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Description
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Time Units

Orbital Cycle: 1 month
Joor: ~1 hour
Solar Cycle [Cycle]: ~1 day
Vorn: 83 years

~III~

Rise

Chapter Three [Part 2]

The Power of Socializing

~III~

    Victoria grinned at the collective sigh that escaped her and her companions when the door to the Communications hub hissed open. Rewind immediately crossed the room to tap Blaster on the thigh, making the bigger mech jump at the contact. Eject, on the other hand, took his time, dragging his feet across the floor until he finally fell face first into the empty chair beside Blaster. “Mech down!”

    Blaster chuckled, and Victoria crossed the room to him just in time to see him disconnect a wire from the console. It slithered under the armor on his arm and disappeared from sight. “Already? Ya haven’t even finished the cycle!”

    “I pulled double duty,” Eject insisted. He waved at Steeljaw when the feline lumbered out form beneath the console by Blaster’s feet. “Rookie here needed a guide.”

    “That’s why I buddied her up with Ramhorn.” Said Cassette snorted from the corner, and Blaster grinned. “And when he got tired, I sent Rewind. Have any troubles, li’l mech?”

    “Just the usual.” Rewind patted Steeljaw’s rigid mane, earning a very feline-like yawn that made Victoria smile. It didn’t matter where the cat came from—Earth or a distant, alien planet—there were just some traits that were universal to all felines. “Mechs not being at their assigned posts, Stunticons trying to show off, the elevator stalling between deck one and two. Brainstorm was surprisingly calm; he didn’t seem to notice us because he was tinkering again, but we delivered his message to him.”

    “Good!” Blaster finally turned to Victoria and gave her a large smile. It wasn’t the same indulgent smile that he gave his Cassettes, but Victoria would be lying if she said it didn’t cause her to relax a little. “And you? Enjoy ya first cycle of socializing?’

    “It was…” Victoria paused and tried to ignore Eject’s soft snickers. “…interesting?”

    “Is that a nice way o’ saying it ain’t your style?” Blaster dismissed Victoria’s protests with a wave of his hand. “S’alright! Not every mech’s cut out fo’ communications. Dreadwing all but ran outta here the moment Mirage recruited me.”

    “Dreadwing was in charge of this before you?” Victoria asked with a tiny laugh. “That would explain why he ran every time we tried to give him his message.”

    “I offered him a position as a joke once, an’ the mech ain’t trusted me or my Cassettes since.” Blaster leaned forward and stretched out a hand towards Victoria. It took her a moment to realize he was reaching for the data-pad she still held; she eagerly handed it over, and Blaster chuckled. “Lemme just get these catalogued, and we should be able to call it a cycle!”

    Victoria awkwardly stood behind Blaster as he turned his chair back around to face the monitors. She had begun to pick at the tiny gaps in her fingers when Blaster gestured at the other empty chair beside him. “This might take a while. I’d go ahead and send ya off, but I reckon Mirage would think you’re skippin’ out if he found ya wonderin’ the halls before your scheduled work cycle is over.”

    Victoria hesitantly sat down, awkwardly shifting in the chair. It was much bigger than the ones in her and Patronus’s room, and it made her feel so tiny as her feet swung a few inches above the floor. She glanced over at Eject and almost wished she was as tiny as a Cassette. At least then she could just lounge her entire body on the seat.

    “So…” Blaster started. He unraveled a chord from the data-pad and connected it to the console in the same place the other chord had been. “Ya still willin’ to stick around?”

    “Of course.” Victoria watched the monitor’s screen light up lines of what were now familiar symbols to her. She had practically memorized the contents of the data-pad at this point. “I’m not a quitter.”

    Blaster hummed, and his fingers flew across the glowing keys in front of him. Familiar symbols were replaced with lines of gibberish, and Victoria felt herself slump a little. She obviously still had a lot to learn…like actually learning how to read all of those symbols.

    Rewind walked around Blaster’s seat and climbed up into the chair with Eject, shoving his brother’s legs out of the way so that he could sit at the edge of the chair and reach the console. “Just think—a few more cycles, and you could graduate from messages to archiving. It would be fun to have someone other than Eject complain all cycle about it.”

    Victoria smiled and watched columns of cubes appear on the monitor in front of Rewind. Some of the lines of symbols began to funnel into one of the cubes, and Victoria perked up when she realized that the squares must have been the Cybertronian version of file folders. She would be a total pro at that if she ever managed to “graduate.” Her old jobs had taught her a lot about organizing computer files.

    A rumble came from below her feet, and Victoria jumped at the noise. However, the rumble was nearly drowned out by Eject’s groan and Rewind’s chiming laugh. “Just what we needed: another archiving fanatic. I had hope for you, Rookie.”

    “There’s still time ta convert her,” Blaster joked. He reached down by Victoria’s chair, and she finally noticed that Steeljaw sat between their chairs. Steeljaw leaned his head into Blaster’s palm, but the rest of his body remained at rigid attention. “Or you could just admit that archivin’ ain’t that bad.”

    “Never.”

    Victoria smiled at the laughs the pouting Eject received. Her frame slouched a little more in the chair, and she suddenly realized that she hadn’t felt this relaxed since waking up in her new body. Her spark wavered a little when she automatically compared the scene to similar ones she had experienced back on Earth, but she pushed it away with a hum that regained Blaster’s attention. “Do you mind me asking how you guys ended up here? Everyone seems to know everything about me, but I haven’t learned a thing about anyone else except Brainstorm sometimes blows things up and Wildrider is a pervert.”

    “Not much to tell.” Blaster aimed a smile at her, but even Victoria had figured out small “tells” like Nightbeat had mentioned earlier. Blaster’s optics did not light up to the same brightness as they had earlier when he smiled. “We came along after most of the mechs here were already recruited. Mirage had docked at the outpost we were stationed and offered us a position here.”

