Mind -- Strength

Transformers G1 fanfic

By Princess Artemis

Not every Autobot tells all there is to know about themselves. I doubt there are any that have told even half their story to more than one or two close friends. It’s quite difficult to speak every word of one’s life when one’s life is counted not in years nor even centuries but in millennia.

And so there are some things that simply remain unknown, not necessarily because they are secret, nor because they are painful memories, although certainly that can play a role, but because they just do not merit being mentioned. I live, work, and fight alongside my comrades and friends quite well without saying all that could be said.

There is, however, times at which one may wish they hadn’t any unknown facets of their character or form. Primus, but Brawn makes me wish I didn’t.

The problem is this: Brawn knows. And he doesn’t let me forget it for an instant. It is all in his value system. Optimus Prime knows, Prowl knows, Jazz and Ironhide know. Of course, Ratchet and Wheeljack do as well. But they don’t harass me about it at every opportunity. Brawn, though! It’s in his very name. It’s what he values. Brawn. Brute strength. On some occasions it is quite enough to make me wonder if he would prefer breaking down the door to his personal quarters every day rather than open it the way everyone else does. When, on occasion, his badgering grates on me in a particularly fierce way, I imagine him ramming doors down with his head. He could, considering how thick it is.

Under normal circumstances, I don’t let his pestering get to me. After all, I’m aware of the worth of my better strengths and would rather use my native talents to the best of my abilities. I have no need to prove the worth of my mind to him when he wants force and I have that also. Sometimes, however... sometimes, it does bother me. Most of those times are due to Bumblebee more than Brawn, however. I’m not certain why, but he sticks up for me. I don’t need it, but I accept it as an offering of friendship. I don’t ask why he does, and I don’t tell him it’s unnecessary. I wouldn’t want to insult him by throwing his acts of friendship in his face. So these times that Brawn’s incessant pestering bother me are mostly for Bumblebee’s sake; he has actually followed through on his threats from time to time. He invariably loses the fight, and both of the small Autobots are normally disciplined for it, but it doesn’t dampen Bumblebee’s enthusiasm at all, nor does it stop him from heckling Brawn the next time around.

Still, it is unnecessary. I am quite capable of defending myself. Normally I do with words; they are part of my better strength, but once I was foolish enough to challenge Brawn to a duel. I would not have if Bumblebee hadn’t been there ready to engage Brawn in another hopelessly futile round of fisticuffs on my behalf. I didn’t want to see him hurt himself again. Of course, even the most patient have their limits as well, and I must confess, I had been having a particularly unpleasant day, of the sort where nothing at all seems to be going right. So I informed Brawn that he could take it up with me and see if his brute strength was a match for my wits.

Truly, it was not my finest hour. Bumblebee was appalled; I must assume he didn’t know what Brawn did. Brawn gladly took me up on the offer.

Dueling him was not utterly stupid for the reasons many would think; it was not because he’s much stronger than me, although this is true, nor was it because I had little chance of winning, which was also true. He knew I had some strength I wouldn’t show, but not the actual extent of it. I was, and am, far better armed and possessing of greater defense than he expected. It was stupid because there was no way I could come out of it in better standing with him than I had going in.

Wheeljack looked at me like I was a blasted fool for doing it, but he agreed to referee. No one outside Brawn, Wheeljack, and I know exactly what happened during that duel, but they do know it took several hours to play out, that I lost, and that Brawn was absolutely furious over it. They also know that it took a reasonably long span of time to return the two of us to perfect function.

I know that it has crossed quite a number of minds, attempting to fathom the reason why Brawn was so utterly furious to win a duel, especially with me, the babbling, absent-minded scientist. Why, they wonder, would he be so angry? He had been fairly itching for the chance to prove that his strength was more than a match for my mind and as far as anyone could tell, he succeeded.

I suppose an explanation would satisfy; I offer this in confidence—as I said, everyone has his or her secrets, and I would rather keep this one.

We found a relatively uninhabited portion of Cybertron as the ‘playing field’ for our duel. Wheeljack insisted on it, as he had no desire to anger Grapple by having one of us…‘slagging idiots’ were his words—damage a building. Then he sent us on our way, seven paces apart as was the custom, and told us to commence the duel.

