That Which Remains
By
The Lady MoonHawke
“I believe in love surviving death into eternity.”
Affirmation -- Savage Garden
Raven forced the door’s manual override down, reassured by
the solid thunk it made as it snapped into place. She wormed her fingers
into the seam of the doors and pulled. Squealing and shuddering, the doors
inched apart, showering a layer of dirt over Raven, and she swiped the worst
of it from her face with one hand.
She slipped through the narrow opening, lighting her halogen
torch against the darkness. Technical equipment lined the walls, thick in
dust and the varied leavings of small vermin. Her boots left prints in
the dust as she skirted the examining table in the center of the room, heading
for the desk beside the machinery.
Piles of printout were everywhere, covered in the same pervasive
dust, and the first one she picked up crumbled to dust in her hand.
“This was a dumb idea,” she whispered to herself. “Should have
just left it be...” She flashed her light across the machinery, looking
for any data that could help her. Faded printouts covered the equipment
and table as well, but she didn’t bother with them. For a moment she stood
still in the room, trying to think where the information she wanted would
be.
She started pulling drawers out of the desk, ignoring the folders,
searching for data disks. Finally she pulled on the final drawer, and felt
it stick half way out. Puzzled, she backed it up and pulled on it again,
and again, it stuck firmly. Exasperated by the dust and the dim lighting
and the drawer’s refusal to function, she wrapped both hands around the handle
and yanked it back, throwing her weight behind it. The drawer hung wedged
for an instant, then, with an ear-splitting shriek, the resistance gave,
and Raven found herself sitting in a cloud of dust with the whole drawer
in her lap. She coughed a couple of times to clear her filters, then examined
her treasure.
And treasure it was, or at least the closest she could hope
to find in this abandoned underground lab. Disks half-filled the space behind
a tall partition, and they seemed to be immune from the dust on everything.
Smiling to herself, she gathered her prize up and moved back toward the
door, flashlight turned off to accommodate the double handful of disks.
She cursed softly in Old Decepticon when her boot caught against something,
nearly toppling her. She stumbled a little regaining her balance, and the
culprit was flung into the light from the half-open door. For a moment,
she couldn’t move, staring down in disbelief. Empty hollow stared up at
her above straight cheek guards, and the bent or broken ends of feathers
clicked softly as the helmet rocked gently. She subspaced the disks, not
caring that it wasn’t the best way to protest the data and slowly picked
up her late brother’s gift to her, the last remaining piece of her black
battle armor. Tucking it firmly under her arm, she left the room, sealing
the doors as she went.
Optimus Prime stared at the data disks scattered across his
formerly empty desk. “Well, Lieutenant, I’m certainly impressed. I didn’t
think you would find anything useful in that old lab. We moved almost everything
out of it as soon as we returned to Cybertron.” He picked through the stack,
reading a label here and there. “Anything else?” he asked
Raven nodded. “Some printout. Quite a bit of it actually,
all dusty, illegible and falling to pieces.” She watched him carefully,
wanting to gauge his next reaction. “And this.” From subspace, she retrieved
her old helmet and set it on the desk. A shower of dust fell from it, leaving
a film on the desk.
Optimus looked from it up to her. “It was yours, I take it?”
She nodded stiffly. “A gift from my brother, for Tournament.
He... died very shortly after giving it to me.”
“I had no idea you had a brother,” Optimus marveled.
Another stiff nod. “Skystream. He fought with General Straxus,
before the War. He died before the War.” She added the last almost as an
afterthought.
Optimus watched her, resting his chin on one finger. “I remember
Skystream. Sit down a moment, Lieutenant.” She sank into a chair, and he
regarded her for a moment.
“Lieutenant, I haven’t asked you much about what you’ve remembered,
partly because I knew you needed time, and partly because I was afraid of
your answers. You’re an excellent officer, and an asset to our team. But
if you feel like you can’t continue with the Autobots, knowing what happened,
I would understand.”
Raven leaned back in her chair. “I have been spending time
on these very issues, Optimus Prime, both on my own, and with Lady Razorsharp’s
children.”
“Why the children?”
“They have more of an idea about living in both worlds. We
are... helping each other to understand things. And I will not leave the
Autobots. I cannot. There is too much I owe you for a second chance at
life. But I need to fill in the blanks.”
