please! He’s only a-” Viper began to speak but his voice became stuck in his throat when the blonde haired man turned and gave him a stare of black death.

After putting his monocle back in his pocket, he pulled out a cell phone, dialed a number and waited for a response.

“Hello? Yes, this is Mega- . . . don’t use that name again with me or I will be forced to slaughter you. Listen: get over here and bring heavy restraining equipment. I have a prisoner who would be very interested in joining our organization, yes. Get over here now.” 

 

Scene 2: Ghost of the Past 

 

The sun shined into a third story window of a four story apartment complex that same morning. It was about ten AM by the time the sunlight filled the room and woke up the sole inhabitant of the apartment. The scene was set in a messy room littered with clothes, miscellaneous items, sewing equipment, photos of scenery, people and wall-scrolls tacked upon the wall, leaving hardly a free space to be seen of the original wallpaper. A recurved, thirty-pound-drawback bow hung in the center of the wall with broadhead arrows next to it in a quiver hanging from the wall by a large thumbtack. Notebooks were piled up around what looked like a rather new computer system, while a few strange gadgets were lined up on a table beside that.

From under two comforters and a trenchcoat on the couch, a head emerged to glare around, responding sluggishly to the sounding of an alarm going off from the cell phone. Still groggy, the short-haired girl reached one arm out from under the warm haven and went through the unwashed clothes left on the floor. She eventually found the cell phone, picking it up just as it stopped ringing. Flipping the top open, a text message popped up.

Sinead. Go to lab w/ energon magnifier, need it now. -Taran

“Just what I need, another trip to that place,” Sinead grumbled in a hardly audible voice, knowing her day would have to start now and not in another two hours as she had hoped.

Getting up for Sinead was, for the most part, slow. It typically took her a full hour to get everything organized to simply get out of the door on a cold morning. Today was no different, except for taking the time to adjust to everything that she saw when she first got up. It seemed that she was almost seeing some of the waking up stars in the eyes for a good half hour before she got it under control. Dressing quickly, griping about the cold, she put on her trademark trench-coat, adjusting the modern clothing underneath to look somewhat elegant. It was a look that she sported which was quite contradictory to the squalor she lived in. After adjusting the cuffs on the coat and picking up the knapsack she carried with her everywhere, she set off out the door and onto the stairwell that lead to her apartment, gliding down the stairs easily.

Upon leaving the building, the cold bit into her harshly, causing her to cross her arms over her chest as she waited for a bus to go to the closest subway station in Boston. The green line would be able to take her to the place next to Fenway park that she had gotten to know very well over the last three years, Tripredicus Industries.

Normally, this would be considered a regular company with the owner at top. However, it was barely more than a jumbled junk shop on the first floor, so when one went upstairs, it actually became somewhat organized into research centers focusing on energon utilization, usually surprising visitors. Typically, several Cybertronians of unnamed allegiance occupied the area. The size of the building was large enough to house both them and many humans so they could cohabitate and work together. This facility was only mildly guarded since it was declared neutral ground to both Autobots and Decepticons.

Sinead remembered how the old building had once been her home. It had been nice to live right down the street from a baseball stadium. Although never a real big fan of baseball, she always enjoyed watching the people, or at least some of them. The trip on the green line was a relief from the outside world, it was warm and somewhat cozy. In her haze of sitting down and waking up, she began to remember the previous night, the club and how she got to kick some butt to save that guy, not that she wanted to protect someone who had just hit on her in one of the more raunchy manners than had been expressed in previous encounters with the opposite gender, but it would be wrong to not attempt to help someone in need of it. Although mentally, with that guy, he was hopeless.

While remembering those events, she began to focus on that white bolt of light she seen come out from that large man’s hand. Surely he couldn’t have done that without some sort of weapon that she didn’t notice . . . Yet her memory clearly stated his hand was bare with exception for a stone in his hand with a strange symbol on it. How could a rock make a fireball almost fatally injuring someone? Her attempting to understand the events of the night before began to cause her to block out all noise around her on the train. Again and again the events of the previous night came back to her as if there was something there she didn’t understand. She always hated getting that feeling.