    “You were allowed to leave just like that?” Victoria asked. She watched the rest of the symbols float into the cube folders before the screen changed. She stared at the new stream of information that appeared and could barely keep up with some of it as it flew across the screen. “I can’t imagine an outpost just letting their comm. guy leave like that.”

    Eject was suddenly more interested in Rewind’s work, and Steeljaw shifted closer to Blaster’s chair. Even Ramhorn gruffly took a few steps out of his corner. Blaster focused on the screen in front of him. “They had other mechs that could run their communications.”

    A soft knock at the door prevented Victoria from asking any more questions. The knock was obviously a formality since the door slid open before Blaster could even turn away from the screen. Not that he did, leaving Victoria to turn and discover their visitor. She scowled at the familiar blue mech. “I thought we were avoiding each other so I wouldn’t hold your hand day.”

    Mirage’s expression was as stoic as ever, but Blaster turned to Rewind and Eject, both of who gave him the most innocent looking optics they could. “You told her about that?”

    “I only wished to encourage your independence,” Mirage answered before the Cassettes could speak. He stepped farther into the room and came to a stop between Victoria’s and Blaster’s chairs. A rumble came from Steeljaw, and Mirage gave the feline a nod. “I assume that I was somewhat successful?”

    “I’m never coming to you about a problem ever again.”

    Mirage hummed and accepted the data-pad Blaster gave him without a word. Victoria absently leaned against the console, head propped in her hand, as Mirage scrolled through it. He hummed again and returned the data-pad, which was stashed somewhere below the console. “I assume that you can make do without Pixel for the remainder of the cycle?”

    “‘Course!” Blaster waved at Victoria with a grin. “Not ‘cause I can’t use her, but ‘cause she’s finished her job for the cycle. See ya at the beginnin’ of the next rotation!”

    Victoria gave Blaster and the Cassettes a wave before sliding off the chair. Like the good noble she had been taught to be, she stuck her nose at Mirage’s offered arm and sashayed out of the Communication hub. Her dignity took a small nosedive when she tripped over the invisible crack that separated the room with the hallway, but she managed to save herself and ignored the small chuckle that came from Mirage.

    She waited until the door completely closed before finally taking his arm. “I can’t believe you told them not to take me to you. What if I had seriously needed your help for something?”

    “I cannot watch over you all the time now,” Mirage said. Victoria frowned but allowed him to lead her down the hallway. “I have taught you that nobles are independent by nature, and to be constantly by your side would negate a very stereotypical image that your identity requires you to adopt.”

    “But I had no idea what I was doing!” Victoria pulled on Mirage’s arm as if to punish him for leaving her to fend for herself. What she really wanted to do was pinch him. Funny how the first person who had ever tempted her to execute such a childish punishment had metal skin. “Blaster had me running around with a data-pad I couldn’t even read!”

    Mirage came to a sudden stop, pulling Victoria back when she continued to walk. She wobbled a little but managed to steady herself without his help. “What do you mean?”

    “I can’t read Cybertronian,” Victoria insisted. She was surprised by how bright Mirage’s optics were when she met them with her own. “I mean, I’ve learned what a few symbols mean from Wheeljack, but I never learned much beyond numbers and basic letters. I can read a word or two, but nowhere on that data-pad were the words toxic, radioactive, or frag.”

    Mirage stared at her long enough to make her shift from one foot to the other. His golden optics gradually dimmed to their usual brightness, and he hummed. He automatically looped their arms together again and continued their journey. “Interesting.”

    “Interesting?” Victoria leaned forward in an attempt to get a better view of his face, but all she accomplished was nearly face-planting as the wheels on her back made her top-heavy. Mirage barely paused for her gain her balance again. “What? You thought I could read Cybertronian?”

    “Neocybex at the least.” Mirage paused to press the button to call the elevator. The doors slid open within seconds of him pressing it, and he pressed the button for the second deck once they had entered. “You never mentioned this…handicap before.”

    “I thought it would be pretty obvious. I might have switched bodies, but I didn’t just wake up suddenly knowing everything Cybertronian. I’m surprised no one has asked why I say things like days or hours. I’m good at sticking to words I’ve learned from you guys, but sometimes I slip up.” Victoria could see in the reflection of the elevator’s doors that Mirage was staring at her, so she turned to meet his gaze as the elevator came to a stop. “What?”

    Mirage ignored the doors when they opened and continued to ignore them long enough for them to shut again. “You have not said a human word since you came online.”

    “What?”

    “I simply assumed that you were doing it on purpose.” Mirage reached over and pressed the button for the doors to open, and this time he ushered Victoria out of the elevator before they could close. “That you had been interacting with us long enough for our terms to become second nature for you. You appeared to had already developed a firm grasp of them by the end of our first meeting on Earth.”

    Victoria opened her mouth but closed it when she realized she had nothing to say. It was almost…disturbing to realize that nothing she said came out in the language she expected—an almost naïve assumption now that she thought about. What did she think was happening? That every mech on the ship, mechs that have likely never even heard of Earth let alone visited the planet, spoke to her in perfect English?

    As they rounded the corner of the hallway, Victoria lifted her head. “Do you think it’s because of the AllSpark?”

    Her voice came out softer than she had intended, but Mirage’s nod indicated that he had heard it all the same. “I believe so, which would honestly explain your accent.”

    Great—she had a weird accent on top of all of this? “Accent?”

    “One that many of the Iaconian aristocracy would label ‘Ancient High Class.’” Mirage stopped short in front of a door, but he made no move to open it. Instead he fully turned to Victoria, unlooping their arms to cross his arms over his chest and examine her with a gleam in his optics. “One of the most reputable families living in the Towers claimed to have access to an ancient video file that was dated to the time of the original Thirteen Primes. They insisted that through that video they had discovered that those Primes spoke in an accent, which rigorous practice had enabled them to mimic. It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, but many of my former companions believed them and strove to mimic the accent as well.”

