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desdemonafictional · 3 years

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The Squire of Gothos

Here’s a little Lost Light Scene that may or may not grow into a longer fic, eventually, with megarung banter

Megatron was recharging. In his recharge flux, he was dreaming. In his dreams, the cart haulers were taking their loads up into the sunshine on an endless uphill tread, Megatron among them, his cargo space full of crackling brittle nucleon ore. The haulers were singing a working song as they went*. Up ahead the day was a yellow promise glimpsed dimly between the pillars of the mineshaft door, no closer now than it had been a chorus before.

The dream shattered abruptly at the sound of a klaxxon, and Megatron jolted upright on his berth slab. The hallway to the command center was empty of crewmates, and Megatron was unhappy to see that when he forced open the door to the bridge, the bridge was empty too.

Ah, except for one.

“Rung,” he greeted, letting the abused automatic door slide shut behind him on its own. The klaxxon fell silent behind it.

“Captain,” Rung said, sparing him the polite smile that few would have bothered with. He was ensconced at the surveillance station, tapping over and over again at the apparently unhelpful screen. “You’ve arrived just in time for the sitting around and waiting portion of the misadventure, I’m afraid.”

Megatron watched him with a faint smile. He’d pulled his glasses off in order to better squint at the screen display, prodigious eyebrows furrowed.

“I hope it’s not another one of your ex-colleagues,” Megatron said, settling himself smoothly into the captain’s chair at the center of the bridge. “We barely survived the last one.”

“I shouldn’t think there’s any therapist with the ability to dematerialize an entire bridgecrew off their ship in one go,” Rung said, “although who knows, the last one certainly caught me by surprise…”

“Do you know where they’ve been dematerialized to?” Megatron asked.

“Insofar as I can interpret these readings,” Rung said, with pronounced frustration, “it seems like they’re down on that little planetoid, with the absurd energy readings. Rodimus got a call off to me, a moment ago. Something about a scheme or a bet, I couldn’t quite follow. I’m given to understand he’s working on extricating the group.”

Megatron rested his jaw in the L of his thumb and forefinger. While there certainly wasn’t a lot of love lost between Megatron and the majority of the crew, he was captain, and a captain did have certain responsibilities. And anyway, Rodimus was down there. Someone should really save him before he had the chance to do something characteristically reckless.

“Perhaps we should fire on the planet,” Megatron said, considering a nexus of options. “We do have weapons, although not on a planetary scale. Still, enough damage to the surface might-”

“Absolutely not,” Rung said, whipping around from the station, glasses still pushed up on his helm. “Even setting aside the foolhardiness of bringing weapons into a conflict you know nothing about, our crewmates are down there. You don’t know what chain reaction you might ignite.”

Megatron frowned.

“I am the captain here,” he reminded Rung, “not you. In fact, as you have recently abdicated your post, you have no authority at all to tell me what I may or may not do aboard this ship.”

Rung looked at him with surprise. Then he set his expression smooth. “May I remind you then,” he said, “that you are in fact a co-captain, officially speaking, and your fellow co-captain in down there on that planet you’re thinking of launching a missile into.”

“Well I was only thinking of it,” Megatron said, dryly. “Besides, he’s gone, and I’m not.”

“He’s not dead, he’s just popped down to rendezvous with some alien intelligence,” Rung retorted. “And he’s still got the helm, so in point of order, if he wants that planet bombed, I’ll need to hear it from him.”

Megatron raised his brows. “Very stubborn aren’t you,” he said. “You could give Ultra Magnus a run for his credit, I dare say. I suppose it comes in handy to be able to talk circles around whatever daft idea your patients dream up.”

Rung flushed, very brightly blue-green, as if he found the suggestion objectionable, but then abruptly he sagged. He reached up and pulled his glasses back down over his handsome optics. “I don’t do that anymore,” he said, “I told you.”