The one part she had trouble remembering was after the shock she suffered from the wire. One minute she was just helping some idiot who didn’t deserve it in the least, the next was intense searing pain, and then . . . becoming aware of her surroundings again just as she plodded into her apartment complex house, going up the stairs. Strangest of all, there was no aftereffect of the shock, no marks, no burns, nothing, not even a piece of damage on her jacket. If anything had changed, it was almost how she felt about the things around her, like a third eye was opened. Yawning, she fell out of her lull of being unconscious of the world around her to find that a voice directed towards her from nearby.

Turning her head towards the source of the sound she noticed what looked like a homeless man talking in the direction towards her. He wasn’t looking at her directly. Instead, his head was slightly lowered.

“-you are the one who saved us all when we were but two steps into evolution, and gave your life for us twice? In the same war? That’s quite a story you have, there. Today there isn’t much except for the Great War between other transformers, and I am afraid that I have never heard of Maximals or Predacons,” The old, grey-bearded man said. From his looks he was clearly a street person with some form of speech that was rather halfway decent. It seemed almost as if he chose to live on the street. Nothing out of the normal really, except for the fact that he was talking to nothing, looking halfway down Sinead’s shoulder level. He began to nod a bit as if he were listening then spoke again. “So how did you get into that body anyway? You say you came from four million years ago . . . but haven’t been born yet? That’s quite interesting that you say the Autobots will win. I was worried about the governments changing in the world because of the Decipticon Megatron’s army. That, and the technocracy taking over this plane of existence. Soon enough I am going to make for the umbra if the conditions get worse down here.”

It was about at this time when the man didn’t just seem like the street-person crazy. It was more like he was looking at something just around Sinead’s mid-chest, from what she observed. Irritated, she attempted to be kind. “Excuse me, but I am up here. If you want to talk to me please look up at my face, and not at my breasts,” she spoke up at him, rather displeased judging by her quick speech and reading of a leg to kick.

The man looked up, almost surprised, seeming to look at her if she was the crazy one. “Oh . . . you heard me? I wasn’t talking to you.” His gaze returned to her chest. “Now, as I asked before: what’s your name now? Because spirits like you aren’t aro-”

Caught in mid-sentence, he fell to the ground with his hands clasped around his groin. Sinead stomped her foot back onto the ground after kneeing him square in the sensitive area of that man. She stared at him in disgust for another thirty seconds as he writhed on the floor. Not feeling one ounce of regret, Sinead marched to the back of the green line train, and waited for the next stop. It wasn’t the stop near Boylston Street that she had wanted, but it would have to do since she did not want to put up with anything else. Shuddering as she got off the train, she strode down towards work in the cold, holding her arms closer to her torso, hands tucked firmly under her armpits. Passing Boylston street and going more towards the edge of Boston, walking towards the neighboring city of Brookline, she got there after a half hour of enduring the breeze and chill in the freezing cold.

 The building itself was looking run down from the outside, and mainly the size of a factory, and although the windows were intact upon the large brick red building, it could be easily distinguished that they have been unclean or replaced for over half a century. The whole building was surrounded by a barb wire fence and inside before the building was a dirt lot that acted as a makeshift parking lot for those who worked there. The main entrance was an old door with the names of the some people higher than her on the food chain of the place: Taran Belchowski, Rhinox-Hummer etc. All were taped on with boat letter stickers. The building and the general area around it was despicable from the outside. 

 Can’t they ever even hire a janitor or groundskeeper? This place is a total dump, Sinead thought as she kicked a can out of the walkway and to the entrance, watching it smack into the door with a satisfying clang.

