Gone and never to return
With soft footsteps, a bright blue cube of energy was placed on the work console. Holding another energy cube in his hand, he sat at the console, gnawing on it.
"I got you some energy bars, remember to eat them."
Shockwave was engrossed in his experimental data. On the table beside him, various sophisticated experimental instruments and colorful bottles and jars were neatly arranged in categories, with empty and half-full containers labeled with different tags.
“My energy level is not yet at the warning level, and now is not the time to replenish my energy. Your actions are meaningless. Steel Fork, your recent behavior has become increasingly illogical. Get off the console.”
With the wings behind her drooping, Steel Fork snorted coldly, jumped off the edge of the control panel, and stood on the ground. After finishing the energy block in her hand, she reached for the energy block that had generated the shockwave.
"If you don't eat it, I will."
"Your energy level is also below the warning line, so you do not need to replenish your energy."
Shockwave finally raised his head, and the gaze of the huge red optical lens fell on the steel fork.
"I did not grant you access to the energy storage room, so how did you get in?"
“I’ve removed the alarm. As for the door to the energy storage room—” Steel Fork pointed to his head sculpture and grinned, “You personally taught me how to break the access control. The storage device records everything clearly.”
Shockwave gave a disapproving look, as if the eyebrow above his single eye had furrowed further. He did not accept Steel Fork's actions; Steel Fork was becoming increasingly disobedient to him.
"You should not enter the energy storage room."
"My energy level has dropped!"
The two sparks pulsed rapidly within their respective bodies, and the emotion that could be called "anger" was transmitted between them through a two-way connection.
"Follow orders!"
"I won't listen!"
Steel Fork picked up the energy cube she had originally given to Shockwave, and angrily bit off a piece of energy fragment. Her energy level had just been replenished, but she wanted to do it anyway. She hugged the blue cube even tighter; now this energy was hers!
"You are my assistant. Obeying orders is your duty."
“You’ve made me a little disgusted with ‘duty’ and ‘assistant’.”
Shockwave sensed that his antenna was in danger. He instinctively tilted the antenna next to the head sculpt backward. He maintained his usual rationality and repeated, "Go and complete your mission."
"I won't listen! I won't listen!" Perhaps it was the influence of the link, or perhaps it was her own emotions, but a pang of sadness welled up inside Steel Fork. "If Shockwave dares to log me off right now, I'll pull out his embers first," Steel Fork told herself, and she meant it!
“You should…” The red light from the massive optical mirror flashed, and he suddenly realized how utterly foolish their actions were, “There’s no point in continuing to argue…”
His processor was spinning at high speed; he was thinking, but surging emotional signals from the Spark and the Link were interfering with his thoughts. Since Cybertronians were already in the form of mechanical life forms, why didn't they simply discard their emotions at birth? Wouldn't they be more efficient as completely rational machines?
As a scientist who prioritizes logic, Shockwave did not remove his emotional module, perhaps because he always believed that emotions were not entirely useless. Just like now, the impact of emotional signals has given rise to an inspiration.
“We are now spark couples. Partners need to be responsible for each other, and there are obligations between partners to understand, support and help each other.”
"What?" The topic jumped so abruptly that Steel Fork was momentarily stunned. What should she say? What should she do? Why did she suddenly bring up the topic of Fire Seed Partners?
"You voluntarily merge with me through the Fire Seed, forming a link. Logically, you voluntarily become Fire Seed partners with me. Correspondingly, you voluntarily obey requests from your partner. You can regard my previous commands as requests, and you are obligated to carry out your partner's requests."
"But, but..." The steel fork jammed for a moment, and the activity in the brain module seemed to have completely stopped. She wanted to refute it, but the shockwave seemed to be telling the truth, after all, she had pried open the spark chamber first... The emotions were completely transmitted to the other end through the link.
Shockwave pressed his advantage, his words having an effect. He approached Steel Fork, his remaining servo resting on the visor of the machine, raising its head and tilting the body forward. Steel Fork, puzzled by Shockwave's actions, sat quietly on the edge of the experimental table, clutching the chipped energy cube, her upper body leaning forward with the force of the servo on her visor.
The camera-like head sculpt approached the faceplate of the machine in front of it, gently touching the soft metal that belonged to the Cybertronian's mouth.
Once touched, it leaves.
The one-eyed scientist's only optical image dimmed for a few milliseconds as if he were making a closing eye gesture, then lit up again when the head sculpt left the mask.
"What did you just do?" It took Steel Fork several minutes to finally react. She held the energy cube in one hand and instinctively covered her mouth with the other. The gentle touch was like a feather brushing against a spark, ticklish, or like a sea breeze stirring waves. Steel Fork felt a strange, inexplicable emotion surging within her. This feeling was extremely strange! She immediately jumped off the experimental table, flew far away from Shockwave, frowned, and stared at Shockwave warily, her wings behind her soaring high, almost touching it.
"This is a 'kiss,' and your reaction doesn't make sense." Shockwave almost doubted whether his CPU was working properly. The Steel Fork's reaction was so strong; would "playing the emotional card" really work?
But the flickering flames don't lie.
The shockwave could feel the steel fork being shy.
Since going online, Steel Fork, who has been alone, is still unable to properly identify her own emotions, let alone deal with them correctly. The time spent with Shockwave obviously did not help her much.