“I can’t say I understand why,” Megatron replied, “you were doing as good of a job before Froid as you would be doing after him. Nothing material has changed. I find it… troubling, that you would turn your license over just to punish yourself.”

“That’s not why-” Rung started, and then he dug his fingers into the corners of his faceplate. “You’re only saying that because you don’t understand why someone would approach a therapist in the first place.”

Megatron struggled to find an appropriate retort. He didn’t, actually, understand the appeal. But it seemed to be important to Whirl, among others, and whatever kept Whirl out of his target sights must have some merit to it in his mind.

“I suppose it’s as good an opportunity as any to make… friends,” Megatron said, by way of graceful retreat. “I keep being told that it’s the central autobot experience. And here I had thought that was flashy acts of martyrdom.”

“Making friends is what got me into this state,” Rung muttered, turning away.

Megatron tracked him with keen optics. He did wonder what the circumstances had been, but he imagined they were mundane at the heart of it. But then Rung said nothing else, either way, and though Megatron wasn’t particularly curious about the politics of therapeutic licensure, it began to bother him that Rung didn’t say anything else, one way or the other.

He became very annoyed with himself for caring, and then very annoyed with himself for being annoyed with himself, because he was supposed to be taking an interest, and he quite liked Rung, as far as players went in this prison of nonsense that now served to characterize his life.

“Without patients, you’ll have to find some way of filling the hours,” Megatron remarked. “I’ve heard Swerve is hosting some absurd social event… rapid mating, was it….”

Rung made a noise like a lever getting stuck in a gear, and thumped himself on the chest until it gave way. “Speed dating,” he said, weakly.

Megatron frowned. That was not what Ravage had said. “Just as well if it doesn't involve orgies or any such,” he decided. “I had deeply begun to worry about the state of Autobot debauchery.”

In fact he had asked Ultra Magnus, very delicately, about the whole thing, and been somewhat aggrieved that all he’d gotten for his trouble was Ultra Magnus quoting subsection I.QE* and making hasty retreat to the safety of a sprinkler inspection.

“I doubt Swerve would agree to the cleanup,” Rung said, sounding a bit faint.

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* A liberal English translation of this song might go: “work all night on a drink of rum/daylight come and me wanna go home”

* “We Won’t Ask If You Don’t Tell”

#megarung #transformers

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adrift-in-writing · 7 years

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Going Beyond - Day Five (Respect)

Read on AO3

Falling | Pedant | Rattle | Saccharine

Author’s Note: This chapter is longer than I initially anticipated.

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Somehow and somewhere in one of the older Overwatch training facilities, Lena had wanted to prove herself to Amélie that she’d be more than capable of keeping up with a hypothetical kill-count if they ever worked together. That, and it was to see how much she improved over the years. She wanted to prove she really was as fast as people made her out to be, even if it meant trying to claim an empty reward that was no longer relevant.

Though the facility itself was rather in shambles in some parts, overall the Watchpoint was still functional to an extent. Fresh water still ran when needed, lights came on when it was needed, doors still opened, and the automated systems in general all worked properly. Even an outdated version of Athena was up and running, albeit it was not obeying the common commands it was assigned due to the command center being decommissioned.

They had wandered the halls for a bit, searching for a shooting range of sorts. Naturally, every single Watchpoint was interconnected globally; if one person participated within the training sessions, it’s likely they could have encountered their friend on a completely different side of the planet and battle them should they desire.

“How much further are we going?” Amélie had asked, for she was quite tired with having to walk long distances. They were getting side-tracked by all the nostalgia from Lena’s own whims.

To calm her, the smaller Brit assured her they weren’t too far. “I just gotta take a look at one other thing, then we’ll go straight there!”

She knew that dilly dallying wouldn’t do them much, so Lena had picked up the pace by blinking to her final destination: her old room. It was out of the sake of revisiting a small memory of course, but much of her belongings were still there. After all, Overwatch was not given the opportunity to pack up and go easily.

