CoB Operatives

Thomas hadn’t been one to look after himself, Oliver recalled.

The young man sat on the edge of a skyscraper, the faint light from the neon and streetlight softly illuminating his face. He shifted uncomfortably in his armour. It had been painted, once, but he’d forgotten what colour it was and it had flaked off anyway. If he’d had any hair to ruffle, the wind whistling around his exposed head wind would have ruffled it.

Somewhere in the distance, rifles coughed. The whine of Cybertronian lasers answered. More fighting. Didn’t they have ANYTHING better to do? No kids, no families to feed? No, probably not.

Oliver couldn’t remember his old family. The Operatives were his… his everything. His home, his shelter, his friends. It had been like that when he was a small child, taken aside and told that he had to become a little god. It had always been like that. He had grown up to drills, training exercises, stories of the Spartans and the Romans and Alexander the Great. And all through that, the words “little god” had been in his head.

Thomas had brought that dream crashing down the moment the life sign tracker marked “2” in Oliver’s HUD had flatlined. They hadn’t found the body. Maybe it was better that way.

No new orders were forthcoming, and their original objective was… impossible. There were too many enemies, too many dangers now. Too much at stake.

So they’d watched the city go to hell instead.

They watched as the tall man, with the dark hair and beard, was dragged from a portal by the Tantras and eaten alive. The family had come next. Even the little boy. The skulls were hung from Tantra’s throne to scare the weak. Oliver wasn’t even sure if Tantra had enjoyed it.

They watched as one of the soldiers, the blonde woman, fought her own dementia to socialise with the redhead. A puppy following a boa constrictor. They were meant to kill the blonde one. They could have done so many times. But there would have been retribution, and not even the Operatives could hide forever.

They watched Optimus Prime forge a small empire that would have made fascist dictators of the past green with envy. The machines clashed with the soldiers, who clashed with the Tridens in turn. A stupid pointless cyclical war.

They watched the lone things - the Roadie, the Devourer, the Entropy and the cultists of Shuma-Gorath - scurry in the darkest of the dark places.

They didn’t find any hope, except for the baby Tantra had saved for last. In name only.

Noise. Oliver turned his head, his ears picking up footsteps.

“Still here, boy?”

“Nothing else to do, sir.”

Forsythe didn’t sit. He was too old for that. How was someone so old an Operative? Oliver had heard rumors, but never believed them. Still, the green-clad figure (still repainted his armour as if on parade) was a mystery. He would probably stay that way.

“How’s Natalie,” asked Oliver, for lack of anything better to say.

Forsythe’s laughter became a hacking cough. Oliver waited for him to finish.

“Still away with th’ fairies,” he grunted, once he’d recovered. “And I don’t think she’s coming out any time soon.

Oliver didn’t respond. He stared out over the city, towards the noise of battle. Forsythe followed his gaze.

“Stupid buggers,” the old man added.