#providence ic

[handsofprovidence]

Origin

He woke up again to a vision of death. It happened every time his eyes switched off and the meeting of a once-human mind and a mechanical subroutine met.

Or maybe it was supposed to be his gentle reminder; he was born to kill. The entire purpose of his being was built for it. Perhaps it was his makers’ way of preventing his kind to forming attachments that would prevent them from fulfilling their programmed purpose.

Why did they bother to give a weapon a human likeness?

Providence-3 leaned up and rested his arms on bent knees, alone in a tower that offered scare more comfort than the one he always fought towards, murdering everyone he had ever met and seen along the way. Most of the time it was never an issue; under the direction of the Vanguard, he had no shortage of battle, no lack of memories that he remembered where he had killed without remorse. But it only took a few friendly faces to give him pause, enough for him to loosen the weapon he held in his dreams, just long enough for those closest to him to drive a blade through his heart.

Even if exo’s could sweat, Providence-3 had long lost the surprise and fear that would have him awaken terrified. But he was old enough to remember, one of the few, and one of the ones who could still count the number of resets he needed on one hand.

He stood up, a sigh escaping him, and he left his room. As he stepped outside, Providence-3 walked under the morning sun to a tower bustling with activity, guardians and humanity’s legacy alike beside themselves with a variety of business he did not bother to know. From atop the Tower, the newly awoken Traveller loomed in the sky. Beyond a momentary glance, Providence-3 did not pay more attention than he ought to. His ghost remained silent all the way to his jumpship.

When he searched for answers, he searched in the battlefields where death made it’s home. He was at home with both, and nowhere was death more at home than the European Dead Zone. When his trasmat put him on the surface of the ruins, Providence-3 walked with his rifle in hand. And then he began to look.

[handsofprovidence]

@pacificae-mors

Desolation was nothing new to Providence. Cybertron was filled with desert, a giant relic of his regrets and the combined intentions of a people that fought for countless years. He wandered here often in solitude, but now he wandered not because he was lost, but to find another.

He had no guarantees that his former warlord was here, but his search led him here all the same, and he still had questions that needed answering. He held no preconceptions that Megatron would give him answers, but purpose drove his steps all the same, his signature crimson armored cloak drifting with the ashen breeze across the rusted metal landscape, a teal anchor-sword at his back and his energon reserves well-stocked despite days of travel.

In the middle of the metal desert, he stopped, standing still as the gold prongs that jutted from his helm began to glow, his sensors and communications array shunted with energy as he broadcast a single radio pulse across the empty expanse...

Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether  what I have done is my life. Others have come their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt. Ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.  You and I can turn to look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that holds the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.

Providence stood still and waited.

[handsofprovidence]

@aflockofhalcyons

It was a rare occurrence when Crashsite was away on a mission and Coupling not in his tow. She did not seem to mind it, and Crashsite no lesser for it, but the event was nearly unprecedented all the same. Providence found himself meditating in his quarters on the Nemesis, and for now life aboard the vessel seemed almost...peaceful. At least, there was an omission of the regular violence and threats that regularly filled the halls of the ship with suffering. It made for a difficult environment for Providence to center himself, and at best the old guardian could only focus his mental thoughts on if the newer addition to the Decepticon’s army could deal with such unrest.

[handsofprovidence]

Boresight stared into the cell before him, one in a long row of holding spaces, almost all of them filled with everything from Autobots, Decepticons and Neutrals, the occasional beast. The armor around his hands creaked and shfited from how hard his fists clenched, observing the prisoner before him. He said nothing, just waited for his presence to be observed as his old Commander came back online.

Promptly, the golden optics of the former Decepticon blazed to life, his systems restarting in a rapid succession of processes that quickly comprehended his surroundings and condition. He was a prisoner, and it was likely that everyone else in his company met a similar sight. His thoughts immediately rested on the humans, and then to Snowblind’s condition. Did he turn himself in willingly to Striker, or did he resist, like he himself did? Snowblind’s true name repeated itself over and over again…

At present he laid his eyes on the smaller mech before him. The loose cannon, as he remembered. The young seeker with a bloodlust…no…it was fear. He was afraid of going back to Skyshark, as he always was, as he always ended up doing.

“Why do you stand here?” Providence asked softly, looking down even as he sat and rested his knees, an elbow resting over a bent leg. “Skyshark is in another cell…he has all your answers. I came on the account of another…and I have no quarrel with you. Neither do any of my companions.”

