Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I watched them, though they knew it not, and smiled. I had been watching him for eons with the other Primes though I was never able to utter a word to him. Sighing, I turned to Alpha Trion as he reentered the room, a slightly mischievous glint in his optics. He walked over and rested a servo on my shoulder pad, “He has finally settled down.”
I laughed, “Yes, I am only sorry it took so long.”
“I take it you approve of her then?” A-3 asked.
I nodded, “Is that really a question? When I became one with the Allspark I was hoping he would find another…” I looked back into the pool through which I have watched Optimus for many, many years. It warmed my spark to see her being lovingly held in his arms, bonded with him—something I had hoped for myself while I lived.
I have watched Optimus ever since I became one with the Allspark and was sparkbroken when I saw Optimus start shutting others out. By the time they finally reached Earth you could barely recognize the Orion Pax side of him but Jemina had pulled that out of him again.
Elita turned to Alpha Trion, “You chose your guardian well.”
A-3 laughed, “I knew she was hiding something when I asked her about the Omega Keys I just never guessed that it would be to that extent.”
Solus walked in and saw the two in front of the viewing screen, “Watching over our new sister are you?”
Solomus stood on the other side of Alpha Trion and nodded, “Why would we not. The poor child will require vast amounts of guidance for the times to come.”
Elita gave a halfhearted glare, “Remember that she is still a child.”
“Yes, and she will no doubt make such childish mistakes.” Micronus spoke.
Solus rolled her optics, “Don’t be so hard on her Micronus. She save Optimus’ life—again.”
“It will require more than just that in the future.” Micronus growled.
Prima let out an amused chuckle at Micronus’ actions, “You are only upset that the new Prime is larger than you.”
“Don’t be picking on the small guy! We’ve got just as much fight in us as you do!”
Elita thought for a second and smiled, “Well think of it this way. In her human form she is smaller than you.”
“She is a human.” He argued.
“So?” Solus asked, “I finally have another feme to fend you all off with.”
“We’re not that bad!” Solomus defended.
“Mh, some of you.”
“Let’s not forget that it will hopefully be a while before she joins us here.” Prima interjected. There were hums of agreement among them.

“Aliena, Aliena it is time to get up.”
Optimus’ deep voice and soft shaking stirred her from her sleep. “Mhmmmm…”
Optimus smiled, holding back a laugh as Aliena rolled over. “Aliena, there is work that needs to be done.”
She curled into a tighter ball and proceeded to ignore him, quite content to go back into recharge—not having a proper recharge in the few cycles proceeding Unicron’s reawakening and attack.
Optimus watched her antics with a heavy sigh, this was taking more work than he had expected. Deciding he had enough, he reached down to scoop her up. He just had his servos under her wings when a fist came flying out, hitting his arm rather painfully.
Aliena shot straight up and hissed, “Optimus your servos are freezing!”
Optimus only looked at her blankly, “Well at least it got you up. I was beginning to worry.”
Aliena groaned, “Is it morning already?”
“Yes.”
“Great.” She stood and stretched a bit, “What are we working on today?”
“Now that some of the landing docks are repaired we should begin work on shelters. I highly doubt many Autobots would be willing to stay in the Nemesis and we couldn’t house that many more.”
Aliena smiled grimly, “Yeah, I can understand that. Staying here gives me the willies.”
“The, willies?”
“The creeps.” She explained.
Optimus nodded as Smokescreen came running up to them, “Guys! Returning bots! There’s a ship that’s landing now! Oh Primus, who do you think it is?! Oh, I wonder if it’s the twins, or possibly-”
Optimus set a servo on his shoulder and smiled softly, “We will be down shortly.”
Smokescreen nodded with a solute and eagerly ran off to greet the new bots.
Aliena however, she wasn’t so eager. She stood in the hallway holding her arm uncertainly.
Optimus reached out and gently gripped her servo, “It will be alright Aliena.”
“Do they have to know? I-I mean, can’t we tell them later, or-”
“Everything will be fine. We won’t tell them about your human half yet, I do not believe that they are ready for that, yet.”
“I’m not ready for that yet…if ever.” Her intakes started increasing, “You know, I don’t think I’m ready for this now…”
He held her close as they neared the door, “You will be fine, I will be right here.”
She took a deep intake and nodded.
It wasn’t far to the landing docks and the other Autobots were already there greeting them. As they neared she noticed Knockout standing back, looking down. She released Optimus’ servo and walked over to him as Optimus continued on to welcome the bots home.
He looked at her and smiled, although it was a bit forced, “Don’t feel comfortable going near them either?”
She nodded, “Although for a bit different reasons.”
