The Invictus - Chapter XII

[thecrazyalaskan]

Chapter Twelve

His arms and legs pumping, Prowl ran across the orphanage’s entryway and all but knocked into his grandfather’s legs. He felt guilty for using his grandfather’s legs as brakes, but he couldn’t help it. He had thrown all of his momentum into escaping the room behind him, and his world had tunneled around getting distance.

Positron seemed to have dozed off and grunted awake as Prowl slammed into him. “Hello, Grandson,” he said as he lifted his head.

“I’m sorry, Grandfather,” Prowl apologized.

“You are forgiven, Grandson,” Positron answered, patting Prowl’s shoulder. “What happened to make you run so quickly? I am not in pain.”

Prowl fixed his grandfather with a “not funny” look. “I was… scared,” he confessed.

“Of what, Grandson?” Positron gently queried.

“There… there was femme in there,” Prowl gasped, suddenly needing to catch his breath. “She was creepy. She kept touching me and—“

“A little light blue one?” Positron asked.

“Uh-huh,” Prowl confirmed.

“I saw her a few cycles ago,” Positron said simply. “She is quite sweet.”

“What? Grandfather, she was creepy,” Prowl cried incredulously. “She’s glitched in the processor, I know it!”

“Prowl.” Positron’s words took on a hard edge. “You will say no such thing about anyone with a mental glitch. It is something they cannot help.”

“I’m sorry, Grandfather,” Prowl murmured.

Positron shoulder hugged his grandson. “You’ll find that in several of the younglings here,” he whispered. “Several of them have received CPU trauma, or were traumatized by what brought them here. A few were placed here because of their little glitches. They’re troubled, but still need the same things as you and I do.”

“’Cos they’re younglings like me,” Prowl recited again.

“Exactly,” Positron confirmed. He stroked his grandson’s helm. “Perhaps you could go outside and play with some of the other younglings?”

Prowl tried not to squirm in his grandfather’s presence. After that last encounter, he’d felt more comfortable going into a tavern with a Decepticon bounty hunter. He didn’t dare protest, though, and stepped outside the orphanage and into the open air. The sunshine was a welcome change from the dinginess of the interior.

He walked along the wall, watching the orphaned younglings playing. The main group activity seemed to a ball game. Prowl opted out—sports and physical games had never been his thing, and the somber expressions of the other younglings, despite their play, was very off-putting.

He lingered along the stone wall of the building, keeping his optics averted. A few older femme younglings cared for younger sparklings, ranging in age from a few orbital cycles to two stellar cycles in age. One such femme cradled a tiny winged sparkling to her chest hull, feeding it through a line of energon in her neck. Prowl watched from a distance by way of a sidelong glance, fascinated with the ritual. He reeled back, almost crying out, when the sparkling turned its head and he found it to have red optics.

He averted his eyes and edged away from the caretaker femmes. He drew the line at half-Decepticon sparklings, regardless of what Grandfather said about being polite. No one seemed to be paying attention to him, or even to each other, so he was free to edge around the back of the building. If he was lucky, he could make a huge loop around the grounds and be back in the time it would have taken him to sociali—

“Aaah!” Prowl stumbled over a hole in the ground, and fell flat on his aft. He was stunned for a second, but was otherwise undamaged. He hauled himself vertical again and looked around, hoping no one saw him.

No one was really in the area except two younglings, both of them mechs, one about his age and the other a few stellar cycles younger. The elder was deep navy with pale blue trim and a wide ice blue visor for optics; he clung desperately to his junior, who was deep indigo trimmed in amethyst. Tears flowed freely down both their faceplates, and sobs made their chest hulls heave. The younger of the pair clutched a holo-emitter to his chest.

Prowl shuffled his pedes. It didn’t feel right to watch their suffering, but it didn’t feel right to let it pass unnoticed. He edged a little closer. “Uhh… are you okay?”

The older mech looked up, swiping at his optics. “H-huh?” he stammered.

“Are you okay?” Prowl repeated, edging a little closer. “Did you get hurt?”

“N-no,” the elder replied. He spoke with a stutter that, when compounded with his spark-broken tone, made understanding his speech a challenge. “Our p-p-p-p-parents—“

“Mama and Dad are offline!” the younger wailed to the sky above him. Moaning a bereaved sob, the youngling showed Prowl the holo-emitter. A femme and a mech, wrapped happily in each other’s loving marital embrace, smiled back at the trio

“Ohh, I’m sorry,” Prowl said sincerely, kneeling next to them. “My parents went offline too.” For all he knew, it could be the truth, but Prowl preferred to think it was a lie. Despite his opinion on lies and the mechs who told them, he felt Grandfather would approve of a lie that helped two newly-orphaned younglings feel better about their circumstances.

