Chapter Text
They see light, so bright and warm. It’s their first time being outside and they love it, the feeling of warmth on their frame and the gentle breeze over their plating is new and wonderful, they never want this to end. But of course, as with all good things, they must come to an end eventually. Life continues on and no body will wait for them, they must leave and follow their fellow troopers to their new life that awaits them.
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They are sorted into small groups of around 6 vehicons each, 5 standard drones and 1 leader, the leaders said that these are their new squadrons and that they will be an important factor in their new lives from now on.
His new squad mates, friends and comrades are waiting for him, they are going some where important they say, you like new things you think, being out under the sun for the first time was wonderful, what could be so different this time?
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It was very different, dark winding hallways that seemed to go on forever with lots more vehicons to meet. There were also some different looking mechs, they didn’t look like you or your fellow drones, some we short, some were tall, some with wings and some with wheels, they had different colours than you too. You wondered why this was.
They reminded you of your creator, you didn’t like to think about him much, or about how he treated you like objects and not sentient beings, he was mean but your squad leader said that we could not disobey him or something bad would happen to us. Nobody knew what that “bad thing” was but sometimes when others stepped out of line they disappeared, you wonder where they went sometimes, but were told not to question it.
You and your squad were walking down these dark halls for what seemed like forever before you had been led into a large room, it was spacious yet cramped. Berths lined the walls and other vehicons wandered around and out the room. These are your new barracks they said, they seemed happy to see you, you liked that, you enjoyed making others happy and being in the presence of others like you. Little did you know at the time was that they were hiding their fear over what would come of you soon.
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It was time for your first assignment! You and your squad were excited to help out the other mechs and work for the decepticon cause. You’d only learned about it recently but you were proud to be working towards such a noble cause like the decepticons!
Your job was to help the miners transport the mined energon to the engine room of the nemesis. Not a very exiting job but you need to start somewhere right?
The more experienced drones were helping you out and teaching you what to do, you needed to learn fast because apparently a vehicon who couldn’t do their job right or fast enough was useless and got “deactivated”. You don’t know what that word means yet, all you know is that it isn’t a good thing.
There were lots of things you didn’t know yet but everything is a chance to learn they said, you’d learn what to do soon enough, right?
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The caves aren’t a very fun place to be in your opinion, they were dark cold and wet, nothing like being outside in the sun, that was one of your new favourite things. This planets surface was beautiful and filled with new things to see and experience but down here you didn’t have access to any of that. The little organic creatures were your favourite, you weren’t allowed allowed to interact with the ones called “humans” but you secretly watched them from afar. They were rather funny looking and did weird things, like covering themselves with large sheets of organic material and driving non sentient vehicles.
Some of your friends have named themselves after the humans but you decided to name yourself after a beautiful organic flora you found in a small bed of water outside the mine. One of your squad members had named themselves Cole after a human in some earth media they had been invited to watch the other night, he said they were called lotuses. It sounded a lot like your official designation, L0-2U33 so you decided that you’d be called Lotus from now on, it was a pretty name.
Apparently we weren’t allowed to have these names though so the older vehicons told me to never speak about them in front of an officer. Why weren’t we allowed names? The officers had them and so did the little organics, why were we so different?
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A tough lesson had soon come in the form of four new mechs entering the mine through a ground bridge, you knew what that was! You didn’t have a chance to celebrate your own learning though as shots started being fired all over the place.
You’d been taught lots about combat back in the lab you were created in but you didn’t know why. It seemed today was the day you’d put that skill to use, as your squad leader has said the four new mechs were your targets. Why did we have to shoot them I asked? The others said that they were evil and wanted to steal the energon we had mined, that was bad. The miners had worked so hard for it but still it wasn’t nice to shoot somebody, it hurt lots, you knew because you’d accidentally been shot by a drone now known now as Nick during practice once.
Soon a drone next to you fell down with large hole in his chest, he was bleeding lots and you knew that bleeding was bad and you needed to stop it. You soon notice a lack of a spark in his exposed spark chamber, that was weird, you all had sparks in your chests, where did his go? You didn’t question it and tried to stop the bleeding as best you could by putting your servo over his exposed spark chamber.
After what feel so quick yet so slow there was a large glowing puddle of energon surrounding you and numerous other vehicons had fallen over. The mysterious bots were gone now thanks to the effort of your comrades, you still didn’t know why they needed to be shot at, why couldn’t they have a peaceful chat?
A more experienced miner came over to you, maybe this one you were helping was his friend? He told you to stop trying to stop the bleeding, you said that you couldn’t stop until a medic helped him. His field was full of sadness and pity for some reason. He said that the miner was “dead”, what did that mean? Apparently his missing spark meant that he was no longer in this world with us anymore and that he had gone to a place called the well of all sparks.
It saddened you to know he was gone, even if you didn’t know him. You looked around and noticed all the others, energon and metal fragments coating the cave walls and floor in a sea of carnage. Did that mean all these others had gone offline too? Gone to the well of all sparks together?
It made you sad to know that all these vehicons were gone, unable to experience life anymore. It made you angry to know that those four bots had done all this in a matter of minutes. It made you confused as to why this all had to happen in the first place.
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Your return to the Nemesis made you see just as much carnage as there was at the mine. Your fellow soldiers bleeding over the dark floors leaving a glowing trail behind them as they went. The med bay filled with those unfortunate enough to have gained serious injury’s, a growing pile of corpses in the corner.
You were told to return to your barracks and rest, you didn’t think you could after what you saw at the mines. The reality of the situation had settled in fairly quickly, all those vehicons were dead now, their corpses waiting to be smelted down and reused. All because of a silly war that should have ended thousands of years ago. You didn’t know you were in a war until now, the elder vehicons were unaware that you didn’t know and had tried to calmly explain everything to the new generation after the incident.
Apparently they were nothing but mass produced drones made solely for the purpose of dying, It was horrible but the others had come to terms with it long ago.
You weren’t allowed names because you were seen as non sentient, you weren’t allowed to have your own thoughts and individual identity. You were nothing but cannon fodder in the eyes of your superior officers.