Archive of Our Own

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Orbital cycle: 6.3. Approximately 182.5 solar cycles since initial launch for attack on Autobot City. Diagnostic report: no structural damage detected. Energon levels: 27%. Energon levels of 50% recommended for full functionality. Defense systems: offline. Offensive systems: offline. Cloaking systems: online. Communications: partially online. Power saving mode recommended at Energon levels of 25%.She records the report in her datapad down to the final recommendation, which really was not necessary, considering any proper engineer would have understood that by now, the ship should have entered power saving mode eons ago. If it had been placed in that mode when the other Decepticons had initially left, the current Energon levels would sit comfortably at the recommended 50%, and she would still have the long distance communications beacon up. But that was in the past, where they were supposed to have returned after a few solar cycles.It had been dozens now, and Invert was starting to wonder if her brethren were going to return. A far more patient bot like Shockwave would not have felt any doubt up to the first double digit million years–how else had he held down Cybertron for so long? By comparison she was young, having barely lived for over a million. The hundreds of solar cycles that had passed as she was left alone on the Victory were now starting to seep into her processor, bringing with them questions of uncertainty.The raid was supposed to last barely a few days. They’d brought everyone in the local system with them. The greatest warriors the Decepticon cause had were deployed. With all of them attacking at once, even the heavily fortified Autobot City should have been leveled in under a deca-cycle.And yet there was silence. No cries of victory. No chaotic messages on the airways calling for aid. No declaration of retreat. Just silence.They couldn’t be defeated. If they’d been defeated they would have retreated back to Victory. If they’d gone back to Cybertron on Astrotrain, then surely Shockwave would have contacted her on earth. He knew her name. He knew he’d sent her there orbital cycles ago. He’d know they’d left her behind to hold down the fort.There was, of course, one other option. Silence was begetting of only a few characteristics when it came to the living. The Autobots, surely, wouldn’t. They were too soft-hearted. But if the attack had truly gone so badly, and they’d deigned it necessary–Total obliteration. Total razing. Total loss.She pushed the thoughts swirling in her processor aside and focused back on Victory’s main computer, typing in a few commands.“Victory, run an internal scan. How are your habsuits looking?”A map of Victory’s internal structure appeared on the screen before her. Dozens of rooms were selected and zoomed in on, each of which specifically served as living space. One by one they started as black, then turned white as they were provided the all clear.Structure: stable. Living conditions: adjusted. Doors: unlocked.“Alright, that’s good…” she muttered to herself, swapping to the cameras on the outside of the ship. They revealed an empty sea around her, dark and creeping with small organics. Their crude forms made her cringe, even in the restricted view she had of them. “Gross…Victory, illuminate your external hull.”Victory obeyed, revealing a vast expanse of metal currently covered in the earth version of space barnacles. The white-shelled creatures had opened their filthy maws, extending forth feelers characteristic of some kind of horror show. Invert grimaced and swapped the camera views, checking instead on the door to the airlock. It was immaculately clean unlike the hull, though a few many legged organics crawled across it.She checked the back of the ship, its thrusters, its scope, and finally its body. Making a note of each location that needed proper cleaning, Invert tapped the information into her datapad and closed the camera system before issuing another command. “Victory, check the wavelengths for any signs of communication.”The screen before her went black, turning to a single unmoving flat line. She stared at it in silence, waiting for a peak, a leap, a blur, a single beat to indicate that anyone was out there.Nothing happened.Frowning to herself, she tapped a button on the keyboard before her–the one for “broadcast”.“Fellow Decepticons,” she said, “if any of you are out there, I am Invert of Cybertron, broadcasting from the Earth base Victory. I am alone here and have been so since the attack on Autobot City. If you are hearing this message, please respond.”Her servo left the button and she waited. And waited. And waited.And waited.And waited.And nothing came, as it never did.She vented and focused back on her datapad, the frown perched upon her face seemingly eager to make it a permanent home. There was her chore list, plain and simple. It would take her several megacycles to complete: clean the habsuits, clean the storage vault, clean the weapons vault, clean the hallways, feed Victory, scrape away the organics on Victory’s hull, manage the outside of Victory, air another message after seven megacycles, spy on the Autobots if possible.If possible. The last one was becoming an increasingly harder task to pull off. She was no Soundwave, and Victory’s listening equipment had been down for a while now to preserve power. Furthermore the equipment in Soundwave’s habsuit was either completely foreign or off-limits to her. He may not be here now, but he would return, like the others would, and if he found out she’d been messing with his items, well. She was only a lowly foot soldier, and he was the head of communications of the Decepticon cause.She’d be lucky if only her wings were broken off and used to decorate his sparsely covered habsuit.Speaking of her wings…she cast a glance down at the inverted things, which pointed towards the ground as opposed to the air. They would do her no favors in navigating the outside of the ship and certainly no aid in reaching the higher spots in the larger habsuits. Her boosters were functional, but the Energon they’d consume to keep her airborne would drain her at twice the levels of a normal Seeker.She’d have to use them sparingly if she wanted to continue her present consumption rate of only one Energon cube a day. If she offlined from low power, that was fine; eventually her brethren would return, find her, and bring her back. But without her, no one would feed Victory, who would eventually offline from low power. Victory had to stay online, no matter what.Where else would the Decepticons go when they came back, if they didn’t have Victory?“I’ll keep you going, girl…” she whispered as she left the control room, reaching a hand out to run along the walls of the ship. Victory, as usual, was silent. It always was.Perhaps none of the other Decepticons had shared her sentiment, but Invert had always thought of The Victory (Victory for short) as a fellow ‘con. It was a crashed ship, yes, but it was alive and functional, and it provided them a home within its body. Victory could respond to commands and hold conversations if it so wished; just the majority of the time, it preferred not to. For all she knew Victory was just trapped in permanent stasis lock, and would perhaps free itself one day.As such, it was important to take care of Victory, for more purposes than just maintaining a Decepticon earth base. Victory was an ally with much greater might than her. If it fell, everything was lost.That was why they’d left her behind when the entire cause had prepared for the assault on Autobot City–it had to be. Someone had to take care of Victory and it was for the better that that someone was her. Perhaps it had been said to her in a less kind way, but the others had had a point when they said that someone who couldn’t contribute properly to a fight would be better off staying behind.Okay, they’d said it a lot less kindly. More so, they’d chided her that a flightless Seeker was utterly useless on the field despite whatever “special talent” Shockwave had promised she possessed. And for the battle of Autobot City, they needed soldiers who were functional, powerful, and wouldn’t prove dangerous to their allies as well as their foes. Besides, for swelling their numbers, they had the Insecticon clones. So someone like her, broken, glitched, and more of a liability than anything else, would only be good for ensuring that Victory didn’t somehow miraculously break while they were gone.Because really, if Victory was invaded, it wasn’t that big of a deal. The ship was equipped to deal with invasions. Its defensive systems were more than adequate for dispatching invaders both inside and out. Invert was only present within it to mop up the Energon remains of whoever was fool enough to try.No one had been–but that could also be attributed to the fact that the Autobots didn’t seem to know where the Decepticon base was. That, or they just didn’t care. Invert preferred the former. Why would it be inconsequential to know where the enemy’s base was, where they were likely to crawl back to and lick their wounds? And surely they were licking their wounds somewhere out there, weren’t they?So why hadn’t they come back?She pushed the thought away again and threw open one of the few cleaning closets the ship possessed, grabbing all the equipment she’d need to properly clear out all the habsuits. Nowadays it was more dusting than anything else, but she still brought along a mop and bucket, just in case.The habsuits would start with Starscream’s, of course, because if she cleaned anyone else’s first and he found out, he’d throw a fit. And a fit from her commander was not something Invert wanted to sit through. He always treated her with more vitriol than any of the other Seekers, no matter how inconsequential her mistakes might be compared to theirs. She had an ounce of resentment towards him for it, countered only by the fact that, no matter how awful Starscream could be, he was deserving of respect for his flight abilities.But that was a low bar. Any winged Decepticon could fly circles around her while all she could do was watch and seethe.She vented and tapped the passcode to his habsuit’s door into its keypad, the double doors opening to reveal a pristine and lavishly decorated room. Starscream was nothing if not dramatic and narcissistic. All the valuables and self-care items stored in his habsuit spoke lengths to just what he’d do for a decent polish. Cleaning it was always a nightmare, even after all the times she’d done it before. If even one item was an inch out of place, she’d hear about it later.A tiny chuckle escaped her at the thought–when was the last time she’d heard Starscream’s voice for any purpose? Be it admonishing her for attempting even once to be a proper Seeker, bossing her around, treating her as his personal slave, or verbally abusing her to let his Megatron-induced anger out, it had been so long she almost found herself forgetting how cruel the insults had been.Almost. She entered his habsuit with her cleaning gear and checked everything over–berth, vanity, table, overly expensive one of a kind statue in his image, all the data-pads he pretended didn’t contain failed plans to assassinate their great leader, full length mirror that somehow hadn’t been broken, each and every one of his polishes and maintenance equipment, and of course, the additional weapons he kept on the wall.There wasn’t a speck of dust on anything nor any indication of water damage. The berth was made perfectly.. The floor was clean save for her own pedeprints. And the metal of the walls gleamed like it’d been treated with the same care as Starscream himself.There was nothing to clean, but she still gave everything a dust off, just to be safe. Giving everything one final look over for rust, Invert confirmed there to be no contamination on any of Starscream’s immensely precious belongings and left his habsuit, locking it behind her.One down. At least fifty more to go. She vented again and moved to the next.—-----Maintenance was finished by the time the Earth’s sun moved high into the sky. Her internal clock read 16:23, a new method of telling time that had been adjusted for her when she’d arrived on Earth. The planet operated on a twenty-four megacycle basis, working around when the sun would orbit to the other side of the planet. The absence of the sun was named “night”, and could occur anywhere from 17:00-21:00, sometimes later. Having spent much of her time on Cybertron, she had been unaccustomed to Earth’s time, and figured it to be useless for the majority of her stay on the planet.“Night” had its benefits, though. Its darkness concealed well, and most organics chose to enter recharge when it came on. It was the perfect time to enact plots, schemes, and occasional terrorist attacks on Autobot City.The season Earth was presently in was dubbed “summer”. That meant night would not come until 21:00. She had time. After finishing with the habsuits, Invert focused on maintaining Victory.At 16:28 she scraped away the organics on the outside of the hull, using her thrusters to properly climb up onto it. Finishing the front at 17:34, she headed to the side, then the back, ending at 18:20. Once back inside, she accessed the Energon vault and took stock before feeding Victory.92 cubes left. Victory sufficed on ten per day. Power saving mode was beginning to look tempting now, if not for the risk that it would cease cloaking. And considering how often she had to transmit, the loss would be nothing short of catastrophic.More Energon was needed, then. She’d have to ration herself more. She fit eleven cubes in her arms and brought them to Victory’s engine. As they were tossed in she held the one extra up.“To another cycle, Victory.” It was brought to her dermas and promptly consumed.Victory gave no response, as always. Invert stared at the empty cube in her servos for only a second before turning to take it back to storage.At which point Victory’s system suddenly lit up. The screen turned on behind her, displaying a map of the planet and pinging a specific point somewhere in Asia. Invert looked back and raised her brows.“SOS signal of Decepticon origin detected,” Victory stated in its monotone voice. “Displaying coordinates on screen. Incoming message. Playing now.”Before Invert could even brace herself, an unholy buzzing suddenly sounded through the speakers, so shrill and constant that she collapsed to one knee, instinctively slamming her servos over her audials. Gritting her dentas she opened her hub and turned her audials all the way down, which made the buzzing just tolerable enough for her to reach Victory’s main computer and slam her fist on the OFF button.The sound stopped so suddenly it left her processor ringing. She blinked several times, then knocked a fist against the side of her helm, shaking it a few times to properly orient herself.Victory had gone silent again, but continued to display the ping and its coordinates. Invert looked up at them, transcribing them in her memory. What kind of distress signal had that been? Victory’s audio systems must be going, perhaps from too much time spent under the Earth’s water. An SOS signal usually captured the sound of blaster fire, of desperate voices crying for help, of bitter regret as whatever ‘con was on the other end laid aside his pride to admit he needed back-up.That thought made her uneasy. Buzzing. Why have an SOS signal that was nothing but buzzing?“Victory…” she paused, winced, and told herself that it wasn’t going to hurt as badly the second time. “Play the SOS signal again. At a decreased volume!”It complied, the loud, painful buzzing sounding over the speakers once more. Invert increased her audials this time, even though the sound made her want to rip them out of her helm. Listening closely, she focused on differentiating corrupted audio from what might be beneath, be it voices, blaster fire, or the sound of fleeing pedesteps.But the clip ended without any differentiating sounds. She found that odd, and replayed it in her processor again and again, trying to filter through it. Nothing. Just buzzing.“Victory, run a diagnostic on your audio systems,” she ordered. The screen changed as Victory did just that, then returned several cycles later with a clear report: nothing was wrong.The Energon she’d consumed sat uneasily in her tank. Invert grimaced. “Display the coordinates again,” she commanded, though they were already saved to her memory. Seeing them on the screen solidified her doubts.Bali. There was a ship in Bali that she knew about, one that had harbored several unsavory occupants of the Decepticon cause. They, too, had disappeared after the attack on Autobot City.Insecticons. Members of the cause notorious for how untrustworthy they were. She hadn’t been around for all the cases where they’d proven themselves to be nothing but hassles who only cared for endless consumption, but she’d read reports of actions and abilities. They were a self-contained group and stuck to their own–why would they call for help now, several orbital cycles after their last appearance in Autobot City?Buzzing. Their entire signal had just been buzzing. She frowned, thinking it over. Their alt modes were based off of filthy organics, and as such, carried some characteristics of the ugly things. Was the buzzing a possible side effect of that? But they could speak, so why wouldn’t they?Unless they weren’t able to, for some reason? During an SOS signal?An SOS signal from a self-contained, proud group, perfectly capable of surviving on their own, that contained an off-putting buzz likely made to avoid speaking.Just what were they facing out there that would cause such behavior?“Victory, open a comm to the Insecticon ship,” she said, leaning over the control panel. “Insecticons, this is Invert, speaking to you from the Decepticon base The Victory. Come in Insecticons.”Silence.“Come in Insecticons.”The ping repeated itself again and again. SOS. SOS. SOS.No one was going to answer. Her frown deepened and she stepped away from the control panel. The only Decepticon here was her, the last on Earth, for all she knew. If they weren’t answering, they could be offline for all she knew. Or worse, it could be an Autobot trap, and she’d be playing right into their hands.But if it wasn’t, and someone was there on the other side, waiting for help, desperately trying to reach any other Decepticon on this planet…Even if they were gross Insecticons…Rescue would fall to her. And though she would be taking a huge risk, with no guarantee for results, with the possibility of capture or permanent offlining…It was, finally, something to do. Something beyond just maintaining Victory. Something that was a real mission. Something that could get her honor, respect, and maybe even a friend!Her frown gradually gave way to a grin. Her first real mission. Her first real rescue. Her first chance to make a decision on her own, with no one ordering her what side to choose.Oh, she was excited. It didn’t matter that her jet mode struggled to fly and that she’d need to pack away six cubes of additional Energon for the journey and her weapon–she was getting out, and she was going to rescue those Insecticons.