Optimus studied the disks. “You think the answer is here?”
“They are the only records of what happened to me after I fell
in the battle. I just have to know something more.” She lowered her head.
“Then go ahead and pull the data. Make whatever use of it you
feel best And Ekliptika, whatever you turn up, you know you are welcome
here.” He gathered the disks together and put them into an envelope. “Good
luck.” He pushed it across the desk for her. “And if you want, ask in the
Shop if that can be fixed. It suits you, I think.”
She collected the envelope and her helmet. “Hail, Optimus Prime.”
“Hail, Lady Raven.”
A smile ghosted across her face, and she was gone.
The sounds of destruction echoed through the hallways, bouncing
from one metal wall to another. It caught Razorsharp’s attention as she
prowled the halls searching for elusive sleep. She tracked the noise as
she would once have a small, wounded creature, pausing at junctures, waiting
to hear it again. It was dying away as she came closer, but that set Razor's
nerves on edge even more, rather than provide reassurance. Whatever or whoever
was on the other side had probably obliterated everything in its path--either
that, or was merely gearing up for another session. Razor decided to take
her life into her own hands and enter during what seemed to be a lull in
the action. Drawing her sword, she took a deep breath and rapped smartly
on the door with the hilt, she rapped smartly on the door.
All sound ceased for a moment, then there was the distinct sound
of boot approaching the other side of the door. Razorsharp pulled her blade
away from the door, and angled it to be ready to deal a mortal blow to the
room’s occupant, should it be necessary.
The door’s mechanism whirred into operation, and a figure stepped
out. Razor almost let fly, then stopped herself as she recognized Raven.
Amethyst optics regarded her for a moment, seeming to ignore the blade,
then, before she could resist, her wrist was grabbed and she was pulled forcibly
into the room.
Once her optics compensated for the darkness, she was able to
make out Raven seated on the bunk, her face planted firmly in her hands,
and elbows on knees. Razor looked around, examining the room. Quite simply,
it was thrashed. The walls were marked from impacts of various objects,
and mementos and knick-knacks were on the floor under various dents in the
walls. On the vid-screen set in one wall, Perceptor sat frozen, ‘hold’ lines
slowly flickering down the screen.
“By Primus, what happened in here?” Razorsharp asked.
The reply from Raven was too muffled for even Razors exceptional
audio sensors to make out.
“What?”
“I. Did,” Raven repeated, lifting her head slightly. “Everything
you see, I did.”
Razor looked for a safe place to sit down. “So you can destroy
as well as any Decepticon. I don’t suppose it occurred to Megatron to teach
you to aim that destruction at something instead of your quarters.”
Raven glared at her, the amethyst slipping toward red, a sign
of her Decepticon nature coming through. “Don’t start with me,” she gritted
through clenched dental plates. “You have no idea what’s happened.”
Razor swept some broken glass from a chair and sat. “I would
if you told me,” she retorted.
Raven paced the floor. arms wrapped tightly across her chest.
“It’s not so simple a matter to explain in a sentence or two.” She stopped
pacing and faced Razorsharp. “Since the Mars Mission, I have had flashbacks
of my life before. Telling the tale in one cohesive unit to your daughter
has clarified it for me, to the point that I can remember my entire life
before the last battle. I’m sure you remember how long ago that was.”
Razor nodded, painfully aware of how long she had scraped by
in abandoned buildings, surviving on the edge of starvation.
“Now I have returned to the living world, and I have been told
that millions of cycles have passed in the meantime. I have awakened in
a new world, with a purpose diametrically opposed to that which I had before.
So I went to Optimus Prime, and asked him if I could look for information
on what happened to me during those years. He said I had been powered down,
in stasis for that time, but he told me I could go see the place where I
had been, and retrieve any information that might be of interest to me.”
Razorsharp felt the familiar prickles along the back of her
neck, a warning that whatever was coming may not be pleasant. “What did
you find?” she asked ominously.
Raven pushed a button next to the screen, and Perceptor began
to move in the herky-jerky motion of quick reverse, mouth moving silently.
At another touch, he went forward, moving smoothly now.