A picture frame of when she was merely 15 years old still stood on the lonesome side-table, and a now deactivated accelerator recharge station sat over in the corner.

Through these empty halls, Lena had felt like they were visiting her home away from home. For Amélie, it felt a little worrisome that they were here alone. It concerned her that this place was allowed to stand. What if potential thieves or looters came in?

Lena returned after a few minutes, carrying with her a small stack of photos. She placed it within her satchel bag that Amélie agreed to carry along, and cautiously stowed the photos away.

After some while of searching - and a bit of playful behavior by Tracer along the way - they had found the training facility. In stark contrast to the sleek and clean hallways, the facility was darker, and dust had settled and encrusted some bits of the terminals.

Because Lena had known Overwatch and how things operated in these terminals, the sniper proceeded into the course first. With a push of a few buttons, the young girl kicked in one of Athena’s old programmings so that she could join Amélie.

From that point on, they had to be identified as Widowmaker and Tracer only, to simulate and immerse themselves if the situation was ever real. What was once a dark room within the training course now became something...else.

Blending in a mixture of battlefield manipulation, room expansion, and overall simulated reality, the training grounds now became an entirely different world.

It wasn’t just the room that changed, for Tracer was now wearing standard issue Overwatch attire. Widowmaker was due a cosmetic change, but the program failed to register Amélie as a member. A practical shooting range was deployed, and a large holo-board filled with scores from international agents unveiled itself.

At the top sitting in the #1 spot was Captain Ana Amari, followed by McCree in a few extra points or so, Strike Commander Morrison in third position, Gabriel Reyes in fourth, Genji in fifth, and none other than Tracer in sixth position. Several other members not familiar with Lena were beneath her, but she didn’t bother with them.

The two looked at each other, and Tracer gave a big smile to Widowmaker, who in return had a rather blank stare. “I want you to give it your best, yeah?”

“Oui (Yes). Expect nothing less.”

Tilting her head, the young girl chuckled and nodded. “Try and beat me.”

With a nod, Widowmaker affirmed it. “Give it your all, ma amour (my love). I will do the same.”

Before she knew it, Lena blinked right into her personal space. She didn’t flinch, but she what she was not expecting was a quick little peck on her cold lips.

“Kiss of good luck. You’ll need it if you wanna beat me then!” Once more, Lena had proclaimed it while snickering. “G’luck, luv~!”

Scoffing, Widowmaker turned her attention to what was now in front of her: a countdown to when the practice would begin. In approximately 30 seconds, holographic projections - produced by hardlight technology - would continuously spawn non-lethal robotic target dummies for them to take down.

Amélie took a long and deep breath, now scanning the scoreboard. She promised to end up in first place, but even then she could simply beat Tracer. By then, Lena had taken her position and stretched her legs, bouncing up and down to warm herself up.

Pulsefire pistols at the ready, the young Brit was determined, and even the aura of her giddiness was remarkably visible. Past this point, she had to treat Amélie more like a teammate than a significant other, and vice versa.

“5...4...3...2...1...” The timer ticked while Athena counted down the numbers. “Begin.”

The countdown now changed to a timer set for a mere 5 minutes, and the score showed 0 to 0 for both.

A swarm of mindless bots appeared in a flash. As if by instinct, Lena dashed around and began firing while Amélie scoped in, wasting no time on aiming more than a second.

Every target Tracer was going after was immediately struck down by Widowmaker’s bullet. One by one, they cracked and disappeared into the void of programs only to respawn at a later point. Though it would not be long before the young adventurer would catch up as she kicked it into high gear. For every one move Widowmaker made, Tracer had to make two.

Like a ballad of beautiful violence, gunshots, distinct swishes, and the occasional explosion filled the air. Amélie kept her calm, simply planting bullets into the robotic heads and moving onwards to the next target. If it was a group, she would deploy one of her venom mines and quickly finish them off with her Widow’s Kiss assault mode.