He grimaced, “I don’t think they’ll take kindly to me…”
She shrugged and eyed him, still warry after all the times he had tried to kill her. “Well, if I can try and get used to it, so can they.”
Knockout laughed dryly, “I hope so…”
“They better, considering Optimus is planning on giving most Decepticons a choice to live in peace or…yeah.”
“What will the counsel think of that?”
“Thank Primus there is no counsel right now.”
He tried to hide a smirk but a small chuckle escaped him, “Yeah, you get to have fun dealing with them when it is formed.”
Aliena circled a digit in the air like a helicopter taking off, “Yippee. Politics, my favorite thing.”
“Aliena!”
Aliena paled a bit as Optimus called for her and forced herself to walk over.
He turned to the dozen bots, “Autobots, this is Aliena Prime.”
She didn’t recognize any of them so they each stared at each other with blank or slightly confused faces.
Finally, a mech who looked close to Wheeljack’s build spoke, “When did she become a Prime? Who was she?”
“Recently, just after our planet’s restoration. However she has been on Earth with me and my team for quite some time.”
He turned and smiled at her before saying something in a strange tongue.
She blinked at him before turning to Optimus, “Am I supposed to know what he just said?”
Optimus frowned, “I did not think of that.”
The mech grew confused and she asked, “Think of what?”
“You do not know Cybertronian. At least, not the spoken form.”
The new mech frowned, “How could a Prime not know her own language?”
“I, uh,” Aliena stammered and looked down, “Haven’t lived on Cybertron before now.”
Optimus explained, “Her family left before war had begun and made a new home on Earth where my team found them. She grew up learning their native language.”
The new bots frowned and a femme spoke with slight malice, “She seems like a terrible choice to be a Prime them. What connection does she have to Cybertron?”
Aliena wanted to feel angered by the words but found them too true to argue against, even if she did care for Cybertron.
Optimus on the other hand did little to cover his scorn, a deep frown crossing his faceplate. “She is my sparkmate, I will ask that you refrain from any further comments of the like.”
A few gasps were heard in the group before the femme nodded, “My apologies.”
Aliena turned to Optimus, “If it’s all the same, I’m going to go on patrol.”
She turned and hurried away, transforming and taking off into the sky—heading for where Ultra Magnus was patrolling. She found him returning to the Nemesis but continued on, skirting along the Sea of Rust for several miles and only briefly checking her scanners.
She was nearing Darkmount when she decided to turn back when a blip on her scanners picked up life. Aliena slowed and transformed just outside the citadel, one servo forming a blaster while the other remained clenched—ready to use her abilities.
Treading softly, she peered around a few corners as she made her way deeper into the citadel, following the softly blinking light that meant life. As she got farther and deeper into citadel she started regretting coming in and considered turning back when a faint whine echoed through the halls.
Aliena stopped dead in her tracks and listened for a minute, not hearing anything, before starting again for the direction that the whine came from. Two minutes later she entered a hallway that had the scrap blown out of it. The metal was bent and bowed, some places had a clear hole blown straight through it and other sections had metal shards sticking out of the walls and floors.
She observed the damage and could see that the impact sights were fairly fresh, they couldn’t have been more than a few days old. A groan then a whine snapped her helm up and she carefully picked her way through the debris and holes. Her blaster reverted to a servo but she kept it ready in case of a surprise attack…and surprised she was, just in a very different way.
The room was fairly large, a few crates and broken weapons littered the room but her attention was fixed on the two dismembered bodies lying on the floor. Face taunt, she cautiously approached them and stared wide eyed at the two offlined Predacons.
“What happened?” She breathed.
Another whine and a scraping sound whipped her helm around, blaster onlined again, to the far end of the room to find the first reborn Predacon.
“Predaking?” Aliena asked cautiously.
A tired optic opened as the Predacon looked at her. He growled lowly but said and did nothing.
Disarming her blaster Aliena took another step closer, “Hey, uh-mm. Hang on, I’ll call the bots…I’m sure Knockout can help…my gosh that sounds wrong to say.”
Predaking growled again.
“You, don’t want help?”
There was no answer or response of any kind.
Scared, she walked over to him though watched him closely. She knelt next to him and started looking over his wounds which were many and quite severe. She bit her lip, she couldn’t switch her forms here, she’d suffocate. Closing her optics, she concentrated on creating her holoform—still a foreign concept that Optimus was teaching her.
She slipped a hand under Predaking’s armor and found a heavily damaged Energon line and set to fixing it while she also focused her abilities on slowing the Energon and supplying his systems with new Energon—enough to survive but not enough to shock it.
