autobotscoutriella: A picture of an orange robot with her arm around a green robot's shoulders (lancer & greenlight)
autobotscoutriella ([personal profile] autobotscoutriella) wrote in [community profile] fandomweekly2021-02-22 08:48 pm
Entry tags:

[#084] A Predacon By Any Other Name (Transformers)

Theme Prompt: 084 - Dragons
Title: A Predacon By Any Other Name
Fandom: Transformers
Rating/Warnings: G / None
Bonus: No
Word Count: 915
Summary: Greenlight and Lancer ponder the implications of Predacons on other planets.


"That one's shaped like a Predacon, look."

Lancer glanced at her girlfriend, amusement flickering through her EM field. "You think every constellation looks like a Predacon."

"Well, they all do, don't they?" Greenlight stretched out to her full length, gazing up at the alien sky. The constellations here looked nothing like the ones back on Cybertron; these were different, distant stars, not the friendly space lights of home. "See, there's the wings, spread out on either side, and the teeth poking out from the head."

She didn't have to look over at Lancer to know that Lancer was squinting up at the sky, the way she did when trying to picture something she hadn't seen before. "Yeah, I guess I can see it. I don't know how you think of these things, though."

Greenlight smiled into the darkness. "I gotta dream about something out in space. It's too cold and dark. Predacons are bright and colorful and warm. Or at least, I think they'd be if they breathe fire, right?"

"Hmm." Lancer's field warmed with amusement again, and she draped an arm across Greenlight's shoulder. "Guess that explains why you're always stealing all the blankets and wrapping around me in the middle of the night."

"Hey, you can't blame me for getting cozy." Greenlight smiled and laid her head back against the alien ground. The grass was prickly, but not metallic like it would have been on Cybertron; had it been daytime, she knew it would have been the vivid, bright energon-blue they had seen from space before landing. It was a little unsettling, in daylight, but in the darkness, the only hint at its strange color was the way the air smelled. "What about you? What do you dream about in space?"

There was a long pause before Lancer answered. "Home, mostly. Ancient ruins on a hot summer day, with no wind and just the slightest bit of dust swirling around in the air." The second pause was even longer before she admitted wryly, "And sometimes we're looking for Predacon artifacts. Because you're a bad influence."

Greenlight giggled, even though the description of home made her spark twist with a renewed grief. "When we go home, that's what we'll specialize in. Pred artifacts at ancient settlement sites. We'll be the class all the first-year archaeometrists want to take."

"And we'll alternate classes so they never see us together, and both talk about our amazing sparkmates but never let on who it is, like those three math professors at the Iacon Academy. Remember them?"

"Do I ever. I was so confused until one of the TAs took pity on the class and clued us in." Greenlight sighed and shifted over until she could put her head on Lancer's shoulder. Lancer hummed and adjusted her arm until it was wrapped around Greenlight's back.

"What do you think this planet's history was like?" she finally asked, tone musing. "Think they had Predacons?"

"Any planet worth the name had Predacons," Greenlight said, with a confidence that she knew Lancer would recognize as entirely faked. "I guess it depends what happened to the inhabitants, though. Orbital scans didn't find any - "

Something touched her leg. Greenlight froze.

"Uh, Lance, did you poke me?"

"No, I didn't. Why?" Lancer halfway sat up, pulling Greenlight with her. "Did - "

Both of them froze as Lancer's chassis lights reflected in a pair of reptilian optics, set in a large, flat head with iridescent green scales. Behind the long, thin figure, shadows rose like a pair of semi-translucent wings, and a tail thrashed through the long grass in what might have been a threat display.

Both Cybertronians froze. Greenlight heard her own voice catch in her throat in a high-pitched squeak, and she could barely manage a comm message. ::Is that a -::

The lizard hopped all the way up onto Greenlight's leg, revealing itself to be only about six feet long, decidedly wingless, and lacking any of the claws or spines that had characterized its prehistoric Cybertronian counterpart. It chittered angrily at both of them, narrowed its golden optics, and bolted away into the night, leaving the two of them holding tight to each other's hands and staring after it.

Lancer let out a breathless, giddy laugh. "We're hopeless. Can you imagine if that had been a real Predacon?"

"We both would've been eaten alive, and we would've deserved it," Greenlight gasped, feeling giggles rise in her own chest now that any danger was long gone. "I'm so glad Elita and Chromia weren't here to see that. They would've fired us from the army on the spot."

Lancer got her laughter under control, checked her chronometer, and sobered immediately. "They still might. We got two standard hours of leave time, and it's almost up. Come on, let's get out of here before they send a search party and we're on cleaning duty for three weeks."

Greenlight reluctantly allowed her girlfriend to pull her upright, staring out across the grassy plain where the lizard had disappeared. "What do you think that was?"

"I don't know. Not sentient, I don't think, but definitely not friendly." Lancer shrugged. "I hope we didn't disturb them, but we'll be gone as soon as the ship is repaired. We'll probably never find out what they are."

"I guess not." Greenlight followed Lancer reluctantly back in the direction of the ship. "At least we know this planet definitely had Predacons. Lucky them."

"You have the strangest priorities."