The scoreboard showed that the sniper was now in a 20-kill lead - or roughly 200 points - but Tracer was closing the gap. Every dash equated a few squeezes of her pistols. Holograms of those robots ended up disappearing as quick as they appeared, and it really looked like the young girl would get the lead. The first pulse bomb was thrown out, and it eliminated a grouped up crowd of five bots. There seemed to be no sign of exhaustion coming from Lena, but even Amélie knew she was pushing herself.

Like a light show, the arena became something along the lines of blue streaks blinking all around the battle. Though her accuracy was of no concern, it was her reaction times that mattered more in the moment. Widowmaker would fire, but she would end up missing because in the split second alone, Lena had already confirmed her kill. Suddenly, the gap became closer and closer.

Widowmaker simply could not keep up at this rate. She moved strategically around the arena, but never moved in comparison to Tracer. but just as Lena was behind by two simple kills, her accelerator short-circuited. Next thing she knew, Lena stumbled and fell to the ground, combat rolling to ensure she wouldn’t lose momentum.

“Agh! Dammit!” Lena had cursed herself in the moment, but she kept her determination high and moved onward.

Without her accelerator, Lena was in a bit of a snag. She wasn’t nearly as fast, and Widowmaker saw it as an advantage on her end. It was then she had grappled upwards in the air just to show off. One bullet made its mark, and another headshot came to pass all while she was in the air.

Two minutes passed in the time they had already spent in the training room. A score of 120 to 116 in Amélie’s favor seemed to be a new record at this point in time, beating out Ana’s old record of 112 in two minutes.

There was no banter between them, for they were too focused on trying to constantly one-up each other.

Things escalated from here on out. More bots showed up in increasingly larger volumes, and it became a lot more harder for Widowmaker to eliminate them all without having to leave some behind. Lena’s accelerator came back up and allowed her to move as she once did, but it would repeatedly sputter and fail every few seconds.

Perhaps that was because of the overexhaustion of the functionalities, but if push had come to shove even if this was just a friendly competition, Tracer would do it. After all, the room still kept her anchored in time in case of critical malfunctions. There was no holding back - like Tracer had promised initially to Widowmaker.

Those two more minutes passed by increasingly quicker than anticipated, and now the final minute to win the match was here.

Rather than continue on with an onslaught of bots, there were only a maximum of five being presented every few seconds. The scoreboard now was 353 to 331, a massive 22 point lead for Widowmaker. Lena had gained an upper hand for the second minute leading in with 265 to 247, but her accelerator kept failing at each turn. Thus, her lead was lost.

One minute became thirty seconds. By these final moments, Lena and Amélie were increasingly exhausted from overextending their strength. They breathed heavily, and it was harder to hold their weapons the more they continued.

The sniper was exhausted, that much was true, but she didn’t nearly exert as much power as the young girl before her. Truth be told, she was very impressed that a person with such a small stature had that much energy to keep up. Perhaps...?

For the final set, only three bots showed at one point, but they were in rapid succession. Though it was seemingly guaranteed for the sniper to win, it was nevertheless Lena would give all that she had in swiftly eliminating those three bots.

As soon as the first group was digitally reconstructed by the hardlight tech, Tracer madly dashed and eliminated them in quick succession, giving little to no time for Widowmaker to react. Upon those bots falling, the next set arrived, and so did the fifth pulse bomb from Lena.

But she was getting a little bit careless. Tracer would occasionally just go on ahead to the next stack of mindless targets while she left one alone, and that would be one Amélie would pick off, but the lead Amélie once held was now just two points away from being lost. There were about ten more seconds left on the board, and the scores were now 359 to 358.

Widowmaker took aim at the next group of three, making only one kill while Tracer took home two. Their scores were now tied up, and it seemed like Lena would be able to take it...until her accelerator crashed once again. She groaned audibly to the point where it almost seemed like she was about to swear.