“D-d-d-did you j-j-j-j-j-j-just g-get here?” the elder asked, swiping at his optics.

“I’m just visiting,” Prowl confessed. “I live with my grandfather.”

“You’re s-s-s-s-so l-l-l-lucky,” the elder youngling said with more than a hint of awed envy. “Our gr-gr-gr-gr—“ He groaned in frustration at his lack of ability of communicate.

“Meema and Pap live too far away,” the younger offered, snuggling into his older, frustrated brother. His sibling nodded the confirmation of the fact.

“I’m sorry,” Prowl said again. “I wish I could help…”

“It’s ok-k-k-kay,” the older of the pair dismissed, even though it clearly was not. “No one can h-h-help us anyway…”

Prowl bowed his head. He really was better off than the orphans were—the grandfather he loved, but sometimes took for granted? These younglings would kill an entire Decepticon platoon for a grandfather, rather than be in a bum orphanage. He was of sound chassis and CPU with a solid roof over his head and a loving family member who would bend over backwards for him if it weren’t for the pain that plagued him so. Slag, he even had a three pieces of energon candy for la—

“Here,” Prowl said, subspacing his energon sweets into the open. He held them out to the younglings. “You can have these. I don’t want them.”

That at least was a lie of which Grandfather would approve.

They looked wide-optic-ed at the sweets. The younger one’s optics were ready to bulge out of their settings, and his hand lifted to take them. The elder lowered his siblings hand with his own. “W-w-w-we can’t take them,” he said politely, “but th-th-thank you.”

“No, it’s okay,” Prowl insisted. “I’ll get some more later, if my Grandfather will let me.” And if I have the credits. “You can have them.”

“Please, big brother?” the littler of the pair asked softly. “Please?”

Slowly, the navy youngling took the sweets, offering the biggest to his brother first. The youngling ripped open the wrapper eagerly. “Thank you!” he said with sincerity that tugged at every spark-string Prowl had and more. “Thank you so much!”

The elder took his time unwrapping his piece, cradling it in his hands like it was a tiny piece of the Well. “Th-th-thank you,” he whispered, the deep emotion in his voice shifting from grief to gratitude.

Prowl waved the words aside, amazed at what his three pieces of energon candy had done to them. Did he really have the power to make these younglings so happy? “It’s okay,” he answered softly, enjoying the swell of joy in his spark that apparently came with giving to the less fortunate among him.

“Prowl!” a voice from around the front of the building cut through the air like a thunderclap. “Where are you?”

“My grandfather’s calling me—I gotta go,” Prowl said to the younglings. “Bye!”

“Bye! Thank you!” the littler of the two called after him, waving his arm furiously. His elder brother called out his gratitude as well, hugging his little brother tightly as their Samaritan rounded the corner and disappeared.

Prowl jogged quickly along the wall, giving the femme with a half-Decepticon sparkling a wide berth, and instantly reappearing at the front of the building. Positron stood in the doorframe, scanning the area for his black and gold grandson. “Where are you?” he called again.

“I’m right here, Papaw,” Prowl said as he appeared at his grandfather’s side. “Didn’t you see me?”

“Ahh, there’s my grandson,” Positron chuckled, patting his shoulder. He shielded his optics from the mid-afternoon sun’s glare. “The light is so bright and harsh on my old optics, I couldn’t see you.”

“You’re not old, Grandfather,” Prowl laughed.

Positron stroked Prowl’s helm affectionately. “If you insist, Grandson,” he replied as they started the long trek home. “But the sun is so bright and you move so quickly and quietly—like a cyber ninja.”

Prowl laughed at the idea—him? A cyber ninja? Like slag that’d happen.

Yeah, somehow Beachcomber's TFA retool wormed his way in here. And he stutters.
Why the hell I decided that Beachcomber would turn up, with a stutter at that, is totally beyond me. xD

Comments

Re: Chapter Twelve

[thecrazyalaskan.livejournal.com]

*joins you in glomping Prowl*

He's probably going to look back on that suggestion, much later in life, and laugh at how dead on Positron was.

Awwww... thank you. I'm so glad you're enjoying it.