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Characters:Botanica, Stardrive Location: Stora Sjöfallet National Park, Sweden Content Warnings: Excessively nerdy nerds Plot Summary: A tale of two techno-organics.
Botanica couldn't see the point of having an alt-mode like hers in an environment like this, save for of course the obvious threat of stellar culture shock for the humans if they saw her. She'd practically been given a new lease on life after leaving her island (and garden) for the first time in over sixty years. Her previous alt-mode wasn't capable of locomotion or movement of any kind, given that it was a plant, and flying over the entire pacific ocean was both a waste of time and resources. But, with the use of the Autobots' spacebridge technology, everything was now possible.
Windshear had taken five, and had resigned himself to sleeping while his partner practically frolicked through the wilderness, taking samples of the land's ecosystem for further analysis. While many of her students had quickly turned their focus to more grand subjects such as astronomy, or quantum physics, Botanica had always felt grounded while studying the humblest of Primus's creations.
As Botanica examined a rather enthralling fly honeysuckle specimen, she ruminated on the last time she'd been to Earth. Several hundred million years in the future, as a matter of fact. She'd scoured the old Cybertronian archives, learning of how Earth and its humans had helped the Autobots to victory over the Decepticons in the past, and decided that a more up to date entry on humanity was needed. She found herself disappointed. By the time she arrived, humanity was already extinct, left to the plants and beasts. Being among them now, while they were the dominant species, was an amazing opportunity to take advantage of.
The silver Lamborghini Egoista cruised along the wilderness, its incongruous offroad tyres gripping the dirt and allowing it to follow a set of large footprints leading away from the main road. She kind of felt bad for the plants, but they didn't have even a rudimentary nervous system, so there's probably no harm caused?
Stardrive transformed. She really shouldn't risk it. She stepped on the footprints, following the one who made them. As she stepped through the plant matter, she felt amazed at the sheer number of different organisms just along that short trail. It wasn't different from any other planet with multicellular life, but it's still amazing every time she's goes to a planet. She had a few guesses as to what the green stuff in the organisms does, but she'd have to connect to Earth's data network to be sure, and she wasn't sure how to do it yet.
Stardrive arrived at something of a clearing, and spotting another mechanical lifeform, she went up and said hi.
"Hi!" said the Camien. "I'm Stardrive. Who are you?"
The two green fins on the sides of Botanica's head perked up upon hearing the voice of another. She hadn't expected to be talking to anything besides the plants today, so this was a welcome distraction. Taking a moment to file away her current series of floral findings, Botanica turned her body to regard the stranger with a smile. Windshear was unsurprisingly expressing a concerned reaction in regards to how friendly Botanica was being to strangers, but she perished the drone's concerns.
Botanica folded her hands together with a joyous expression on her face, obviously elated to simply be speaking with another sentient being. When one was cooped up on an island for over half a century, you learned to appreciate what little social interaction you got. There was something strange about this one, though. It felt as if part of her very being was compressed behind her frame. Odd, but not off putting.
"Hello Stardrive, I'm Botanica!" she jovially answered, extending her right hand as if to offer a handshake. Instead, a bright red rose sprouted from the techno-organic's palm. Botanica pinched the flower off at the base with two servos, offering it to her new friend. "Pleased to meet you."
Stardrive reached out to shake Botanica's hand, but the sprouting rose stopped her in her tracks. How did she do that? "Thanks!" she said. "What is this organism? And how did you do that? Will they die?"
Stardrive considered doing something similar, but realized accidentally starting a Cybertronian-Dire Wraith hybrid invasion would probably be the last thing she'd want on her record, so she settled for another question. "Why are you here?"
It was botany time. Botanica looked extremely pleased with Stardrive's reaction, as it gave her a proper opening to talk about her favorite subject. She regarded her creation with optics filled with wonder, like she herself was new to such a concept as well. "This is a techno-organic rosa kordessi. It can flower, but produces no fruit. I hybridized it through cross pollinating two different roses, then I doubled their chromosomes. And don't worry! It's incapable of dying, so long as you give it the right sunlight."
"Hm?" she queried, having been knocked out of her discussion. That was a question she'd been asked quite a lot in the past few weeks. Prior to her discovery in the Pacific there hadn't been anyone around to even ask such a question. Botanica was just happy to have anybody to talk to now, so she responded to the best of her ability. "I've been cooped up on an island for the past half-century, and ever since the Autobots found me I've been using my time to catalog and analyze the Earth's flora. As to why I'm on the Earth to begin with, that's a much longer tale for the grape-vine."
