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Of Silk and Ashes.
This au is based off this post which I have been itching to write about.
It had all happened so fast. One second she was running as fast as her legs would take her, the next she was on the ground then bright blue light and the roar of an explosion and heat. All consuming smothering heat washing over her in a wave of screaming agony. Then the light and noise stopped leaving nothing but the heat, clawing at every nerve and muscle as she felt her skin fell off in charred bloody chunks. She couldn't move, all she could do was scream until her throat was raw and she was left to cry in silence. She wasn't sure how long it went on, days? Weeks maybe? The only mark of time passing was the cloying pain in her stomach as she drifted in and out of consciousness dreaming of rescue, of the dark and silence being broken by light and the sound of bulkheads voice as he pulled her out and held her close.
Then she started to hear them. At first she couldnt understand but as time passed she began to hear it clearer. Countless soft chittering voices speaking to her not in words but impressions conveyed in near inaudible clicks. They cooed to her sentiments of comfort and safety, telling her stories to distract her from the pain and doing all they could to help her. Eventually she managed to communicate back, hungry was what she conveyed to them and they dutifully brought her things to eat. Small things mostly, insects and sprouts, but she could hardly afford to be picky so she ate it all great fully until the knaw in her stomach abided and she was able to fall asleep to their gentle words. It continued on like that for quite some time; she would wake up to new voices, they would speak to her and feed her, and she would try to communicate back something that was steadily becoming easier as her strength returned to her and she began to feel something other than pain. Feels things like the four long limbs growing from her back, like the dense tail growing from the base of her spine, the cool almost metalic materal in place of her skin, and the bodies of her spider companions crawling all over her.
When she finally had the strength to crawl out of the pit guided by her friends she was greated by the light of the moon peering through dense foliage. The first light in who knew how long. It was wonderful. As was the feeling of fresh cold air filling her lungs, the feel of grass under her feet changed as they were, the sound of the outside world, and the taste of the animals she ate after friends guided her to their dens. It was all so wonderfull after being stuck in the dark empty pit. Then they brought her to a lake and her heart sank at the sight of her reflection.
She new she had been changed, she just hadn't realized how much. Eight vibrant amber eyes stared back her, so much time blind had stopped her from noticing just how much more she could see now. Her skin was pale and nearly grey atleast what little of it remained not replaced by the shiny black carapace layered over her rail thin frame. Even the sight of the things she knew about from the legs and tail to the fangs filling her mouth were off-putting to see. She traced the snake like slit cut across her sunken cheeks from the corners of her mouth as she peered at herself in fascination. She looked like monster straight out of a horror movie or maybe a sci-fi super villain, all charred and emaciated and dangerous. She would never be able to go out in public again never mind become a Rockstar like she always dreamed. She would never be able to talk to anyone casually, never get the chance to fall in love, never get to see the world. When she died she would be alone and forgotten. After all that's what happened to monsters.
Of Silk and Ashes pt 2
Link to part one is here
And link to the post inspiring this au is here
Fury boiled over inside her chest. Her friends had left her die in that pit. They left her down there to rot in the darkness not even bothering to recover her body. If they had they would have found her and saved her but instead she hadn't gotten so much as a grave marker! And that pit was a grave, for all intense and purposes her life had ended that day. Her dreams and plans and hopes had all been taken from her never to be fulfilled. She was just a mutated freak now, a beast, a monster. Monster. Monsters didn't get happy endings, neither would miko. Monsters didn’t belong in normal society, neither did miko. Monsters were the villains, it was only fitting that miko would be to. She would make them pay, make them all suffer for abandoning her. For betraying her.