    “And it sounded like this?”

    “No.” Victoria frowned, but Mirage’s stoic expression remained steadfast. “Yours is less…forced. There’s also an airy lilt to it that I believe they mistook to be nasally. It’s…pretty, I suppose would be the easiest way to describe. Nothing like how you once sounded.”

    “So the AllSpark has somehow made it possible for me to understand Cybertronian— ”

    “Neocybex is the more correct term.”

    “It put another language in my head!” Victoria hissed, her annoyance rising because of the almost dismissing tone Mirage addressed her with. She spun around on her heel and took a few steps away from Mirage. She lifted her hands to grasp the sides of her head, and she only realized then how badly they had been shaking. “What if it’s done something else without me realizing? The memories I can handle—the memories don’t do anything but make my head hurt. But it’s making me do things like that subconsciously? What if I wake up one morning and find out that I’ve stabbed Patronus through the spark?”

    Hands fell on her shoulders, and Victoria swallowed around the large lump that had formed in her through. Mirage spun her around so that his golden optics could stare directly into hers. When she tried to turn her head away, he lifted his hands from her shoulders and forced her head to turn back. “You are overthinking this.”

    “‘Overthinking’ my ass! You don’t have something inside of you that’s tried to kill you before!”

    “This may all simply be a small side effect from it merging with you.” Victoria scowled and huffed when Mirage refused to let her turn away. “Act like the grown woman you are and stop attempting to ignore me. The AllSpark obviously has its limits; it has no power to dictate how you act on a daily basis, and it only gave you the ability to speak Neocybex. Unless you have forgotten your exaggerated struggle when it came to reading a simple list of names.”

    Mirage released her head, and Victoria immediately took a step back. He mimicked her actions and placed a reasonable distance between them. Victoria took a deep breath and placed a hand over her throbbing spark. “I wasn’t exaggerating.”

    “Of course not.”

    “It was a real struggle.”

    “I believe you.”

    Victoria’s fingers curled into fists to match her scowl. “I hate that tone.”

    “I am aware. After all, it is the same patronizing tone my sire would adopt to convey his disappointment.” He nodded towards her, and Victoria almost imagined his softening expression was some indicator that for all his deadpanned teasing, he sympathized with her on some level. “I am the last mech to put blind faith in a mech that before this ordeal was nothing but a legend. However, there was one thing I learned during my short period of time with Vector, and that was that he is a mech who does not do things halfway. Your frame is currently a prison to the AllSpark—it cannot escape, and it cannot take control of you. We have plenty of time to reach Cybertron before Vector’s runes lose all their magic or whatever explanation he had for how the AllSpark remained trapped.”

    Victoria gave Mirage a tiny smile. “No offense, but you kinda suck at pep talks.”

    Mirage’s frown remained firm, and Victoria wondered for a brief second if Mirage ever resented the role he had been dumped into as much as she resented hers. Their early days in the cabin had shown that underneath his polite demeanor was an uptight, sarcastic individual, and the many lessons she had endured from him had solidified those traits of his personality. Sometimes though, Victoria was certain that he grew tired of all the little things he had to manage in order to keep her from losing her mind, like force-feed her Energon or not look at her when she needed his help in the showers.

    She could see now why he insisted on her being independent of him during the day.

    Mirage finally looked away as the door they stood in front of slid open. Patronus froze on the threshold of the door, one foot lifted in mid-air to take a step. Victoria cringed at the dents she immediately spotted scattered across his frame. She took a step forward and reached for the one on the side of his head. “Patronus—”

    The sound of heavy footsteps made the next words die in her throat, and Patronus pushed his way out of the door to stand between her and Mirage, wings shooting up from the tired pose they had adopted. Victoria tensed at the sight of the large, grey frame that followed Patronus from the room, having to duck under the doorframe because he was so large. Mirage merely gave the mech a stiff nod. “Megatron.”

    Megatron’s red optics seemed to stare down the bridge of his nose at him. They left the Autobot and landed on Victoria, causing her to stiffen even more. A smirk flashed across Megatron’s face, showing off sharp teeth that his former toy form certainly had not possessed. “Have you finally overcome your fear to face me?”

    For once, Victoria could not produce a quick retort, not because she lacked one but because of the sheer terror that shot through her spark like an icy arrow. All of the things she had done to him as a toy—trapped him the Jar of Solitary Confinement, manhandled him in front of his sworn nemesis, mocked him for his tiny form—came rushing back to her along with his dire threats of revenge. Now the tables were turned as he towered over her tiny frame, his hands large enough to crush her head with ease.

    When Victoria didn’t immediately respond, Megatron released a derisive grunt. To her immense surprise, he turned away from them and began to trek down the long hallway, his large frame nearly taking up half the hallway. “How disappointing; and here I had expected more than a sniveling femme.”

    Victoria’s hands clenched into fists, but she did not attempt to stop Megatron in any way. She only relaxed when he finally vanished from view, and she turned her attention back to Patronus. “Are you hurt? There are so many dents! How have you managed to hide these from me for so long?”

    “Today was a little worse than usual.” Patronus glanced down at his chest where a majority of the dents could be found. “Megatron had to keep repeating the same maneuver again and again until I managed to deflect him. And I usually ask Breakdown if he can fix the dents. He’s really good at doing that, and I didn’t want you to get anymore upset than you already do.”

    Victoria pushed Patronus’s arm and forced him to turn around. She frowned at the few dents that littered his wings; those had to have hurt. “I don’t like you doing this. Especially not with him.”

    “I know, but I have to do this.” Patronus turned back around, and his optics shone with a fierce determination. “He’s the only one here that can show me how a real Prime fights, and Vector made sure he understood that. He only gets really grumpy when it takes me too long to get the hang of something.”