The very last training target appeared right in the middle of the field. Lena took notice of it and swallowed hard, but she wouldn’t let Amélie take it. At the range she was in, there’d be no way she could land a hit. It was right in the sniper’s sights, and she was scoped in for the final point.

But she didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, she watched as her love was running furiously at it while spraying her pulsefire pistols at it. There was a smile - and a genuine one - when Tracer managed to break the tie with 360 to 361.

Practice was over. Widowmaker had lost on purpose, but she didn’t seem to care. More or less, she did it so Tracer wouldn’t be so bitter over it. After the simulations ended and the arena had reverted back to a simple black room, Lena fell to her knees, taking off her goggles and chuckling at her victory. Her accelerator chugged along, turning itself on again. The blue glow on it had been much paler and less radiant, and overall the juice was nearly depleted.

“I win!” The young Brit could be heard speaking weakly. Her breathing was a bit shallow from running and overexerting herself, but it was all worth it.

Amélie’s visor moved itself out of her eyes, and she casually sat down with Lena. “So you did,” She smiled and had a warm smile on her lips. “Outstanding, chérie (sweetheart/dear).”

With a breath of relief, Lena eased her muscles and lurched forwards. Her body had flopped in the direction of Amélie, and the woman responded by holding onto her.

“I did good, didn’t I?” Her voice had muffled off of the catsuit she was buried in.

Rest assured, the woman had nodded her head in agreement and gave Lena one tender kiss on her forehead. “Only because you pushed yourself harder than I did.”

Lena glanced upwards and blinked a few times. “...Whatcha mean?”

The sniper’s warm smile became something more of a comforting one, and she cocked her head to the side. “When we tied, I had all the opportunities to fire. But, I didn’t. The reward for me was something...better.”

For a moment, Lena spent some time registering the thought before swallowing and snickering. “Your love for me overrode your pride, then?”

Correct she was, and Amélie nodded once. “And in that moment, I saw not a sweet, foolish girl...”

The woman leaned into Lena’s left ear and softly spoke into it. “You are now, to me, a sweet girl.” Her head moved back, so now they were facing each other. “No longer foolish. No longer...annoying.”

In a flash, Lena lurched forward some more so now she had made Amélie fall on the floor. She started smooching the cheeks of the cold woman rather ecstatically, and Amélie in return laughed - her first actual laugh that felt quite nice to her. The woman’s hair became displaced, strands moved out of their proper position and drooped over Amélie’s temple.

“That’s the best compliment I’ve ever gotten from ya, luv!”

After her barrage of kisses swiftly ended, Lena got off of Amélie and went back to sitting down. “Best day of my life hands down!”

Amélie moved her locks of hair out of her face for the time being and stood up. “I would very much like to get out of this place,” she said. “Not very comfortable. That, and I’m a bit thirsty.”

Come to think of it, even Lena was weary of this training facility now. She scanned the scoreboard, now with her name moving from 6th position to the newly 2nd place - and Amélie being in 3rd - she stood up and happily agreed.

“Could crash in my bunker if ya want?” Her hand hovered over her accelerator, and immediately her watch indicated the accelerator was running on less than 6.4% life. “I need to at any rate.”

Nodding, Amélie picked up her gun and the satchel from earlier, slinging the latter over her shoulders. “Is there, by any chance, food as well?”

Grinning, Lena blinked forward to the exit as the doors opened up. “I’m sure we could find some nutritious stuff or somethin’ ‘round here. All the natural ingredients are probably way past expiration.”

Together, the two walked out of the training facility, keeping close to each other. From that point on, Amélie escorted Lena to her room and went by herself to search for rations, for she had more energy to do so. They wouldn’t leave the facility until later...

Much, much later.

#Widowtracer Week #Widowtracer #Widowmaker #Tracer #Overwatch #Overwatch fanfic #Lena Oxton #Amelie Lacroix #Character: Tracer #Character: Widowmaker

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