After weeks of labor miko had established somewhat of a home for herself. She had dug the pit out into a comfortable den, mastered her new found abilities, and set out multiple traps all over the woods to catch plenty of food all the while filled with a white hot fury burning inside her. She had even made a discovery. Apperantly, she was infectious. Anything from plants to animals even technoly all of it became massive, mutated and obedient to her. Her friend especially were transformed, becoming bigger, stronger, and smarter. Many of them were the size of a house and others were venomous enough to kill full sized bucks with a single bite. The change was a slow process but miko quickly learned that her venom sped it up significantly. Quite the stroke of luck for her, she would have an entire army to help get her revenge. For now though she simply had them steal things for her from any campers unlucky enough to show up in her territory. Mostly food and clothing plus a few books, including a particularly interesting one about weaving patterns, aswell as the occasional pet. She didn't bother to have them be careful about it nor did she bother trying to contain the spreading mutation through the forest. She wanted it to be noticed after all. She wanted them to notice. That's how she would lure them into her web and that's how she would make them pay. They would learn what it was like, they would suffer just as she had.
Of Silk and Ashes pt 3
Part one here
Part two here
Eleven months. Such a short amount of time compared to millenia of existence, to countless centuries of experience and yet those scant months felt like they stretched out far longer then the entirety of his lifetime so far. Every second of it felt like a year every hour a decade and every day a century weighed down by a suffocating grief. They had lost so many others before but somehow it felt different, this wasn't the death of a soldier killed in action no there was a reason for that, there was something to blame, there was even a morbid expectancy to it, deaths were part of war after all. But this tragedy had none if that, it was the it was the needless, death of a civilian in an accident. Of a child looking for a way to help with a war she had no reason to be apart of.
It weighed on all of them and they each responded to it differently; ratchet had thrown himself deeper into his work, often quietly cursing her to himself for being so reckless despite his many warnings and had seemingly become obsessed with keeping their remaining human companions as far from the war effort as possible, something that went well with arcees new found near obsessive protectiveness towards her partner. Arcee was almost constantly fussing over jack, something the boy eagerly accepted, holding him in her arms when she was with him and constantly checking in on him when she wasn't. She was determined to shelter him, a desire only fueled by rafs anger and blame for the other boy. Speaking of which Rafael had thrown himself into learning as much as possible out of a desire to help and bumblebee was eagure to support him and pour his entire being into caring for his companion.
Bulkhead had, as expected, taken it the worst. Miko was his charge after all, his responsibility, his little one. It was no real secret among them that Bulkhead saw her as his own and it was no real surprise when he practically threw himself at the closing groundbridge upon hearing the news desperate to retrieve her. They all had to work together to hold him back even after ratchet told him there was no chance she would have survived the blast. He had needed to be restrained for weeks afterwards to keep from trying to return to the sight begging to let him bury her, let him give her a proper ceremony, or at least a grave marker. Ratchet had denied all his pleads insisting that their was most likely no body to bury and no point in a ceremony or stone, she was not one of them so they had no right to send off or mark her as such. Ironic given he had nearly skewered agent fowler for trying to remove mikos possessions left behind in the base.
Eventually bulkheads pleading and fighting stopped and he was freed of his restraints but he still mourned. He rarely fueled or slept and had stopped speaking all together only leaving his quarters for missions. He had taken to storing her possessions inside him at all times. Arcee had tried to speak with him as had optimus himself but it failed to help, not even wheeljack arriving to offer comfort did anything to soothe him. It wasn't until ratchet picked up on strange readings from the accident sight that he finally broke his silence. After so long seeing his friends optics dull with grief optimus was hard pressed to deny him so bulkhead and bumblebee were sent off to investigate. But that had been hours ago by now and neither of them had responded to any attempt at communication yet. Worry churned in optimus's tank and constricted around his spark with every passing minute. Neither of them had ever been radio silent this long unless something horrible happened. Relief washed over him as he recieved a message from bumblebee but it only lasted a moment as he read the message. [Somethings here, it took bulkhead. Send backup.] The next few moments were a blurr, he remembered telling ratchet to start up the ground bridge and a few minutes later he was tearing through as fast as his wheels could carry him, spark hammering in his chassie and the rest of the team right behind him.