    Victoria was prepared to argue with him, but she caught a glimpse of Mirage from the corner of her eyes. Though the tension from Megatron’s appearance had drained from his frame, Mirage’s optics remained hard and unreadable as he watched the two interact. He nodded when he noticed Victoria’s attention was on him, and she was reminded of the conversation they had the day before about this. Was this some underhanded way of him proving that Patronus did not come out these training sessions completely wrecked?

    A warmth suddenly spread through her chest, and Victoria lifted a hand as if to smother it. After all the crap the AllSpark had put them through up until this point, it did not have any say in this matter! “I don’t want you getting hurt…”

    Patronus’s wings shot up, and his optics hardened even more. “But if I don’t do this, how will I be able to protect you? Megatron has proven that despite my size, I can’t fight. I wouldn’t have even been able to take down Wildrider before his training! I need this, Miss Vicky; I need to be able to protect you.”

    The crack in Patronus’s voice instantly shattered any resolve Victoria had. She may never learn what had happened to Toshi before his transformation into Patronus, but whatever had happened had left a deep impression on the mechling. He sounded so desperate now; so desperate to keep the ones he cared for safe. She hated how he had been pushed to this fate, and for the first time since waking up on the ship, she felt the AllSpark hum inside of her in agreement.

    Victoria reached out and grabbed Patronus’s hand, squeezing it when he tightly gripped her hand back. “You have to promise to come to me or Mirage if he does something out of line.”

    “Of course.”

    “That includes saying anything degrading towards you.”

    “Okay.”

    “Or if he seriously hurts you. Don’t you dare try to hide that from me.”

    “I won’t.”

    Victoria turned to Mirage, hand still firmly grasped in Patronus’s. “You do have a plan for if Megatron changes his mind about all of this, right? This is a dramatic change from what I saw back in the cabin.”

    A hard glint flashed across Mirage’s optics, and his hard expression left little room for her to doubt his answer. “Of course. Why do you think I tolerate Brainstorm’s ego?”

    Victoria nodded and patted the back of Patronus’s hand with her free one. “I don’t like this—I never will like this. But…we have to do this. There’s no returning to what we used to be.”

    She felt like her words were more to reassure herself than anything else, but Patronus smiled and nodded. His optics reflected the same sense of determination and excitement to learn a new thing that had been prevalent in Toshi, and she hoped that he was able to continue clinging to that. She did not want to see the same haunted look on him that had sometimes plagued Bluestreak, or Wheeljack, or any other mech she had come to know.

    Now, she tried to smile for him. “Let’s go get those dents popped out before Breakdown finishes his shift. If he’s as good as you say he is, it would better to have him do it than Knock Out.”

    “Speaking of which, I believe you had an appointment with Knock Out at the end of this cycle.”

    Patronus laughed at Victoria’s fierce scowl. “Look, if we’re doing the whole ‘independent Pixel’ thing, that means you can’t follow me around invisible, Mr. You-Can’t-Hold-My-Hand-Forever.”

    “I would never.”

    Victoria had to fight the grin that threatened to ruin her scowl. She felt her spark lighten at the genuine laughter that continued to come from Patronus. She took Patronus’s hand and pulled him down the hallway with Mirage following at a respectable distance. “I heard that you helped out Nightbeat earlier…”

~III~

    Something was wrong.

    She felt it the moment she became aware of surroundings. Ever since waking up in her new body, Victoria discovered that each time she fell into recharge, she found herself in a place similar to the “limbo” that Vector had pulled her from. The first time had left her startled, her panic forcing her to wake back up and not remaining awake until Patronus woke up too.

    Gradually though, she had discovered that there was nothing to fear and had drawn comfort from the sparks that orbited around her. She had quickly figured out which orb of swirling colors represented the mechs she had been bound to—Sunstreaker’s and Sideswipe’s clung closest to each other, tiny and more colorful in comparison to the majority of the others; fiery orange strands licked Skywarp’s spark, which drifted farthest away from her; two little baby green orbs danced as close as they could to the barrier that separated them from her, and Victoria had known immediately that hyperactive one was Recall while the smaller rose-tinted one was Topaz, occasionally bonking against her brother to gain his attention. Bluestreak’s shone the brightest, and the green strands that whirled around it always crept along the barrier as if searching for the smallest opening to reconnect with her.

    Something was wrong this time, though. When she awoke in the darkness, the swirling sparks appeared more distant. A wider gap stood between them and her; every move she made to get closer only widened that gap. She reached her hand out towards Bluestreak’s spark, but it was like she was attempting wade through a pit of mud that sucked her in the more she struggled. Her entire body felt like some force was weighing it down.

    Victoria finally gave up her attempts and stood completely still. The moment she gave in, the entire space began to twist around. Her view of the familiar and comforting sparks became a blur of color that gradually melted into the black. She swiveled around to find some means of escape and froze when instead she found a black form with bright white dots as eyes rushing towards her.

    Her body jackknifed off the berth, and a short shriek escaped her. The low hum of the ship was the only indication that the darkness she stared into now was different. Her hands frantically scrapped at the stinging pain in her chest, and she curled her legs as close to her as she could, resting her forehead against her knees as she attempted to stop the wheezing gasps that came from her.

    After a while, she managed to calm herself enough to bring her breathing back under control, and Victoria lifted her head to ensure that she was once more in her hab-suite. Her eyes fell on the dark form of Patronus curled up on his berth as much as his frame would allow him to, his back towards her and wings clinging to his lower back. With the pain in her chest gradually fading, Victoria slowly lowered herself back onto the berth and balanced her hands on her abdomen.