“Victory, open the weapon’s vault,” she eagerly commanded, taking off down the hall. “And prepare the hangar for take-off.”—------------------“I think you’ve had enough, bud.”He raised tired optics from the glass currently gripped like a lifeline in his servos, the pink Energon within rippling from how his arm shook. Upon the bartender, a shorter mech with a white and yellow paint job, did his gaze land. Whatever was in it seemed enough to cause them to flinch, but they held their ground, clearly experienced in dealing with the far more unruly.“Seriously. You’ve had five of those in the past Earth hour. How you’re not horrendously overfueled by now, I dunno, but you’re on your way to an early grave if you keep that up.” They gave him a hard frown, narrowing their optics behind their visor. “I’m not havin’ it on record that someone died at my bar because of my negligence.”Luster didn’t answer them at first, letting his gaze drift back down to the Energon swirling in the glass he held. How it hadn’t cracked yet spoke to its quality, or perhaps how weak he’d become. Either worked.The glass was half-drained. It hadn’t tasted like anything in particular. He never ordered for the flavor, since anything they could provide him would be irrelevant. His glossa didn’t taste like it once must have, even if the memories of what had been felt like they existed just beyond a fog barrier. And besides, no matter how much he drank, his tank never felt full.Not anymore.He pulled up a report on his tank capacity in his hub–93% capacity. Ignoring the bartender, he brought the glass to his derma and promptly chugged, feeling his frame protest against more. Another tank report came in–100%. If he consumed anymore, he’d have to purge.There was still a drop at the bottom. He forced it down despite the warnings and slid the glass forward, looking just past the bartender, never at them.“One for the road,” he rasped, venting harshly. “Please.”“Absolutely not. If you’re not at capacity by this point your sensor’s faulty.” They took the glass with what almost seemed like disgust. “Aren’t you supposed to be here with your guardian, anyways? Where is he?”Guardian. He coughed at the word, not because he wanted to, but because it reminded him of what his life had become. The motion jarred the Energon inside of him and he felt sick. Swallowing down the urge to purge, Luster moved to shaky pedes, gripping the bar for support.“I don’t need him,” he grumbled. “I’m not a Sparkling. I’m not a protoform. I’m…I was someone, before, I don’t need a guardian.”The bartender grimaced. “Luster…look, buddy. I didn’t know you before the war. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of your work. I know Magnus says you did somethin’ important before the retreat from Cybertron. But all that’s in the past now, aight? This is Earth, not Cybertron, and we all know whatever it is you were lookin’ for, you…”They paused as his cold optics finally focused on them, reconsidering their words.“...We all know you had some tragedy while you were out there. Real sad. No one here wouldn’t feel bad for you. But you can’t keep drinkin’ yourself to death over it. And I know you’re a grown ‘bot, but considerin’ the memory problems and all…well…course we all think you could use a guardian.”A low rumble escaped from somewhere deep within him. Tank capacity at 99%. He needed more Energon.“One more for the road,” he asked again. “Please. I’ll pay you double for it.”Their frown tightened. “I’m calling Uptick.”“No.” It came out harsher and faster than he intended, sounding like the warning growl of a tiger. His optics widened and he closed them, the gentle lighting of the bar suddenly too much. “Please. No. Don’t call him.”They had their hand to their helm as they grimaced at him. Luster growled and turned away, almost falling over as he did. His balance equilibrator was off courtesy of overfueling, and focusing on what was normally a clear beeline for the door was difficult. One pede in front of the other. One pede in front of the other.“Luster! You’re not goin’ out alone?” The bartender called after him. He ignored them, turning down his audials to focus on walking.Spilling out of the bar, he stumbled for the nearest wall and rested a hand against it, leaning on it for dear life. His head was spinning. Standing was becoming increasingly difficult.Tank capacity at 98%.It wouldn’t stay there long. He needed to be back in his habsuit before that happened. Which way to his habsuit? He focused on his internal map, pulling it up in his hub and searching the coordinates. A small box lit up on Metroplex’s form, his tracking systems illustrating a path for him to take milliseconds later.It was late. Autobots didn’t sleep, not really, but it was likely that, due to the time of the planet, he wouldn’t run into anyone. Luster vented again, feeling warm Energon slip out from between his lips as he did so, and began the journey back to the place he was temporarily calling ‘home’.The path his systems had picked took him through some of Metroplex’s tighter corridors. On Cybertron, back before he had launched on the fateful mission that took his memory from him, he would have once felt nervous. Now he felt nothing, nothing besides urgency, urgency that did not originate from fear of being attacked or robbed.No, it was urgency that sprouted from the deepest recesses of himself, telling him to hide for his self-preservation, for if he did not, the symptoms would soon manifest, and in his present state, he didn’t know if he could take them.He made it about halfway before his proximity sensor went off. With his audials turned so low, he realized he hadn’t picked up the voice of whoever was calling to him, and they’d approached, their presence now close enough to seemingly reach out and touch him.He turned his helm, uncaring, for whoever it was could not be worse than–Him.Uptick was following within grabbing distance of him, his dermas moving as he ranted on about something Luster was glad he couldn’t hear. He paused in his movement and Uptick did the same, though he didn’t once stop talking. Of course he didn’t.Slowly, Luster turned his audials back on, just enough to make out the slew of Uptick’s commentary like the gentle, cooing sound of a cyber pigeon.“--and furthermore you are in direct violation of your curfew, which states you aren’t to be out beyond the Earth hour of 21:00; it is presently 01:20 and here you are wandering the passages of Metroplex like a lost turbofox!” He put both hands on his hips, glaring Luster down. “This is your second warning. You know what happens if I have to issue a third.”He shuttered his optics and stared blankly just beyond Uptick. “You lock me up in the clinic until I’m completely fixed or I don’t function anymore?”“What?” He sounded incredulous. “No! I’m not here to–do you consider this some kind of torture? Luster, I’m trying to help you!”“Then can you leave me alone?” He grumbled, turning away and continuing on his predetermined path. “I’ll be fine…I just need to go back…”Back to where? The habsuit? The ship? The planet of fog in his memories? Back, back. Always back.“You need to stop drinking,” Uptick scolded, grabbing his shoulder and bringing him to a halt. “And stop these late night wanderings. Everyone’s concerned for you because of them.”He let his shoulders slump.“That’s a lie and you know it. The only ones who still care about me are the medics who want to poke my processor. Now can I please go back home?”The buzz was starting to fade. He didn’t get that nice warmth from Energon overfueling for long anymore. Balance was restoring. And worst of all, the reports were coming in.Tank capacity at 95%. Fuel proficiency at 20%. Uptake at %$^&&*^# levels. Seek alternate methods of refueling.Uptick let out a long sigh. “Let me walk you back. There’s no point in you getting lost and scaring others again.”He didn’t fight the offer. There was no point in it. Once Uptick was convinced of doing something, he wouldn’t stop until it was done–especially if that task regarded protecting someone else.So he trudged along, the ‘bot slated as his “guardian” trailing just behind him. “Guardian”. “Caretaker” was more like it. Uptick followed him everywhere, kept an eye on how much Energon he was consuming, tracked his recharge cycles, kept a close eye on just what activities he engaged with on a daily basis, and probably had a tracker installed beneath his aft to keep him from ever having an ounce of privacy.Of course he did, though, after that night with the other ‘bots. He knew what he had been doing and why he had been doing it. He just didn’t know why he’d stopped.The Autobots he’d frightened were significantly less green than he was. That wouldn’t keep them safe. They’d returned to their habsuit to begin a cycle of “enjoying one another’s company”. That was why he’d picked them. Two for one. It would have made the whole situation easier on them all.Except it hadn’t been easier on anyone, especially him. They’d both become creeped out when, upon discovering him in their personal quarters, staring at their recharge slabs with optics more devoid than a moon, he’d purged his dinner and collapsed, whining like a sick turbofox.That was when Uptick had been assigned as his caretaker. There wasn’t anything wrong with Uptick, by any means, and he didn’t hate him. He was, like all Enforcers, large and imposing, and tended to play by the rules too much. His paint was cheerful colors of blue, green, and white, meant to match with the new planet he was eager to call home. And his personality was surprisingly forgiving–for being the sucker stuck with the mental patient, he had quite a tolerance for nonsense.No, Luster despised Uptick’s company for an entire other reason. One that didn’t have to do with how closely he watched him, how constantly he reminded him to attend his appointments, or how constantly he changed his curfews and rules.It had to do with his sparkbeat. With how close he insisted on staying, Luster could hear the damnable thing’s constant pulsing despite the layers of glass and metal and wires separating them. It was loud and full of vibrant life.He could feel the solvent building in his mouth.Tank capacity at 93%.—-------------------------------The habsuit allotted to him was at the very end of Metroplex’s furthest row. It was close to the wall, away from any streets or alleys. The original request put in regarding a space for him had placed him near the clinic, where other Cybertronians would be passing by. His vehement rejection of the idea had only been approved after the arguing had made him purge.Uptick brought him right to the sliding door, inputting the code to open it on its keypad. The metal let out a quiet shff as it slid open, revealing the small space within. He turned, giving Luster a look.“Your visit tomorrow is at 09:20, Earth hours. I’ve already sent you the data package. You seem to have ignored the first four.” There was a hint of annoyance in his voice as he raised a servo to his helm. “I’ll send you another. Be there on time, please, so I don’t have to come here and convince you, alright?”“Convince”. Luster almost scoffed at the word. The heaviness that came with overfueling had left him by now. With its cloud gone, he found himself choking on bitterness again.Instead, he vented, giving a tiny nod.“Alright.” Stepping past Uptick, he paused in the threshold of his habsuit when a hand suddenly landed back on his shoulder.“Luster. You know these visits are for your health, right? No one here wants to hurt you. We don’t see you as a processor to be poked.”“I know.” He didn’t turn around. The lights in his habsuit, motion activated, had turned on, illuminating the sparse few belongings within it.“I mean it.” His grip tightened ever so slightly, then released. “We want to help you. All of us.”“I know,” he repeated. “Now please leave me alone.”Uptick said nothing as the door slid closed, sealing him, and the outside world, away. Luster stepped fully into his habsuit and paused, gaze fixed on the berth.It was a recharge slab, standard issue. They’d tried to pull a better one for him due to his circumstances–the medic’s had posited that he may have recharging terrors. They’d been right, of course, but he knew it wasn’t the fault of the slab, so he’d let it lie. They didn’t need to know about the terrors that plagued him, for they were meaningless, and besides, if they knew, they’d want to keep a closer eye on him.Who cared about terrors that only consisted of strange humming noises, anyways?Besides, a closer eye was the exact opposite of what he needed on him. If they watched him more closely, they’d take him away from the bar. They’d take him away from his quiet habsuit. They’d take him away from his place at the edge of their world and draw him right into the middle.And if they did that, he had no idea how long he could ensure their safety.He stepped over to the slab, observing his reflection in it. They’d taken away the mirror after he’d shown distress staring into it. Something about his frame just didn’t feel right, and the more he looked at it, the more out of place he felt.His paint was blue, a gaudy blue, one with a sheen to it that made him literally shine. One of the medics had stated his color was particularly reminiscent of a bird known as the “peacock” on earth. He’d never met the thing, but from the way they’d snickered, he assumed it was excessive.On his chassis were diamonds, which, according to the doctors, had been placed there, willingly, by him. He couldn’t imagine why he would have ever reasoned to do such a thing. The stones weakened the integrity of his armor, and furthermore, they drew attention. Cut into varying shapes, they were arranged into delicate patterns that continued on his faceplate, where several more had been embedded just below his optics. Had been. When they found him, all that were left were the indentations of what had been. They now felt like ugly scars.The gemstones were gaudy enough, but worse, in his opinion, were his drills. Their blades rested comfortably on his arms, with the largest sitting on his back as a heavy extension. His treads were on his legs, which, combined with the weight of the drill, made even lifting the damnable things a chore. According to the medics he hadn’t even been a miner back in the day, but a scientist of sorts, so why he was so equipped for drilling, he couldn’t even say.All of this shaped up to make his frame bulky and uncomfortable. His steps were heavy. His pieces tended to bump into things. And his excessive decorations drew gazes and snickers alike from other mechs.He hated the face that looked back at him. The optics were green, a gaudy green, because apparently, he’d once been obsessed with fashion, and made himself a different pair of colored optics for every day of the week. The others were lost, but the green he’d been wearing when he disappeared weren’t.His faceplate was a pale gray, like most mechs tended to be. Pale, with those intricate, delicate etchings, designed to make him look ‘beautiful’. His helm had a sharp point in the middle, reaching about halfway down, and of course, in the middle of it was another gemstone. This one, however, was cracked.A cracked gemstone accompanied by diamond shaped holes that had once held something supposedly precious. That was all he saw when he looked at himself.He tore his optics away from the visage and sat on the berth, keeping his pedes on the floor as he turned to look around his habsuit. It had a desk, a window, a few datapads, and a small storage shelf. That was all.They’d offered to bring him some of his surviving “collection”, whatever that meant. He’d declined.The ceiling lights dimmed as he tried to lay down on his back, found it impossible, and instead did so on his side. He’d never get used to the damnable drill on his back, he just knew it. It wasn’t supposed to be there. It hadn’t been there before. Why did he have a drill on his back? He couldn’t ever remember a time where he did.But that was the problem with remembering. He couldn’t remember much of anything.It had been only three Earth “months” (solar cycles?) ago that he had landed on the planet, in an unmarked spaceship that had been dated back to the middle of the war. The bots who had discovered him found his frame locked in a stasis pod, almost offline from how little power he’d had left. Taking him back to Autobot City, an emergency transfer of Energon and a strong shock to his processor had brought him back online.And that was when the trouble had begun. He’d awoken in a room he didn’t recognize, in a time he didn’t know, in a place he’d never been before. He still remembered coming online. For so long it had been just darkness, darkness and the very hum of the universe, the electrical pulses that dictated the existence of life, making up the entirety of his world. When he’d come online, that hum had ebbed, becoming less than background noise.It had felt like being cut off from a lifeline. His optics had onlined, and he had been greeted with the sight of one of the Autobot medics, First Aid. There was celebration to be had as he had groaned and tried to sit up, confused, delirious, and wondering just how he’d gotten to this strange place. They’d insisted he stay down until his energon reserves were replenished.But even when his tank hit its safe capacity, a feeling that should have left him satiated and energized, he hadn’t had the strength to properly move. He’d known in that very instant, as the question arose as to why, that something was wrong with him.Another electrical shock had returned the ability to properly move to him. They’d released him from the medical bay after he’d demonstrated he could walk–right into the hands of their Enforcers. For according to their records, he was not to be alone, and the question of just what had happened on his mission was hanging heavier than a spaceship in orbit.The issue of his memory had arisen almost immediately. They’d asked him his name. They’d asked him why he had been alone. They’d asked him what had happened.He couldn’t remember any of it.“His processor seems to have been damaged, sir.” He remembered one of them saying, looking over the scan that had been provided from the medical bay. “They’ve found evidence that a code was written to delete some memories, but even more than that…” The datapad had been handed over, and the interrogator sucked in air through his denta. “How is he even still functional, with scrambling that bad?”It looked like his processor had been ripped out, smashed, and placed back into his helm. He had no recollection of any of it.“Do you remember why you left?”