Of Silk and Ashes pt 4
Part one here
Part two here
And part three here
The scene they arrived to was something out of a nightmare. Bumblebee was heavily injured, cradling his arm hidden behind an unusually massive tree. Optimus rushed to his side and gently placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder. "What happened?" He questioned urgently. Bumblebee desperately signaled to be silent and jerked his head up to the thick canopy above. The fear in his scouts optics made Optimus freeze and gestured for the rest of the team to be still as he scanned the area. The forest seemed completely mutated by some unknown force, the trees were massive twisted things with knarled roots that disappeared into the thick underbrush that reached up to his calf and gleamed like metal. The air was heavy and humming with static energy a breath away from igniting like a bomb waiting to go off. The entire forest was unnaturally still and silent yet he felt the suffocating weight of a thousand eyes all around him. The silence was broken by a rustling above them, prompting the entire team deployed their weapons and snapped their heads up to the source of the noise. For a few moments there was absolutely nothing until finally Bumblebee let out a vent of relief signaling the others to drop their weapons.
"Bumblebee, what is here and where did it tale bulkhead?" Optimus questioned as ratchet set to work putting the scouts arm in a sling and patching up his other wounds. "I didn't get a very good look at them, all I could tell is that they're massive organic things. They were in the cave where the energy signal was strongest and dragged him deeper inside." Bumblebee explained. "Cave? The only cave in this area collapsed after the explosion from the... the abandoned vestle eleven months ago." Ratchet responded critically pausing at the mention of the accident. "Maybe the blast mutated the area and those things manged to dig it out. The ship was supposed to contain unknown chemicals," Arcee suggested."A viable suggestion given the state of this place," Ratchet agreed as he stood from his work.
"Regardless we need to retrieve bulkhead before those creatures can offline him." Optimus stated, firmly looking to bumblebee. Bumblebee nodded, stood up, and diligently lead the way. They waded through the dense, corrupted flora in complete silence until they finally reached the cave. For a few seconds they could do little more than stand and stare at the deep dark pit. The tragedy that had weighed on them all these past months now lay before them staring back at them from the darkness. Slowly they all marched inside, tracking deeper and deeper into the blackness. Things scuttled in the corners of their vision, massive things just out of sight that did nothing but watch until finally they heard bulkheads voice. All at once they all surged forward in an unspoken agreement desperate to not lose another friend to this pit. They drew closer and closer and then it all went dark and optimus distantly felt himself hit the ground.
Optimus was pulled abruptly out of consciousness by the sound of someone desperately calling for him. His spark hammered in his chest as his optics snapped open and he frantically examined his surroundings. Rapidly he realized a couple thing. First off the person calling for him had been bulkhead who was strung up upside down bound with a strange white rope intricately tied across his frame. Secondly optimus was in the exact same position as were the rest of the team strung up around him all gazing at him with concern in their optics. "Is everyone ok?" He asked, desperately examining his subordinates. "We're uninjured for now but we need to get out of here quickly." Arcee stated frantically struggling against her bonds with no success. "Looks like everyone's awake," an impossibly familiar voice cooed. Arcee went still. The energon in his cables turned to ice. It was impossible. "It looks like we can finally start the party." The impossible voice called from somewhere above them. "Miko!" Bulkhead cried out sounding somewhere between relieved, shocked and desperate. "Awe you remember me after all." The thing with mikos voice answered. Optimus crained his head to see something decending from above and flicked on his headlights to reveal the creature using the voice of the dead.
Instead he was met with the face of miko, pale and gaunt with six additional eyes but undeniably her. He could barely believe the sight before him, she had been transformed just as the forest outside had. Her emaciated body was covered in a scorched black carapace glinting ominously in the lighting, her legs look twisted and identical to the four long spider limbs that jutted out from her back with the bottom pair guiding her down a thred of what he could only assume was webbing being pulled from the spider tail grown from the base of her spine. "Surpise." She purred flashing a sharp toothed grin far wider then a human should be capable of. " miko what... what happened to you? How did you end up like this?" Bulkhead questioned horror dripping from his voice. "How?" She giggled softly, staring at her former guardian.