Work Text:
Jester hummed as she walked down the street.
It was a nice night out, cool temperature that felt pleasant against her plating, clouds rolling lazily across the sky. There was a general buzz of traffic and movement, echoing from far off pieces of the city that never slept, soon it would be this part of the city that had the rumble of engine going around and mechs chattering. But for now…
Now it was quiet.
One of the moons was large in the sky, she could barely see the other one. If Jester closed her eyes for a moment, or even just halfway, enough to blur her vision just a bit, she could almost believe she was back on Earth. Just walking home, or walking to her car, enjoying the quiet calm night air.
She sighed and turned a corner, going through a close cut into the wall of houses.
But nope, this was Cybertron. Ah well-
Someone was in the close too, hunched against the wall.
Jester forced her walk to remain steady, only stuttering a bit. It was fine, it was fine, really it was fine. It was only paranoia that had her spark spinning faster, too many stories of… bad things, they were just outside like she was, she could walk right past them and be fine. Even steps, even vents, optics straight ahead, and before she’d know it she’d be-
A low groan echoed through the close, nearly making her jump out of her skin- plating.
Jester kept walking.
This was fine, this was fine, this was fine- she was only a few feet away now- this was fine, this was fine.
The figure gave another groan, but this one sounded more like words. They shuddered and twitched, a piece of kibble flexed and stretched out, blocking the already tight space of the close. Jester bit her lip and wanted to scream, she was so close to be past. Really?
“Excuse me, I’d like to get past.” She didn’t want to talk, just move, just move, just move, just move~
The mech made a few words that sounded… almost like another language.
They didn’t move.
Well, their kibble did. Stretching to fill more of the close. Blocking it. They started to turn around as Jester backed away, spark thrumming and feeling like it wanted to beat itself out of its chamber.
By city mandate there were lights installed in closes like these, passages between building built to close together for alleyways and pathways to fit. This one was no different, lights dotted it at regular intervals. Unfortunately, those intervals were stretched to the farthest the little lights could reach in an effort to save on both money and resources. Normally this wasn’t a problem as most of the population had headlight built in their frames, or night vision, or something. Jester had none of that. So, in the dark spot between lights the mech turned and lurched forward, bringing it into the light and into vision.
“Oh shit.” Jester breathed.
The mech- things face wasn’t fully formed, it was like someone had taken two- no, three face and jammed them together. It lurched. It’s body wasn’t any better, half of it was flyer, but there was a sliver of a beast formers head on the torse, and wheels, too many on one side, different sizes and heavy enough to drag the mech down into a limp. All of it was blended together with welds that looked like they’d been made with acid, bubbles of melting metal dripped and sizzled. The thing ran it’s hand-hands- it had multiple hands on one arm, over the wall and metal curled and bucked and then rippled to wrap around it’s arm like a piece of plating. Fur started from out of the metal, long metallic strands.
Jester kept stepping back slowly.
It kept moving towards her.
“We-023#*)%@-how- %&-shIT-Hehe-38>>?~Hi!”
Jester took a larger step backward. It was like it was spinning the dial on a radio, flipping through all the stations, only catching the barest snippets, interspersed with random, horrible noise.
It was still moving towards her. She kept moving back.
“What are you?”
It twitched and four mouths grinned at her. “Wha-aa-a-tt-*&^% Sh?t -are you! BE-e-e-e*&987”
It was using her voice.
She needed to leave, oh she needed to leave, needed to leave, needed to leave now. Jester kept her venting steady, even as her hands shook, if she could reach for her hard light tool, then she could bulldoze past it and away, or go the other way on a motorcycle. Either way, she wanted body armour.
It shouldn’t touch her. That was a bad idea.
She moved her arm and watched as the things frame shifted to mimic the movement, move its arm behind its back. It was still moving closer. She was still moving backwards. She nearly had the tool, just at the barest tips of her digits-
It lunged.
No- no- no- no- no- no- Shrieking she leapt backwards, hand closing around her hard light tool, activating- There was a rattling breath behind her, hissing like static sprinkled with sound bytes.
NO.
The close filled with an orange glow and two shapes rolled, thrown with the impact, bit of metal pieces falling and scattering as they broke off. Jester stood in the middle of the close, chest heaving, surrounded completely by a panic bubble. They hadn’t touched her, they hadn’t touched her, they hadn’t touched her, they hadn’t touched her-
She took a deep breath. Fine. Okay. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave.
The panic bubble shrank as she picked her way past the one not moving frame, the one that had been blocking the close. It was more horrible staying still, the face it was… wearing were starting to slide off, like a piece of paper that had too much glue under it. Jester shuddered and kept moving.
Quietly and leave, quietly and leave, quietly and leave-*tink* *tink, tink* *tink-tink*
In her childhood, Jester had played with lots of things, things she probably shouldn’t have like car batteries, but one thing she’d loved to play with was various pieces of metal that he dad had hidden in buckets and drawers. It had been great fun to take them out and use them as props for her dolls and action figures, but like all good times, things got dropped, bits of metal flying across cold stone floors. So Jester was intimately familiar with the sound of lots of tiny metal things moving.
The sound had never been terrifying before.
She looked back.
The two things were standing up, grinning horribly. As she watched they grew, they grew helm appendages and sticks in their hands, they- oh god, they were copying her. Purple was even beginning to splash across melted plating, it was matching her paint.
Jester ran.
Wheels made of light materialized under her, the hard light tool taking her terror and need to get away and turning it into pure speed. She didn’t know what she was riding, she didn’t care, she needed away. Lights and buildings blurred as instinct took over and- and she needed to get home.
Faster- faster- faster- faster- faster- FASTER- FASTER!
The door to the Earths Orbit slammed behind her, Jester slumped to the floor, chest heaving, vents pouring air through her systems so fast that it was starting to over cool her. She was shivering, energon moving so fast through her lines it was audible. Or was it? Was it just her that could hear it?
“Jester?”
She flinched at the softly spoken noise. Tarmac slowly got up from his seat, setting down a datapad as he did. The quiet click made Jester flinch again. She watched with wary eyes as he slowly approached her, telegraphing every move. Tarmac knelt and held out a hand.
She stared at it for a moment… it looked real… She took it and went willingly as she got tugged into an embrace.
Tarmac hugged her as her frame shuddered and slowly resumed normal operating standards. Humming softly, the vocalisations carrying easy vibrations through his frame. Jester felt her venting start to even out as her spark slowed from its frantic thrumming.
“Does…” She took a shuddering vent. “Does Cybertron have… copying or-er mimic monsters?”
Tarmac was silent.
Don’t say yes, don’t say yes, Jester willed, or maybe say yes, I don’t know which is worse.
“I thought,” Tarmac started quietly. “that they had been all killed of by the war. Starved of food and… material to copy from. There’re security measures to put in place, easy things, I’ll run a briefing for you in the morning.”
“They chased me…” Jester shuddered.
A murmur was close to her ear. “I’m sorry…”
Tarmac carefully shifted, moving an arm under her knees, and another behind her back. Without even a sound he picked her up, using the move to hold her closer to his chassis. With carefuly and sure strides, they went up the stairs, Jester leaned closer against him, greedily soaking up the contact.
She could feel guilty later.
In a small voice...
“…stay with me tonight?...Please...”
“Of course.”