Stardrive listened to Botanica's explanation eagerly, perking up at the word "techno-organic". She peered at the weird organism further. Oh! She saw a few metallic parts integrated with its stem and the interior parts of the flower. The metallic silver and organic red blended together very well. She sniffed it. No obvious smell. "What's a Rosa kordesii?" asked the silver femme while raising it up to the Sun.
Stardrive didn't understand what a "flora" was. She assumed it had something to do with the creature she held in her hand right now. Maybe it had something to do with large red organic parts? No, that's not the right way to look at organic life. Most organic life evolved. The green of its stem probably means it's related to the other lifeforms with green stems around her, most of which also have flat green structures coming off them. Radiators? She walked over and touched them. No, they're not particularly hot, so it's probably something else. And they aren't oriented vertically either, so they'd absorb much more light than they'd radiate. Solar panels, maybe?
Stardrive was tempted to just assimilate the organism, especially with her inner Dire Wraith egging her on. She'd learn so much that way, from energy sources to metabolism to reproduction. Absorb a few more and she could start constructing a cladogram for their relationships. She absentmindedly reached out, Ore-7 armor flowing away from her hand to reveal tentacle-like protrusions from her palm ready to make the plant part of herself.
Carbon-based. Aromatic genetic material chained with non-aromatic cyclic carbons and phosphates. Amine and carboxylic acid-based structural elements. Magnesium-based photon absorber. Faint spark frequency. A stream of information rushed into her, shocking her out of her trance. The Ore-7 quickly covered her back up. The bottom of Botanica's rose was missing, having been assimilated into Stardrive. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I don't know what's gotten into me."
Botanica didn't answer Stardrive's question right away, just happy to watch another curious mind at work. She hadn't been in a classroom setting for at least over a century, so being with another like-minded individual was refreshing to say the least. Her mind was already brimming with posibilities, namely those involving Stardrive and herself going on a trip around the valley, picking out and examining various specimens, finding out what made them so resilient in such an environment and so forth.
Her fantasy evaporated as her new friend began to assimilate the plant's biomatter. She was more curious as to what she was witnessing than horrified. It wasn't as if she wasn't capable of spontaneously generating a brand new rose, anyway. Botanica's careful optics affixed themselves on Stardrive's strange protrusion, making careful note of how it seemed almost bonded to her metal. It also felt very, very hungry. Her gaze darted back up to Stardrive herself once she apologized for consuming her gift.
Botanica threw all caution to the wind for the sake of science, and approached Stardrive. The curious techno-organic gently took hold of Stardrive's hand, enthralled with the idea that she was containing some invasive biological lifeform beneath it. She had a wave of questions flooding through her mind, all begging to be let out. She settled on the simplest of the lot, first, "What did you just do? And how? And why?"
Stardrive kept her head down. She just killed an organism. And she invaded Botanica's privacy. What if she didn't want her spark frequency known? What if she hurt Botanica? The thingy was a part of her, right? What if she's angry? Why does the creature inside her have to ruin everything?
"I ate it. It was something I picked up." She felt like a kid who got caught doing something wrong. "I didn't mean to..."
Stardrive looked straight into Botanica's optics, armor struggling to cover her mouth. "I̭̗͢t̜̪̳ ͍̹w̰̙͍͟a̡̟s̩̦̙̼͈̻̞ ̮̻͍̺̰̻n͖̲͖͇̟̫̩͘o̩͔̦̳̘͘t͓̳̫̟̯͠h̲͉̣̺̤i̱͔͕̳͍n̨̹̻͔͖̖̞g̝̖̮͍͘,̭͕̼̙ͅ" she said, flashing a grin that seemed almost sinister. ̙͈"Do̻̦̩n̥'̟̮̯ͅṭ̛̠̦̦̟͈̩ ͘w̸͔̟͖̙̳o̳͜r̯r̢̭̥͔̲̻̺͎y̠̝̱̗͜ ̮̪̩̠͚a̯͎̭̖b̧̙̣̟̼͈͕o̶̠̱̟͙̹uţ̯̮͖̠̫ ̣̩̙̫̦̰͜ͅi̻̯̘͓̤̭̦t͏̭̻.̨̱̟̙͇̝̩" The armor finally won, and she looked back down again, on the verge of tears.