“Do you remember the name of your ship?”“Do you remember the research you’d been engaging with when you’d decided to leave?”“Do you remember what you found?”“Do you remember Solace?”“Do you remember what happened to him?”“What happened to Solace?”Who’s Solace?The interview had ended shortly after.He vented, watching the lights in the ceiling turn down. Uptick’s data package pushed at the edge of his internal hub. He accepted it because he had no other choice.Solace. The name haunted him like a specter. Solace. Who was Solace? Solace had been someone he’d been very close with, apparently. Solace had been someone so important to him that he’d left Cybertron with him, in search of something mysterious to help the Autobot war effort. They’d been joined at the hip all their lives, apparently,And he couldn’t remember a single thing about the mech. But why?He shuttered his optics and tried to think back to the day he’d left Cybertron. It had been sometime in the middle of the war, apparently. He’d made some big decision and gotten a ship somehow. He was going to prove something, or save them all, or change the tide of the war. Something heroic, or whatever. They’d said he had once been outgoing.He tried to picture himself standing on Cybertron (did he even remember Cybertron?), chassis puffed out, engine revving, the diamonds on his faceplate and chest glittering. A huge smile was on his face. He stood before the ship he’d arrived on, except instead of its decrepit state, it was a fully functioning spaceship, fresh off the factory line, without a single chip on the paint.Before him was a crowd of Autobots. They were cheering his name. Optimus Prime himself was there to see him off.He looks them over and grins widely, holding his arms out. Yes, he was going to save them all. He was going to travel far away, find something, and help end the war. He would be so full of hope, nothing could dampen his spirits.And there, beside him, would be Solace. Solace, his best friend, his one in a billion, his greatest ally.But when he looks beside him, there is no Solace.There was only fog, and blank space, and when he looked back, the planet of Cybertron was empty, a barren wasteland of gray. The sky was dark velvet blue. Stars glittered like diamonds overhead.There were stars in his chassis. He blinked once, twice. The planet was empty, and he was full of stars, and he was alone.And here, alone, in the emptiness of space, he floated, watching all of existence fall away and turn into the hum of electromagnetic pulses indicating life. Life that he could not see or touch. Life he could only listen to as he lay dreaming, drifting through the universe alone.In his cradle of stars, dead $^%#%&* waits dreaming.Not alone, really. He had not been alone while he was dreaming. He had heard something else in the hum.He replayed the sound again, the hum he was so familiar with. It was millions of years worth of noise, stored within his processor because he had nothing else to comprehend for all of it. 217 gigabytes of nothing but humming. His processor ran through all of it in mere minutes, then ran through it again.There was something beneath all of the noise, something explicitly subtle. He opened his internal hub and pulled up a spectrograph. The noise was replayed again.The waves showed up as nothing in particular for a long time. Then, slowly, they began to form a curve. One by one, each contributed a single line, through millions of years, until finally, he reached himself now, still intuned, just barely, to the electromagnetic pulses of life.The image looking back at him was in the shape of a crescent. It was the very shape which he saw in his recharge terrors, the one which, ever present, hung in the background, watching him like a cybercat would a mouse.His spark felt cold. He closed the spectrograph and opened his optics, staring at the gentle light of Earth’s moon shining in through the window. His internal clock beeped a warning to him–five hours until he was designated to be at the clinic. A pop-up recommending he enter recharge appeared. He moved to close it.Tank capacity at 68%. Fuel uptake at &%#$^*(&%$$%&&%$%^^^&* Seek alternate fuel source. Seek alternate fuel source. Seek alternate fuel source.Dozens more appeared at the death of the one. He pushed the notifications away.Seek alternate fuel source.They came back, one after the other. His frame felt like it had been starved of Energon for years.Seek alternate fuel source.He forced his optics to shutter, letting the notifications drown out the fear he felt.Seek alternate fuel source.It was going to be a long recharge.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Victory, cmon!” Invert stood before the double doors of the weapons vault, a frown etched on her faceplate. “Open the weapons vault! It’s an emergency!”Emergency protocol not engaged. Clearance level 3 required to access weapons vault. Present clearance level: 1. Weapons vault cannot be accessed.“Victory!” She pouted, shaking a fist. “Come on! It’s me! I’m the only ‘con on this ship, I should have maximum clearance!”Clearance level: 1. Weapons vault cannot be accessed.“Victory!”The ship gave her no response. Invert growled and tried the keypad again, then the scanner, then the keycard. Nothing. As if in warning, a loud buzzer sounded at the end, a illuminating a red light above the vault.“How am I going to rescue my fellow Decepticons if I don’t have a weapon?” She asked aloud, glaring up, as if Victory would answer her. “I don’t even have proper blasters anymore!”Silence. Maddening, maddening silence.“Fine! Fine. I’ll make due. I’ll just run headlong into the Autobots and die, and no one will be left to maintain you! Then what?”Nothing.A groan escaped her. “Really? …really. Fine.”She turned on her heel and stomped for her room, where she knew at least one weapon was waiting. It was dangerous, and could possibly blow up in her face again, and hadn’t seen actual use since the first test, but…well, it was better than nothing! And sure, she could access the weapons collection Starscream had in his habsuit, or the rare crafts Megatron had in his, but…The punishment for even touching any of those would be far worse than anything the Autobots could do to her. She shivered and pushed the idea aside. Nope, not risking that. If she touched anything in their rooms, when they returned, they’d kill her.Then again, if she died on this mission, she wouldn’t have to worry about them killing her.Her personal pet project was in her habsuit, resting on the tiny desk she’d dragged into it. Her habsuit was at the very end of all the others–the Constructicons had had no desire to build it, so they’d shoved her in what had been the previous broom closet. The fact that she fit at all was a miracle, as was that they let her get away with stealing a desk for it.Perhaps after seeing what she’d started to make, they’d decided against reclaiming it. After all, not many bots could say they got to personally observe Shockwave working in his lab, and even fewer could mimic his proficiency with crafting weapons.She was not one of those fewer, but she had watched him work in the past. Being his personal lab assistant/slave had been eye opening in that way. And furthermore, it had led to her accumulating a few parts that would otherwise be impossible to acquire on Earth.All of those factors combined to let her craft her own weapon. The intention was for it to be a sniper class with a greatly extended range starting at ten miles. That was to start. If everything went according to her dreams, it would be able to fire more than twice that on both planets and the cold void of space.Dreams, however, didn’t guarantee results. The prototype she kept in her habsuit had been her pride and joy until its original test fire had caused the damnable thing to blow up in her face, right in front of her fellow Decepticons. If anything had wounded her ego, that was it.And since then, she hadn’t bothered to fire it once.She stepped into her habsuit and observed her experimental weapon for only a moment before picking it up. This would be the second time it’d be in the field. She’d tweaked it over and over since that embarrassing day, changing the scope, the trigger, the barrel, the energon pump, and even provided it the ability to transform. The latter wasn’t anything particularly impressive–the scope and barrel disengaged anyways to permit carrying it, and without the barrel the rifle was the same size as a blaster. Furthermore, despite its simplicity, the rifle had to be manually transformed, something that even simple blasters could pull off otherwise.But it was her first attempt, her first real, genuine attempt, at making a weapon, and she felt she’d done a decent job for someone who’d never previously handled tools.It took a few seconds to convert the rifle, which was almost as long as she was tall, to its smaller, spike shaped form, which she then attached to her forearm via its magnetic underside. Utilizing it in jet mode would be impossible like this, but it was better to know she had a weapon than be a sitting quasiduck on her mission.Her blasters had been sacrificed to make the rifle. She sincerely hoped that the investment would pay off.“Alright!” She yelled, throwing her arms out. “That’s all I get, Victory! Just one experimental weapon! No blasters! No grenades! No fusion cannons! No null rays or swords or electric staves! All of which I could use if you’d just open the weapons vault! Are you really going to send me off with only this?”Judging from the lack of response, it seemed that yes, it was.Frag this. She kicked the doorframe and stormed Skywarp’s habsuit. He was bigger than her and would make her life a living hell for two chords, but he’d get over it. Besides. She could punch him back without anyone giving her trouble for it. What occurred between Skywarp and whoever punched him stayed there.His habsuit was sparsely decorated, and what existed in it was usually so filthy no one else would touch it. Today she lowered her standards and grabbed one of the blasters she knew he kept under his berth in the hopes that no one would find them; considering how often he had his own revoked, and how much the others hated him, Skywarp had found it necessary to maintain some form of private collection, if only for self-defense from revenge that was absolutely earned.And now his constant need to misbehave was paying off: she wouldn’t be entirely unarmed for this flight, and having a sidearm was better than gauging her hopes on an experimental rifle.Attaching the blaster to her other forearm, she made for the hangar. Her tank felt like it was fluttering with each step. A quick diagnostic scan revealed nothing unusual–nothing besides her own wiring. For this first time ever, she was going to visit the hangar and take off from it.The idea that she was flightless was, in truth, only partially correct. Invert, like all Seekers, had been forged with wings on her back. Yes, they were upside down, and yes, when she transformed, they pointed the wrong way, with the delicate trailing edge leading as opposed to the leading edge itself. This caused the angle her wings made to work against her, and normally kept her out of the air. But a messed up angle alone was not enough to keep her grounded forever.An Earth plane would struggle and stay put, never to dream of the sky. A Cybertronian would reason that with enough Energon and determination, anything could be done. And that was exactly how she intended to fly to Bali.She could fly. The force from her thrusters alone, once in the air, could keep her going upwards, though they would consume Energon at a rapid rate. For this reason she visited the Energon vault and procured five additional cubes–her present fuel levels were adequate enough she felt no need to recharge. As long as she kept her thrusters engaged and made sure to ride the wind currents of Earth perfectly, she calculated a likely path to Bali that only had a 32.6% chance of her crashing and dying in the process.Odds of 67.4 percent seemed favorable enough to her. She paused before the double doors of the hangar, vented, and opened them, stepping in.“Victory, elevate the hangar.” The entire structure rumbled as it rose, the whoosh of water outside indicating they’d broken the surface of the ocean. She could hear waves beating against the metal. “Open. When I leave, return to the bottom of the ocean. I’ll be back. Even if you don’t seem to want me to.”She grumbled that last part.The hangar doors opened. Bright sunlight poured in, causing her optics to readjust. She blinked a few times and took several steps forward, gazing out at the outside world.The ocean seemed to go on for eternity. Its color was a deep blue. White peaks formed and faded away as they crashed over and over against on the hangar.Above, the sky was cloudless. The winds were strong, rushing past her and howling in the enclosed metal environment. It was a good day for a flight.Invert returned to the back of the hangar and pulled up the coordinates in her hub. Approximately 8,502 miles. She’d cross it in a few earth hours if everything went well.If.The Energon cubes felt heavy in her chassis as she transformed, lowering to the ground. The movement of her wings, shifting to her sides, becoming the things she’d have to rely on, felt wrong. It always did–like going from standing on two steady pedes to posing on one’s servos. One was natural, normal, comfortable, done without even thinking. The other required precise balance, intense focus, and a constant consumption of energy to maintain.She’d be more used to it if they let her practice more or gave her some lessons, perhaps. Perhaps they would do just that when they came back. And when they came back, they’d be proud, perhaps, of what she pulled off while they were gone.Giving her fuel supply one final check over, she engaged her thrusters and charged forward.Just like what you’ve seen Starscream do. Engage, shoot forward—And she plummeted, shooting right into the ocean instead of the air. Spluttering, Invert turned back and barely managed to regain her balance before smashing into the seabed. A school of fish shot away from her, followed by some of the many legged organics and one of the squishy, color changing ones.She groaned, knocked a fist against her helm, and turned back to Victory, determined to try again. She’d get this right. She had to.She wouldn’t stop until she did.—Eight hours was all it took to reach Bali with the speed she maintained once airborne. High above the cruising altitude any human plane would comfortably fly at, she watched the unbroken ocean, speckled ever so slightly by the white peaks of breaking waves, and read over the logs on Insecticons. According to the writer of the Decepticon database, Insecticons were about as useful as unrefined Energon and equally likely to explode. Good to know.They were also incredibly disloyal. Of the three, Shrapnel, Kickback, and Bombshell, none had any kind of investment in the Decepticon cause. Their adaptations had given them the ability to consume organic matter and drastically increased their hunger. All they cared about was food.That would be troublesome, if she took them back to Victory immediately. With how low the Energon supply was getting, even one of them deciding to stuff himself could mean that the Decepticon cause on Earth died, permanently.She’d have to approach them cautiously, without the same hospitality she’d extend to her fellow ‘cons (a good punch to the face, usually). What approach she’d provide, she’d have to decide, soon, since the coastline of the island nation had just manifested on the horizon–When a warning suddenly appeared on her hub, covering almost her entire vision in red:LOW POWER. ENERGON LEVEL: 10%. SEEK IMMEDIATE FUEL SOURCE.She cursed, but before the word could even escape her, her body convulsed, forcibly transforming back into its robot mode. Her nose cone dipped before turning back to her chassis and head, leaving her plummeting head over pedes. Her balance modulator began to scream in its efforts to right her, only to immediately disable as the rest of her forcibly entered power saving mode.The ocean was coming up fast. The wind whistled past, blocking out her audials. Tumbling over herself, Invert tried to use the boosters in her struts in an effort to slow her descent–and their force promptly made her tumble even faster. The world became a blur of blue as her systems flashed every warning under the sun.Then she hit the ocean, and the impact was so painful she momentarily offlined. Something cracked. Pain shot all throughout her frame, a damage report automatically pulling up in her hub as she sank below the greenish water, straight to the bottom below.It wasn’t a long drop, but just the act of hitting the sandy bottom exacerbated the pains shooting through her frame. She may as well have hit a wall at full speed. Blinking her optics several times, her damage report finally came into proper view.It wasn’t particularly savage, but neither was it promising. As she moved her arms to pull herself from her prone position on the seafloor they creaked ominously, the sound accompanied by broken glass spilling from her cockpit onto the sandy bottom. Glowing Energon joined it.That got her up. She practically leaped to her pedes, grabbing the cubes and stuffing them back into her chassis, cursing a storm as two of them began to leak. Cracks were apparent in both, and the delicate energy they provided bled out into the ocean currents. Two would be an entire recharge for her–she couldn’t let them go to waste.Pressing her servos against the cracks and praying that would be enough, she swiveled her helm, searching for the shore. The water was shallow–only about fifty feet, if her depth meter was to be trusted–but the open area she’d found herself in was still miles from shore.Miles she would not make without more Energon. Grimacing, already aware of just how poorly this would fare for her tanks, she brought the first of the cubes to her dermas and forcibly gulped it down, taking in far too much seawater in the process. Warnings popped up about contaminated fuel, followed by analysis of the contents: 96.5% water, 2.5% salts, .2% inorganic particulates, .8% organic particulates.The latter part almost made her purge what she’d consumed, but she kept it down. It was energy enough, she wouldn’t have to do it again and once she was back on land she’d purge anyways and forget that this ever happened. Tossing the empty cube aside and pocketing the second, she checked her map again for which way was land.North. She took off in that direction, the sandy floor gradually turning into some kind of living rock formation. Slimy looking organics of odd shapes populated the colorful stones, darting away as she stepped on and crunched them with ease. They left slime on her plating, which did not help her growing desire to purge. Stepping over what seemed to be an entire shelf of the organics, her helm finally broke water.Ahead of her was a beach densely populated with humans. Around her, gasping and shrieking as they swam away, were more humans, all of whom had been previously enjoying themselves, somehow, in the ocean.She gave a dirty look to the closest ones and stomped forward, gradually rising out of the water as she approached the beach. The humans occupying it screamed and scattered, abandoning their little colorful fabrics and strange striped pole structures. A few foolish ones froze in place, staring at her in awe.Dripping with saltwater, covered in slime, and with a broken, gaping cockpit on display, Invert didn’t have the time nor patience to put up with any of them. Decepticons hardly had any concern for humans anyways, but it was generally discouraged to avoid stepping on them–it ruined your paint.Considering the damage her beautiful lime green had already attained, she didn’t think she could care less now.