The attack, which was poised to be launched, was rendered useless by the shockwave's lack of any offensive behavior. The tense body relaxed slightly, but the energy fluid began to heat up in the pipes.
It was just a kiss, why did she dodge it?
Steel Fork suddenly realized she had flown too far. She stood in front of Shockwave again, straightened her body, and looked directly at the huge red optical mirror with a determined gaze.
You like kissing.
"not at all!"
"Your spark conveys your emotions to me."
"Is that 'liking'?" Steel Fork was skeptical. Her sparks were jumping rapidly, and the exhaust fan was spinning at high speed with a whooshing sound. It wasn't like this when she liked energy cubes! This was so different from what she usually understood as "liking". Her body was not damaged, but abnormal reactions were happening. All of this was too strange!
Steel Fork's reaction was unexpected, but the plan could still proceed. Shockwave decided to reveal his true purpose: "I think, as my partner, you can help me continue your work? Your energy has just been replenished."
Ultimately, they still wanted her to keep working! Steel Fork visibly and quickly grew angry, her wings on her back billowing high, making her look like an angry bird. She remained angry for a few minutes under Shockwave's gaze, then turned and walked towards the door.
Where are you going?
Steel Fork gritted his teeth and said, "Go and get my job done!"
She still hates giving orders.
A bright blue cube with a missing piece flew into the air and landed on the console desktop.
"I would never steal my partner's energy to eat, nor would I restrict where my partner goes."
After saying that, she ran away.
...
A hole suddenly appeared in a flat area covered with ruins.
Shockwave wanted to investigate further, but the drone used for the investigation stopped sending messages once it went deep into the area. Several large mouths full of sharp teeth indicated the presence of the Iron-Eating Worms.
The cave is dangerous; he needs a pitchfork.
But no matter what messages he sent from inside the game or where he went, it was as if Steel Fork was deliberately avoiding him; he never appeared.
The flames of the tinder are turning an angry red.
—This is the location information; I want to explore this opening. I need your help.
—You think you can just help me like that?
Steel Fork used her powers to float on the ceiling, a blind spot for both the base's surveillance and Shockwave's vision—she had only recently discovered that the shape of Shockwave's head sculpture seemed to limit his range of movement, preventing him from seeing above her.
"The Firelink constantly shows me your location, and your avoidance behavior is illogical."
Steel Fork sends a message from inside:
—Then come and catch me.
"Your approach is just wasting our time."
—If you run into me, I'll help you, okay?
The burning embers proclaimed their anger through the link, while the steel fork covered its mouth and chuckled secretly against the ceiling. This pleasure was transmitted to another ember, but it acted like accelerant, making the flames of anger burn even more fiercely.
A sudden change occurred.
Without any warning, a rumbling sound, as if the sky were falling and the earth were splitting, came, the floor shook, and the walls trembled as if in fear, shedding a lot of dust.
"What's going on?" With an emergency, Steel Fork lost all interest in playing hide-and-seek. She grabbed Shockwave and flew to the base's control room.
"I'm going to activate defensive mode," Shockwave said.
“I’m going outside to take a look.” A little…scared? But not her. Under Shockwave’s seemingly calm gaze, Steel Fork added, “Don’t worry, I secretly ate some more energy cubes, hehe!”
As they flew out of the base, a massive blue-green vortex appeared in the dim sky, and a dark purple crystal hurtled towards the ground like a meteor. Centered on the crystal, a network of cracks rapidly spread, emanating an ominous purple light. The ground split open, and countless corpses rose from the earth.
Dark super-energy entities spread across the land, and countless corpses appeared out of nowhere. Purple mycelial energy entities crawled between their bearings, broken hydraulic pipes writhed like manipulated tentacles, their bodies were covered with broken parts corroded beyond recognition by time, and their exposed rusted mechanical skeletons looked like they were about to collapse at any moment.
One by one, the corpses floated into the sky like dust, slowly converging. The direction they were heading was a huge vortex, and the superpower told Steel Fork that it was an opened spacetime tunnel.
"What's going on? Shockwave, what's happening?" Steel Fork was completely shocked by the scene before him. Perhaps the knowledgeable Shockwave would know something.
"I don't know. A spacetime vortex of that scale can only be opened by a Space Bridge, but only the Decepticons possess Space Bridges. Grimfork, can you fly over there and take a look?"
“These... these strange things are everywhere here…” Steel Fork said as it flew toward the space bridge.
As they drew closer, a figure loomed indistinct. The spatial tunnel distorted the light, obscuring the figure, but the distinctive iron head was enough for Shockwave, who was watching the live feed from the steel fork, to recognize it.
"He is Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons."
The energy flowed backward, accompanied by countless explosions and sparks, and the space tunnel rapidly contracted.
"Protect him!"
"What?"
The steel fork paused in the center of the vortex, watching as a machine reached out a hand in her direction...
"Program started".
"etc!"
“5”
“4”
The spark leaped rapidly, and the massive explosion drowned out the steel fork's shout: "I hate you!"
Just before the space bridge exploded and the time tunnel completely closed, a machine, moving faster than an arrow or a bullet, crossed the space bridge and grabbed the silver machine with the metal barrel head on the other side.
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