Aliena tried several times to reach up to her com link to call for help, but every time Predaking would growl at her and she would stop. It was several hours before she felt satisfied that she had fixed most of the leaking Energon lines, although, many more systems were damaged and she had no knowledge of how to fix them.
Her holoform faded and she stood back to check him over, Predaking waking from his light recharge and staring at her intensely. She looked at him with thin lips, “You need medical help, and I have none of that. Please, let me call Knockout, or someone.”
The growl that she had come to understand as ‘no’ reverberated from his throat again. She glared, “You’re more stubborn than I am, and that’s saying something, and not a good something.”
She sighed, “And I can’t just leave you here…I suppose your self-repair systems should kick in soon…even if they won’t repair most of the damage…”
She sat down near him and leaned against a wall, closing her optics and focused on giving him a small but constant supply of Energon. While she had been able to fix some of the major lines, but there were only a few even her holoform could reach—there were still many, many more she was sure that were still leaking.
She sighed and looked at Predaking, who had still to move more than an optic.
She felt a slight tugging at her spark along with some worry and concern. She smiled, Optimus, of course he’s getting worried…how long have I been gone? She did her best to send reassurance that she was fine…but like much else it was something that she didn’t really understand and that Optimus was trying to teach her. Unfortunately, that particular action seemed to something that Cybertronians learned in sparklinghood…so Optimus was struggling to explain and teach her how to do it.
But it wasn’t like she couldn’t, she had lots of times…when her emotions ran rampant, but never consciously. She hoped she’d succeeded but there was little to do about it now.
Deep intakes drew her attention to Predaking and her brow dipped low as she watched him with some worry. She couldn’t help feeling confused, what had happened that two of the Predacons died and almost, and still possibly, a third?
She thought about leaving him, she’d done all she could for him and he obviously didn’t want any more help, but then she’d feel guilty for leaving him in this condition. Aliena leaned her helm back and laughed dryly, “Predaking, you’ve put me quite a predicament…I think it might be best if Optimus doesn’t know about this just yet. At least not until you can tell me what happened.”

Chapter Text

It must have been several hours later when Aliena opened her optics again, she shifted a bit to uncramp her wings when a foreign weight held her back. Optics fully onlined now she looked down to see a large wing resting over her legs while the even intakes of Predaking brushed her servo. She couldn’t help the smile that graced her before she frowned again, seeing the holes and tears in his wings.
Carefully as she could, she slid her legs out from under his wings and moved to inspect the damage more. Because of his shifting she was able to see that his left side was just as bad as his right. Activating her holoform, she fixed the Energon lines as best she could before nodding and standing up, intending to leave—at least for the moment.
A low growl caused her to turn around. Predaking was awake and staring at her intently, his optics relaying just how much pain he was in.
She frowned and kneeled next to him, placing a servo on his shoulder before her optics glowed a bit—supplying him with more Energon. “I'll, be back later. I promise. But Optimus is getting really worried and, since you don't want me to com anyone for help, I need to bring some medical supplies here…alright?”
She had no idea where her steadiness of voice came from, or her confidence, she just hoped that it would remain. Because she was borderline terrified right now.
Predaking looked at her for a moment more before he released a deep intake, mimicking a sigh, and his body laxed some.
Aliena left and found an exit down the hallway. She flew quickly back to Iacon and transformed at its edge, taking in the scenery. It was a darkened mirror image of what she’d seen on her first trip there. She smiled fondly at the memory, she hadn’t thought anything good of it at the time, she hurt like no tomorrow and the only thought that kept her from thinking she was dead was just how much pain there was. As she entered the city she could almost see herself ‘running’ from probably the kindest bot.
She laughed and shook her helm and walked a bit faster until she saw the Nemesis. Home, for the moment. As soon as she broke the building line there was a shout and an engine, turning, it was Optimus.
When he transformed his expression was a cross between worried and disapproval. “Aliena, why did you not com? I was worried something happened.”
She offered a weak smile, “Uh, couldn’t.”
“Please don’t do that to me again…not with Shockwave and Starscream unaccounted for.” Optimus embraced her and she returned it whole-heartedly.
“I’ll try, but no promises. So, what needs to be done?”
He turned, “We have a few shelters rebuilt but, much more still needs to be done.”
She nodded, “I’ll see if they need any help with the high work.”
He smiled, “I will be transporting materials if you need me.”
Aliena laughed and walked away to help rebuild. She was a bit more suited to help with the rooves as she could hover via foot thrusters and was currently guiding a crane like devise. It had only been half a solar cycle but three more ships had already arrived. She landed next to Bee and said in surprise, “It’s only been a week, maybe two? So many people are already returning.”
