A Human Friend (Sequel to A Pet Squishy)

Spark-Broke with Optics Open

Outside the city many hours later...

Thundercracker's steps were so heavy, so slow. He didn't even notice the panic he instilled by trudging through the city streets; even when local authorities pelted his metal hide with bullets. The stinging sensations did nothing to penetrate the cloud of despair hanging over the Seeker's helmet. He launched from the ground, feeling the pained protest of his new wings. Like an astronaut bouncing on the moon, Thundercracker used his thrusters to jump from building to building until at last he was out of the city and he arrived at the place he now sought.

The sun was warm, shining its friendly light upon the waving grass field. A slight breeze caressed the long green strands sending it swaying in rhythmic waves. It was hypnotic, almost beautiful in its unity; as if ground and sky were dancing yet never touching. But it was all lost to the blue Seeker whom sat as a solid unmoving mountain amid the dance.

Thundercracker had returned to the special field he and Lana had met in so many times after they had parted ways as pet and master. He wasn't even sure why he had done so, but upon his arrival he merely sat down. Though his red optics were open, they did not see anything; only the thoughts in his head. How many times had he sat in this exact spot waiting for Lana's car to pull up during the wee hours of the morning? And when she arrived they would just talk about nothing really. As rare as the meetings were, Thundercracker always looked forward to them. It was even in this place that Lana showed him her dancing and where he would launch into the sky to allow her the privilege of flight. He looked up slightly the ghostly memory of her dance almost playing out in the grass. The Seeker lowered his head again, not wishing to even replay such memories.

They were only those now, memories. And he would never make more with her. She was gone; slain because of his presence. He gripped the top of his helmet with guilt. Had he only chosen to get his wings repaired elsewhere, someplace so far from Lana's home that there was no chance of her being harmed, she might be in the field with him now. But his selfish refusal to remain grounded had blinded him to those considerations. Flight, the sky, his wings...they had been everything to him; the only things that brought him solace in an otherwise contradicted existence. How many times had he taken to the skies after a particularly messy, inglorious battle if only to escape the roiling guilt in his processor? How many times had he abandoned those he and the Decepticons had slain on the ground for the clean, untainted sky above? Did he ever really forget his sins in its blue depths? No...he never really forgot...but he pretended flight was the almighty cleanser.

Now, he couldn't even try to pretend a flight would erase away his guilt. It held him to the ground like a stone, crushing him within. How could it even come to this point? How had his mind been changed so drastically? For most of his life Thundercracker had scorned the flightless; humans being no exception. He was a ruthless, battle-hardened, Decepticon Seeker—at least that's what he had always convinced himself he was. That is until the reality of his station began to gnaw away at him; the reality that no one would care if this ruthless, battle-hardened Seeker ever returned from battle. All the "good" he had done for the Decepticon cause would be forgotten, lost. He would be nothing but a data file stored in some historical analog. He thought perhaps a pet would ease the burden of that reality—perhaps give him a brief sense of what he sought. And for a time, Lana brought him solace in that role—that is until she became more than just a pet. Somehow she had slipped past his prejudice and nestled into that weak, doubting crevice he'd always had in the back of his Spark; the part he hid and hated so much. He denied the emotional infiltration of course, dismissing it as weakness for his pet. Even when the obvious had stared him in the face for so long he denied its presence, casting it aside as he had cast so many other feelings. But now with her gone even his brick wall pride could no longer keep out what he already knew.