    She stared at the ceiling until Patronus began to shift in his sleep, his whimpers prompting her to move over to his berth and hum the night terrors away.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

Time Units

Orbital Cycle: 1 month
Joor: ~1 hour
Solar Cycle [Cycle]: ~1 day
Vorn: 83 years

~III~

Rise

Chapter Three [Part 2]

The Power of Socializing

~III~

    Victoria grinned at the collective sigh that escaped her and her companions when the door to the Communications hub hissed open. Rewind immediately crossed the room to tap Blaster on the thigh, making the bigger mech jump at the contact. Eject, on the other hand, took his time, dragging his feet across the floor until he finally fell face first into the empty chair beside Blaster. “Mech down!”

    Blaster chuckled, and Victoria crossed the room to him just in time to see him disconnect a wire from the console. It slithered under the armor on his arm and disappeared from sight. “Already? Ya haven’t even finished the cycle!”

    “I pulled double duty,” Eject insisted. He waved at Steeljaw when the feline lumbered out form beneath the console by Blaster’s feet. “Rookie here needed a guide.”

    “That’s why I buddied her up with Ramhorn.” Said Cassette snorted from the corner, and Blaster grinned. “And when he got tired, I sent Rewind. Have any troubles, li’l mech?”

    “Just the usual.” Rewind patted Steeljaw’s rigid mane, earning a very feline-like yawn that made Victoria smile. It didn’t matter where the cat came from—Earth or a distant, alien planet—there were just some traits that were universal to all felines. “Mechs not being at their assigned posts, Stunticons trying to show off, the elevator stalling between deck one and two. Brainstorm was surprisingly calm; he didn’t seem to notice us because he was tinkering again, but we delivered his message to him.”

    “Good!” Blaster finally turned to Victoria and gave her a large smile. It wasn’t the same indulgent smile that he gave his Cassettes, but Victoria would be lying if she said it didn’t cause her to relax a little. “And you? Enjoy ya first cycle of socializing?’

    “It was…” Victoria paused and tried to ignore Eject’s soft snickers. “…interesting?”

    “Is that a nice way o’ saying it ain’t your style?” Blaster dismissed Victoria’s protests with a wave of his hand. “S’alright! Not every mech’s cut out fo’ communications. Dreadwing all but ran outta here the moment Mirage recruited me.”

    “Dreadwing was in charge of this before you?” Victoria asked with a tiny laugh. “That would explain why he ran every time we tried to give him his message.”

    “I offered him a position as a joke once, an’ the mech ain’t trusted me or my Cassettes since.” Blaster leaned forward and stretched out a hand towards Victoria. It took her a moment to realize he was reaching for the data-pad she still held; she eagerly handed it over, and Blaster chuckled. “Lemme just get these catalogued, and we should be able to call it a cycle!”

    Victoria awkwardly stood behind Blaster as he turned his chair back around to face the monitors. She had begun to pick at the tiny gaps in her fingers when Blaster gestured at the other empty chair beside him. “This might take a while. I’d go ahead and send ya off, but I reckon Mirage would think you’re skippin’ out if he found ya wonderin’ the halls before your scheduled work cycle is over.”

    Victoria hesitantly sat down, awkwardly shifting in the chair. It was much bigger than the ones in her and Patronus’s room, and it made her feel so tiny as her feet swung a few inches above the floor. She glanced over at Eject and almost wished she was as tiny as a Cassette. At least then she could just lounge her entire body on the seat.

    “So…” Blaster started. He unraveled a chord from the data-pad and connected it to the console in the same place the other chord had been. “Ya still willin’ to stick around?”

    “Of course.” Victoria watched the monitor’s screen light up lines of what were now familiar symbols to her. She had practically memorized the contents of the data-pad at this point. “I’m not a quitter.”

    Blaster hummed, and his fingers flew across the glowing keys in front of him. Familiar symbols were replaced with lines of gibberish, and Victoria felt herself slump a little. She obviously still had a lot to learn…like actually learning how to read all of those symbols.

    Rewind walked around Blaster’s seat and climbed up into the chair with Eject, shoving his brother’s legs out of the way so that he could sit at the edge of the chair and reach the console. “Just think—a few more cycles, and you could graduate from messages to archiving. It would be fun to have someone other than Eject complain all cycle about it.”

    Victoria smiled and watched columns of cubes appear on the monitor in front of Rewind. Some of the lines of symbols began to funnel into one of the cubes, and Victoria perked up when she realized that the squares must have been the Cybertronian version of file folders. She would be a total pro at that if she ever managed to “graduate.” Her old jobs had taught her a lot about organizing computer files.

    A rumble came from below her feet, and Victoria jumped at the noise. However, the rumble was nearly drowned out by Eject’s groan and Rewind’s chiming laugh. “Just what we needed: another archiving fanatic. I had hope for you, Rookie.”

    “There’s still time ta convert her,” Blaster joked. He reached down by Victoria’s chair, and she finally noticed that Steeljaw sat between their chairs. Steeljaw leaned his head into Blaster’s palm, but the rest of his body remained at rigid attention. “Or you could just admit that archivin’ ain’t that bad.”

    “Never.”

    Victoria smiled at the laughs the pouting Eject received. Her frame slouched a little more in the chair, and she suddenly realized that she hadn’t felt this relaxed since waking up in her new body. Her spark wavered a little when she automatically compared the scene to similar ones she had experienced back on Earth, but she pushed it away with a hum that regained Blaster’s attention. “Do you mind me asking how you guys ended up here? Everyone seems to know everything about me, but I haven’t learned a thing about anyone else except Brainstorm sometimes blows things up and Wildrider is a pervert.”

    “Not much to tell.” Blaster aimed a smile at her, but even Victoria had figured out small “tells” like Nightbeat had mentioned earlier. Blaster’s optics did not light up to the same brightness as they had earlier when he smiled. “We came along after most of the mechs here were already recruited. Mirage had docked at the outpost we were stationed and offered us a position here.”