Bee grinned, “I know, isn’t it great? We’ll have more help and restore Cybertron sooner, bots can start getting back to normal life and-” He stopped suddenly when he saw Alien’s glazed looked, “Je-Aliena?”
She turned to him suddenly, looking apologetic, “I’m sorry Bee, I didn’t mean to tune you out…I just feel out of place.”
He placed a servo on her shoulder, “A lot of us are going to have a lot of things to get used to.” He grinned, “Hey, you know, once there’s some more bots, you and Optimus can get started on a new counsel. I’m sure there’s going to need to be some things that are different from the old one, especially now that the caste system is gone.”
She sighed, almost angrily, “That’s just it Bee, I know nothing about Cybertron—or at least nothing that matters when it comes to leading and being a Prime. Uhh, I don’t think I have to worry about the first one though…if the majority of bots have the same opinion as the first group of returnees.”
Bee frowned and stepped in front of her, “Alright, who are you and where is Jemina?”
Aliena looked down, “I don’t know, back on Earth I guess.”
Bee’s frown deepened, “Just because you become a Prime doesn’t mean you’re supposed to lose who you are, Primus made you a Prime for, Primus knows how many reasons. I’ve seen you take the lead and do it well.”
She scoffed with a slight laugh, “I was a nervous wreck the entire time and, you saw them, I don’t even want to try and lead a people who I don’t know anything about. What I did, I did to save Optimus and give them a leader because I can’t do it. Maybe Ultra Magnus could for a bit but,” she laughed, “even if the Decepticons are gone, what’s going to stop something like the old counsel cropping up again?”
Bee beamed and pointed, “See! This is why he did it! They might not see it but I do. Aliena, who would think of that just after we defeated Unicron? I sure as heck didn’t. As much I hate to admit it, I was ready to let Optimus sacrifice himself for the Allspark.”
“You would have to.” She said simply.
He shrugged, “Yeah, but I didn’t try to do anything about it. But you did and now we have two Primes! Maybe you’re not the political leader we’ll need. And maybe, you’re going to need a lot of help. But all Primes are made for a reason, we’ll find yours.”
She smiled, “Thanks Bee.”
“No problem.”
Aliena looked at the Nemesis which was lying not far off. “I think I’m going to grab some Energon and call it a day. See ya tomorrow Bee.”
He waved her goodbye and turned to finish up for the day.
She hurried to the Nemesis and grabbed a cube, depositing it in her subspace, before making her way to the med bay. She looked inside then peaked over her shoulder. Seeing no one, she hurried to grab a few basic first aid supplies that she knew she’d know how to use.
Once the supplies were tucked safely under her arms she left, pausing as she passed her berthroom. She intaked deeply before turning and entering the room, minutes later she was in the air again, making an arch towards Darkmount.
She landed on the small runway she had found near the room with Predaking and made her way inside. She was immediately struck with how quiet it was and her spark jumped. She ran into the room and skidded to a stop in front of Predaking, servo resting on his chest armor and felt a faint pulse. She sighed, her initial fear leaving her immediately.
When Aliena looked up again Predaking was looking straight at her. She smiled sheepishly, “Sorry, I thought, well I thought you offlined while I was out.”
Setting down the supplies she brought, the first thing she grabbed was the Energon cube. While she could do with a refuel, she wouldn’t be for the worse without it. She looked at Predaking for a moment before frowning, how to get him to drink it without spilling most of it…
She began looking around for something that could make the process easier but whirled around at the sound of metal gears whirring and clanking. Predaking, in his bipedal form now, laid of the floor and she gasped, half in surprise and half in pain, “Are you ok? I didn’t think you could do that yet…not with your injuries being so bad.”
He slowly pushed himself to a wall, Aliena was tempted to help but she had a strong feeling that he’d demand to do it on his own, before he answered—again surprising her as she didn’t expect an answer. “My self-repair systems healed enough for me to do so.”
His voice was somehow even deeper than Optimus’, borderline growl—she hadn’t remembered that from the very brief times they’d spoken. She shook herself out of her surprise and nodded, handing him the cube which he took gratefully, before grabbing the medical supplies and starting on some of his other wounds.
She was currently working on his right arm when he asked, “So why didn’t you tell the others about me?”
She froze, not meeting his optics, before she continued working, “You made it pretty clear you didn’t want outside help…why?”
He frowned, “They view me as a beast, and rightly so, but nothing more.”
Aliena nodded her head in a ‘yeah, so?’ fashion before asking, “You guys helped to save Cybertron, I think that merits something.”
He frowned, “I also do not wish to be around them for any reason.”
She sighed, “Then why let me come back and help you?”
He blinked, “I’m, not sure. You already knew I suppose.”