“Hey!”With her map pulled up in her main hub, she hadn’t noticed the one human that, as opposed to running in fear, had frozen up and stood their ground. She glanced down, spotting a tanned one just by her pedes.“Are you one of those Autobots?”The question actually made her pause for a moment, considering the Decepticon brand on her wings. If she were feeling a bit more patient or playful, she might tell him yes, she was, and he and all his friends should absolutely be fine with her holding a few of them for potential hostage situations later. Perhaps she could convince them to take her to her quarry without even an ounce of concern that they might call for help. It was an action that would make strategic sense, that any intellectual Decepticon would leap at.Invert, however, was tired, cranky, and not particularly fond of anything made of metal at the moment.She bent and flicked the human aside, not paying any attention as to just where the hell it might have landed. Humans. Worthless, bold, idiotic creatures. So tiny and delicate. And yet they still thought they could talk to beings like her.“How much longer till I get there?” She asked her systems as she headed off the beach, crunching a few human structures along the way. It responded with a calculation of the remaining distance to her quarry: halfway across the island, nestled in a ‘mangrove swamp’. Another thirty minutes of walking.Her pedes crushed plants and bent concrete as she followed the straightest path, ignoring whatever might have been built upon it. Humans panicked and ran in all directions to avoid her, their tiny screams grating on her audials. They were turned down in response, muting any potential crunching that may have occurred as she kicked aside a wooden structure marked with the image of a cone. The humans and their worthless, useless, delicate structures, were left behind in no time.And foolishly, she did not once consider that one of those screaming, fleeing humans might have called for help.—--------------------- The coordinates lead her to a swamp. After a good ten minutes of walking, Invert found that the island gave way to less populated areas, rife only with animal and plant based organics. They were no more pleasant to deal with, but they didn’t scream nearly as much, and their movement patterns were relatively predictable. They fled to the undergrowth and hid there, as if they were praying she’d leave them alone.Good organics. They knew where they belonged.As she neared the swamp the dirt moistened, sticking to her pedes, and the water made its damnable return, flooding the land and forming pools that ran up her cadulens. The trees lifted themselves upon their roots as if they intended to walk away, forming cages which entrapped more organics within them. It seemed to her like a great prison, formed by the rejects of the Earth itself.Her map suddenly lit up, providing her with a name for the place she’d stepped into–the “Demon Swamp”. An informational packet came along with it, indicating that the Insecticon ship was nearby and that her Decepticon brethren had visited this place prior. She ignored everything except the part about the Insecticons.Invert was hasty, but not stupid. She done her research on the three of them during her flight–it had been difficult with the amount of focus she’d had to maintain at all times, but she’d pulled it off, because unlike some other one trick mechaponies in the cause, she could be taught how to do more than one thing.Of the three Insecticons, her greatest interest was in Shrapnel. They all seemed like frankly awful comrades, but the ability to produce clones was undeniably powerful. It wouldn’t matter if she was the last Decepticon on Earth. It wouldn’t matter if she only found him. It wouldn’t even matter if he could only make a few clones–a clone was still another robot, and numbers were what they needed more than anything.Silently, she hoped that he was the one who had created the distress signal, and that maybe, because of his electricity powers, he’d caused that infernal buzzing. It made sense. What else could have?She made her way through the Demon Swamp cautiously.. For all she knew, Autobot soldiers were waiting around every corner. But more than that, the environment itself was actively hostile to her kind.The water was brackish, and sediment easily gathered between plating. The air was humid, which could clog vents. Organics constantly chirped in the background, distracting audials. The foliage from the mangrove trees moved constantly in the wind, requiring constant optic adjustments for lighting. And the water she waded through gave her position away to anything with ears in the general vicinity.There was no approaching stealthily, not with the twisting roots that threatened to constantly trip her or the water that sloshed and bubbled like it was boiling. There was so much noise, even with her audials turned down, it was almost difficult to think.And that didn’t even begin to cover the constant buzzing that had risen into the air, one that she recognized. She was approaching the ship, she could feel it. Her map was pinging wildly, her coordinate numbers were rapidly growing smaller, and the buzzing of the signal, audible to everyone in a mile radius at minimum, was practically screaming.Actually…she paused, disabling her coordinates and turning her map off. The buzzing was still audible. Raising a hand to her helm, she disabled her comms as well.The buzzing was still audible.It wasn’t a signal, then.She took in a sharp ex-vent and continued forward, the mangrove trees overhead beginning to close together, blocking out the sunlight from above. The route she was following had taken on the qualities of a tunnel with mangrove roots forming its walls. They twisted and crawled over one another like tentacles. It made her plating crawl.The path curved sharply. She was met with a curtain of organic filth, gray and twisting. The buzzing had turned to almost shrieking now, and her scanners indicated that Cybertronian technology was very close now. Grimacing to herself, Invert grit her dentae and shoved the curtain aside, convulsing only slightly as it draped over her plating. It worsened her desire to purge–but that wasn’t the only contributor to the growing feeling.Before her, nestled in a massive grotto, was an old, crashed ship of Cybertronian origin. The doors to it had long been blown off and water had pooled over its floors. Organic filth grew over its top and mangrove roots had looped over its wings, trapping it in place. Its interior was pitch black, but she could detect some kind of movement from within.From the heart of that dark void the buzzing originated, sounding like the shriek of static. And just below it, she could hear a voice.“LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!”—---------------------------------------------------Seek alternate fuel source.By the time Uptick’s data package sent him the notification to end recharge, Luster still hadn’t managed to offline for even a moment. Throughout the entirety of Earth’s night he’d laid still, listening to the endless humming that droned in his processor while watching the light of the moon creep across the floor. Earth’s moon was a small satellite structure about fifty times smaller than the planet it orbited. From the safety of the organic’s home it appeared as a particularly large orb in the sky and went through eight different phases: full, waxing gibbous, first quarter, waxing crescentHe vented harshly at the image and promptly sat up, the constant pinging in his helm only now properly registering. Uptick had so graciously set an alarm for him that was thirty Earth minutes prior to when he was expected at the clinic. As if on cue, he heard a knock at his door, and a quick check of the electrical field coming from outside told him all he needed to know of who was waiting for him.A comm arrived in his link before he could disable it. Despite the alarm literally ringing in his processor and telling him to get up, which Uptick would know he was presently experiencing, another notification from the same mech now waited patiently in his inbox, politely and firmly reiterating what had been told to him the night prior.It would soon be time to go to the clinic. He was not permitted to avoid or skip this appointment. He was on his second strike, and a third would mean that he would go into lockdown. They did not want to make him a prisoner. This was for his own good.Tank capacity at 50%. Fuel uptake at 15%. Seek alternate fuel source.He didn’t manage to close the notification in time and it promptly opened a dozen more. Groaning to himself, Luster slammed his helm into the nearest wall, the damage report temporarily clearing his hub.Another comm and knock arrived only a second after he completed the action. If his optics could roll into his helm, they would have.‘I’m up,’ he sent back. ‘Out in a klik.’His comms were promptly disabled, blocking out Uptick’s response. Then, the damnable alarm that hadn’t once stopped ringing was seized, taken to the back of his processor, and disabled in the least humane way he could imagine. Lastly, every last notification was closed and its accompanying pop-ups blocked.Finally, a moment of quiet. He swung his legs off his berth and took in a few ex-vents, mentally preparing himself for just what he was going to experience at the clinic today. During his last visit, they’d given up on trying to get him to manually recall the details of his trip. Whispers between the medics had agreed upon bringing in “the big guns”.Whatever “the big guns” meant, he couldn’t say he was eager to find out.There were guesses he’d had towards just what such a term might be referring to–a psychic patch in, perhaps, or maybe the complete removal of his processor for dissection. Maybe they’d do a deep scan and recreate him in a digital space, just so they could pick him apart like a particularly interesting puzzle.That was all he was to them. A puzzle. Something to be solved, categorized, put together, pulled apart, and put away once solved.He couldn’t even solve himself. What made them think they could do it?Uptick pinged him again. It had been exactly 16 kliks of blissful silence. Luster vented and stood. Despite his tanks remaining half full, he could feel the aggressive pangs of hunger nipping at him, ever on the edge of his mind. They were pushed aside as he tapped the keypad to his habsuit, opening the door.Uptick stood just beyond it, taking up the entire frame and more with his bulk. He stepped back when the door opened, a mandatory smile crossing his faceplate.“There you are! That’s the fastest you’ve ever arisen!” He beamed at the prospect of his work bearing fruit, which Luster found annoying. “I’ll keep this in mind for next time. Now, are you ready to go? If we’re early, they might be able to admit you faster, which means a shorter session, eh?”“Sure. Shorter.” He grumbled and slinked past Uptick, who closed the door he’d left open and followed along.~The clinic he visited on a weekly basis was located on the opposite side of Metroplex, towards the back of his city form. During the war, there had been dozens of buildings just like it, designed to hold the wounded and dying. After the assault on Autobot city and the incident with the Chaos Bringer on Cybertron, many of the clinics on Earth had closed down as the medics and doctors returned home. There were, after all, far more injuries and casualties on Cybertron, even without the war raging.The peace of Earth had seen all but two clinics close, which were kept open out of necessity. Rare as it was, on occasion an Autobot might return from sparring with half his arm blasted off, or from a drive amongst humans with his front completely ruined. Humans, as Luster had quickly come to learn, were awful navigators and drivers. They ran into everything from still trees to moving cars to thin pedestrians on the side of the road.And sometimes they ran into Autobots, and what was merely an inconvenience for them was a fatality for the fragile organics.He didn’t feel quite strongly about the humans. They were alright. They were small, and weak, but surprisingly intelligent. They thought he was fascinating and scary. Some thought he was a friend. Many had grown accustomed to his kind, and would look at him with expectant eyes.He couldn’t offer them anything. He didn’t know why he intrigued them. The less interactions he had with the small things, the better, he supposed. The only slightly less maddening thing about their company was that the beat of their ‘sparks’ didn’t drive his processor crazy.Which was reason more why he despised the clinic. If there were weak in Autobot City, they were here. And the weak…the weak made easy prey.The streets were full of Autobots this early in the morning. Most everyone was up at this point, stretching their legs, tires, and waking up their engines. With every Autobot that dashed past them, racing along eagerly in alt mode, Luster felt his solvents building. The clinic was within sight, and he could see a black and yellow mech lingering by it, chatting up one of the nurses.Their sparks were so bright he could almost see them through their plating.Seek alternate fuel source.Luster staggered to a halt in the middle of the street, venting harshly as he slammed a fist to his helm.Uptick startled behind him, instantly raising a hand. “Luster? What’s the matter? Are you alright?”He gagged, hissing through his dentae. “I…I need to leave. Now. I need–”“Now is no time for cold pedes.” Uptick said firmly, crossing his arms. “I know you’ve been opposed to these sessions, but the medics have assured me–”Seek alternate fuel source.The notifications were building nonstop. He couldn’t focus on moving, ignoring the sparkbeats, tuning out Uptick, resisting his aching tank, and closing the pop ups, all at once. He needed just a moment of calm, anything to temporarily turn it all off.“I need Energon,” he spat, ignoring whatever else Uptick had said. “Now.”“Luster–!”Jerking away, Luster staggered in the direction he knew the bar to be in. Three streets over, seven blocks down, take a left at the lamp post, follow the street until you see a lit up sign–“Luster!” Uptick yelled, catching up with him in a moment and grabbing him by his shoulders. Luster growled and tried to shake him off, but he held on, turning him around like he was only an indignant sparkling. “You are absolutely not visiting the bar again. I tolerate this habit of yours on your best days, when it is appropriate to do so. Believe me when I say this, I understand how… appealing it can be to try and drown yourself in energy when you’re faced with the horrors of the past. But you…you’re taking it to dangerous levels.” His faceplate was more stony than the diamonds in Luster’s helm. “And I know for a fact that your tank does not empty at a rate so rapid that you’d need to refuel after only six hours of recharge.”“I didn’t recharge,” Luster snapped back, reaching up to grab one of Uptick’s servo’s. “I couldn’t offline for even a second last night. I’m starving, I need Energon, Uptick!”“You need to stop acting like this!” His grip only tightened as Luster scratched at it, some of the white paint chipping away. “Avoiding your appointments to drink at the bar won’t change anything for the better, Luster! If you keep resisting change, you’ll end up trapped in the past!”The street had been sparsely populated only moments ago. Now, Luster was aware of other Autobots pausing in their going-ons. Several helms poked out from buildings, curious to see exactly what one of their enforcers had caught.He didn’t want to make a scene. The last thing he needed was more Autobots in the area around him. The quiet pounding sounds rapidly surrounding him were like drums on a quiet evening. But before he could even try to look around another notification popped up.Feed me.“It’s not about being stuck, idiot!” He screamed back, a snarl twisting his faceplate. He could feel the metal threatening to crack and break apart at the seams, right where his jaws would hinge. “I NEED this, or I’ll offline! I’ve got a fuel deficiency!”“DON’T LIE TO ME!” Metal creaked as Uptick’s grip suddenly became painful, earning him a hiss. “I’ve have personal access to your file! There’s nothing wrong with your physical health!”Nothing wrong? NOTHING WRONG?!The file was already so wrong by claiming that, and none of them even knew it.Seek alternate fuel source.There are many sources nearby.“Is that so?” He grit out, feeling something on his back shifting. “Is that what they told you?”Was it so, Uptick? Would it always be so? Would it be so when he broke his faceplate, snapped his servos, and–And what was he thinking?He froze in the middle of forming his next sentence, voice dying before it could make any words. There was something shifting on his back, beneath his drill, and it replaced all the anger he felt with instant fear. There were witnesses. There were Autobots he knew around. If he let any more of himself slip, he would never speak to any of them again.The fight left him as quickly as it had entered, uselessly bleeding out like the Energon in his tank. Uptick seemed to sense this, his own rage subsiding, loosening along with his servos. Their impression had been left behind in Luster’s shoulderpads. He’d barely felt them bend, hissing only out of reflex.It was supposed to have hurt. He hadn’t even felt it.The noise was coming back now. It was accompanied by the voices of other Autobots. He was suddenly so aware of the gazes upon him. Standing in the middle of the street by the clinic, he’d made himself the spectacle of the sector. And Uptick…“We’re here early,” he muttered, venting quietly. “If you attend, and give them no issue, then…perhaps after your appointment…I…” He trailed off. “Your favorite refuge, it’s the Lead Pigeon, right?”Luster did not look at him, or anyone, for that matter. Numbly he headed for the doors of the clinic, the red and orange nurse from before waiting for him. Uptick said something, following him halfway to his destination before stopping in the street. The medic cast him a glance before focusing back on her patient.