“...which should prove interesting. On another front, it appears
that the recovered Decepticon femme will not be completely useless. After
much discussion, it has been decided that the best use for her would be as
a rebuilt Autobot and a prototype for the new hyper-storage system. Her
memory banks will be erased, of course, and a loyalty command written into
her programming. Regarding her physical condition, our preliminary scan
was correct: she was pregnant at the time she was shot down. However, the
amount of time she was without power was detrimental to the offspring, and
we were unable to compensate. If rumors about the subject are correct, it
may have been our best interests. Current theory makes this subject the
Raven, known to be the consort of Megatron. If that is correct, and the
child was his, it may be better for us that it didn’t survive...”
Perceptor went still again as Raven paused the playback. “That’s
what happened.” She let her hand fall listlessly to her side. “I could
accept the rest of it. The being rebuilt, the loyalty programming, the hyper-storage.
I welcomed it in a way because it gave me a purpose. But the other, the
child.” She leaned back against the wall, and let herself sink down to the
floor. “I had no idea.” She dropped her head onto her folded arms.
Razorsharp’s fuel pump twisted in sympathy. Her own children
were her last living connection to her life with the Decepticons. To lose
those memories; to have never known them... the very thought made her shudder.
“What will you do now?”
Raven lifted her head slowly. Iridescent tears streaked from
her amethyst optics. “I don’t know.” She sound of her breathing was harsh
in the dark room. “Just go. I need to be alone.”
Razor reached out to her hesitantly. “Raven, wait. I do not
think....”
Raven cut her off. “Go!” she sobbed. “Just leave me be!”
With no other options before her, the Lady Razorsharp did as
she was bid and left.
The Great Library was always quiet, a feature that Razorsharp
much appreciated. And now, deep into the third shift, even the usual noises
were stilled. The Chief Archivist, old Gedreonix, had left hours ago, and
no Autobot was sufficiently passionate about history to be combing the stacks
this night.
Razor sighed as she unearthed another case of old storage media.
Half of the disks were some archaic form of data storage from Earth, and
she would have to find a machine that would copy them to something more modern
before she could organize them. Carefully, she picked them out and set them
aside to be dealt with later.
Her super-sensitive hearing picked up a soft sound, and she
turned to face the door, staring out into the darkness. The sounds came
closer, and she was able to pick out the glow from a pair of amethyst optics,
and the side of her mouth twitched in half-smile.
“You’re fortunate that you didn’t get skewered,” Razor commented,
leaning against the doorframe. “You’re about awfully late, and you’ve been
hard to find the last few days. What’s going on?”
The lavender glow illuminated part of Raven’s titanium face,
but not much else. “I’m going somewhere,” she answered softly.
“And you thought you should tell me?” Razorsharp puzzled. “I’m
sure that’s charming, but I don’t quite understand why-”
Raven cut her off. “I’m going to Charr, and I need your help.”
Then, “I’m going to tell him.”
“I can’t,” Razorsharp replied. “There’s no way-”
“You went to Mars,” Raven accused. She stepped forward, into
the light spilling out from the archive, and Razor gasped. The formerly
brown-and-gold femme was now solid black, a black so shiny that it appeared
to be still-wet.
“What have you done to yourself?” she breathed.
Raven brushed it aside. “I could hardly go as the Autobot Ekliptika,
could I? Why won’t you go?” she demanded.
“I’m still under sentence of death, don’t forget. It’s a greater
risk for me than for you,” Razorsharp stated.
“But Mars-”
Now it was Razor’s turn to interrupt. “Mars was covert, and
official. What you are proposing is waltzing into a Decepticon stronghold
and announcing ourselves. It’s just too dangerous. I can’t take the risk
this time.”
Raven came closer still, pulling the coronaed helmet from her
head and setting it aside. “Please, I need your help. Is there nothing
you can do?”
Razor stared at her, trying to gauge Raven’s need. “Wait there
a moment.” She slipped away from the door, heading for the lone workstation
provided for her archive. There, she quickly executed a few commands, then
slapped a disk into the drive, commanding the machine to save her work to
it. She quickly pulled the disk from the drive and deleted what she had
done from the main memory, then took the disk over to the door. Silently,
she offered it to Raven.
The femme took it, looking at the reflective surface as though
the data would reveal itself to her. “Thank you,” she said, tucking it safely
away. “What is it?”
“A route to Charr, designed to avoid the known patrols on both
sides. There’s no way you could talk your way out of it if you were captured
by either side. When you get there, talk to Cyclonus. He’s completely loyal
to Galvatron and will be your best chance for an interview. Should he favor
your cause, you will have your chance to see the Mighty One, though I fear
you will be sadly disappointed.” Razorsharp regarded her sadly.