“Hardly a good reason.” She finished with the major tear on his forearm armor and moved to a deep gash on his side. “If you don’t mind, what happened? I didn’t think you guys were this hurt after battling Unicron’s undead.”
Predaking growled deeply and she stiffened slightly. “Starscream. We found him here and meant to take our just revenge.”
She looked at him with wide optics, “He-he did this? I didn’t think he had that much power.”
Predaking scoffed, “He has no power, he merely stumbled upon this room’s self-defenses…I have never seen such weapons, not even on the Nemesis.”
Aliena blinked and looked around, “I wonder what was here that was worth all that protection?”
“Energon probably.”
She frowned and looked around the room, burn marks, holes and tears littering all corners of the room. “I don’t think so, the shots would have ignited the cubes.”
“I do not care…all I care about is that they killed my only and last kin.”
She nodded in an understanding fashion but stayed silent.

Optimus tiredly walked into his berthroom, eager to recharge. He entered the room, but it felt strangely empty. Looking around, he realized what it was—Aliena was not there. His brow creased in worry, Aliena had been acting different when she returned. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, not with how the returning Autobots had greeted her, but now he was staring to worry.
A soft glow on the table grabbed his attention, a data pad. It shouldn't be getting like that unless there’s a message…Hurriedly, he grabbed the data pad turned it on. Filling the screen was a simple message, “I’ve gone out for a flight, don’t know when I'll be back. ~Jemina”
Optimus set the data down and laid back on the berth, whatever Aliena was going through—she needed to figure it out for herself.

Hours seemed to pass as she patched him up, most of what she could do was only mesh work but she hoped it was enough. She stood to leave, Predaking having fallen into recharge again. As she neared the exit soft ‘tink, tink, tink’ on metal grabbed her attention. Aliena looked up and saw that it was raining and she frowned, she briefly remembered that the rain on Cybertron was acid. Some of it blew in and a few drops landed on her and she hissed, “Defiantly not going out anytime soon.”
Making her way back inside to where Predaking rested she leaned back on a wall, falling into recharge before her optics closed.
Predaking was the first to online. He saw Aliena leaning against the wall a bit further down and wondered why she was still here. He groaned and sat up more, making an attempt to stand, but didn’t quite yet have the strength. He fell back to the floor with a resounding crash, onlining Aliena immediately.
“Predaking?”
He groaned again but said firmly, “I am fine. Just attempted to stand prematurely.”
She smiled sympathetically and nodded.
“Why are you still here?”
Aliena nodded outside, “Acid rain, I’m not goin’ anywhere until it’s done.”
Predaking nodded.
Aliena looked at the two offlined Predacons and asked, “Predaking? Once you’re healed, do you want me to bring Optimus here, to give them a proper burial?”
Predaking blinked but shook his head, “I will burry my brothers once I can fly again, which shouldn’t be much longer.”
Aliena grinned, “Just don’t push it too hard, don’t want to have to repair you again.”
The room was still and just as quiet, Aliena looked around—thinking. It seemed like the weapons had been set up to fire at everything and at every angle within the room. It just, didn't make sense. Why fill a room full of defenses and have them destroy the entire room?
She shook her helm, maybe it was a testing center, that was about all she could think of.

Two days passed in a similar fashion. During daylight hours Aliena would help rebuild then check on Predaking, she was usually back at the Nemesis before Optimus came back though.
Optimus entered the room and saw Aliena on the berth, already in a deep recharge. She seemed to be tired out more recently, but that could easily be attributed to the rebuilding and her learning whatever she could about Cybertron—which was slow going due to time.
He sighed tiredly and laid down next to her, following Aliena into recharge.

Aliena held a support beam in place while Bulkhead welded it to the spot. He turned to her, “Hey, are you sure you don’t want to greet the returnee’s?”
She shrugged, “I’m fine, it’s not like I know them.”
“Oh yeah, I forget sometimes.”
She laughed, “Glad one of us can, if you want to Bulk, you can go. This house can wait a minute.”
Bulkhead was about to answer when his expression changed suddenly, “No, Jazz?!”
“Hey there Bulkhead, what’s up?”
Bulkhead ran over and hugged the mech, picking him up in the process. “Nothing much until you came along! How long has it been?”
Jazz laughed, “Too long. And who is this?”
Aliena looked at him incredulously, “Seriously? He’s not here for an hour and he’s—Gah!”
Bulkhead laughed, “Hey, at least he can notice a pretty bot.”
Aliena was seriously considering bending light around her when Jazz laughed again, “Ah come on Bulk, hey, I have an idea.” He turned to Aliena, “Bee asked if I wanted to go on patrol with him, ya wanna join?”
