Chapter Text
The skies over Vos turned a red-gold-orange, casting everything in a harsh glow. Starshine found herself unable to look away, even as the Winglord burst in through the doors to her berthroom. “Starshine!” he gasped, gently, but urgently, grabbing her arm. She let herself be dragged by him, the halls of the Tower filled with fleeing servants and nobles alike. “What’s happening?” she asked him, and he glanced over his shoulder at her as they ran. “Destruction,” came his grim reply, and he turned back to face the doors as they approached.
“You’ll be safe in here, Starshine. I’m sorry,” the Winglord said, and she realized what he’d been leading her towards. “I have to find your sisters. When it’s safe, I’ll come find you,” he promised, planting a gentle kiss on her helm, and he slowly pushed her backwards until she was secure in the stasis pod. As he turned to leave, she shrieked after him, “Carrier, don’t go!” but he gave no indication he heard her, even if she had spoken. Her own reflection replaced sight of the room, as the pod activated, and everything slowly went dark.
***
Unknown amount of time later…
She woke with a gasp, arms flying out. The pod hissed as she pushed against it, opening up and dropping her to her knees. Her vision was still dark, optics slowly rebooting and readjusting. Coughing, she blinked a few times as her sight readjusted, and she shivered lightly. The room she was in wasn’t where her stasis pod had been found, said pod now dormant and sitting in a pool of liquid, in fact, it looked nothing like the Tower. The metal walls had been painted a plain grey color, rusting slightly in some spots. Shelves stacked with containers, all labelled in neat yellow lettering, proclaimed to Starshine that this was some kind of storage space or workshop, if the containers with ‘Tools’ were any indication.
Slowly standing, she rubbed her arms, trying to get some warmth back into her frame. There was a door at the far end, painted the same shade of grey as the walls, the only way out. Hesitating, she deliberated on what to do. On the one hand, she had no idea what lay beyond that door, and had no way to defend herself should she have to, but on the other, there was literally no other way out. “I wish I had a guard,” she muttered to herself, looking back at one of the tool crates. Tossing out a few tools, she picked up the heaviest wrench she could hold, and made her way to the door.
Grabbing the handle, she threw open the door, wrench raised for an attack that never came. The door led to a kitchen of sorts, though it looked different from any kitchen Starshine knew. The counters were the same, but there were other utensils scattered about, the sink full of dishes covered in some sort of residue. She slowly made her way to the middle of the floor, wings perked in an alert position.
A door elsewhere clicked, and Starshine gripped her wrench tighter, ducking down and hiding behind the counters. There were voices, two of them, heavily accented, and they were slowly coming her way. “It’s a real pain in the tail, I’m telling you, Fathom,” one of the voices said, punctuated with the sound of something slapping the countertop. “It’s the law, doctor,” the other voice, presumably the “Fathom” the first voice was talking to, said bluntly. She slowly backed into the corner, wings pressed awkwardly against her back. “A whole stasis pod, in the water! Still working too!”
They were getting too close. She had to find a way to escape, but she had no idea where she was, where there was an out. She saw the second voice’s owner walk into view, and she couldn’t help but stare. He wasn’t covered in metal plates at all, but something fuzzy, and his back was to her. “Hey, doctor? Did we ever leave the garage open?” he called, and she immediately shuttered her vents. The first voice’s owner walked over, similar to Fathom, but she had scales instead of fur, and fins sprouted from her elbows. “No. We didn’t,” she said, and Starshine crept out of her hiding spot, sneaking past them.
What she didn’t account for was her weight compared to theirs, and the floor creaked beneath her pedes. Both bots whipped around, and she raised the wrench again, wings flared to appear larger. “Don’t come near me! I’ll strike!” Starshine yelled, but they both blinked in surprise. “Fathom,” the scaly bot started, “is that my wrench?” Fathom stepped forward, hands raised in a non-threatening display. “P-put the wrench down. We can talk about this.” She backed away, her bravado fading, which the scaly bot took advantage of. “It’s okay, sweetie. You’re someplace safe,” she said gently, taking the wrench from Starshine’s hand. “My name is Dead Sea, and that’s my assistant, Fathom,” she introduced herself, gently taking Starshine’s servo in hers.
Dead Sea pulled the Seeker towards a chair, sitting her down. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” she said, sitting in a chair across from her. The new room they were in was brightly decorated, strange green things sprouting from cheerfully decorated pots, adding a delicate and warm scent to the air. A large window took up most of one of the walls, letting in sunlight across the wooden floor. “Here, energon,” Fathom said, handing her a cube, and handing Dead Sea a plate with some wedges on it.
“So, odd question, but are you a Seeker?” he asked, sitting in the chair next to Starshine’s. “Yes?” she answered, slowly, catching the way the two strange bots looked at each other. “That’s neither here nor there,” Dead Sea said, waving her servo, “What’s your name?” Starshine looked down at her cube, seeing her reflection, and she frowned. “I’m Starshine, Heir Apparent of Vos,” she said, looking back up. Dead Sea hummed in response, popping a wedge in her intake and chewing thoughtfully. Fathom’s optics cycled wide, and she was sure that if they were any wider, they’d break. “I-I don’t know how long I was in that pod for, just that my-my carrier put me in there,” she added after a moment’s silence, her voice wavering at the thought of her carrier.
“Did you see any bots like us, before you were in stasis?” Dead Sea asked her, another wedge in her servo. Starshine shook her head, and the other bot sighed. “Well, we’re what’s called Technorganics, TOs for short,” she told her, putting the wedge in her intake. “Instead of vehicles, we turn into animals.” Starshine mouthed the word, as Dead Sea continued to explain. "I have an aquatic alt-mode, while Fathom is amphibious, so we work with water most."
"Honestly, if I hadn't seen the records, I would have thought you were some kind of strange bird," Fathom chimed in, and Dead Sea shot him a look. "Records?" she asked him, and he seemed to shrink slightly. "I-well, there's not a lot of your kind left. Planet's like...90% TOs now," he said, and the doctor sighed. "There's a lot of missing history, especially with the Mechanicals. They aren't exactly willing to share either," Dead Sea said, finishing off her plate, and standing. "Winglord Starshine, I have to warn you, Cybertron isn't exactly friendly towards Mechanicals, but I don't want you stumbling through everything blindly. I'll take you to the city, get you registered, and you can try and find a new life."
Starshine looked down at her cube again, chewing slightly on her bottom lip, before nodding. "Okay," she said, looking up at Dead Sea, her expression grim. "Whatever you think is best."
. . .
Deep in the bowels of the city, hidden behind locked doors and guarded closely, a mech came to life, a tug on his spark, and his voice, weak and broken, spoke.
"St..ar..shine..."