“Are you sure you won’t come with me?” Raven asked again.
“There's nothing really for me there, and besides,” the former
bheancoran to the high house of Polyhex smiled, “Galvatron and I do not get
along very well.”
“I hadn't heard that Galvatron gets on well with anyone. But
he’s just about the only leader left.”
“Lord and master he may be,” she conceded, “but I cannot stand
the mental soup that runs off of him. He is in such constant chaos--” she
shook her head, hugging her elbows as if chilled. “You must be careful.”
“I don't believe he will harm me. I still believe that some
part of Megatron is there, buried deep inside. He may not recognize me,
but I will be safe enough.” Raven picked up the black helmet and set it carefully
on her head. “I can almost feel the sand of the arena under my feet again.”
Razor was before her in an instant, her hands clamped around
Raven's biceps. “And he will stain that sand with your blood!” she hissed.
“There is nothing left of Megatron in him. If I could make you see that before
you risked your life..!
“Raven, you yourself told me not to wallow in the pain of the
past, but forge a new future from its ashes! Why do you not heed your own
advice?”
Raven was eerily serene. “No,” she replied, shaking her head.
“I have to go. He deserves to know about the heir. And I can't put it
aside until I tell him. I owe him, or his memory, that much.
“Please, do not tell Optimus Prime unless he asks you. I will
return and it will be over, or I will die. If I do die. I will have had
my second chance at life. Few are offered it, and fewer still can accept.
I am one of the lucky ones.
“And I will have made my peace, one way of the other. And it
will be enough.”
Razor looked deep into the amethyst optics of the hybrid femme,
and saw she was speaking the truth. Slowly, she let go of Raven and stepped
back, the hunted demeanor falling away to reveal Razorsharp as she had been;
poised and regal, her voice the clipped, cold nuance of Decepticon training.
“Very well, Raven.” She pulled her katana halfway out from the scabbard,
saluting Raven with the hilt.
“May your mission be a successful one.”
“Thank you,” Raven replied softly. “Honor to Deceptica.”
Razor nodded gravely. “Honor and glory. Forever.” She watched
forlornly as Raven faded back into the dusty shadows of the Great Library,
then turned back to her work.
Raven paced the corridor in front of Galvatron's throne room,
her emotions stretched to breaking. _If there is any trace, any shred of
him left, I must find it._ The methanol tears threatened at the thought of
the once-proud Decepticon leader, reduced to the raving maniac that was Galvatron,
but she willed them to recede. She would do his memory that honor, at least.
She stopped abruptly as the door opened to reveal Cyclonus,
who slipped through and closed it just as something crashed heavily against
the other side. His expression immediately told Raven what he thought of
her chances, even though they both knew she would try, regardless.
“Will he see me, Chancellor?” she asked, the words echoing in
the corridor. “It matters little. He would not have agreed even had I asked.”
Raven nodded; it was now up to her. “Very well, Chancellor,
I thank you for your trouble.”
Cyclonus nodded, then stepped aside to let Raven pass. She put
her hand on the scanner and bid the door open, and stepped into darkness.
Something brushed past her cheek, banging against the wall just
behind her before clattering to the floor. “Who dares disturb my meditation?!”
snarled a voice from twenty meters in front of her.
_Remember, you bested him once. He cannot harm you._ “My name
is Eklip--that is, I am the Decepticon Raven. I seek an audience with Your
Excellency. May I approach?”
“Raven?” The voice was suddenly a harsh whisper in the stifling
blackness, and part of Raven dared to hope her name had awakened a spark
of recognition. “Never heard of her!!” he spat suddenly, laughing at his
own cruel joke.
Her patience and courage nearly at their limits, Raven squared
her shoulders. “May I approach, Your Excellency?”
A heavy, put-upon sigh. “Very well, if you must. But only for
a moment; I'm terribly busy planning the destruction of Rodimus Prime!!”
The pronouncement was followed by a bout of insane cackling, the sound sending
icy shivers down Raven's neural cable.
The lights came up with an audible snap, the sound and the harsh
illumination startling Raven. When her optics adjusted, she saw the violet-plated
form of the Decepticon leader across the room, his hand still on the main
switch, as if he would turn the lights off again to hide in the darkness.
