"This was before the war."
Bombshell nodded. "Go on," he said, looking at the miniature Decepticon before him. Her legs dangled beneath the seat of the chair, and the armrests reached her upper arms. She straightened her arms, placing them beside her legs. The meter on her head randomly flicked around. Her mind was clearly disorganized.
"I don't know where to start," Nickel said.
"Why don't you start from the very beginning?" Bombshell suggested in a soothing voice. "From when you first met him?"
She nodded. "It was the end of the Prionian war..."
~~~~~
It was the last day of the Prionian war, and the Black Block Consortia had resorted to orbital bombardment. Only the capital was left, with the entire population concentrated in the alt-mode of the Titan Prion. He sacrificed himself to open a Stellar Spanner portal to Cybertron, allowing everyone left to escape.
The first thing one would do is to find a job, since we could survive without energon for some time. As a doctor, I naturally found one in a hospital. Obviously I didn't know anyone on Cybertron, being born on Prion after all that stuff about the Spanner network breaking down. So I was a bit of a loner in the hospital.
One day, I was getting some anesthesia for a patient when someone asked, "Did you lose the war?"
I turned around. The first thing that caught my eye was the ridiculously wide pair of antlers attached to his head. Golden optics peered out from under the white helm, inspecting me. Rugged, off-road tyres adorned his shoulders, covered by clean white hubs. His arms were crossed over his chest. You could see that the arms were once the iridescent hue of energon, but their colour had faded long ago. Patches of rust covered his lower body, most of it standing out against the pale white abdomen, while occasional scars dotted his legs, ending in white hooves.
"Sorry?" I said.
"The war, on Prion."
"How did you know I was from Prion?"
"You don't know many people from around here. You have friends, of course, but they all have the same problem as you. You use a lot of effort in walking, obviously adapting to a stronger gravitational field. Thus, you're from another planet. What planet has recently had a mass evacuation? Prion."
"Can't we have been from another planet and arrived at the same time?"
"Coincidences are rare. The possibility of you being from Prion is greater." He paused. "You lost, didn't you?"
I looked away, my mind returning to Prion. "It's a war. Everyone loses."
He nodded. "That is true."
*****
A few lunar cycles passed and we became close, so when my landlord increased the already expensive rent, he invited me to live with him, having a spare room available.
I was quite surprised when it turned out that he lived in the tallest building in Kaon. We doctors don't earn much, you know, and that flat must have cost a fortune.
~~~~~
"Sorry to interrupt," Bombshell interjected. "But how do you know it was so expensive?"
"He lived really high up," the bot answered. "The two hundredth and twenty first floor, apartment B."
~~~~~
Anyway, he always had visitors, sometimes the police, even. I usually went into my room when they came, but one day, the police came in when I was getting ready for work.