 Fortunately, the door opened without a problem, if one were to take into account that the door knob didn’t work and it was more of a sliding door with a knob door handle. Sinead kicked her boots against the brick wall before going inside to try to get rid of some of the dirt that plagued all who entered. If there was one thing that really was the worst part of working at this facility, it was that blasted dirt lot. It always ruined whatever jeans, shoes, or socks she owned because of the loose dirt and dust that rose every time she took a step. Better yet was when it rained, causing it to turn into a field of mud.

Upon entering the building, she walked on a wooden floor that creaked and squeaked to catch the secretary’s attention. As she walked in arms crossed and with a sour face, she noted that it was another annoying attribute to working here.

“Hi, Sinead, what can I do for you?” the secretary, a.k.a. Taran’s second significant other greeted. “Taran isn’t in today, so you will have to talk with Mr. Hummer if you need anything.”

“Well I need to drop off a few things here to Taran, but I guess Hummer will do it.” Sinead said carefree to her. Within her mind, however, she was glad that she didn’t have to face her boss when in such an acerbic mood. She kept her voice light. “You know where he is?”

“Well, he is probably with the other Cybes at the moment.” She answered.

Sinead never liked that word for the Cybertronians. To her, it almost sounded like a racial slur. Generally she could listen to people talk like that about the Cybertronians, but her temper today was shorter than she had known it to be for a long while. Breathing deeply to calm herself, she replied, “Ok fine, can you buzz me in?”

“’Kay,” the secretary replied, pressing a button so Sinead could open the next door in front of her.

The interior of the building was, for the most part, old. Most of those who were in charge of maintenance were not so motivated to do their jobs since it wasn’t as many people working in the administrative section of the building as there were in the Research and Design area. Most of the interior consisted of brick walls and poor lighting, along with several old wooden doors lining both walls, leading to various rooms, many of which were not used due to size and age of them. Overall, it was a poor place to work in, but paid a rather nice salary to its employees who had to put up with the hassle of being at such a place. As Sinead approached the R&D section of the building, the walls dispersed immensely as to accommodate for Cybertronians, who were generally large in size. To date, almost no transformer was under the size of twelve feet tall in robot mode, so when they worked with humans there was typically accommodations for their bulk. The office for Mr. Hummer, a younger Cybertronian with many crafty ideas, was next to the large warehouse that acted as the research facility.

Sinead, being a human, had to ring a special doorbell made for her species located about five feet off the ground. Of course, it was beside a twenty-foot-tall door. Upon pressing it, the door opened up about five seconds later to reveal an office made seemingly entirely out of clean metallic materials. A small garden resided in the center with a desk with many flowers next to it. The desk was rather large, and held what seemed like a laptop in design, but was actually a supercomputer due to its using the smaller human components and technology. Mr. Hummer was sitting, typing away with his green head leaning over the screen seemingly completely focused on his work. Looking up, a warm smile came to his face as he saw Sinead, one of his more favored subordinates.

“Why, hello there, Sinead. What brings you here today?” he said in his normal deep voice that carried both raw power and a kind, smiling tone throughout the room.

“Not too much. I’m just dropping off the part I picked up yesterday for Taran. I wasn’t supposed to be in here today at all.” She replied half-casually, half-complaining.

“Well now, what did he ask you to bring? I thought he had no more shipments coming in for the rest of the week.” Hummer wondered.

“Well Mr. Hum-”

“I would prefer Rhinox. It’s much easier if you call me that.” He chuckled, setting Sinead at ease. “I don’t like to feel old . . . at least not yet. Anyway, please continue.”

“Well, I brought this Energon magnifier thing,” Sinead said, reaching into her bag and taking out what looked like a spherical metal ball about a half-foot in diameter. “Would this be one of the major parts to the efficiency project?”

“Energon magnifier? I never heard of one of those. What piece of junk did Taran have you get this time?” Rhinox-Hummer muttered. “Would you mind letting me see that?”