Aliena was about to flat out tell him she was perfectly fine not, when Bulkhead leaned over, “Uh, it’s that or greeting more bot, I think Optimus is coming this way.”
She glanced over her shoulder and sure enough he was walking their way. “Scrap.”
Jazz grinned, “I’ll meet you at the Nemesis.”
She nodded and started to walk away when Optimus called for her, “Aliena, wait-”
She turned and said quickly, pointing at the Nemesis with both servos, “Aha, I have patrol, like now…”
Optimus sighed but nodded, watching her transform and leave quickly. He turned to Bulkhead, “I’m I missing something?”
He shook his head, “I think the new bots just make her nervous.”
Optimus looked at her sadly, “But she must start getting used to them and she can only by being around them.”
Bulkhead stood next to him and shrugged, “Give her a little time, I think she’s still trying to get over the shock of being made a Prime. I mean, at least when she was made into a techno-organic she had some warning—she didn’t have any for this.”
“I understand, I just don’t know what to do.”

Aliena landed next to Bee and Jazz. Bee smiled at her, “We’re going to check out the Kaon sector today, Starscream might be hiding there somewhere.”
She nodded and pushed down the butterflies forming, Predaking is there.
They combed the sector pretty thoroughly, Jazz and Bee checking everything out at street level while Aliena checked from the air, everything so far was clear. If she had been in her bot form, she would have been shaking her head, Bee and Jazz were just too funny. They had picked up like they had never parted.
Jazz suddenly asked, “So Prime, what’s your story?”
It took Aliena a minute to realize that he was talking to her. “Oh, uh. Nothing impressive, ran into Optimus and his group on Earth and well, yeah.”
Jazz laughed, “Come on, even Optimus had a more interesting story than that.”
“Good for him.”
Bee sighed and laughed, “Actually, she’s leaving out a lot. She’s saved Optimus’ keaster several times, not to mention she knows how to get out of Ratchet’s care.”
There was a sound of surprise from Jazz, “Alright Aliena, teach me your ways. How do you do it?”
“Talk him to death.”
“Nah, there’s gotta be more than that.”
“Sure, but Ratchet would kill me if I told you.”
“I won’t tell him.”
Aliena laughed, “Alright, this is how you get out of Ratchet’s care, ready?”
“Yes.”
“Go to Knockout first.”
“Wha-? No! That’s not it!”
Bee laughed so hard he fought to stay straight on the road. “I have yet to see you pull that one.”
“I don’t know, might soon.”
“I’ll pay to see that.”
“Oh haha. I’d like to see you go to Knockout.”
“Now hang on!” Bee cried, “No need for drastic measures…I’ll call Raf.”
“Who’s Raf?” Jazz asked.
Aliena could almost see Bee’s smile, “One of the humans we met on Earth, and one of my best friends.”
Aliena sighed, “It’s been almost three week now…”
“I’m sure he’s doing fine, Jayce is a strong kid. Besides, he gets along with Ratchet better than you do.”
Aliena would have smiled if she could, “He has a soft spot for him and Raf I think.”
She could almost see Bee’s grin, “Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him crack so fast as he does with Jayce.”
“Looks like we found the old mech’s soft spot.” Jazz laughed, “Sparklings.”
Bee transformed suddenly, “The Decepticon capitol, we should check it out.”
Aliena landed next to them, frown prominent but neither mech saw it. They entered cautiously and she was thinking of every way possible to keep them from finding Predaking—leading them on a few ‘detours’ but they still needed to check those areas so it was fine.
They reached a fork and Aliena recognized it as one of the paths she had taken when she found Predaking. “I’ll go left. You and Jazz can go right.”
Bee nodded, a bit stiffly, and left with Jazz.
Aliena wandered into the hallway and waited a minute before quietly running the rest of the way. She sighed when she entered the destroyed corridor. As she entered the room a low whistle from behind her stopped Aliena dead in her tracks.
“What in Primus’ name happened here?” Jazz asked in astonishment.

Chapter Text

Aliena whirled around and grabbed her spark, “Jazz! For Primus’ sake are you trying to give me a heart attack?!”
Jazz smiled, “Sorry. This just caught me by surprise is all. Scrap, looks like a serious battle happened here.”
Bee walked out of an adjoining hallway, not to far down from the one she had come from. Aliena frowned slightly, “How did you get here?”
Bee shrugged, “Hallway looped. Hm…looks like this happened recently.” He bent down and examined something on the ground, “Predacons were here, look at the claw marks…their just as fresh as the blaster marks.”
Jazz’s optic ridges rose a bit, “You know, I don’t think I ever met anyone who could scout as well as you Bee.”