    “You were allowed to leave just like that?” Victoria asked. She watched the rest of the symbols float into the cube folders before the screen changed. She stared at the new stream of information that appeared and could barely keep up with some of it as it flew across the screen. “I can’t imagine an outpost just letting their comm. guy leave like that.”

    Eject was suddenly more interested in Rewind’s work, and Steeljaw shifted closer to Blaster’s chair. Even Ramhorn gruffly took a few steps out of his corner. Blaster focused on the screen in front of him. “They had other mechs that could run their communications.”

    A soft knock at the door prevented Victoria from asking any more questions. The knock was obviously a formality since the door slid open before Blaster could even turn away from the screen. Not that he did, leaving Victoria to turn and discover their visitor. She scowled at the familiar blue mech. “I thought we were avoiding each other so I wouldn’t hold your hand day.”

    Mirage’s expression was as stoic as ever, but Blaster turned to Rewind and Eject, both of who gave him the most innocent looking optics they could. “You told her about that?”

    “I only wished to encourage your independence,” Mirage answered before the Cassettes could speak. He stepped farther into the room and came to a stop between Victoria’s and Blaster’s chairs. A rumble came from Steeljaw, and Mirage gave the feline a nod. “I assume that I was somewhat successful?”

    “I’m never coming to you about a problem ever again.”

    Mirage hummed and accepted the data-pad Blaster gave him without a word. Victoria absently leaned against the console, head propped in her hand, as Mirage scrolled through it. He hummed again and returned the data-pad, which was stashed somewhere below the console. “I assume that you can make do without Pixel for the remainder of the cycle?”

    “‘Course!” Blaster waved at Victoria with a grin. “Not ‘cause I can’t use her, but ‘cause she’s finished her job for the cycle. See ya at the beginnin’ of the next rotation!”

    Victoria gave Blaster and the Cassettes a wave before sliding off the chair. Like the good noble she had been taught to be, she stuck her nose at Mirage’s offered arm and sashayed out of the Communication hub. Her dignity took a small nosedive when she tripped over the invisible crack that separated the room with the hallway, but she managed to save herself and ignored the small chuckle that came from Mirage.

    She waited until the door completely closed before finally taking his arm. “I can’t believe you told them not to take me to you. What if I had seriously needed your help for something?”

    “I cannot watch over you all the time now,” Mirage said. Victoria frowned but allowed him to lead her down the hallway. “I have taught you that nobles are independent by nature, and to be constantly by your side would negate a very stereotypical image that your identity requires you to adopt.”

    “But I had no idea what I was doing!” Victoria pulled on Mirage’s arm as if to punish him for leaving her to fend for herself. What she really wanted to do was pinch him. Funny how the first person who had ever tempted her to execute such a childish punishment had metal skin. “Blaster had me running around with a data-pad I couldn’t even read!”

    Mirage came to a sudden stop, pulling Victoria back when she continued to walk. She wobbled a little but managed to steady herself without his help. “What do you mean?”

    “I can’t read Cybertronian,” Victoria insisted. She was surprised by how bright Mirage’s optics were when she met them with her own. “I mean, I’ve learned what a few symbols mean from Wheeljack, but I never learned much beyond numbers and basic letters. I can read a word or two, but nowhere on that data-pad were the words toxic, radioactive, or frag.”

    Mirage stared at her long enough to make her shift from one foot to the other. His golden optics gradually dimmed to their usual brightness, and he hummed. He automatically looped their arms together again and continued their journey. “Interesting.”

    “Interesting?” Victoria leaned forward in an attempt to get a better view of his face, but all she accomplished was nearly face-planting as the wheels on her back made her top-heavy. Mirage barely paused for her gain her balance again. “What? You thought I could read Cybertronian?”

    “Neocybex at the least.” Mirage paused to press the button to call the elevator. The doors slid open within seconds of him pressing it, and he pressed the button for the second deck once they had entered. “You never mentioned this…handicap before.”

    “I thought it would be pretty obvious. I might have switched bodies, but I didn’t just wake up suddenly knowing everything Cybertronian. I’m surprised no one has asked why I say things like days or hours. I’m good at sticking to words I’ve learned from you guys, but sometimes I slip up.” Victoria could see in the reflection of the elevator’s doors that Mirage was staring at her, so she turned to meet his gaze as the elevator came to a stop. “What?”

    Mirage ignored the doors when they opened and continued to ignore them long enough for them to shut again. “You have not said a human word since you came online.”

    “What?”

    “I simply assumed that you were doing it on purpose.” Mirage reached over and pressed the button for the doors to open, and this time he ushered Victoria out of the elevator before they could close. “That you had been interacting with us long enough for our terms to become second nature for you. You appeared to had already developed a firm grasp of them by the end of our first meeting on Earth.”

    Victoria opened her mouth but closed it when she realized she had nothing to say. It was almost…disturbing to realize that nothing she said came out in the language she expected—an almost naïve assumption now that she thought about. What did she think was happening? That every mech on the ship, mechs that have likely never even heard of Earth let alone visited the planet, spoke to her in perfect English?

    As they rounded the corner of the hallway, Victoria lifted her head. “Do you think it’s because of the AllSpark?”

    Her voice came out softer than she had intended, but Mirage’s nod indicated that he had heard it all the same. “I believe so, which would honestly explain your accent.”

    Great—she had a weird accent on top of all of this? “Accent?”

    “One that many of the Iaconian aristocracy would label ‘Ancient High Class.’” Mirage stopped short in front of a door, but he made no move to open it. Instead he fully turned to Victoria, unlooping their arms to cross his arms over his chest and examine her with a gleam in his optics. “One of the most reputable families living in the Towers claimed to have access to an ancient video file that was dated to the time of the original Thirteen Primes. They insisted that through that video they had discovered that those Primes spoke in an accent, which rigorous practice had enabled them to mimic. It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, but many of my former companions believed them and strove to mimic the accent as well.”