Without question or hesitation, Sinead lifted it up to his rather large hand. From there, he placed it on a pad that was linked to a scanner near his computer. After several minutes of him staring at his terminal, humming a tune that sounded pleasant, he spoke up as Sinead went to look at the small garden in the center of the room, noticing a bird’s nest with what looked like several eggs inside under incubation.

“Well, this is dandy. It looks like you got a really good piece of Decepticon technology for their weapons. I don’t think I really can use this in the project yet, too many things to alter, but I will definitely be able to employ it after some tinkering in a few years,” he said, now turning his body towards Sinead in order to see her, with what sounded like metal crunching. “I won’t question how you got this, but I will ask why Taran asked you to steal this.”

“Steal?” Sinead’s head popped up from looking at the nest. She sighed, glaring at the wall for a moment, collecting her dignity as well as a shredded patience. “Well, pretty much, yes. Taran couldn’t just walk in and get this from a weapon’s locker of sorts for any Decepticon assault trooper . . . You know that he would be slagged immediately once seen. He probably sent me because I know how to sneak around a little, and the fact that I am human allows me to go unnoticed quite often.”

Rhinox gave a look at her in a half-criticizing manner. Sinead was ready to retort to the look of disapproval for her action, but Rhinox spoke up before. “If you got caught you would have been killed. I won’t talk more about it since you did a good job and it was Taran who asked you to do that. It’s better to look upon the brighter side of things. So. How was the performance by Jukebox last night?”

“Last night? Don’t get me started. It was fine if you took away the drugs and the alcohol and the people who weren’t even dressed that much. Not to mention if you took away the drunkard who tried to hit on me with a line that was . . . well, inappropriate, to say the least. On the other hand, some government idiots decided to try to beat up a couple of people with some techniques I haven’t seen before, and I got myself half electrocuted. I feel fine now except for a strange feeling.”

“Explain.” Rhinox cocked his head a little wondering what was strange. He was also worried. Humans didn’t do well when exposed to an electric current.

“I don’t think you would understand. You’re a Cybertronian, not a human.”

“I can understand more than you would think,” Rhinox said gently, smiling kindly. “Although our bodies are mechanical, we still can feel pain, think intelligently upon our own will, and feel the same type of emotions that you humans do. It should be rather comparable to what you feel, with the only difference being that I am mechanical and you are organic.”

“Well, if you insist.” Sinead began to gather an explanation for the way she felt during that morning. “It’s sort of like . . . you feel connected to everything, like you feel in your mind you are connected to the rest of the world by strings that you feel that you can just reach out and touch them . . . it’s kind of like that, and then . . .”

Rhinox moved his hand to his forehead and began to scratch it, making an irritating sound that would normally send waves of pain through human ears, but it was by merely getting used to it that Sinead didn’t throw her hands up to cover ears that seemed more sensitive than usual. Being around transformers wasn’t a thing that most people would like all the time, since there were many things to get used to if you were willing to.

“Well, I guess I can understand where you are coming from. It’s like a dream of sorts, where you feel you can control things if you just set your mind to it. Am I right?" Rhinox asked in an attempt to understand. 

 “Bingo. I feel like I am in a dream, and I haven’t awoken yet.” She replied, accepting the further explanation of the way she felt.

“Well, I would take it easy today if I were you, maybe go down to the Hospital to get yourself checked out. It would be the best course of action. Take the rest of the day off and get some rest. I’ll talk to Taran when he comes in, and I’ll make sure that he doesn’t push you too hard.”

Sinead was happy with what he said. She absolutely hated the job of just running around for things all day long. Everyone in the building was so lazy they couldn’t just go and do it themselves, and half the time there was nothing to do. If there was anything Sinead hated to do it was stand somewhere for long amounts of time with nothing to do. Worse yet, Taran or someone else would yell at her for doing nothing when there was nothing to do. The job was the pits in short, and it was good to get the rest of the day off from them. This had to have been the third time in the month she was on her off day and had to come in. It happened often but only at the moment when fully awake and warm was she able to realize how much her life stunk. If there was only something interesting she could do that would be of some use she would be happy.