So it really was a hostile organism bonded to her, and it was causing her some degree of distress as well. It consumed biological matter as if it were plain air, which was a terrifying yet intriguing thought for Botanica to process. She was even more interested as the creature apparently overrode her armor and seized control of Stardrive's vocal functions. What kind of life could be so malicious? Botanica could only begin to imagine what it was putting her new friend through.
Continuing with the trend of abandoning her better judgement, Botanica let go of the femme's hand. She pulled Stardrive into a warm embrace, particularly because of that expression of regret on her face. She nestled her head in the small of Stardrive's neck, squeezing her tightly. "Its all right, my dear. I don't hold it against you." Though she was in hug-mode at the moment, Botanica was anticipating the creature to show itself in some shape or form. She could only imagine that techno-organic material was scarce in this age, so sampling a new source of food had to be enticing to say the least.
Stardrive was startled when Botanica gave her a hug. Didn't she see what happened to the rose? She hugged back. Botanica was quite safe though. The infection showed itself already, and it was satisfied with what it got. And if the infection wanted to spread, it wouldn't show itself. Not so soon.
The infection had other ideas. Stardrive's armor retracted into her cockpit as her hands gripped Botanica tightly, maybe letting out energon. Her abdomen and shoulder wheels opened up into jaws with concealed cannons. Two cannon-jawed tentacles reached for Botanica's neck.
"H̪̣̺͡ḁ̰v̻͕e͙̭ ҉̩̤̣̬̫͕͇s͚̤͖̻̺̜o̦̥̼̦̙̼m̬̱̬e̷̪̼̲͙ ̲̫̝ş̯e͜l͠f̩͓͓-̺͚̗̱̟ͅp̴̬r̠͉̱̮e̩s͙͇e̘r̳̘̝v͏̗͕͙͚͙̞̼a̴͈͈̠t̞̮̥i͍̲̯o̶̮̭͖̺̫ṇ̝.̵̝͖͓̱̰ ̵̹̦͉̤P̶͓l̻̪̩̰͔̮eas̝̖̘e̼͉̕,̫̖͕̝̯̼͚" said Stardrive, now a roughly humanoid mass of ever-shifting spikes. I̡͕f͕̣͔͇̞̤͍͘ ͔̣̗͉̣͔y̪̟͓͔̮̥o̥͉͉͎̻͝ṷ͖̰̱̟͠ ҉a̝̺͕͔͚ͅͅl̘l ̻͝a͓̖̘̼̺͓r͕̩̙͍e̷̩̤ ̦͔͜t̰̲̖h͖͓̀į͕̳̖̺̳ͅṣ ̵s͝t̺͍̠͇͎̼̳̀up̥̗i҉͖d҉͚̺͔̮͇̪, ͙͎i҉͎̬t̢̘̯̦̤̥ ͎͍̝̪͚̖̀ẉ͍̞o̰̙̼̭̹n͎̗̟̹'̡͎t̩ ̮͢b̵e͚͠ ̹̪̻͟f̶̳͙͉̝͖̖ụ̯͔͎͔͠n̯͉͈̦.̧͍̯͚"
Wow! She was terrifying! Botanica was still incredibly curious, and happy about it too. Her eyes were hungrily devouring each and every little detail about the organic mass's composition. There was absolutely nothing quite like it back home, nothing so ravenous or hostile besides perhaps the Predacons. It was fascinating! She wanted to know everything about it, how it reproduced, how it functioned, what its purpose was! Where did it come from, and how had it bonded to sentient metal? Botanica shelved each question as she remembered how she was about to be devoured.
She was adamantly against fighting others, and there was the possibility that this creature could mimic her nanosurgical capabilities if she attempted to use them, which left Botanica with her fallback option. She giggled back at the eldritch horror that was poised to consume her spark, dismissively wagging a finger right in its face. "But I'm having plenty of fun! And besides, I am perfectly safe; observe!"
Botanica snapped her fingers, as if the action served any other purpose than for theatrics. Every cell in her body suddenly lit up like a star, sending out booming arcs of bioelectricty. Botanica was careful not to let any lash out directly at Stardrive; despite her being host to such a vile life form, she was still Stardrive beneath it all. The cracking lightning coiled around the Maximal in the shape of a bubble-shield, its usual configuration. If the writhing mass of flesh and spikes knew what was good for it, it would've backed off then and there. No sense in getting disintegrated over a light veggie snack.