“Luster! It’s good to see you.” The nurse held out her arm and spoke like she hadn’t watched him almost assault an enforcer in the street. “We’re almost ready for you, if you’ll just follow me. Got to take vitals.”“Right,” he muttered, the noise of his notifications starting to drown out the street he’d left behind. Amongst it all, a ping came in from Uptick. He lingered over it for a few seconds as his body trudged along, leaving his mind stuck at the doors of the clinic.“Luster?” The nurse stopped by a machine. “Please step on the scanner.”He dismissed Uptick’s ping and obeyed.After the initial scans, he was led to the back of the clinic. The nurse took him to a small room with an examination table and a monitor. He moved to the table while she retrieved her datapad and tapped him in, the door sealing shut behind them.He’d been to the clinic a dozen times before, but it was the first time they’d taken him to this individual room. It was smaller than he’d thought they’d put a mech of his size in. With both their frames crowded in alongside the monitor and table, the place felt almost stifling. He shifted uncomfortably, dismissing more pings and notifications as she finally looked up from her datapad.“Alright, you’re all checked in. I’ve sent a comm to the surgeon you’ll be working with today.” She smiled, again. It was starting to bug him. “Have you been made aware of the treatment you’ll be undergoing today?”“No,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his legs. “What is it?”Ignoring his tone, she kept smiling and continued. “Are you familiar with mnemosurgery? Following your last encounter at the clinic, the doctor felt it would be best if an alternate approach was used to help you regain your memories. A specialist was called in from Cybertron, just for you.”Luster cringed at that. All the way from Cybertron. Someone from home, or what home was supposed to be. Someone who’d remind him of how much he’d changed, how much home had changed. Was it anything like he remembered?Mnemosurgery. It meant nothing to him. He frowned.“So he’s come all the way from Cybertron to do…something weird to me?” He vented. The drill on his back felt all the heavier. “Wonderful.”The nurse was still smiling. Did she ever stop? Did she think it was reassuring? He felt like he was going to purge.“It’ll be fine, don’t worry. Mnemosurgery has been used plenty of times to help mechs struggling with trauma. The doctor wouldn’t have prescribed this if he thought it would be harmful to your health. And–”A knock on the door interrupted her. Turning, she flipped the lock and it slid open, revealing a lavender mech with teal and yellow accents. He was wearing a silver visor and carrying a datapad, and gave the nurse a nod as he stepped in.“Luster of Cybertron, I take it?” He asked, silver gaze taking in the form of the pathetic creature sitting on the examination table. Upon receiving a nod, he grinned and held out a hand. “Good to meet you! I’m Redactor, and I’ll be serving as your mnemosurgeon.”His greeting was not returned. Unperturbed, Redactor dismissed the nurse, though he didn’t bother to sit where she had. Raising his datapad, he stood by the door as it closed, reviewing whatever information was on it.“So tell me about yourself, Luster!”His voice was annoyingly cheerful. From the looks of his shoulderpads, tires, and the gaudy paint job, Luster guessed he was a race car. There were even rear wings on his back, split for each arm. His Autobot insignia was proudly displayed on his helm.“What’s there to tell? Everything you need to know is on that datapad.”Redactor shrugged. “Sure, but as your mnemosurgeon, I’d like to potentially learn a bit more about you before I go digging around in your memories. It’s never pleasant to have a stranger in your thinker, is it?” He tapped his helm and let out a light chuckle.Luster arched an optical ridge. “What do you mean by that?”“Do you know what mnemosurgery is?” Redactor tilted his helm slightly, and when Luster shook his own, continued. “Mnemosurgery is the process of entering another Cybertronian’s mind. We…it doesn’t have a great reputation, I’ll be entirely realistic with you.”Despite the seriousness of the topic, he let out an awkward laugh.“You see it has a bit of a…connection, with the concepts of shadowplay and…well, during the war, it was frequently used to pry secrets from the processors of soldiers.”“But! Time marches on.” He gave Luster a smile that was supposed to be reassuring and failed to do just that. “You have my promise, I am not here to control you or alter your memories—I’m here to help you regain them. I heard you’ve been having memory problems?”“That’s…one way of saying it.” He sat up, his back strut cracking as he did so. “I can’t remember anything, which I’m sure that datapad has already told you. So how are you going to fix that?”Redactor raised one hand, needles suddenly springing from his fingers. Luster’s optics widened. Beneath his drill, something stirred, preparing to spring out defensively.“Relax! The process is painless!” The needles retracted and Redactor waved his hand placatingly. “According to your file, your memories are damaged, but it’s likely that they still exist, buried deep within your processor. You just can’t access them. That’s where I come in!”He gave his horrifying servos a wiggle. “With these, I can delve into your processor and potentially guide you back into those areas you can’t access. Now…granted, it may take several tries, and the process is quite dangerous to me. But…well, I can’t just turn down someone in need.”“In need?” He was in need, all right, in need of not having needles jammed into his processor. He’d had the thing literally poked and prodded before, but this? Another ‘bot, literally inside of his head, accessing his memories?“Yes. Whatever happened to you out there, it’s destroyed quite a bit of your processor, hasn’t it? Don’t you want to remember any of it?”When he didn’t answer, Redactor leaned forward, pressing even further. “Don’t you want to remember Cybertron? Your ship? Whatever you found out there? Solace?”Solace.Don’t you want to remember Solace?Solace.He felt like the ground was dropping from beneath his feet, flipping his tank out of his intake. Coughing, Luster felt warm Energon spill into his mouth, dripping out from his dermas. Redactor cringed at the sight.“Are you alright?” He asked worriedly, though his words fell on deafening audials.Solace.Solace.Who’s Solace?“If you’re not feeling well, I’ll call the nurse, we can do this another day–”“Don’t.” The words spilled out of him along with the pearls of Energon, his optics focusing on the silver of Redactor’s visor. “Solace. You can help me remember Solace?.”There was an edge to his voice, a desperation that made Redactor flinch.“I–yes, that’s the hope. I–have you eaten this morning? The nurse said there was an incident–”“I’m fine. Tell me. What are you going to do?” He leaned forward, almost losing his balance on the table. “What do those needles do? Are you going through my helm?”“Oh, heavens no. They, ah, enter through the back of your neck, where I’ll connect with–”“Don’t care. You said it doesn’t hurt?”“No, absolutely not. Completely painless, I assure you. Um, are you sure you’re feeling alright, you seem…well, friend, you’ve done a bit of an about face, haven’t you?”He balled a fist and wiped Energon from his dermas. “Haven’t the faintest clue what you’re talking about. How long is this going to take?”“The mnemosurgery? Anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. I try to keep sessions short–the longer I’m in your mind, the greater the danger to me.”Just a few hours at max. He could hold out for that long. With how slowly his tank drained anyways, he wouldn’t be anywhere close to empty even by the end of the earth day. A few hours. That was all.Solace. He had to find out what happened to Solace. This would let him find out what had happened to Solace.What happened to Solace?“Alright. Poke me. Stab me. Whatever you’ve got to do. Let’s do this.”Redactor winced. “It’s…good to see that you’re so…cooperative! Al-alright, please lie down.”He did as instructed. Redactor loomed over him, needles poking out of his servos as he moved to his helm.“Now, please try to relax. Disable your optics if need be. The more stressed you are, the more difficult it can become for me to enter, and…”Redactor was going on and on about the process. Luster did not care. He was too busy attempting to close every notification currently crowding his hub.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.Seek alternate fuel source.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.SEEK ALTERNATE FUEL SOURCE.A few hours. Just a few hours. That was all he had to hold on for.He could do this.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He didn’t feel the needles enter his neck. With his attention so occupied by the notifications in his display, he didn’t even notice when his surroundings fell away and his body became weightless. What he did notice was the sudden absence of his prior tormentors, which left him momentarily confused before he realized just why they’d disappeared.The entire world had gone black. His optics scanned his surroundings and came away with nothing. There were no shapes in the darkness, no silhouettes of other mechs, no sneaky notification pop-ups lying in wait. He was alone in this empty space, this empty darkness.In the background he could hear humming.Luster’s optics widened and panic shot through him, immediately turning the space from a void into massive splotches of uneven color. Rust red, white, yellow, lavender, teal, and a familiar blue suddenly took up the sky, shooting around the mindscape in rivulets like paint inside a globe. Globs rose from each streak like ribbon eels, beelining for him at a speed too swift to react to.All of them struck at once, and he shrieked. The colors mixed jaggedly and swirled around him like a storm. The humming grew in volume, as if coming closer. He could feel a presence growing nearer, one so great it threatened to crush his pathetic body.His body. He couldn’t move his body. Looking down at his hands, he realized he couldn’t even see it.He couldn’t see his body.HELP! He screamed, silently, and it echoed endlessly. WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?!Something touched his shoulder. All of a sudden, he could move his body. And wheeling around, he came face to face with Redactor.The entire world had turned white, pure as Earth snow. The humming had gone silent. Before him, a look of concern twisting his features, was the mech who had brought him here.“There you are!” He said, venting a sigh of relief. “Forgive me, I’ve never had something like this happen before! I thought I’d almost lost you!”“Lost me?” He vented harshly, even if he didn’t need to. Fear was still spinning in his mind, causing the edges of the world to fuzz.“Yes, I’m afraid that when I first entered your mind, I lost track of you.” Redactor frowned. “I’ve never had that happen to me. It was…well, it was like being knocked off the race track!” He laughed awkwardly. “I…have no idea what could have caused that. It’s…honestly quite concerning. It may do for us to perform this at another date–”“No.” He grabbed Redactor’s arm with both hands, pulling him forward. “We do this now. Help me find Solace. He’s in here somewhere, right? Help me find him. I’ll never bother you again if you do.”Redactor winced, looking him over. “I–well, of course I will, but–Luster, are you…are you certain you’re in the right mindset for this? Your current body is–well, it’s…”He vaguely gestured a few times, scrunching his face with concern.“I’ve never seen anyone take so…creative, a shape.”Luster didn’t even know what he looked like. He cast any concern aside. Of course he was messed up, his memories were gone and he was being haunted by a humming sound. His body probably looked like it had been tossed through a gear grinder because, well, he probably had.As long as his physical condition didn’t bleed through, Redactor wouldn’t know anything. He would keep it as far as he could from his mind.He needed to find what happened to Solace. That was what mattered. Not fixing his processor or whatever he looked like. Solace.“I’m fine. It’s…it’s probably leftover from whatever messed my processor up in the first place. You’ll find out whatever that is and fix it, right? Right. So let’s do it already.” He tugged on his arm again. “Find out what’s wrong with me. Fix it. Help me remember Solace.”Redactor grimaced, which mixed with his attempt at a placating smile to make something that bespoke of discomfort like nothing else. “Well–well…well…” He began, trailed off, and vented. “Alright. Alright, yes, of course. We’ll go through your memories–whatever’s left of them. You want to remember what ruined your processor the most, right? Or–”“Sure.”“...alright, so, we can’t just open that memory immediately. Whatever damaged you caused immense trauma that you forcibly repressed. If I try to open it immediately, it could hurt you. So, I’m going to use a slower, safer approach, one that should gradually coax that memory out.”Freeing himself from Luster’s grip, Redactor raised his other arm, motioning as if he was swiping through channels on an entertainment feed.“I’m going to find the root of where this damage originally came from, the very start of it all. And from there, we’ll climb up the trunk and the branches of your memory tree, until we can find the exact traumatic incident at its apex. Alright?”“Okay.”It made enough sense, he supposed–going back to the very beginning and retracing every step, until they eventually found themselves at the defining incident.“So, how far back will we be going? Will this help me remember Solace?”“If the incident that destroyed your memory is related to him, absolutely.” Redactor didn’t look back at him, continuing to motion at what looked like empty space to Luster. “Remember, we’ll be going right back to the beginning, so this starting moment could be something incredibly distant. Perhaps as far as–”And the world suddenly dropped away. Luster yelled as he felt himself falling, landing in a new body he couldn’t control. Redactor had disappeared, and the entire world had rebuilt itself.His panicked optics tried to search around and take in his surroundings. He was in a data library of sorts. The body that he was in was walking down one of the many aisles, running a servo over the gray boxes of data on the shelves. The environment was cool, as all data libraries were, and quiet, besides the hum of the computers working to keep everything monitored.Why was he in a data library? He tried to recall. It came up blank.The body he was in suddenly paused and moved to grab a drive from one of the shelves. The servos, he noticed, were corrupted: they weren’t his pointed silver. Plucking a particularly large drive from the shelf, the optics that weren’t his own followed the servos that weren’t his own to watch them tuck the drive under the arm that wasn’t his own. Then the legs that weren’t his own began to move, and he was walking back through the aisle towards one of the many tables where mechs gathered to study.He was alone in the data library. He tried to remember if it was late or early, or perhaps there was an event, but he couldn’t recall even that. There was no light shining in–there never was, windows meant that integrity could be damaged. The lighting of the library was on low, but that could be for any number of reasons.The body that was not his sat down at the study table and placed the drive before him. Uncoiling the wire from it, he felt a panel on his helm open as the cord was raised. A connection was forged, and information began to flood into him.Information he couldn’t recall now. It sounded like thousands of mechs speaking at once, all of them doing so in other languages. He couldn’t understand any of them.How was a day of studying in a data library the root of what had cost him his memory? He wondered if he could call out to Redactor and demand he pull him out.A tap on his shoulder. The body that wasn’t his paused and turned. Another mech stood beside him, partially leaning on the table. He looked up to their optics, a frown crossing his faceplate.Ice ran through Luster’s wiring at the sight. Ice, and fire so bright and powerful it threatened to scorch the body that wasn’t his and birth him forth like a phoenix.It was Solace. He recognized his shape, his colors, his visor, his faceplate. It had to be Solace. There was no one else it could be.His plating was rust red, as almost all medics were. The plus of a healer was painted on his mask, which despite being presently retracted still showed off its marks. His helm was relatively square, matching with the screen displayed proudly on his chest: a glass box which read the sparkbeats of all around, including his own.Oh, Solace. Beautiful Solace. That was how it had always been, hadn’t it? He was drab, and unpolished, and unnoticeable, and Solace…No, that wasn’t how it had always been. Solace was rust red. He was tropical blue. He was shiny from daily self care, Solace couldn’t be bothered to buff himself unless he was presenting.What did he present? He was always researching–No, he wasn’t. Solace was always studying. And when he studied he–The edges of the memory began to gray and fray. Luster felt a pang in his helm, and the heavy presence of something behind him. He tried to turn, to look at it, hoping to catch it in its stride. But his body was locked in place, trapped in the motion of the memory.All he could do was continue to relive it.The body that wasn’t his found Solace off-putting. It didn’t know who this newcomer was or what immense importance he held. It tried to shy away, optics lingering only a second on the form leaning towards him before glancing back at the drive.“It’s a bit late for studying, don’t you think?”His voice. Oh, his voice. Solace had the voice of someone who always was interested in something. When he spoke it was with a veiled fervor. If he was not interested he was excited, and if he was neither, he was bored. When Solace spoke to another mech, it was because they were something for him to learn, and he loved to learn.And now, in this memory, he wanted to learn about him. Oh, he remembered this moment. He remembered this moment, and all of a sudden, the body was his again. The graying and fraying disappeared. He settled into the memory with the aid of something heavy, something that was ever behind him, something he couldn’t look at.“Time is a concept,” he grumbled back, leaning on one arm and looking away. “I can study when I want.”