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People in a town as small as Jasper, Nevada talk. It’s to be expected when there is little else to do most days.
Everyone, the adults at least, seemed to remember when the ‘for sale’ sign was finally taken down from outside the big house at the very end of Rigel Avenue. That sign had been up for as long as anyone could remember but no one in town could remember when exactly it happened. Everyone just agreed that one day the ‘for sale’ sign was up as it had been for as long as the block had been built upon (or so it felt like), and the next it had been taken down and the house now appeared to be lived in.
There were other things that the residents of Jasper couldn’t seem to collectively agree on, the most notable of which was: had the population suddenly jumped by five, seemingly overnight, or had it grown slowly one by one over the course of a few months?
Within a few days of the sale sign’s disappearance, some nosy middle-aged ladies had ‘stormed’ over there determined to get answers. They were greeted with a near-perfect picture of family life. Although it was slightly off, as what they found wasn’t the stereotypical picture of a loving mother, a hardworking father, some obedient kids, and the family dog; instead the house at the end of Rigel Avenue housed a hodgepodge of people.
The ladies — there had been three of them who had actually approached the house — were effectively shooed away within minutes of ‘storming’ up to the front door, but not before they managed to get a look at all five people long enough for the rumour mill to start turning.
Gossip and rumours flew around town like wildfire, to be expected of any small town. The original, rather bare-bones picture was dissected and twisted so much that it soon no longer resembled what it had begun out as. Despite all this talk and how it was starting to paint them all in an unfavourable light, none of the five did or said anything against it, instead they just seemed to blend into the background. The rumours spread, and intensified to become the topic of conversation in every household and on every street corner, and then burnt themselves out rather quickly.
Even when other townsfolk tried to snoop when any of the five were anywhere outside of the Rigel Avenue house, there was little that could be used to fuel the metaphorical mill. When that happened, even the particularly gossipy residents gave up and left the group alone for the most part, leaving them to fade into the background. Although they never manage to be completely invisible, to achieve a feat like that would be nothing short of impossible.
Jasper’s town library had been falling apart, literally and figuratively, for years. The only librarian had been a mostly-deaf elderly lady who was well into her eighties, she had been the local librarian for sixty years. Not many people used this library as the combined middle and high school had one on school grounds. The thick layer of dust on every book found on the shelves was a testament to that underuse.
The librarian passed away, surrounded by the dust-covered books and the editions of magazines and journals long since been superseded, two weeks before life picked up in that house on Rigel Avenue. It was shut for weeks after, and when it reopened, every single book and shelf was completely free of dust and it was now staffed by a man standing at an imposing 6 '7, who had red and blue streaks in his greying hair, and whose name he claimed to be Orion.
He had the appearance and mannerisms of a veteran army general — tall, stoic, well-composed, with an air of authority — but that theory was never able to be confirmed. Another piece of evidence toward that was the strange tattoo on his right arm which resembled a face or some kind of mask, perhaps it was some odd kind of insignia? One or two people had said they had seen another, smaller one in the shape of a bumblebee inked near it but not many had seen that one.
One of the school kids, a shy eighth grader approached him when she was unable to find the resources she needed for her assignment in the school’s library. That was the day that the student, and the rest of the town to an extent, learnt of the sheer extent of the knowledge that Orion possessed within his brain.
He was often accompanied by an energetic blond teenager who he had addressed as ‘B’. The common assumption was that wasn’t the kid’s actual name (what sane woman would name her child that, the same trio of ladies had exclaimed) but some odd nickname.
The teenager’s throat was covered in uneven jagged scarring that one man, who had grown up on a farm in Iowa, claimed to look like the kind of scarring you’d get after being cut up with barbed wire almost all the way around. That unsettled nearly everyone who had been interested (read: busy-bodying) in the group’s business, and anything and everything that had to do with the house at the end of Rigel Avenue. And B had the same odd face or mask tattoo as the one Orion wore.
B was mute, that much was obvious although the reason why wasn’t. He spoke sign language but not one that anyone recognised. Sneaky and not-so-subtle observations had revealed that Orion also knew it, the two were seen conversing in it.
Not that much was known about the teenager despite how often he was seen around town, more so than any of the other four. He wasn’t in school, despite how he looked young enough to be in either Grade Eleven or Twelve. The sheriff tried to do something about it but he had simply been told that B had “already completed an equivalent to the American high school program” and he had been unable to find fault in that so he left the matter alone. B was also seen hanging around the new doctor, in fact, he seemed to be the only person that Doctor Hummer can stand being around for a prolonged period of time.