Bee smiled at the comment.
Aliena tuned out their conversation and walked into the room, not knowing how she was going to explain—Predaking was gone, along with the two offlined Predacons. She sighed in relief as the two mech came in.
Bee gasped, “I thought the hallway was bad.”
Jazz frowned, “This doesn’t make sense, what was this place? It couldn’t have been made to protect anything.”
Aliena shrugged, “Maybe it was a testing center.”
Jazz nodded, “That’s about all it could be. Man this place was desecrated.”
For the first time Aliena actually explored the room past just looking at it.
“Hey Bee,” Jazz called, “come look at this, Energon.”
Bee saw the large stain on the floor and frowned, “This is fresh…no one could have lost this much Energon and still function. So who carried him out?”
Aliena couldn’t bear to turn around and bit her lip while she stared at the wall hard. She blinked at the wall, still trying to figure out what could have possibly been of interest here when a thought struck her. Predaking had said that it was Starscream who had set off the room’s defenses and if he thought that the Predacons were killed in the barrage—then there was fairly good possibility that he might still be here.
She turned to tell Bee as much so they could hurry up and check the rest of the citadel when she heard a ‘click’.
Jazz froze and Bee stared at the floor in dread, “Please tell me you didn’t step on a trigger.”
“Alright, I won’t tell you.”
The door to the room began to close and Bee cried, “Run for it!”
Aliena’s optics glowed brighter and the door stopped. Bee dove through and Jazz was about to follow but a crack and a shockwave sent him sprawling backwards as the door slammed shut. She ran over to him, “Are you ok Jazz?”
He nodded and held his helm, “Yeah, I should be.”
“Aliena, Jazz?!” Bee’s panicked voice seeped through the door.
“We’re ok Bee!” Aliena shouted back, “Is there a console out there? Or some other way to override this?”
There was a moment’s pause before, “No, hang on and I’ll try to blast through the doors.”
Jazz stood, “Forget it Bee! I’m pretty sure those doors were meant to withstand these weapons in here, you’re not going to do anything but scratch it.”
“I’m going to com for help.”
Gas started seeping up from the floor and Aliena yelled, “Hurry!”
Jazz pressed next to Aliena and her optics glowed again.
Jazz took a step and hit something, “What in Cybertron? Oh scrap!”
“It’s alright Jazz, that’s me”
Jazz blinked at her, “I don’t see any kind of device.”
She frowned, looking around, “That’s because it’s just something I can do.”
“You’re one weird bot.”
She laughed, “Thanks.” Her optics widened as she saw a console on the wall near the door. “Jazz, move with me and stay right next to me, I can’t make this much bigger without overtaxing myself.”
Jazz nodded and they moved over to the console, whatever the gas was it was now up to Jazz’s knees. “I might be able to hack it, but you’d need to let the shield down and I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
She growled, feeling around the room but found no outside energy source. “I’m going to try and access the console, I need you to keep an optic out in case anything happens—good or bad.”
Jazz nodded and Aliena closed her optics and focused on the console, her denta ground together as she focused on keeping it on, sifting through information as fast as possible, and keeping the shield up.
Jazz frowned as the gas continued to rise, pressing closer to Aliena as the shield seemed to shrink a bit. She groaned and her knees buckled slightly, Jazz caught her instantly and optics flickered from her to the console to the gas.
“Aliena?”
“I almost got it-” The console blinked suddenly and the door opened.
He almost jumped for joy but was practically holding Aliena. They stayed put for another minute until all the gas had been vented out of the room and she promptly fell to the floor, chest rising and falling as she fought to stay awake.
“Aliena? Hey kid, say something.”
“Stop, shouting.”
Jazz smiled, “You gonna make it?”
She nodded, “Long enough for Optimus to chew me out. Do me a favor and don’t call Ratchet.”
“If we can get you back to the Nemesis without you fallin’ inta forced recharge it’s a deal.”
They stumbled out of the room, Jazz being her crutch as her world constantly faded from light to dark before she forced her optics on. As they walked through the hallways they began to become overly familiar to Aliena, she would see shadows pass that looked like flyers and she could swear she heard a voice over the intercom systems. She gasped and hit the wall, servo holding her side tightly as it burned in pain.
Jazz held her arm and started to become very worried as her behavior became erratic. “Aliena, we’re almost there. I’m sure Bee’s already commed for help.”
Aliena started struggling against him, “No, stop. Leave me alone!”
She shoved Jazz away and fell to the floor, knees too weak to hold her any longer.
Jazz’s face hardened a bit and grabbed her arms, “Aliena, you need to listen to me and snap out of it. It isn’t real. We’re fine, you’re fine. Darkmount is abandoned, there’s no one here but us.”