    “And it sounded like this?”

    “No.” Victoria frowned, but Mirage’s stoic expression remained steadfast. “Yours is less…forced. There’s also an airy lilt to it that I believe they mistook to be nasally. It’s…pretty, I suppose would be the easiest way to describe. Nothing like how you once sounded.”

    “So the AllSpark has somehow made it possible for me to understand Cybertronian— ”

    “Neocybex is the more correct term.”

    “It put another language in my head!” Victoria hissed, her annoyance rising because of the almost dismissing tone Mirage addressed her with. She spun around on her heel and took a few steps away from Mirage. She lifted her hands to grasp the sides of her head, and she only realized then how badly they had been shaking. “What if it’s done something else without me realizing? The memories I can handle—the memories don’t do anything but make my head hurt. But it’s making me do things like that subconsciously? What if I wake up one morning and find out that I’ve stabbed Patronus through the spark?”

    Hands fell on her shoulders, and Victoria swallowed around the large lump that had formed in her through. Mirage spun her around so that his golden optics could stare directly into hers. When she tried to turn her head away, he lifted his hands from her shoulders and forced her head to turn back. “You are overthinking this.”

    “‘Overthinking’ my ass! You don’t have something inside of you that’s tried to kill you before!”

    “This may all simply be a small side effect from it merging with you.” Victoria scowled and huffed when Mirage refused to let her turn away. “Act like the grown woman you are and stop attempting to ignore me. The AllSpark obviously has its limits; it has no power to dictate how you act on a daily basis, and it only gave you the ability to speak Neocybex. Unless you have forgotten your exaggerated struggle when it came to reading a simple list of names.”

    Mirage released her head, and Victoria immediately took a step back. He mimicked her actions and placed a reasonable distance between them. Victoria took a deep breath and placed a hand over her throbbing spark. “I wasn’t exaggerating.”

    “Of course not.”

    “It was a real struggle.”

    “I believe you.”

    Victoria’s fingers curled into fists to match her scowl. “I hate that tone.”

    “I am aware. After all, it is the same patronizing tone my sire would adopt to convey his disappointment.” He nodded towards her, and Victoria almost imagined his softening expression was some indicator that for all his deadpanned teasing, he sympathized with her on some level. “I am the last mech to put blind faith in a mech that before this ordeal was nothing but a legend. However, there was one thing I learned during my short period of time with Vector, and that was that he is a mech who does not do things halfway. Your frame is currently a prison to the AllSpark—it cannot escape, and it cannot take control of you. We have plenty of time to reach Cybertron before Vector’s runes lose all their magic or whatever explanation he had for how the AllSpark remained trapped.”

    Victoria gave Mirage a tiny smile. “No offense, but you kinda suck at pep talks.”

    Mirage’s frown remained firm, and Victoria wondered for a brief second if Mirage ever resented the role he had been dumped into as much as she resented hers. Their early days in the cabin had shown that underneath his polite demeanor was an uptight, sarcastic individual, and the many lessons she had endured from him had solidified those traits of his personality. Sometimes though, Victoria was certain that he grew tired of all the little things he had to manage in order to keep her from losing her mind, like force-feed her Energon or not look at her when she needed his help in the showers.

    She could see now why he insisted on her being independent of him during the day.

    Mirage finally looked away as the door they stood in front of slid open. Patronus froze on the threshold of the door, one foot lifted in mid-air to take a step. Victoria cringed at the dents she immediately spotted scattered across his frame. She took a step forward and reached for the one on the side of his head. “Patronus—”

    The sound of heavy footsteps made the next words die in her throat, and Patronus pushed his way out of the door to stand between her and Mirage, wings shooting up from the tired pose they had adopted. Victoria tensed at the sight of the large, grey frame that followed Patronus from the room, having to duck under the doorframe because he was so large. Mirage merely gave the mech a stiff nod. “Megatron.”

    Megatron’s red optics seemed to stare down the bridge of his nose at him. They left the Autobot and landed on Victoria, causing her to stiffen even more. A smirk flashed across Megatron’s face, showing off sharp teeth that his former toy form certainly had not possessed. “Have you finally overcome your fear to face me?”

    For once, Victoria could not produce a quick retort, not because she lacked one but because of the sheer terror that shot through her spark like an icy arrow. All of the things she had done to him as a toy—trapped him the Jar of Solitary Confinement, manhandled him in front of his sworn nemesis, mocked him for his tiny form—came rushing back to her along with his dire threats of revenge. Now the tables were turned as he towered over her tiny frame, his hands large enough to crush her head with ease.

    When Victoria didn’t immediately respond, Megatron released a derisive grunt. To her immense surprise, he turned away from them and began to trek down the long hallway, his large frame nearly taking up half the hallway. “How disappointing; and here I had expected more than a sniveling femme.”

    Victoria’s hands clenched into fists, but she did not attempt to stop Megatron in any way. She only relaxed when he finally vanished from view, and she turned her attention back to Patronus. “Are you hurt? There are so many dents! How have you managed to hide these from me for so long?”

    “Today was a little worse than usual.” Patronus glanced down at his chest where a majority of the dents could be found. “Megatron had to keep repeating the same maneuver again and again until I managed to deflect him. And I usually ask Breakdown if he can fix the dents. He’s really good at doing that, and I didn’t want you to get anymore upset than you already do.”

    Victoria pushed Patronus’s arm and forced him to turn around. She frowned at the few dents that littered his wings; those had to have hurt. “I don’t like you doing this. Especially not with him.”

    “I know, but I have to do this.” Patronus turned back around, and his optics shone with a fierce determination. “He’s the only one here that can show me how a real Prime fights, and Vector made sure he understood that. He only gets really grumpy when it takes me too long to get the hang of something.”

