Runaway

Chapter Ten - It Only Gets Easier

Steeldust awoke to someone knocking on his door.

He sat up, looking around his room.

Oddly, he didn't remember going to bed.

Suddenly, memories of the orn and offcycle before hit him like a ton of bricks.

"I killed that mech..."

"Steeldust? Are ya awake yet?"

Frowning, Steeldust curled into a ball on his berth, wishing the memories away. But they wouldn't leave. Particularly the mech's faceplate as he'd slit his throat cables.

"Do I have to get Nitro to hack the door? Cause I will if ya don't come out," Taser continued impatiently.

Shifting in place, Steeldust winced as he moved his left servo. Furrowing his optic ridges, he lifted it to look at his oddly stinging wrist.

There was nothing wrong on his plating, it felt more like it was his protoform that hurt.

Sitting back up in confusion, Steeldust removed his servo plating. He didn't remember getting hurt on his wrist.

Although there was a foggy memory from last offcycle that taunted him.

After removing the plating covering his wrist, Steeldust stared for a klik.

He lightly traced the glyph engraved into his protoform.

"HEY! YOUNGLING!"

"Coming!" Steeldust replied, not looking away from the mark on his inner wrist. Grabbing the removed plating, he got up and went to open the door.

"Finally," Taser grumbled upon seeing him. "Mech, ya look like a wreck! Did ya not recharge last offcycle?"

Steeldust simply glared up at her. She'd had a hand in the events that transpired the offcycle before.

"What do you want?"

"I came to get ya. We're heading out and yer coming with us."

The femmeling paused, twitching her doorwings.

"Whatcha doing with yer servo plating?"

Steeldust glanced momentarily at his bare foreservo, then raised it so she could see the mark.

"What's this?"

Taser gave the glyph one look and then grinned. "Oh, so they did give it to ya last offcycle. That's yer member tattoo. Cool spot for it, that way ya can hide it or show it."

The speedster tilted his helm. "Member tattoo?"

"Yeah. All of us got one," Taser said with a nod. She pointed to her left shoulder. "Mine's here, see? But just on my shoulder plating, not my protoform like yers."

Steeldust glanced at where she was pointing. Indeed, a mark that matched his was on her shoulder.

He remembered now seeing one on Dagger's left shoulder too.

"Oh."

"Cool, huh?" Taser beckoned with a hand for him to follow as she began walking down the hall. "We'd better hurry up now. Or we'll get yelled at."

The speedster hurried after her, putting his servo plating back on as he went.

"What's it mean?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"The glyph. Does it mean anything?"

"Oh," Taser said over her shoulder. "It's just the glyph for the letter G. Ya know. G for Gauntlet. That's what we're called."