His ruby optics were narrowed in suspicion, but he eventually let go of the
switch and went to the front of the dais steps. “Well? Be quick about it;
as I told you, I'm very busy.” As if to show her, he stalked over to a table
strewn with rolls of ragged-edge flimsiplast and began sorting through them.
Raven stepped closer, talking above his angry muttering as he
discarded roll after roll with barely a glance. “My lord, do not think me
impertinent, but--”
He glanced up, scowling. “Well? Get on with it.”
Summoning the last shred of her courage, Raven faced him bravely.
“I served with the great General Megatron in the arena. Would you know of
his fate, my lord?”
The question stopped Galvatron's restless fidgeting with the
battle plans and he stared at the tabletop between his hands. “Megatron is
dead. He fought Optimus Prime to the death and was then betrayed by his own
soldiers.”
There was an electrified silence, Raven not daring to disturb
the moment of clarity. “He would be pleased to know at least one of his soldiers
is inquiring of his whereabouts.” Then the moment passed, and Galvatron resumed
shuffling with the plans. “Why bother me with such an imbecilic question?!
Haven't I already told you, I have no time to waste on such things!” He cast
an unrolled plan to the littered floor, and Raven used it as an excuse to
step forward, reaching to retrieve it. She noticed as she rerolled it that
it was absolutely blank, but she said nothing.
“He was a brilliant general,” she said, placing the roll neatly
beside the others at Galvatron's right hand. “His brilliance extended to...other
situations as well,” Raven murmured, then took the chance of losing her own
hand by placing it gently over his mammoth one.
Galvatron stood perfectly still, the gentleness of her touch
striking a chord long buried inside of him. Slowly, he brought his other
hand to cover hers, his fingers tracing the lines of her own. “You speak
as though he meant a great deal to you.”
The tears threatening again, Raven nodded, now clasping his
hands with hers. “I loved him.”
Then Galvatron pulled his hand from her grasp and held it hovering
near her face, touching her cheek hesitantly, as if afraid he would harm
her. “You loved him,” he echoed, a puzzled look on his face.
“Yes, My lord,” she replied. “And he entrusted me with a mission.
I have acquired the information he sought, but if he is dead, I do not know
to whom I should report.” She hoped mightily that he would bite on this
line. Megatron could never resist information. Perhaps it would be the
same with Galvarton.
“I am the leader of the Grand Armada now,” he declared. “Give
your report to me.”
Raven allowed herself a mental sigh. The bait had worked well
indeed. “I was sent to discover the whereabouts of Megatron’s mate, My lord.
I regret to report that she was gravely wounded in battle with the Autobots.
Her child, General Megaton’s heir, died with her.”
Galvatron drew back, the madness lambent in his eyes once again.
“What is Megaton’s heir to me, or his whore? I would kill the bastard brat
and its father as they kneeled before me, and put his trollop to good use
before throwing her to the Sweeps!”
It took all of Raven’s control to remain still during the tirade,
mouth pressed tightly closed to keep back sharp words in her own defense.
“Can I be of further assistance, My lord?” she asked stiffly.
For the briefest of instants, she was sure he would have her
stay. Then he stalked away, waving dismissingly to her. “No, nothing.
Go, and tell Cyclonus I do not wish to be disturbed again. I must finish
planning the destruction of Rodimus Prime.”
She nodded sharply, feeling the prick of methanol tears at the
corner of her optics. “Good day then, Lord Galvatron.” She was through
the doors and away so quickly that she missed his parting remark.
“Good-bye, Little Bird. Primus guide you.”
Raven looked up at the touch on her shoulder. It was Razor,
holding a small vid-disk in her hand. “What's that?”
Razor fingered it lightly. “I will give it to you only if I
can make you understand one thing. Do not hope for much; it is very old,
and most likely incomplete.”
Raven was instantly on her feet, practically snatching it from
Razor's hand. “Yes, of course.” She turned it over in her hands, watching
the light flash from its iridescent surface. “Do you know what it contains,
exactly?”
Crossing her arms, Razor assumed a grim expression. “All I
can tell you is that it is part of Megatron's personal log file, dated just
before his mad race to catch the Autobots. It was part of an old file appropriated
by Optimus Prime nearly twenty Terran years ago.”
