Predatory

A Party Invitation

I sat bolt upright, coolant dripping off of my back, spark struggling to slow down its beating. This was the fifth week in a row that I had been woken by a nightmare. I sighed, and slipped once more out of bed. 

The floor was cold, but I didn't feel it. Flamecharge's face still haunted me. Suddenly the shadows seemed to creep towards towards me with gnarled fingers. I could make out the shape of her frame in the darkness behind the ajar washroom door. Her flaming red eyes glaring at me, burning furiously, and her mouth opened to rasp, "Echosong..."

The walls closed in, and the room around me began to shrink, the shadows seemed to overtake the room. Snuffing out the bit of light provided by the lit candle in the corner. The datapad cases towered over me, and the floor seemed to sweep my feet out from under me in an attempt to swallow me whole. The darkness chuckled in a booming thunderous roar, and once more took over the room in its greedy black cloak.

I hit the floor, and the room went silent, except for a slight buzzing. The eyes were gone, the datapad cases weren't brooding over me, and the candle in the corner remained lit.

I sighed, and pulled my knees into my chest, sliding my back up against the wall. I shuttered my optics, and let the few tears left over the years slide down my face silently. I slid my servo up to my chest and carefully removed the Decepticon symbol that hung there. I stared at it emptily, normally a Decepticon was supposed to feel a bond with it. A scrap of their spark chamber had been melted into it after all. But I never had, as this wasn't mine. It was never supposed to be mine.

The symbol.

The faction.

The name.

And here I was, a broken femme with a borrowed name and a borrowed symbol, running with the D.J.D. The whole situation was rather laughable when looked at from a distance. 

To the general public, they were monsters. To the Decepticon High command, they were a force to be reckoned with. And to each other, they were closer than family. No matter what Tarn or Vos tried, I didn't belong, as Helex continued to subtly remind me. They were the D.J.D, and I was just an intruder upon their relationship. The idea of being able to completely trust an entire group of people to always have your back, to always come back for you, was one of the most beautiful things I had ever been able to witness...but I wasn't a part. I never had been, probably never would be.

Flamecharge and I were friendly, and we looked after one another, but we weren't trusting. We both knew that the other could turn on us at the last moment. We were close for survival's sake, not because we actually liked the other person. I hadn't ever been close to anyone. Not since Lightning and Strike had died, though I honestly couldn't think of a time when we were so jovial and trusting. We got along, we laughed, we counted on each other, but it was never...assumed. We never automatically knew that the others would save us or rush to our aid. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. 

In the D.J.D. that was totally different. There was no wishy-washy maybe I'll save you maybe I won't scrap. You knew that you were looking out for your team. End of story. Personally, I would be terrified to see what would happen to the first idiot who even tried to touch Kaon. Kaon was the youngest, by a lot. Vos might be smaller, but he was a lot older. Kaon was so young that Tarn had met him before he knew how to talk, don't worry that didn't last long. Kaon had grown up with Tarn and Helex, and they still would sometimes refer to him as "little Kaon" much to his humiliation and embarrassment. I had no doubts that the team would rip any enemy to shreds who so much as scratched his paint. 

I sighed, and ran my digits over the grooves of the symbol in my servos. I could still see her face as she thrust the symbol into my chest with servos bound as she reached through the bars of the holding cell in the street. Her last request, to take her place as a Decepticon. 

And then she lost her head. 

I slid the symbol back to where it was supposed to belong on my chest, and dried the tears left on my face. There was to be no more of that. Crying is for the weak, the strong dust off their shoulders and carry on. 

_____________________________________________________

Later, after finding Tarn in his usual spot at the helm of the ship, the rest of the team joined us, excluding Kaon who refused to wake up before the space equivalent of midday. 

Tarn had the special datapad on his lap, and had been scrolling through it for some time now. He had explained the contents of it to me earlier, and was now explaining to everyone else. 

The datapad, contained the particulars of several strange transactions linked to Aphelion's account, most were extremely large sums of money or ship fuel, sent to a third party deal-broker. The recipient remained anonymous, while not at all unusual in business, it wasn't good news when cloning plants could be concerned. 

The other parts of the datapad, was the location of, detailing, and particulars of a large ball being held at one of his numerous mansions. One that had a very interesting guest list apparently, Tarn hadn't named names until now, in front of the team. 

As he listed off name after name, my jaw began to drop, and Helex scowled, his unusually thick brows furrowing more and more as every name was read.

Jadestep, an heiress to a large sum, and a very profitable spark mine. An old Elitist, she was a regular at our shows.

Opalescence, an extremely wealthy fuel cartel. Also an Elitist.

Golden-Sun, a cloning factory owner, who also operated a large portion of the slave trade in the golden ages. Another Elitist.

Each name had one thing in common. All Elitists who were in the good books of the Functionists. All had been presumed dead. This was not good news at all. 

Helex and I exchanged glances, and for the first time in ever, understanding passed between us. And we both made a silent agreement, both of us were going to die before we let Functionism return to our planet. And for the first time since I had met the team, I finally understood where this trust came from. It wasn't that they were special people that possessed this special power to love each other. It was a fierce loyalty, and an absolute and utter selflessness that made you put the others in your team first at all times. A matter of setting everyone else in the team over your own survival, over your own life. 

And I finally understood.

No one spoke for a long time.

"Sounds like we have a party to crash," Helex said at length.

And we were all in agreement.

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WHAT IS THIS? AN EARLY CHAPTER? NOOOooooOOO WaAAAYYYYyyy!!!  Yeah, I got around to writing this, and realized how much I need to get on the ball of progressing this alien thing called plot. I apologize for the stupid amount of filler chapters *cough* the entire first thirty*cough cough* But I finally figured out the direction this story is going to take! So hang in there! It'll get better I promise! Also, I have a crap ton of editing Imma have to do when I finish this, like, how did you guys stay reading?? xD I appreciate ya'll sticking around though. I never thought I would actually show Dread to the world. I'm trying to balance her character to giver enough flaws without being irritating and it's a hard line. Especially since I've never published anything at all before. So thanks so much for reading!! I seriously love reading you're guys' comments, they really brighten up my day, which I need right now. Things are....a bit hard for me right now. So thank you all! 

Have a great day! Keep it Classy! Make a Difference! And God Bless!

******CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK! Do something really nice for somebody this week. Maybe open a door, take a cart back to a cart corral, help someone load up groceries, pay a stranger a nice compliment. Doesn't have to be big, just something to spread a little happiness around. ;) Give someone a little sunshine this week! It'll make ya feel good. And I wanna hear about it!*********

Anyway, bedtime!

~swordsandroses