    Victoria was prepared to argue with him, but she caught a glimpse of Mirage from the corner of her eyes. Though the tension from Megatron’s appearance had drained from his frame, Mirage’s optics remained hard and unreadable as he watched the two interact. He nodded when he noticed Victoria’s attention was on him, and she was reminded of the conversation they had the day before about this. Was this some underhanded way of him proving that Patronus did not come out these training sessions completely wrecked?

    A warmth suddenly spread through her chest, and Victoria lifted a hand as if to smother it. After all the crap the AllSpark had put them through up until this point, it did not have any say in this matter! “I don’t want you getting hurt…”

    Patronus’s wings shot up, and his optics hardened even more. “But if I don’t do this, how will I be able to protect you? Megatron has proven that despite my size, I can’t fight. I wouldn’t have even been able to take down Wildrider before his training! I need this, Miss Vicky; I need to be able to protect you.”

    The crack in Patronus’s voice instantly shattered any resolve Victoria had. She may never learn what had happened to Toshi before his transformation into Patronus, but whatever had happened had left a deep impression on the mechling. He sounded so desperate now; so desperate to keep the ones he cared for safe. She hated how he had been pushed to this fate, and for the first time since waking up on the ship, she felt the AllSpark hum inside of her in agreement.

    Victoria reached out and grabbed Patronus’s hand, squeezing it when he tightly gripped her hand back. “You have to promise to come to me or Mirage if he does something out of line.”

    “Of course.”

    “That includes saying anything degrading towards you.”

    “Okay.”

    “Or if he seriously hurts you. Don’t you dare try to hide that from me.”

    “I won’t.”

    Victoria turned to Mirage, hand still firmly grasped in Patronus’s. “You do have a plan for if Megatron changes his mind about all of this, right? This is a dramatic change from what I saw back in the cabin.”

    A hard glint flashed across Mirage’s optics, and his hard expression left little room for her to doubt his answer. “Of course. Why do you think I tolerate Brainstorm’s ego?”

    Victoria nodded and patted the back of Patronus’s hand with her free one. “I don’t like this—I never will like this. But…we have to do this. There’s no returning to what we used to be.”

    She felt like her words were more to reassure herself than anything else, but Patronus smiled and nodded. His optics reflected the same sense of determination and excitement to learn a new thing that had been prevalent in Toshi, and she hoped that he was able to continue clinging to that. She did not want to see the same haunted look on him that had sometimes plagued Bluestreak, or Wheeljack, or any other mech she had come to know.

    Now, she tried to smile for him. “Let’s go get those dents popped out before Breakdown finishes his shift. If he’s as good as you say he is, it would better to have him do it than Knock Out.”

    “Speaking of which, I believe you had an appointment with Knock Out at the end of this cycle.”

    Patronus laughed at Victoria’s fierce scowl. “Look, if we’re doing the whole ‘independent Pixel’ thing, that means you can’t follow me around invisible, Mr. You-Can’t-Hold-My-Hand-Forever.”

    “I would never.”

    Victoria had to fight the grin that threatened to ruin her scowl. She felt her spark lighten at the genuine laughter that continued to come from Patronus. She took Patronus’s hand and pulled him down the hallway with Mirage following at a respectable distance. “I heard that you helped out Nightbeat earlier…”

~III~

    Something was wrong.

    She felt it the moment she became aware of surroundings. Ever since waking up in her new body, Victoria discovered that each time she fell into recharge, she found herself in a place similar to the “limbo” that Vector had pulled her from. The first time had left her startled, her panic forcing her to wake back up and not remaining awake until Patronus woke up too.

    Gradually though, she had discovered that there was nothing to fear and had drawn comfort from the sparks that orbited around her. She had quickly figured out which orb of swirling colors represented the mechs she had been bound to—Sunstreaker’s and Sideswipe’s clung closest to each other, tiny and more colorful in comparison to the majority of the others; fiery orange strands licked Skywarp’s spark, which drifted farthest away from her; two little baby green orbs danced as close as they could to the barrier that separated them from her, and Victoria had known immediately that hyperactive one was Recall while the smaller rose-tinted one was Topaz, occasionally bonking against her brother to gain his attention. Bluestreak’s shone the brightest, and the green strands that whirled around it always crept along the barrier as if searching for the smallest opening to reconnect with her.

    Something was wrong this time, though. When she awoke in the darkness, the swirling sparks appeared more distant. A wider gap stood between them and her; every move she made to get closer only widened that gap. She reached her hand out towards Bluestreak’s spark, but it was like she was attempting wade through a pit of mud that sucked her in the more she struggled. Her entire body felt like some force was weighing it down.

    Victoria finally gave up her attempts and stood completely still. The moment she gave in, the entire space began to twist around. Her view of the familiar and comforting sparks became a blur of color that gradually melted into the black. She swiveled around to find some means of escape and froze when instead she found a black form with bright white dots as eyes rushing towards her.

    Her body jackknifed off the berth, and a short shriek escaped her. The low hum of the ship was the only indication that the darkness she stared into now was different. Her hands frantically scrapped at the stinging pain in her chest, and she curled her legs as close to her as she could, resting her forehead against her knees as she attempted to stop the wheezing gasps that came from her.

    After a while, she managed to calm herself enough to bring her breathing back under control, and Victoria lifted her head to ensure that she was once more in her hab-suite. Her eyes fell on the dark form of Patronus curled up on his berth as much as his frame would allow him to, his back towards her and wings clinging to his lower back. With the pain in her chest gradually fading, Victoria slowly lowered herself back onto the berth and balanced her hands on her abdomen.

    She stared at the ceiling until Patronus began to shift in his sleep, his whimpers prompting her to move over to his berth and hum the night terrors away.