“Alone, in the dead hours of recharge?” Solace teased, sitting down across from him and crossing his servos beneath his chin. “Hm, I think you’re not telling me the full story~”Luster glowered at him. “I don’t owe you a story. Why are you here, anyways? If it’s a bad time for studying, shouldn’t you be off doing…whatever, else?”Solace vented and shrugged. “I was. But then I–” He paused, and grinned mischievously. “Ah, but I don’t owe you a story, do I?”His scowl deepened. “Fine then. Don’t tell me. Can you at least stop talking, then, so I can focus?”“Mhm, but then I’ll be bored!” He flopped forward dramatically. “And I hate being bored. Come on, how about…I tell you my story, and then you tell me yours?”Luster frowned. “Why should I agree to those terms? If you can’t already tell, I’m trying to focus here.”He tapped a servo on the data drive, which had gone completely silent in his processor. Looking in now, Luster realized he didn’t remember any of the information he’d been supposed to be studying that night.What had he been trying to learn of, anyways?“Oh come on.” Solace pouted, leaning in closely. “You look like the kind of mech who spends hours in here. I bet you don’t even want to be absorbing that data drive. Did you know that processing too much data in one day can cause helmaches and temporary memory loss? You don’t even retain additional information after a certain point, unless you’re built for it.” He pointed a servo to Luster’s chassis. “And you don’t look like Prowl to me.”An exasperated groan escaped him. “Fine! Fine, whatever. Tell me your story and go.”“Ah, but you’ve got to tell me yours after I finish!”“Fine! Whatever.”Solace’s grin stretched to both sides of his faceplate. “Well, my fellow mech, I’ve just come from an academic conference where I was preparing to present my recent findings.” He stood, gesturing with a wave. “There I was before a crowd of hundreds of other mechs, with only my delicate datapad and wits to keep me anchored as I walked on stage, and prepared to present–”And the entire world suddenly glitched, turning green, purple, black. Whatever had settled behind him was whisked away in a moment. Luster was tossed out of his body and thrown back into the open space of his mind, desperately reaching for the end of that memory. Solace’s lanky form with his outstretched servos, cheerfully recanting nonsense he didn’t remember–but was so close to–flew away like a leaf in the wind.And he, too, fell away. He could feel his body falling again, back into that void of open space, where the stars extended for eternity and that humming, that damn humming–Servos gripped his shoulders and jerked him back into the white void of his mindscape. He yelled at the sensation, mentally stumbling, trying to gain his bearings as he separated from the tendrils of that deceptively enticing memory.Redactor stepped back from him as he whirled around, looking for the dredges of what he’d seen.“What happened?! Where is he?!” He demanded, focusing on the poor doctor instead. “My memory, why did it cut off?”He raised both hands placatingly. “I had no choice. The memory, it…it corrupted. If I’d left you in there for a moment more, you…I don’t think either of us would be standing here now.”He scowled. “Why? Why did it corrupt? Did you do that? Or…no, it’s my broken processor, isn’t it?” He turned away, knocking a fist against his head several times. There was no pain–of course not, he wasn’t physically hitting himself, so he couldn’t physically feel pain.“I’m not quite sure what it is,” Redactor said, moving to keep him from hitting himself, “but I’ve a few theories, from just what I’ve seen in your mind so far. I, ah, have been doing more in the background than just watching your memories,” he explained. “You are untrained, so when I go through your memories, you merely relive them, but I, well, I sift through everything you felt in that moment, everything that led up to it, everything that shaped you into the mech you were at that time…”The look he gave him must have been off-putting, because Redactor immediately backed off.“Ah, I promise I’m not trying to be invasive! I’m, I, ah, the reason I am examining your memories, and by extension their roots, more closely, is because I am trying to find the exact cause of why your memories are fractured, damaged, or outright missing. Start at the leaves, work your way down to the tree, yes?”“I didn’t learn about organics in med–”A bolt of agony shot straight through his helm. Luster screamed. The entire mindscape suddenly shook, the edges glitching and blackening.Redactor’s form glitched before him, momentarily blinking in and out of existence. He looked frightened, his mouth moving to form words, but none of them registering to Luster.“What in the pit?!” He growled, pain pulsing through his helm. “What did I do? All I did was try to recall–”The academy. He tried to recall the academy. The academy where he learned–The Study Of Minerals.No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t know the first thing about–Geology of Cybertron Levels I-IVGemstone Composition and Make-upArchaeology of Alien CivilizationsThe Historical Significance of OresHow to Reignite a SparkHe blinked, and he was no longer in the mindscape. The environment had changed to what looked like a habsuit. He sat on the edge of a berth, hunched over, watching Solace pace back and forth across from him. Exhaustion set into his circuits. It had been late.“Enough about that,” he said, leaning back on the berth. “It’s a problem for tomorrow.” When Solace didn’t respond, he pouted. “You’ve been at this all day, come on. I’m tired.”“It’s interplanetary,” Solace said, completely ignoring his request. “It’s sending out signals to something light years away and waiting for a response. It’s a rock, an ore, and it’s behaving like an advanced communication device!” He stopped and splayed his servos incredulously. “Do you realize what this could mean, $)&$(#?”A bolt of pain shot through his mind at the sound that Solace made. The memory frayed slightly at the edges. Luster winced internally, but the form of him on the berth gave no such indication of pain. He grit his dentae, trying to figure out just where he was in this memory. Was he looking in, or was he reliving it? Did it truly matter?That same heaviness had settled on his back, keeping him grounded in the memory.“Rocks are smarter than we thought they are?” Luster offered in response, lazily motioning with his hand.“Rocks are infinitely smarter than we think they are!” Solace practically yelled, exasperated. “This discovery doesn’t change that! This discovery could mean that we have found some kind of homing beacon, some kind of foreign technology rooted in minerals! Think about the implications!”He threw out a hand.“There could be a species similar to our own which is not based in metals but in stone! Perhaps they are powered by methods not dissimilar to our own! Perhaps they have cities and ships and technology that vastly outdoes our own!”Luster yawned. “If that was true, we would have found them already. Also, wouldn’t they have appeared at the Galactic Council? It’s probably not an undiscovered species, Solace, just undiscovered tech.”“But that’s more than enough to warrant delving into it!” Solace was so excited that his visor had lit up. Primus, he had pretty optics. “And if I find something out there, some kind of communication technology, it’ll take me right to–”“To berth?’ He interrupted. “Because I’m about to enter recharge without you.”“Huh?” Solace froze like a kicked cyberpuppy. “Wait, what? What’s the time? You’re about to recharge?”Luster chuckled. “You idiot, it’s…”The memory frayed. It came apart like hundreds of strips of parchment, all pulling away at once. They flew away like ribbons in the wind, giving way to the blackness of the void again. Distantly, he could see stars. And ever present, like the beat of his own spark, was that humming.Despite the fact that he’d just relived the moment, Luster couldn’t confidently say he recalled it with exact clarity. It was like he’d just sat through a play that depicted one of his memories, except that whoever had organized the play had decided to change a few things around and insist that they were what had occurred. He frowned, trying to recall why that moment had been so important.Solace had found something. They’d…they’d met in the library. That had been the root of when he’d lost his memories, according to Redactor. Which meant him meeting Solace was what led to him eventually becoming…He refused to give it a name. There was someone else in his mind. He could not think of it. He…he vaguely remembered that, after meeting Solace, he’d continued to occupy his time with the other mech. Why?Yet even as he asked himself that question, he knew why. His spark ached at the thought of Solace’s face, gentle, warm optics hidden behind his visor, always looking at him like he was staring at some kind of prized jewel.That’s what he’d been to him–his prized jewel. And yet despite that, he’d never once felt like he was just a trophy.And then Solace had found something. He was always studying, always–no, always researching, why had he convinced himself Solace studied? Solace had graduated. Solace had come back to the library that evening because he…because he had lost his funding.He remembered it with almost perfect clarity, now. Solace had lost his funding. He’d come to the library to sulk and, upon finding another poor soul out so late, decided to deny his misery by deflecting it with a story. Dramatizing his experience, making fun of it, as if it couldn’t hurt him.Of course it still had. He’d won Luster over that night, but the mark had been left, and it wasn’t long before Solace was searching again, looking for some new way to secure funding for…for what?He never really knew, but it was for something important. And during that search, he’d found something.But…wasn’t Solace…a medical bot? Why obsess so much with rocks when, as a defibrillator, he had sparks to reignite and a job to serve in?Then again, he’d met him before the war. Perhaps he’d been so bored he had nothing better to do.Servos grabbed onto his arm. He flinched, a different heaviness from before manifesting as he was pulled back into the mindscape. The darkness he’d grown accustomed to faded away as light swallowed it, and the damnable humming was replaced by the worried voice of his surgeon.“Luster? Luster!” Redactor grabbed him with both servos, fearful expression lightening as he blinked. “Oh, thank Primus! I thought I’d lost you!”“Lost me?” He felt disconnected, like part of him was still in that memory. “It’s my own head, how can you…”“There’s-there’s many factors that can go into it. But I…Luster, I’m sorry to say this, but I think we need to stop our session, actually. Your…your form, it’s concerning to me. It’s…”He didn’t say it, but looking down, Luster realized that he was starting to coalesce. And his servos were sharper than they’d ever been before.Oh no.He looked to his back immediately, seeing that damnable drill there. He couldn’t feel anything under it. Was it really relief? What if they were still there?“Please try not to be alarmed,” Redactor said, a veil of calm scarcely hiding his concern. “Your form…it may just be struggling to take your true shape because you…you don’t have it figured out yet.”It didn’t necessarily feel like the truth, and that made him all the more uneasy.“Besides, your form–it’s not…it isn’t the only thing I’m concerned about.” Redactor clasped his servos together and ex-vented sharply. “I…well, I’ve seen only one of your memories, but…well…”Only seen one? But he’d just relived another–“Well what?” Luster asked. “What’s wrong? I…well, frag, everything’s wrong, I know that, but…what’s specifically wrong?”“Your memories, they’re…corrupted,” Redactor explained. “But it’s worse than just…it’s worse than just corrupted. No, that’s-that’s putting it lightly. It’s like something else is in here with us, and is actively messing with your memories.”He’d laugh if he couldn’t say he felt the same.“So you felt it too?”Redactor’s optics widened.“I-yes! Yes, that–it feels like a presence behind you, right?”“Less a presence, more a weight. What is it?”“I…don’t know. It could be a virus, a piece of rogue code, processor damage, maybe even a parasite? I need more time to work with you–a lot more. I’d say at least four more visits, and that’s…well, I don’t…know if it’d even be safe to return to this mindscape, considering…well....we’d need to run some scans, do some diagnostics– ““How long will that take?” He interrupted. Luster wanted his processor fixed more than anything. But four more trips, more diagnostics and scans, more time spent trying to find out what was wrong with him…he didn’t know if he had that.“I-I, well, it’s difficult to say, but as an approximation, I would guess, ah, five weeks? To run the full barrage of tests, interpret them, and then begin working in your mind–”He trailed off, looking around as the mindscape started to change. “Luster? Is-is something wrong?No, he wanted to say, but the words didn’t form, because his mind was awash with new realizations, new fears, and new horrors. Perhaps externally, he could maintain a facade. Perhaps externally, in any space that did not ring with his internal monologue, he could pretend that he was fine. Perhaps externally, he could brush off the news that he was unfixable and walk away to sulk and drink.But in the space of his mind, where emotions bled through and painted the walls in a canvas of his thoughts, he could hide nothing.And what was displayed was fear. Fear that he would not last one week left alone five. Fear that he would snap before then. Fear that Redactor would find out what he was. Fear that–Fear that Redactor was reading all of this now and could be trusted with none of it.The mnemosurgeon jerked back, raising both of his hands in surrender. “Luster, I promise, whatever you are afraid of me learning, I will tell no one. I would never violate your patient confidentiality, not unless it meant grievous harm to you!”Oh, he knew that. And that was why Redactor would violate it.“Wait, what?”“I. Won’t. Last a week, let alone five,” he said, finally finding his voice. “I need to know what’s wrong with me now. Whatever you can do to fix me, if anything at all, you need to do it now. I need to remember now.”He stepped forward, his avatar beginning to take its proper shape. It hadn’t existed before because he himself hadn’t really existed—not in this space. But if he was to face his past, face the strange presence in his head, he needed to have a shape. And that shape could not hide what he’d become.Redactor stepped back from the being forming before him. Despite the silver of his visor, his optics trembled with something akin to fear.“L-Luster…I…what…what are you?”He trailed off as the thing before him coalesced, words and thoughts dying in the face of a being that shouldn’t exist.“Luster?” The name escaped him like a prayer.“We’re n o t stopping.” It loomed over him now, tentacles sprouting from its back. “I need you to send me back in there. Now.”Redactor’s entire body trembled with fear. He stared, frozen with terror, at the monster that his patient had unfurled into.There was no time to even think of the action. He pulled out. It was risky, it was dangerous, and it could kill him and Luster.Perhaps the latter would be mercy.The mindscape melted all at once, the white void dripping away like paint from a window. In its place came the gray walls of the clinic and its cabinets. Redactor stumbled back from the exam table, knocking against the wall and sliding down it, his balance off from so suddenly tearing free from a session. He squeezed his optics shut for just a moment and ordered a recalibration of his systems.And in the four seconds it took for him to recover, the thing on the table sat up.Behind his visor of silver his optics opened to a sight no mech should ever gaze upon.Luster pulled himself off the table, standing between the mnemosurgeon and the door heralding safety. His optics, tinted green by the contacts he wore, could no longer betray their natural yellow glow. From beneath his drill, long, curling tendrils of tentacles, each tipped with deadly sharp, electrical claws, unfurled, spreading out in unison as they locked onto their target. Before Redactor could scream or ping an SOS, they shot forth, gripping onto his plating and holding him still.“Don’t panic,” Luster said, but even as he did so, his jaw cracked, and a drip of solvent escaped from between his dentae. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need you to understand–”His comms opened and immediately, an SOS ping shot out. Luster’s optics widened.SOS SPARKEATER SOS THERE’S A SPARKEATER IN ROOMThe tentacles suddenly plunged into Redactor’s plating, punching through it like paper. Electricity surged through the deadly sharp blades of each, shocking his systems so severely he couldn’t move. His entire hub glitched as it overloaded, notifications popping up and dying as soon as they were birthed, but all bearing the same dire warning:WARNING: ELECTRICAL OVERLOAD. SYSTEMS FAILING.His limbs locked up. His optics focused on one object and became stuck. His comms slammed shut as their connection was severed. Even his processor ceased to think for a moment, fried so thoroughly that he thought he saw the light of Primus.His body slumped against the wall, and only then did the tentacles cease their endless flow of electricity.Luster gazed at his inert form, panic surging through his systems. He had called for help but hadn’t specified the room. He hadn’t specified that he himself was the sparkeater. If he was fast, he could maybe stage something, make it seem like the mnemosurgery had knocked him out, that the warning was false because he’d had some kind of bad experience and they were both–And before he could think any further, a knock sounded on the door.S E E K A L T E R N A T E F U E L S O U R C E