Her servos balled and he was suddenly thrown against a wall as she trembled. He groaned and clutched his helm and turned at the sound of peeds, “Bee? Be careful! She’s, having a moment.”
To his surprise Optimus ran by him and instantly grabbed Aliena, uttering deep, guttural words that seemed to rise from his very spark.
Aliena gasped, trying to draw air into her filters, as she lost control of her abilities—nightmare-like images washed over her vision as she tried to find a way out of the Nemesis, a way back to Optimus.
She was suddenly enwrapped in a firm grasp and drawn close to something—not something. She could feel his spark pulsing strong against his armor, her own slowing down and matching his. “I have you Aliena, your safe. I’m not letting go.”
She clutched his armor and listened to his spark and voice as he kept talking lowly, reminding her that he was right there. Her vision started to clear, enough to see that the shadows weren’t shadows at all but Bee, Jazz and Arcee. Exhausted she closed her optics and completely sank into his grasp.
Jazz watched in slight fascination as Optimus spoke, it sounded Cybertronian but he’d never heard anything like it before. He very quietly asked Bee, “What’s he saying?”
Bee shrugged, “Haven’t a clue. Never heard anything like it.”
Arcee blinked as she listened, “I have, a long time ago—shortly before the war started. It’s the Language of the Primes.”
Bee gasped, “That’s the Language of the Primes?”
“You mean that all the time you spent with him you never heard him talk like that before?” Jazz asked astonished.
Both Arcee and Bee shook their heads no.
Optimus stood, Aliena in his arms and unconscious. “Bulkhead, we need a bridge.”
When they arrived at the Nemesis, several bots—old and new—had gathered. “Is she alright?” A femme who came with Jazz asked.
Optimus nodded, “I believe so, though both of you should still be examined.” He finished, looking at Jazz.
Jazz nodded his helm, “No problem, if you explained what happened.”
“I could say the same. Knockout, she may require medical assistance.”
Optimus set her on the berth and turned to Knockout who was running a scanner over her. “All this time I spent trying to offline her and now I’m making sure she's alright. Primus certainly has a sense of humor.” The scanner beeped a few times and he turned to Optimus, “It says that she's fine, only that she's put herself into a forced recharge…has she really gone that long without recharging?”
Optimus shook his helm. “No. It is more likely that she overused her abilities.”
Knockout frowned, “Does she do that often??”
Optimus nodded and turned to Jazz who had followed them in, “If she over uses or extends them. What happened?”
Jazz blinked then answered, “After the room’s defenses were activated, some kind of gas started seeping in. She, made some kind of shield to protect us and then somehow activated the control panel.” Jazz shook his helm, “She never touched it, not once.”
Bee stood next to Jazz and added, “She also made a shield to hold the door open long enough for me to get out.”
Optimus frowned, “You mean she projected the shield?”
Bee nodded, “Yeah, she finally figured it out.”
Aliena groaned on the berth, her optics wide when Knockout’s face was the first she saw.
“How are you feeling?”
She jumped with a small shout. “Knockout! Ah, are you trying to give me a heart attack!”
He frowned, “I was trying to make sure that you would be alright. The thanks I get.”
Bee smiled and said, “Don’t worry Knockout, she gives Ratchet the same treatment.”
Knockout rolled his optics and growled, “Glad to I’m not treated any differently.” He turned to Optimus and Aliena, “Well, I haven’t a clue what to do with Techno-organics. Whatever you usually do I suppose.”
Optimus helped Aliena stand, “Rest then.”
“Great. I could sleep though.”
Knockout waved them off as he looked at his scans, no doubt interested as these were the first scans he’d been able to get from her.
Jazz followed the pair out and asked, “You sure you’re alright Aliena? You didn’t look to good.”
She smiled and waved it off a bit, “I’ll be fine by tomorrow, no biggie.”
Jazz nodded and left.
Optimus and Aliena walked down the corridors towards their room when Optimus smiled, mischief in his optic, Aliena missing it. Without warning he turned and picked her up, carrying her bridal style. She cried out and grabbed him around the shoulders, “Optimus!”
He grinned, “Yes?”
She shook her head and rested it on his chest armor, “You’re hopeless sometimes.”
He laughed as the door to their berthroom opened, “You know, you’re not as heavy as I thought you were.”
Aliena scoffed lightly and hit his chest, “That’s it. You can sleep in the dog house tonight.”
He set her down on the berth and laid next to her, tracing her wings lightly, a soft moan and purrs escaping her almost immediately. “What were you saying?”
She tried to answer, but it only came out as another soft moan and purrs.