“Have you viewed it? Did me mention me?”
Razor shrugged. “Difficult to say. My job as Decepticon History
archivist is to catalogue, not to dissect. Besides, the log is quite long,
encompassing quite a few entries. I haven't the time to scan it all, and
as I said, part of it is damaged through the ravages of time.” She indicated
the shiny disk that Raven clutched. “I leave that task to you.”
Raven stared into her multi-colored reflection looking back
at her. “Thank you. This is... more than you have to do.”
Razor smiled thinly, her ruby gaze fixed on her wolf's-head
boottops. “You have done as much for me, Lady Raven. You have given my children
a piece of their own history that I thought was lost forever.”
She sighed, then shook herself a little. “Well. I shall leave
you to it. May you find what it is you seek, Lady.” With an inclination
of her head, she made her transformation, and stood looking at Raven for
a moment, the wolf's ruby optics shimmering in the darkness. Then she was
gone into the shadows, leaving Raven on the edge of discovery.
Raven stared into the dark Cybertron night, letting her enhanced
sight track the animal form until it went beyond her considerable limits.
She turned her attention back to the disk, noting every surface scratch
and scrape, trying to decide how much data could be left on the disk, and
how much of it she could bear to view.
She walked slowly back to her quarters, cradling the disk carefully,
keeping to unused corridors to conceal the fact that for the moment, at least,
she looked like a Decepticon; a well-known Decepticon who probably had a
price on her head.
Once safe behind her locked door, she set the disk into her
optical reader, then started entering code in an attempt to decrypt it.
She could remember well the kinds of things Megatron had put on his log disks,
and the measures he went to in order to secure them.
Once she hit on the right set of code, she set the drive to
decode the whole disk, then went into the shower while it worked. The black
enamel job had been quick and dirty, done on the spur of the moment, good
enough to cover, but not good enough to stand up to much punishment. It
was already showing fine cracks and chips, letting her Autobot colors show
through. She left the helmet outside, then ducked under the spray of solvent,
watching indifferently as the black liquid swirled around her feet then escaped
down the drain. The color that had been her hallmark for so long sloughed
off like so much dirt.
Finally feeling clean, Raven abandoned the shower, roughly tousling
her short black synth-hair with a dry cloth to prevent dripping, then went
to evaluate the gift Razor had given her. Even if the data was worthless,
the thought the Razorsharp had tried to assuage her grief warmed her. Perhaps
there was more to the former Decepticon than Raven had seen.
She activated the playback, and watched with tears standing
in her optics as Megatron’s image took shape on the screen. There must have
been some kind of degradation, because every few words the image would skip.
It made understanding the entire thread of his log impossible, but what
she did hear was clear enough.
“Report from Lazerbeak...Autobots planning something,... will
attempt to intercept...must stop Optimus Prime...” Static filled the screen
for a moment, then the image returned, and this time the audio was clearer.
“That bitch, Razorsharp, cost me Raven. By the time I had her
mopped up, Raven was long since reported missing. I was ambivalent about
leaving for some time. Something told me she must be out there, waiting
for a moment when she can return. But I have given up the hope. She is
gone, and I must pursue Optimus Prime to the ends of the galaxy. Good-bye,
my Little Bird. Give the Autobots hellas in the Afterworld, as I shall do
in the one.”
The image went to static again, but it barely registered with
Raven. Slowly, she pulled the disk from the reader and studied it in her
palm. “Good-bye, My lord,” she whispered. Then she curled her fingers over
it, and with a swift snap, broke it in two, forever destroying the rest of
the data in contained. She flipped the fragments over and over in her hand,
then flinched as a sharp edge dragged across the tip of one finger, slicing
it open.
She let the pieces fall to the floor as she studied the wound,
then quickly knelt and traced out her name in angular Cybertronian text.
She regarded it for a moment, then smeared it boldly with the swipe of a
palm. “And good-bye to you, Raven. You belong in history with him.” She
collected the two pieces of the disk, and set them on a shelf with her old
black helmet.
Then she fell into her recharge berth, exhausted, as the wounds
to her hand and her soul started to heal.
*The End*
Send comments to:
Lady MoonHawke
Back to the Raven Archives
Back to the Tales of Lady Raven
Back to the Transformers Fanfiction Index
Back to the Shadowspace