Brawn crouched down, posturing, looking for all the world like a battering-ram preparing to slam into a building. That was quite fine with me; I expected it. I proceeded with my own brand of posturing; I ran away as fast as I could run. This stunned the minibot long enough that I was able to secure a position a good distance away before he came after me. I transformed into my microscope form and waited. When Brawn finally realized this was not going to be a straightforward fight as he expected, he too transformed and made his way toward me.

He is not a particularly fast Autobot, even in his vehicle form, and I had very little trouble at all warding him off with well-placed light cannon blasts. Almost every one that connected blew him back as far as he had advanced. In fact, it took him almost two hours to make it even half-way to my position, and by then the ground was so pock marked with craters that he was forced back into robot mode to run the rest of the way.

I must give him this: he is very tenacious. He had already suffered several direct hits but all it truly served to do was make him angrier and even more determined to win this duel, although I know the damage would begin to tell on him. It took him slightly longer than another hour on foot to weave his way to my position through my cannon fire. I allowed it; all of my transforms are mobile, so I could have been retreating as he advanced and extended his miserable attempts to reach me. Strategy is not one of his strong points, and I was certain by the time he did reach me, that he knew that. Well, mostly certain. It is quite possible he was too angry at the time to grasp that. I am not the most strategic when it comes to battle myself, but I think I demonstrated to him that there was certainly some value in not running head-first into a fight.

As I said, I allowed him to reach me, and when he was close enough, I transformed back to my bipedal form and shot at him with my rifle. I could hear him growling, see him seething from the rather trying ordeal of overcoming the very simple concept of ‘long ranged firepower’. In fact, I was counting on it.

He was so furious by the time he came within grappling distance that he made the very mistake I hoped he would. Instead of engaging me in melee right there, he picked me up by one leg and threw me. To be honest, he did throw me rather hard, and the impact with the ground was not at all pleasant. Fortunately, I was able to be certain I landed on my right side, so my cannon was not damaged, although it would take a great deal of repair work for me to use my right limbs properly. It did not hinder my transformation a great deal, however, as I am not as lacking in armor as Brawn apparently thought, although it took some time to recover from the fall.

As I had hoped, however, Brawn had thrown me far enough that my new position gave me a good range to keep him at bay. So I transformed and once again trained my cannon on Brawn. I actually heard Wheeljack laughing about it in the distance when he saw the expression on Brawn’s face when he realized what he had done. The smaller Autobot roared in dismay, and I admit, I teased him by firing a small blast near his foot, just strong enough to make him jump a little.

And so, we went through the same routine we had for the first three hours of this duel. Broaching my perimeter of defense did not take as long this time, for there was not as great a distance between us as the first time. This time, I was unable to retreat because of the damage done to my leg. It was of no great concern to me, however, because I was running low on energy; essentially, I could not win this fight not because I was weaker than Brawn, but because my fighting style was of attrition. Cybertronians of lesser armor and endurance—and Cybertronians with smaller egos—I could successfully battle one-on-one in this manner, but not Brawn.

After another hour and a half of my patiently firing on Brawn and Brawn’s increasing fury, he won through to the point where he expected he should be able to lay hands on me shortly. So I lay down my last chip and transformed into my tank form, the one he somehow knew about. Now he could face me at the point of my greatest physical prowess, which was what he had wanted all along. What he did not realize was that it did not matter if he could pound a tank into scrap with his fists. Brawn did not realize quite what this form meant in terms of firepower. He was just far enough away. And so, with a sigh, knowing that by doing so I would lose this fight, as I had already known I would, I used my mirror to channel Cybertron’s starlight into my cannon, and utilizing all but the bare minimum amount of Energon I could survive on as more power, I fired on him at near point blank range.

I am not entirely sure how far he traveled on the force of that beam; I was slightly preoccupied by falling out of my transform for lack of energy and going into stasis lock.

Wheeljack later told me that Brawn had stumbled out of a rather goodly sized dent in a fairly distant wall, staggering and cursing so loudly he wasn’t entirely sure what Brawn was saying. Apparently, his well-damaged body lasted long enough to see me in stasis lock, spit out one expletive, and fall over, also in stasis.

Essentially, Brawn won by default.

I don’t think there was anything I could have done to make him angrier.

Nor Ratchet, for that matter…

Now Brawn pesters me even more, because he knows. And not only does he know, but he also has first hand experience dealing with my wit and my weapons.

I shudder to think what he would do if I had won that duel!

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