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“LET ME OUT!”At the sound of the voice her spark leaped in its chamber. Invert grinned despite her prior grievances, the swamp and all of its horrors left behind. Though no one could see it, she raised an arm and waved.“I’m here! I hear you! I’m coming! Hold on!”Water splashed around her pedes as she practically sprinted for the ship, concerns of an Autobot ambush cast aside as its dark entrance yawned. The buzzing grew in volume as she closed the distance, and though she was loath to fully disable her audials, she found she had no choice. Her helm was threatening to split from noise alone.Whoever was in this ship had to be strong, she could feel it. She ran over her options again: Bombshell, Shrapnel, Kickback. Which had she decided was the most useful? Oh, whoever, she didn’t really care! Well, maybe she did a little, but truly, she’d be grateful just to have another ‘con around. Someone who was on her side. Someone who she could plan with and fight by. Even if they were, according to the data pack, a bit hard to get along with.Oh well. She would top the pecking order in no time. They didn’t know what she was capable of, and they’d learn fast to respect her.The interior of the ship was larger than it seemed from the outside, as most Decepticon ships tended to be. The floor before her was completely underwater, its silver squares smothered by a thick layer of dark organic grime. The walls were colored purple, though their paint had long stripped. Water stains alongside long white streaks of organic substance decorated her surroundings. On the far right, where the front of the ship rested comfortably, the bridge sat in ruin.If she was a bit more concerned about escaping the planet, perhaps she would have been distressed by that fact. But Invert couldn’t have cared less at the moment, for her optics were focused on the barely glowing sign hanging above a broken door across from her. The Insecticon ship was small, with only a bridge, a large main area, and a side compartment for the med bay. Under most circumstances, that compartment was sealed, but the presence of the entrance told her all she needed to know about where to find her future friend.She left the bridge and the main area behind, taking a step down into the cramped quarters of the med bay. And there, bundled against the wall like a clutch of eggs, sat five stasis pods.Three were open. One was dark. And the last one—It looked like it had been almost destroyed.The metal was warped and bulged outwards. The glass was cracked and shards of it sparkled beneath the stagnant water. Deep gouges tore up the walls beside the pod. She could see scuff marks on the floor and what looked like burns on the ceiling. The display on the pod was glitching and barely functional, showcasing error codes and a single life signal.She furrowed her optical ridges, wondering just what had happened here to incur such damage.Well, it was of no major significance to her. Whatever had happened here had passed, and all it had left behind was an Insecticon soldier ready to burst forth and support his cause. Her audials indicated that the source of the buzzing, and logically, the screaming, was the pod. In fact…as she stepped closer, they displayed warnings: the sound being produced would cause damage if listened to at such range, even with muted audials, for elongated periods of time.He was strong. Sound based powers? She was reminded of Soundwave and his cassettes. Would this Insecticon also have something similar, then? But how would he–Nope, not even thinking of it. That was gross organic stuff. She needed to focus on anything but the fact he was mimicking a filthy organic. Yes, all she needed to focus on was releasing him from the pod.Approaching it, she took additional note of the severe damage to the door–its seal was incomplete, which possibly indicated stasis failure. The dents on its middle pushed out in the molded shapes of angry fists. On the sides she could see the groove of hands where it had been gripped with enough force to bend in both ways.Claw marks on the wall, punches on the door, warping on the edges. Invert wasn’t stupid. Whoever—or whatever—had been forced into this pod had only done so after fighting for his life.Why?She couldn’t see very well inside—though the shape of the Insecticon’s head was discernible, a layer of moisture had formed inside, obscuring his details from her sight. Was he battle damaged? Had he been frozen inside screaming?Was that why the pod was buzzing so loudly?She had no answers yet, but she could certainly assume that he was probably rusting in there, with all that water. She didn’t know his story in the slightest, or why he hadn’t been with the other Insecticons, but considering her circumstances, she didn’t have many options besides opening his pod. If she trusted her preservation instincts, which told her this was a terrible idea, she left behind her only potential ally left on this planet. Whatever circumstances had seen him trapped in his stasis pod were likely behind him. She’d just have to trust that he wasn’t as violent as the area around him seemed to indicate.Besides. Insecticons were unsavory on their best days, completely uncooperative on their worst. She was probably seeing the results of a spat between the four, soon to be three.Three. They’d really trapped one of their brethren in their ship and abandoned him for years.Scowling, Invert tapped the broken screen, trying to see if she could convince it to initiate release.It gave no such indication. She tapped again, trying to pull up any kind of menu. Besides more error messages, the screen gave no further function.“Come on!” She said aloud, giving the pod a kick.Whatever was inside reacted. She saw the head turn towards her. The sensation of optics locking onto her form creeped up her back.Invert’s spark tightened from both fear and excitement. Oh. He was awake. That meant…oh. That was why he’d been able to make the noise. He had been frozen screaming. The faulty seal had likely forced his body into stasis, but not his mind.LET ME O U THer audials indicated they’d picked up on words. She ex-vented through her dentae.“Uh, hi!” She said, waving a hand. “Um, I’m Invert. I got your distress call! I’m here to get you out.”The Insecticon did not move.“I’ll, uh, get on that, then. Do you have any idea how to open this pod? Any recommendations or tips? I’ve never been in this ship, so…”Nothing.“Right, on my own again, gotcha.” She turned away and rolled her optics.Okay, if the pod didn’t want to behave because it was broken, she could force it. Grabbing the bent edge of the door, she planted a pede against the wall and pulled with all her might. Her joints creaked in protest, but the door didn’t budge in the slightest.Frowning, she searched around for a tool, coming back with a metal pipe found submerged at the back of the ship. Jamming it between the door and the pod’s edges, she braced herself against the wall and tried to forcibly pry the door open–only for the pipe to snap and fly across the room.Invert cursed and retrieved the blaster she’d brought with herself, pointing it at the seal. A purple glow illuminated the dark ship as she fired several blasts in, succeeding in adding more sear marks, but not breaking or melting the metal in the slightest.The door wasn’t budging. She scowled. Looking at the glass, she could see the Insecticon watching her, probably thinking about how pathetically this mass-produced, one-trick Seeker was failing to perform a single task.Well, she’d damn well show him. Brute force wasn’t her style anyways. She had one trick that was sure to work, and prove that she was worth keeping around–and respecting.Oh, he’d damn well respect her, if he was already thinking so negatively about her.For Invert had a special ability, one that had kept her around despite how often she’d heard other ‘cons whispering about having her deactivated. It might be an ability that was difficult to use, incredibly dangerous on her best days, and ran the chance of killing her every time she used it, but it was hers. It set her apart from her Seeker brethren. It made her special.It made her worth keeping around.She stepped back from the pod and smirked. So far she’d only used her ability on other Cybertronians, but she saw no reason it wouldn’t work on their technology as well. It wasn’t like she’d been given time or items to test it on, when resources had already been so slim on Earth. This could serve as a beta test for it, probably. Though, she had to wonder…would it damage the Insecticon inside?…Once again, she didn’t know. Didn’t really matter, probably–it would be the start of their pecking order. Her on the top, him keeping a distance at all times.“Hey, Insecticon?” She said, “I’m going to try and get you out. There might be some sparks, so try not to panic!”The Insecticon in the pod did not respond to her words or her movements. His head remained turned towards her. She could feel optics locking onto her, sizing up. Trying equally to determine if she was one to be kicked around.The buzzing had stopped, her audials indicated. In its absence, the silence hung like the organic slime outside.“Well, alright then.”To use her ability, she’d have to mess with her T-Cog. It was always easier said than done. Her T-Cog was located in her side, as it was with all Seekers. All she had to do was plunge her servos through her plating and manually crank it. The plating on her side was intentionally thinner for this purpose, meaning any old blaster could deactivate her with a proper shot. And whether it was blaster fire or servos, thin plating did not change the fact that, no matter how her ability was activated, it would hurt.Easier said than done. Always easier said than done. But she couldn’t show weakness now. They didn’t even know one another’s name, but the pecking had already begun, and she was not about to be on the bottom.Invert hovered her servos over her side, ex-venting again. She hadn’t used her ability since before the attack on Autobot City. Only once had she been deployed, during a particularly nasty clash with the Autobots. ‘All soldiers on the field’ had been the order. She’d eagerly flown (tumbled) out with her fellow Seekers, and landed (crashed) straight in the thick of it. With guns pointed at her from all angles and her Seeker brethren flying overhead, ignoring her plight as she floundered amongst a group of Autobots, it wasn’t like she’d had much of a choice.They’d paid her more attention after everyone in a hundred foot radius hit the ground–the extent of it had been Starscream demanding why she hadn’t remained in formation and helped with the Aerialbots. She hadn’t been stable enough to properly respond, and when she tried to her voice shrieked with static.She didn’t remember who won that day. All she remembered was being dragged back, repaired, and left to work only in the base, since.Well. She wasn’t in the base anymore, and their situation demanded nothing less of her than all she had. Which meant her ability as well.Frag the pain. Pain made stronger soldiers. She’d be one worth respecting and keeping around no matter what. She’d grit through it like she’d grit through everything else, including flying to this damn place, drinking organics–her tank still felt like it was about to purge–and tolerating humans. Invert ex-vented one more time and held it.Then she punched her fist through her side and released it all in a shriek of agony. No, a war cry. It was a damn war cry and she did not feel like she was about to collapse and sob.Her servos found her T-Cog in a second. They immediately turned it in the wrong direction, straining her wiring and sending a jolt of pain through her. Her HUD glitched, displaying several warnings about internal damage. Then her audials shut down completely, followed by her optics, as her body tried and failed to change its shape.For a second she was left in the void that was never-ending, frame wracking agony. Was she still screaming? She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t feel her throat. She couldn’t feel her voice.Her optics onlined. No, she was still in the ship, and her faceplate was contorted from crying out, and her surroundings–Oh, she recognized glitching when she saw it.The field that had formed around her, invisible and just as deadly as radiation, had already taken effect on everything powered within it. She was frozen with pain, but her frame was still standing. The same could not be said of the pod–or its occupant.The screen had completely scrambled, error messages becoming illegible binary code. The life signal had become erratic, beating too much, beating too little, not beating at all, activating emergency stasis, disabling it. The glow fizzled, flashed, and went out as the wires within the pod gave out, unable to support itself anymore. The head she could just barely see jerked back, snapped to the side.The shrieking was back. Was it her own, or his?The pain was becoming too much. She couldn’t hold it for much longer. Her entire vision was red, the sight of the ship lost. Energy seemed to crackle around her servos, numbing her entire arm. Was she still gripping her T Cog? If she moved her arm, she certainly wouldn’t be. The numbness was spreading, blooming out from the source of her T-Cog and spreading up her arm like the stillness of death. But she held on.And it paid off.The screen on the pod fizzled out. Invert tore her arm free just as the numbness hit her shoulder, staggering against the wall and leaning on it for support. Her frame felt cold despite the 98F heat reading her temperature display indicated. How long had she been holding her ability up? She tried to check her internal timer, focusing on maintaining her venting and balance.Twelve seconds. She felt ready to purge.The groan of metal drew her attention back to the pod. In the low light, she could make out three massive, jointed claws closing around the bent edge, their deadly sharp tips already forming punctures in the metal. Her audials notified her of growling.Then the pod door burst like it was not a mech it contained but a bomb. In a stroke of luck, as the door hurled past her and embedded clean into the opposing wall, it missed Invert by a few inches, saving her from an untimely end at the awakening of her new ally.Or perhaps saving wasn’t the right word for it. For as the bot inside rose up, towering over her by almost half her height, a sinking feeling in the pit of her tank told her that perhaps the door knocking her helm off might have been mercy compared to whatever his intentions might be.He was absolutely massive. She’d seen the combiners, the great Omega Supreme, even Astrotrain in his spaceship mode, and she still wasn’t quite prepared for how large he was. His frame took up the entirety of the room as he wrenched himself free from the pod, tearing pieces of it free as he did so.The Insecticon’s visor lit up, illuminating his face with an ominous red light. What looked like three needle-like proboscises were folded atop his mask, which reminded her just enough of Soundwave’s to tell her that maybe she should have tried to size up her ally before attempting to establish pecking order. Bulky antennae uncurled and shifted. His large claws opened and shut as he cracked his neck, optics locking onto her vulnerable form as he took a step forward.She didn’t have the energy to react as his claws shot to her throat, raising her off the ground like she weighed nothing. The numbness in her body eased whatever pain she might have felt from it, but her HUD swarmed with danger notifications, and not just from the structural damage her frame had sustained. With a single click of his claws, the Insecticon could decapitate her.Instead he twisted and hurled her with enough force to punch through the ship, splattering her against the opposite wall in the main area. Her HUD glitched, momentarily offlined, and returned with a staunch warning: emergency stasis would soon set in. Invert fought against it, standing on shaky legs as the numbness promptly consumed one, causing her to stagger.And yet despite the fact that half of her body was cold and she could see graying on her right servos, she held on.She would not die here. Her left arm was still functional. As the Insecticon tore apart the threshold of what to him was a tiny door, she retrieved her blaster and pointed it straight for his helm. Metal shrieked as the Insecticon ripped his way free of the stasis room, optics locking onto her.He was glaring at her. She returned the look, feeling Energon leaking from her optics.“Take…another…step…” she garbled out, spitting pink into the water, “and I…shoot…your head…off.”He cocked his helm back, looking down at her over the bridge of his mask. His chassis rose and fell a few times with what seemed like laughter. And then he held his claws out, spreading them in a provocative gesture. Do it. He was daring her.She gripped the blaster tighter, willing with all her might to move her numb right arm. Electricity was crackling through her systems, replacing that numbness with uncomfortable tingling.“Don’t you mock me,” she crackled.He held his gaze on her, and it took her a moment to realize that her audials were alerting her to noise. With a mask covering his face and a thousand danger notifications to keep note of, she hadn’t even thought about turning them back on. Digging the command prompt out of the sea of pop-ups, she promptly reactivated them at 50% capacity. Even with her best efforts, the audio came in slightly distorted.“...--en, you weak little plane.” His voice was low and accented. “See where that gets you.”“What?”“Do it, then,” he snarled. “How many times do I have to say it before you get it through your tiny little processor?”“Oh yeah?” She challenged, trying to straighten up as much as she could while only having one functional leg. “What are you going to do, rip my spark out?”“Are you giving me ideas?”“You think you’ll have the brain left to process them?”“You think you’ve got the firepower to drop me in one shot?” He leaned forward, a smirk all but plastered on his masked face. “Because I think I recognize a standard issue Seeker class blaster when I see one.”Frag. She kept the blaster pointed at his helm, but the fact of the matter was she held no power in this situation. Injured, numb, and significantly smaller than her foe, she was touting a blaster that only had potential to kill in extremely close quarters, and only against light armor.Her foe easily towered over her and was heavy armor class just from a glance. Even a blast to the face would likely be just a singe to him. Unless she could aim exactly into his optic or intake, she had no chance of sending a fatal bolt to his spark or processor.She had no power here, and he knew it. All he was doing was teasing her.“Now…” His voice picked up in its distinct growl. “Where are they, Seeker?”One heavy pede stepped forward. She vented sharply.“Who are ‘they’? The other Decepticons? Wait, the other Inse–”He jammed his claws into the wall beside her, shredding it like paper. A trickle of cold ran down her back as she was pinned between his massive chassis and the panels.“The others. Shrapnel. Kickback. Bombshell.”This close, she could make out the intensity of his optics behind his visor. He looked like he could be the face of a war poster. One of his proboscises unfurled, scraping against her faceplate and leaving a scar.Yep, she was going to purge.“They-they’re–!”And then she did, right onto his chassis. Pink energon combined with the sludge of the indigestible organics she had consumed. She coughed several times, optics momentarily offlining with each hack.Sharp claws moved right to her throat, accompanied by a low buzz. Oh, there it was. Maybe he only made it when he was pissed.“They’re…dead,” she finally said, glowering at him. “Everyone is.”Did she necessarily believe it? Maybe. Did she want to admit it, speak it aloud? Absolutely not.And for forcing her to say it, she hated him, she decided.