No one knew Doctor Hummer’s first name, aside from that it began with the letter ‘r’. His ID badge and sign on his office door read ‘Doctor R. Hummer’. Even less was known about him, the man was too grumpy and short-tempered to hold a conversation with anyone long enough for them to learn anything about him.
The only lady in the group had the occasional baby pink strand in her short blue hair and a scar about an inch under her left eye. Her scar was roughly an inch and half in length, longer than the typical accidental childhood injury but so neat and dare-say precise that it looks like it was intentional. The adult townsfolk weren’t sure quite what to think of her, while the younger children acted almost scared as they did around any of the five.
So far she had only been spotted around town a handful of times. The most memorable was the time that she rode a motorbike with a matching colour scheme into town to stop at the grocery shop. She exited twenty minutes later with bags that contained: a king-sized bottle of bleach, seven assorted jars of breakfast spreads, a kitchen knife set, and one box of Lucky Charms cereal. None of the group had ever mentioned her name and it wasn’t like anyone had engaged in conversation, so her name continued to go unknown by the townsfolk.
The last one was a tall black man who stood at 6 ’2 feet, not quite as tall as Orion but still taller than almost everyone in town. He spent most of his time around the construction crew, who had taken to calling him the nickname of ‘Bulk’ or a rare ‘Bulkhead’ for him. But none of them were certain if that was his name or not. In their eyes, it was just something the crew called him, simple as that. He was seen by the residents almost as much as B. Almost.
Time rolled on as it always did, young children became teenagers who then left for college or other opportunities not offered in Jasper. A few of the older ones returned years later as adults, with the intent of starting and raising their own families in the town they were raised in.
Despite all the years that passed, the residents of the house at the end of Rigel Avenue don’t change nearly as much as they should have in well more than a decade, aside from a few more grey hairs in Orion’s hair and another wrinkle or two in Doc Hummer's face. B remained a teenager, those who still continued to be nosy subscribed to the theory he was cursed to eternally be a teenager (which wasn’t strictly inaccurate).
Eventually, the busybodying stopped and the gossip moved on to another, more interesting topic. All that remained were the occasional comment from parents trying to keep their children safe from people who would not cause them harm. It took over a decade but the residents of Rigel Avenue faded into the background of life in Jasper, Nevada.
A war like theirs, which had been going on for as long as it had, didn’t end just because the enemy’s leader was disposed of. Past experiences and one too many false declarations of victory made them weary of that. It was far from over but here, in the bubble created within the walls of a house just on the outskirts of a small town in the south-west United States of America, it sure felt like it was.
Just because their faction's leader was disposed of, it did not mean the Decepticons would stop fighting, regardless of how little activity they were reported to have made since. Especially considering that Starscream was still online.
So their group waited; waiting for a day that might just never come. With assistance from Agent Fowler and his contacts, they moved into a house that had formerly stood empty since its construction. The residents of the small town mostly left them alone after the five of them failed to provide them with anything interesting to fuel their gossip, and it suited them and their purposes just fine.
Despite their…unusual lodgings, this was intended to be no different from the time that they had spent at the human military base or on Cybertron during the height of the war but as the sols passed, it became something different, something more. Something almost normal.
They had adopted a policy of ‘hiding in plain sight’ in their integration into Jasper. Waiting and watching while preparing to fight again but not near any human population centres, as had been part of their deal with the government. It was far too obvious if they moved into the house and didn’t attempt to integrate into the town. The townsfolk would have asked even more questions than they already had. Almost immediately when they moved into Jasper, Ratchet started as the stand-in doctor while the main doctor, June Darby, was out on maternity leave. While Optimus took up the position as the librarian at the town’s library when the opening come up two weeks later. These two positions were purely coincidental and they took advantage of it, it allowed them all to have a ‘cover story’ that explained their move. The others were free to find their own positions or jobs if they so desired.
Over time, the apprehensive waiting that had them primed to leap into battle at a moment’s notice turned into a semblance of normality. Their time eventually became a mimicry of ‘typical’ human life.
This break was proving to be good for all of them after all these long years of conflict; but for Bumblebee most of all. The youngling had been fighting for almost as long as he had been online, having joined their faction as a sparkling. He was too young to remember what life was like before the war, and had never personally experienced it. It was a fact that brought about a great sense of displeasure in the older ‘bots of the team (read: everyone who wasn’t Bee).
It was good to see him like this, and Ratchet wasn’t the only one who thought that. He could tell that much. Optimus agreed when he had voiced it to the Prime late one evening where it had only been the two of them and the light of the moon in the kitchen. The medic had seen both Bulkhead and Arcee’s own approval in their own ways, the latter of which included the purchase of far too much sugary cereal than what was considered healthy intake.