Walking out of the building, saying her goodbyes to Rhinox, she headed back for the green line to see the man whose crotch she kneed earlier conversing with a man she knew. A man who was actually someone she respected highly: it was her martial arts teacher, Mack Bronsen. His build suggested a weak stature, however, his abilities were unmatched. He made eighth degree of black belt in kempo when he turned twenty, and was already considered a grand master. It was strange to see him at the subway since she knew him to typically run, but given the coldness of the day it was acceptable. However, it was strange that he was talking to that weirdo who was talking to her chest earlier. She hid herself among the rest of the people waiting for the train, trying to not be seen by either of the men, to avoid the trouble she would get into for assaulting that man.

Despite her efforts, two minutes later there was a sharp tap on her shoulder, made by two tensed fingers. Sinead snapped around with quick reflex, reaching into her coat for her blade. However her arm was locked inside her jacket when a man’s hand tightened the strings in the front, making the jacket become corset-like. Rather more than simply slightly angered, she looked up to see that it was Mack, wearing an irritatingly calm smile upon his face.

“Sinead? What brings you here, I heard you attacked someone earlier,” he said looking at her half-seriously.

“I didn’t go too hard on him, I promise.” She sighed. “He just deserved it for being a pervert.”

Mack looked behind him and at the other man, who only nodded.

“Sinead, are you a mage?”

“Mage? What do you mean?” She retorted, starting to get spooked.

“You probably just awoke. Crap. I think I have some explaining to do, before you end up getting caught up in stuff you won’t understand otherwise. Would you mind coming over to the dojo for coffee to talk this over with our friend here?” he asked seriously, finally releasing her trenchcoat.

“With him? Uuhhh . . . are you sure that you’re still sane up there?”

Snorting, Mack replied, “Yes I am, and if you want to stay alive for longer than two months, you might as well come with me. You need to understand something.”

Sinead didn’t like being bossed around by him. Sure, in the dojo it was fine because she was being taught, but this time it was like he was commanding how she should spend her personal time. Her temper snapped with a force she had never felt before, and she found herself snapping out, “Listen, Mack, I need to go to the hospital. I don’t feel good lately and I think I should be there and not at the dojo with my sensei and a freak show.”

Mack apparently didn’t like the tone of her voice from his subsequent facial expression. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a tiny jewel, grasped it in his hand, and said, “You would be better off coming with me.”

Sinead suddenly found herself becoming compliant, passive, like her mind was put at ease. She agreed with Mack and began to go to the dojo, in a half dazed state walking as if she were drunk. To her it felt like a dream, and she could have sworn she was feeling some other voice in her that was faint . . . yet strong-willed, like her . . .

But in the back of her head she was seething. This was going too far. The way he used that . . . jewel-thing . . . it could do a lot more than just make her just follow them. It wasn’t an idea she especially liked. Mack was an honorable man, she knew, but the way she had complied with him without even thinking was scaring her slightly. It wasn’t helping that she couldn’t get herself back under her own control. She didn’t want to panic. Mentally, in that small corner of her mind that was still free, she sighed, calming herself as best as she could. So she was going to hear these two out, and at the dojo over coffee. She hated coffee.

She returned her attention back to the two men, just making out their hushed words.

“This one is different, Mack. She has another soul inside of her . . . something like a Cybertronian’s Spark,” the homeless man said. “It’s not a complete soul, but it’s a lot. And it’s been on earth for a long time.”

“We better train her then and find what’s going on.” Mack replied, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand, his left upon Sinead’s elbow, making sure that if she did end up breaking the mental hold he had upon her, he’d be able to keep her still. “That blasted technocracy is getting too strong. We need all the muscle and help that we can get. Once she sees what she can do, she will either train or she will leave us and eventually be tracked down if something were to happen with her powers going berserk. I can only hope she is willing to take our side once the alternatives are given.”