Tell Me a Tale

Alcohol? You Mean Fun-Times Generator?

"Okay, okay. I'll have one more, then I'm going home."

It had been years since the reincarnation of Cybertron and Optimus Prime's death. Despite Crossblade's best efforts, she had not managed to find a way off-planet. Most of her friends had returned to their regular lives, so Crossblade found great comfort in the rare times they got back together.

Currently Arcee, Bulkhead and Wheeljack were surrounding her, all drinking the best energon they could afford. Wheeljack had some weird thing with the mech running the bar (Crossblade was pretty sure they had dated) so drinks were cheap. Crossblade raised a hand, and he slid her a cube of high-grade.

"I've missed this. It's not often we have a chance to just chill." Bulkhead stated, a soft layer of fuzz coating his voice. Everyone was a little tipsy, but it just made the night more fun. Bulkhead raised his cube, hiccuping quietly. "Cheers. To Optimus Prime!"

The others all raised their cubes, nodding in drunken agreement. "To Prime, the best mech in this universe!" Arcee exclaimed, then took a swig of her energon. Her optics were half-lidded as she scanned the table, and they settled on Crossblade.

Arcee pointed at Crossblade, grinning mischievously. "Hey, all the other times we've done this we've all told stories. 'Cept you. Tell us a tale, Crossblade!"

Crossblade chuckled, swishing her drink in its glass cube. "You sure? What kinda story am I supposed to tell?" She asked, looking up at the neon lights that covered the ceiling. In her drunken state, they almost looked like stars.

Wheeljack hummed thoughtfully, thinking for a minute. "I've got it. Tell us about your past, what things were like before Earth." The others all nodded, obviously curious about Crossblade's past life. "Yeah, we barely know anything about your life before you contacted us." Bulkhead added, sipping his energon.

Crossblade tapped her fingers on her cube, then threw her hands up. "What the hell. Buckle your metaphorical seatbelts kiddos, because this is gonna be one wild ride." She took a gulp of her drink, smacking her lip plates together in satisfaction as the alcohol spread through her system.

"My earliest memory is when I was around three years old."

——————————————————————

A much younger Crossblade was sitting in a pen, rolling a ball made of discarded metal she had melted together. As a sparkling, she was barely bigger than the average human. Her optics were oversized, a gentle lavender. Her caretakers ad put her in the reinforced pen to keep her from destroying the house.

"Dropstream, we need to go! The Autobots will be here any minute!" Shouted the adult femme, her grey paint scratched. Her companion, a mech with dusty red paint stepped back, hands raised in fear.

"Steelbird, we have a sparkling to take care of! We can't just leave her here!" Dropstream countered, nervously glancing outside. His hadn't signed up for raising the sparkling, but he had grown fond of her. "Besides-" He raised a hand to cover his mouth, whispering the next bit. "-who knows what'll happen if they learn we abandoned her?"

Steelbird looked to the window, flapping her hands in fear. "Shut up! We promised the cons that we wouldn't speak of it!" She began to pace, the seeker's wings pressed to her back. "They paid us, but they're losing! They can't attack us if they're dead."

Dropstream glanced to the oblivious sparkling, his optics shaky. "We can't just leave her! I don't want the Decepticon high command after us either..." He pressed a hand to his cheek, trying to calm himself.

They both remembered when a group of equally confused cons had dropped the child into their arms. The one in charged had pressed a couple hundred units into their hands, telling them their mission. Apparently, this sparkling was of importance to Lord Megatron, and the warlord himself would retrieve her in time. Dropstream and Steelbird has accepted, but had been wary of the sparkling.

Steelbird growled, then raised her arm. A missile fired, hitting Dropstream point-blank. "I won't be held down by your ridiculousness. I'm leaving." The seeker walked outside, transforming and flying out of Koan. Dropstream passed quickly, his spark sputtering into nothingness.

The young sparkling had heard the missile and her caretaker's groans, and stood up curiously. She waddled to the wall of her pen, her toy forgotten. Crossblade flicked a cap on the tip of her servo open, releasing a small flame. She held it to the wall of the pen, making a hole big enough for her to walk out of in a few minutes.

She stepped out, looking into the kitchen. When she saw Dropstream's fallen body, coolant welled up in her optics. She knelt by her caretaker's head, touching his cheek softly. "S...Stream?" She didn't know much, but she did know his name. When he didn't sit up to hug her or laugh, her frame began to shake. "Stream!"

The sparkling wailed by his side for hours, only stopping when she fell asleep. When she awoke, Dropstream's energon had cooled, and his metal body stunk of death. She stood, wiping her optics. Her basic survival instincts told her to move, that staying here would be bad. So she walked out of her old house, staring at the ground.

Her somber expression broke when a squadron of massive bots ran in front of her path, firing into the skies. The child gave a scream, falling back. The bots couldn't hear her, and their weapons were loud. She picked herself up, then started to run away.

Covering her face with her small hands, the sparkling ran into the first building with an open door. She fled inside, huddling under a table. It was hours until the blaster fire stopped, then the sparkling finally crawled out.

——————————————————————

Crossblade turned her cube upside down, frowning at the lack of energon. "Well, I did say only one more." The others threw their hands up in frustration. "Come on!"

The femme laughed at their reactions, waving over the bartender for another cube. "Fine, I'll keep going. Jeez..."