Predatory

Mirror Mirror

I stumbled into our room and leaned against the door. I shut my optics. Today, had been impossibly long from start to finish. And Tarn was definitely right about the recharge thing. I wasn't even going to try and process everything that had happened. 

I sighed and staggered into the washroom. My helm hurt and the energon from lunch hadn't worn off well. I looked in the mirror. My optics meeting a face plate that belonged to me, however unimpressed as I may be with it. The face had angular, thin optics. Thin lip plates that seemed set permanently into a line. And a  sharply defined olfactory sensor that jutted out from underneath my brow, nothing special there. The only thing even remotely interesting about my face, was that unlike everyone else's silver, it was black as cinders. This made my red optics stand out most as the only color on my face other than black. 

Red optics because I was a Decepticon. 

Liar  said a little voice. I frowned, but knew deep down, that little voice was right. I tentatively reached my servo up to my optical sensors, and slipped my digits underneath the red lens, the false red lens that is. I slipped it off, to reveal the deep copper colored optic underneath. I stared at it in the mirror, the only thing that remained from the life I had left behind. The optics of a different femme. I had changed everything else, from my paint to my alt mode. I would never truly be able to get rid of my copper optics, they were an unusual color due to my genes, so while I could cover them up, they wouldn't change with my faction like everyone else. I sighed, and placed the lens back where it belonged. This was Dreadflight. A loyal Decepticon soldier, who is internally freaking out because she has horrible social skills. Not her... the femme who I used to be. I had left that femme in a burning opera house in a city long forgotten where her songs could barely be heard over the screams and roaring flames.

 I shrugged my bag off my shoulder and fished around for my datapad. I searched though my extensive library of music, both Cybertronian and Human. I finally settled on my playlist of operas and musicals again. Perhaps I hadn't left my past entirely behind. I began scrubbing my black and silver armor off, Right now nothing sounded better than cleaning up and jumping into my berth. But I had been told to drink more energon, and orders were orders. 

I had just finished one leg and was working on the other when Dawnstar arrived. She was chatting animatedly with someone outside before waving at them and closing the door. She was grinning from audio receptor to audio receptor, and looking stunning as always. She caught sight of me in the washroom and broke into an even bigger smile. 

"Dread-Dread! You survived! I can't believe it!" She ran and grabbed my shoulders. "Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" She examined me with scrutinous optics. "Well you aren't injured, yet. So that's a start." She let me go and sat down on a chair beside me. She sighed happily. "Dreadie you wouldn't believe how wonderful today has been! I got assigned to a weird medic at first, but then Knockout got assigned to me instead! And I got to spend the whole day on the second to most classified floor, helping clean the lab while chatting with him and checking out his hot bod all day!" Dawnstar was too excited to calm down and speak slowly, and I knew I wouldn't get a word in edgewise. I smiled too, I liked Dawnstar because she never shut up. It meant that I didn't have to be awkward and say anything.

 It was several mega-ticks before she finally stopped for a breath. We had both gotten cleaned up and were now sitting on our berths. She reached into a bag by her berth and pulled out an all too familiar datapad. She started scrolling through it. 

"Oh! They finally released the new edition! Ahh! I hope Starscream's in it!" She giggled and began reading. I shook my helm. She was reading the Femme Edit. Some Decepticon femme had decided to make it so that any lonely and desperate femme would always be up to date on who the "hottest" Decepticon mechs were. Because reasons? I didn't understand at all, especially since Starscream, Knockout and Overlord always found their way to the top. The articles weren't known to be excessively crude and often quite filthy. I had the misfortune to have at one point witnessed one picture before and it had scarred me for life. It had been a picture of Knockout but he was, um, scantily clad to say the least. I wanted to goage my optics out after that. I tried to ignore the giggles and squeals coming from the femme next to me as I worked on drinking my energon as I had been intructi-ordered. 

"Hey Dread-Dread!" Dawnstar piped up. 

"What?" I said uninterested and picking at one of my digits.

"Guess who's on the top ten list?" Dawnstar giggled.

"Dare I ask who?" I asked, not paying much attention.

 "Oh...Tarn. You know, that scary tall guy you have a crush on." She said casually, still reading her datapad.. 

"How nice for hi-WHAT????!!!" I screeched. Dawnstar was cackling madly. I glared at her. 

"Just what do you think that you are talking about?" I asked, trying to keep my tone even. 

"Tarn, your little obsession, leader of the DJD? Yeah, he's number five! Shocking right? Though I guess he does have the build.....mask is still in the way though.... Seriously, what do you see in that guy?" Downright wasn't paying attention to me, instead she was intently staring at her datapad, what she was seeing I didn't even want to know. 

"My WHAT?!" I couldn't really understand what was going on, I was far too hysterical, and I was not prepared to handle this situation.

Dawnstar sighed and looked at me sadly and shook her helm. "Your little obsession? Your crush? Honestly, you even talk about him in your recharge sometimes."

I blinked, then have her a death glare. "I don't know what you're talking about, but whatever it is, it needs to stop." 

"Darling, you talk about him all the time. You have a condition, and it's called a crush."

"I do not!"

"What about three days ago when you were going on and on about how interesting his voice is, that it can kill people? Or yesterday when you were bringing up his "double fusion canons" whatever kind of innuendo that's for? Or how amazing his leadership is? You brought that one up yesterday MORNING!" She turned to look at me, and raised a brow. I continued to glare.

"The voice thing was because I was curious how it worked, I guess I can give you that. The double fusion canon, however, was something we were learning about in our last lecture that day, NOT an innuendo. You'd know that if you ever bothered to pay attention. And his leadership in internal administration as well as that of the DJD is the reason why the Decepticon army stands together so strongly. Something we were learning about yesterday, if I do recall from the lecture we had with the captain! I honestly can't believe we are even having this conversation right now." I stared at her, dumbfounded and angry. She shook her helm and returned to her datapad. 

After a few minutes of tense silence she announced, "Well, I'm going to the bar. If you need me, too bad." Then she slid her datapad under her berth and left. I growled quietly. That femme frustrated me to no end. She gave me a helm ache, yes, but she was my only friend. So I put up with her for that reason alone really. I turned off the light and slipped into my berth, hoping tomorrow would be less weird than today, and hoping that everyone would be far less cryptic.

Hello my lovelies! Phew, pumping out chapters like this is hard stuff! Anyway, I hope you enjoy! I heard you wanted to see the combaticons! Well, you just might at some point 😉. If anyone has any other suggestions or comments, feel free to let me know! This is my first Wattpad book, so I'm still very new to this. I've always been the reader, not the writer. xD. the So what do you think about our little Dreadflight? What could her optics mean? And what's this about an opera house? 😮 Who knows? And does she have a crush on Tarn? Or is Dawnstar just reading into things? Well....maybe no one has a clear answer on that......yet. What do you think? Well.... transformers fan fiction calls. I will publish again tomorrow! Happy reading!