[handsofprovidence]

Comprehension, Deconstruction, Reconstruction

(starter for Robustus)

Heavy footsteps treaded into the clinic. Giant metal sheets arranged at their edges in the shape of a cloak adorned his front and back and possessed a cyan trim, his arms thickening at the forearms where the massive gauntlets lay, housing grids. On his right shoulder he carried a small, six barreled weapon system of some sort, and on his back housed a massive anchor, sky colored and edged for battle. He had no decepticon or autobot markings that were otherwise visible on his frame, but his visage looked grim, or at least weathered.

"I need some repairs on my rotary cannon." 

[handsofprovidence]

"It has been a while, brother. You seem to have kept to the shadows all these years. Until now." Heretech's hollow timbre echoed between the stained walls of The Pit, deep down in the bowels of the Siege Armature. His black cloak draped flat over his frame and barely moved by his own turns in the flat, dense, death-reeking Pit. The brightly burning Decepticon insignias, forged into his pauldrons and encased in indigo flames , lit up like beacons in the dim, pointed lights.

Providence’s optics remained offline, saying nothing before they blazed on, lighting up near the other end deep within the maw of The Pit. Golden light pierced through the darkness and revealed the dual emblems softly glowing on his own shoulder. He shifted not, his gaze addressing the space directly between his former compatriot’s shoulders and his posture unassuming in the darkness.

When he spoke it was a clear voice, full of conviction and weight.

"I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in shadow, and back in shadow. Tell me, Heretech. Have we outwalked the furthest city light?"

[handsofprovidence]

thraexicon

Providence knew not where he had wandered to. The city as he remembered it was long gone, replaced by new construction and the husks of chronic, bitter memories. When he wandered the streets he had no particular direction in mind, only that he intended to keep the peace. For now he had no work to do; the night was still, if not almost peaceful. If it were fully so, Providence would not find in him the restlessness that drove him to move around so often. When he looked up he found himself on an empty street, with a few neon lights surrounding him. The symbols of a medical center stood before him, and he took the initiative to perform a systems check.

He was well into his essential reserves, having stayed operational for many nights without recharge. His weapon reserves were high, and he could always divert those tanks into his main systems should he need them, but it would hamper his capacity to accomplish the task he set out on these patrols to start with. With that in mind he decided to venture in and ask for food, and shelter.

[handsofprovidence]

He stood in that imposing stance of his, though to him I imagined it was just his normal introspective posture. His back faced the cliff and he faced the sea, something he said never existed on his home planet. There the anchor lay, resting on the precipice overlooking the sighs of the ocean, his cloak reflecting the sun brilliantly as it caught the breeze, swaying ever so slightly.

"I have lived many of your years, beyond number. I have, in my lifetime, seen warriors fall for duty, for ideals. I have seen good men die in their righteousness, and criminals die in their wickedness. I have seen both live, and in all things, there is no such concept as justice. I myself fought for a lie, a fake dream that is impossible to realize. But at the end it all I now realize that, while there may never be a last sword to be drawn in this world…there are those who fight not out of ideals, nor out of lofty ambition, but for the simple things in life. I have seen them die for duty, fulfilling a function that, I believe, to be something universal in the hearts of all Cybertronians, whether Autobot or Decepticon. They fought, bled, and died for family, fulfilling a duty that means they will never obtain nor enjoy what they fought for. They honored it with their lives and sacrifice instead. I will always struggle to understand these people, for in the end their love brought them to the point where I applied myself only in thought, in movement. What those who are now dead sacrificed, whether on the side of the victor or the defeated, was for neither of these factions. Neither was it for theory. They applied themselves to the point of death because they had loved. And it has taken me this long to discover that. Perhaps our better world is not found in ideals, in theories, or in governments…perhaps it is found in the sparks of those who fought simply for what they had found worth preserving in life. And perhaps that is enough. I have spent lifetimes coming to this realization, what others knew implicitly. They deserve more than the honors than they have posthumously been given."

Satisfied with his own answer, he turned to me and smiled, as if content and ready to move past his old thoughts. It was a rare smile, a small bittersweet smile, full of anxiety for what he feared to be a dark future, and yet with a hope that seemed to defy himself.  ”Perhaps, when the last sword is drawn, when the last blow falls…”

He left in silence.