He didn’t relent for a moment as they held each other's gaze. The amount of vitriol contained within his own could strip plating. She tried to load the same hatred into her own.Metal shrieked as the Insecticon tore his claws free of the wall, venting in disgust as he turned away from her. She pulled herself off the wall, stumbling as her right leg gave out again.“Your processor is half-melted,” he said dismissively, heading for the open side of the ship. “Who even are you? The Decepticon ranks don’t need broken weaklings who lie to save their plating.”A fire lit in her tank at the words, and she snapped. “Weakling!? I flew all the way here from the last Decepticon stronghold on this planet just to answer your SOS signal! I risked my aft to get you out of your stasis pod! We’re currently so deep in Autobot turf that at any moment, we could be ambushed, and that’d be the end of the cause!” Sparks crackled from her side as she yelled. “And you’re calling me weak!?”He didn’t even look at her. “Yes, I am, little Seeker. Crossing the planet to engage in a suicide mission doesn’t make you brave or strong. It makes you incredibly stupid. But I suppose you Seekers have never been renowned for your intelligence.”She didn’t really think about her next action, which saw her raise her blaster and shoot a bolt straight into his side. A puff of smoke rose as the energy singed his segmented plating. The Insecticon glared down at the tiny insult, then at her.“See? There’s your proof, dead metallico.”And he lunged.Well, if she was dying, she was taking him with her. Invert abandoned her blaster and jammed her servos into her side, the burning, agonizing pain only fueling her rage. The action made him pause right before his claws would collide with her helm, deadly sharp spikes halting mere inches from it.She smirked. “What’s wrong, Insecticon? Scared of a weakling Seeker?”He didn’t get the chance to answer. They both heard the sound of an engine, followed by the crack of a jet shooting by overhead. The Insecticon’s head immediately turned to the entrance of the ship.Autobots. They didn’t need to say it aloud to both understand. Every Decepticon knew the sound of a Seeker’s engines and the roar they emitted when they flew low over the ground. This sounded nothing like that.He was off her in a second. Instinctively she fell in place behind him, keeping her servos over her T-Cog. Glancing out together, they both saw nothing in the sky–yet.“Take to the skies,” the Insecticon ordered. “I’ll handle whatever ground troops have arrived.”She grimaced, sucking an ex-vent in through her dentae. “Uh. So. About that.”The roar sounded again, and this time they both saw the blur of what looked like a tiny rocket. The Insecticon’s antennae perked right up. Invert raised an optical ridge.“It’s small. A scout,” she whispered. “They don’t know we’re here yet, probably. If we can stay hidden, he might leave.”“Hidden?” The Insecticon scoffed. “It’s one scout. I have done enough hiding in that damnable pod. I don’t care what’s wrong with you, Seeker. Get in the sky and kill him.”“I–”Before she could say another word the Insecticon grabbed her and charged out, roaring as he threw her into the air. She yelled, tumbling through the sky as her body instinctively tried to take its alt mode, failed, and crashed into the trees.“Are you KIDDING me!?” She heard echo from below before hitting her helm on a tree and momentarily losing consciousness.“Hey, Decepticon!” Another voice. This one sounded like it belonged to a ‘bot who was widely regarded as annoying. So, basically, any Autobot under the sun. “You’re supposed to aim at your enemy, not the sky! And since when do Seekers count as bullets?”“GET DOWN HERE!”“Not on ya’ life, ugly!”Invert groaned, peeling herself free as the sound of blaster fire rang out from nearby. Just one Autobot scout, and they were both already threatened with the possibility of termination. She needed to do something about this all. They needed to regroup back at Victory, and they needed this Autobot scout silenced.For one meant many–he’d probably contacted his allies the moment he saw them.With a bit of effort she extricated herself from the tree, splashing down onto the cage below it. The water began to turn pink as she pulled herself up. Her blaster was gone, which might have inspired her to use her rifle, except…How could she even hope to transform it with one functional arm? Let alone try aiming it with so much crowding her HUD?
The sound of nearby blaster fire grew louder. Splashing was followed by hissing. Metal creaked and shrieked, and then she saw a frisbee of shrapnel fly through the air, missing the tiny rocket as he wheeled up and did a twirl, promptly transforming in the air just to gloat.He really was tiny. His faceplate was gray, his plating a light orange. Blasters were mounted on his arms, which he crossed as he smirked down at the Insecticon.“Ya aim needs work, buggy!” And turning back, he promptly activated his boosters and shot just overhead, circling around to unleash another barrage.He was fast. No way the Insecticon managed to hit him with a piece of shrapnel. As he tore another piece free of the ship, Invert pulled herself up on her knees, bracing against a nearby tree. Even if they both had blasters, as long as the rocket stayed in the air, neither of them could hit him.As if he even cared about her. Busy toying with the giant Insecticon, the scout had already counted her out of his game. What was a broken Seeker thrown around as ammo going to do to a speedster like him?Idiot. Did everyone think she was useless because she couldn’t fly? Because she was never deployed? Because the thing that made her useful almost killed her? Because she…Because she would show him, damn it all. Experimental or not, her body was her weapon. Kneeling in the muddy warm, gradually growing pinker from the Energon leaking out of her side, and ignoring the constant warnings pinging in her HUD, Invert gripped her T-Cog tighter. Peering through the trees, she traced the Autobot’s swift movements, waiting for him to dive just a bit closer.The Insecticon would suffer from this as well. She really didn’t care. He damn deserved it.Another metal shriek sounded through the air, followed by more taunting from the Autobot.“Alright, I’m getting tired’a this, ‘con. Tell ya what, surrender now, and the great Starburst will put in a good word for ya when my buds arrive, yeah? No need ta’ draw this cybercat and glitchmouse game out anymore!”“Get down here and we’ll see how much longer it’s drawn out,” the Insecticon warned. Starburst chortled and promptly took off again, circling and dodging branches as they were hurled for him.A sound like a squeal of pain escaped her, which was just as quickly silenced by biting her glossa . Focus, despite how the pain was radiating up her side. Focus, despite how many warnings were flashing in her HUD. Focus, despite how her processor was threatening to offline at any moment.An orange and cream blur. The pink of blaster fire. Dark of a leaf. Between the trees. The blue of the sky. Everything was starting to blur. Circling, he was circling. Which meant if she waited till he came just a bit closer, to the spot where the leaves parted and the branches formed the shape of a X–She practically ripped her T-Cog out of its socket cranking it to the side. One second the flash of orange was in her sights. The next the crackling of static overcame her vision and consumed her HUD.She heard screaming from two voices. They sounded like they were in agony.Good. Feel my pain.As she thought it her body slumped and hit the ground alongside two other splashes. Water covered her optics, blurring her vision as it tried to online, turned to nothing but red, and gave up. A single message flashed several times.ENERGON LEVELS CRITICAL. INITIATING EMERGENCY STASIS.Was this really it? In the heart of the Demon Swamp? She’d always thought she’d go out on Cybertron again, and that it’d be just like the first time, buried in all that rubble.It had been lonely. At least here, she had company. Enemies, for sure, but company. They’d all offline together.And then she was out.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

She needed to get up, but she couldn’t even fragging move. Face down in the filthy water, Helmbreaker fought against her own systems for control, cursing both them and the Seeker who’d done this to her as pain wracked her circuits and wires. Error messages for every system she had stacked upon one another, fighting for the endless dominance of alerting her to just how fragged up she was.Just one blast from the Seeker had done this. The damn mech had bite, she had to admit. The prior shock in her stasis pod had barely felt like a tickle–at the time, she’d been too enraged to even think about why she’d felt anything, locked within it. Now? She possibly owed the damnable thing a small apology, at least for keeping her from initially frying.For 2.3 million years trapped in a half stasis, though, she thought it more than deserved the painful death she’d given it.The little Autobot who’d inspired her current predicament was lying on his back in the water nearby, wings and servos twitching. She could see his mouth moving, but no sound was coming out. Just as her voxbox was currently glitching, proudly displaying its panic in the form of a bright red textbox, his was as well –which meant he couldn’t ask for help.Good. It gave her time to permanently silence him. Given their prior interaction she knew he’d phoned for reinforcements, but as with all SOS calls, said reinforcements likely weren’t arriving for at least fifteen kliks. Which meant she had about five to get up, one to completely snuff his spark out, and nine to figure out whether she was in proper form to slaughter them all.Oh, and she needed to do something about the Seeker. That needed addressing, too.‘Come…on…’ she thought to herself, twitching her claws. They sent ripples through the water as feeling began creeping back in. Her frame felt cold despite the heat around her, like she was being defrosted after an expedition on a dead planet.What in the Pit did that Seeker do? She found its ability interesting–something that completely disabled other technological forms, including other Cybertronians. Judging from how it had made her malfunction, it seemed to be rooted in causing glitches; none of the error messages she was observing were critical, notably. It was as if her systems had all been forced to grind to a halt, and the resulting build-up of inputs with nowhere to go was what actually caused her to become stuck.Very, very interesting. Such an ability would make sense on a ‘con who specialized in weaponry, she’d think, like a tank or perhaps a drone. Why a Seeker? Seekers were by nature weak, lightweight soldiers designed to be flung at the enemy in droves so that the real hitters like herself could come in and clean up. They were expendable. Why put something so devastating on one?They’re all dead. The words played in her processor again. She’d been in the dark for 2.3 million years about the status of the Autobot/Decepticon conflict, but she wasn’t fool enough to believe those lies. The Autobot lying nearby was proof enough that the conflict still raged. And the Seeker lying nearby, with such a devastating ability…She wondered if, perhaps, the thing was in some way related to them all being ‘dead’.Which was what she would be if she didn’t pry herself off the ground.“GET…UP…” She ordered herself, arms shaking as they struggled to lift her heavy body out of the water. Her voxbox displayed one more warning, then blinked back online. Still, static distorted her words as they were spoken. “You’re…better…than…this…!”If she had been down for as long as she was now in The Pit, she’d be dead. Period. Once one hit the dirt they had all of four seconds to recover, usually less. The higher level matches she’d participated in, the ones which had given her a name, were the ones where only one mech walked out functioning. And she was not about to be taken away in a body bag.“Hey…’Con…can ya pipe down?” The little Autobot squeaked out, his arm raising slightly as he spoke. “I’m…a’ready…tired…of ya voice.”Oh, joy. He was back online too.She cast him a glare more venomous than the concoctions swirling beneath her mask. “How’s about I rip your audials out? Then you don’t have to listen anymore.”“If it means…never hearin’ you again…” And he chuckled, which sent a flare through her system so powerful her legs finally responded properly.The errors in her HUD swirled as Helmbreaker rose to shaky pedes. Her claws flexed over and over, forcing feeling back into them. She cracked her neck both ways, rolling it a few times before pushing her chassis out and parting her shell.Shell. Ugh. She didn’t even want to think about how horrible she looked right now. Did she even still resemble Helmbreaker? The claws were a drastic downgrade to her fists, and the shell on her back could never make up for the two halves of the battering ram she’d previously sported. Even if she couldn’t see her helmet, she knew it was missing her characteristic horns. And the mask she now wore, with its undesirable probosces?In all truths she understood why the Seeker purged on her when they’d touched it, but that hadn’t made the fact that it purged on her any better.The little Autobot was surprisingly unafraid as she took a step forward, then another one. It was hard going–her systems continued flashing errors, though they were gradually dissipating as time ticked on. When she loomed over the tiny Autobot like the Necrobot itself, he smirked despite his situation, wings flitting with agitation.“Well lookit…you! Comin’ ta…kick me…while I’m down? Typical ‘Con…can’t beat me…when I’m up…could ya?”Her optics narrowed. “You misunderstand me, Autobot. I’m not going to kick you.” Looming over him, she raised a pede. “I’m going to crush your helm and hang your body from the trees.”And that’s when the reality of the situation finally seemed to hit him. The little Autobot’s wings suddenly stopped, his entire body stiffening. Beneath his visor she could see how his optics went wide.Primus, she loved that. The fear in their optics when they realized they were going to die was just as thrilling as the portent of a strong opponent. She grinned beneath her mask, probosces twitching excitedly without her even thinking of them.“Any last words?” She said. “Beg.”And beg he did.“My buds–my buds are coming!” He yelled. “If-If ya don’t hurt me, they’ll–they’ll be nice with ya! I can put in a good–a good word! I’m, hey, I’m just a little guy, ya know? A little guy! What was I gonna do to you and the seeky?”Seeky. Oh, she was absolutely using that against the next one she found, considering the other one was probably dead. Probably.“I recall you saying you would put in a ‘good word’ if I surrendered. You seem to be offering me the same thing if I spare you.” She tapped a claw against her mask. “Seems like you don’t have much to offer beyond that, hm?” She lowered her pede, letting the claws on it grip the edges of his helm, but applying no pressure beyond that. “Your allies, they’re on their way now, right?”“Ye-yeup! And they’re more’n capable of takin’ you down, so you better keep me ‘round, so they won’t–”“How many of them?”“Wha? Uh…at least seven!”Seven Autobots. She looked her claws over, opening and closing them. They were no fist, and with the last of her errors closing in her HUD, she decided some practice wouldn’t hurt. Seven was plenty.“Then it seems you’ve nothing substantial to offer me, Autobot.” She spoke it without even looking at him. “Bye.”He screamed out a “WAIT–” right as she began to apply pressure. The impact forced him below the water, pink bubbles rising as he screamed in pain. She smiled sadistically at the sound of his helm cracking, splitting open to reveal his delicate inner circuitry and processor. That was her favorite part. Pink rose up in streams. Applying a bit more pressure, she counted on her claws. Three, two, o–An energon bolt shot into her chassis, the impact knocking her back. Planting her pedes, her gaze shot in the direction the bolt had come from as her body hunched, probosces flexing as an enraged buzz roared out from within her. Was that seriously her battle cry now?“Back off, ‘Con!” Through the trees, an Autobot only about half her size emerged–he looked like some kind of water vehicle. She raised an optical ridged and quickly scanned the area, where was his–Another bolt zapped into her helm, this one from the left. The surprise left her staggering back, almost losing her stance as she struggled to adopt a wider one to face them both. Her HUD flashed red for just a moment before the damage scan automatically began, confidently informing her that her armor was at 85%.The blow had been more of a surprise than anything else.The second Autobot swooped down, doing a flip to transform back into his robot mode. A kind of aircraft, though nothing like the Seeker jets that her fellow ‘Cons utilized. Even the aerial forms of Autobots were inferior to them, just like their fighting styles.Two of them. She could take them. But where were the other five?“Starburst!” With the aerial one defending him, the terrestrial Autobot quickly moved to Starburst’s side, pulling him away from her. She scoffed at the motion, staring down the barrel of the rifle aimed for her helm.“That’s it? This is all you Autobots thought to send!?” She scoffed, splaying her claws. “Don’t make me laugh!”“Back down,” the aerial one warned, servo snuggly fit on the trigger of his rifle. “There’s no need for anymore fighting.”“Damage is bad–he needs urgent repairs,” the terrestrial one said, hoisting Starburst out of the water. Oh, yes. Her handiwork was on full display with his shattered visor and bent faceplate. His helmet was crinkled like pathetic aluminum, and Energon was leaking from dozens of cracks. “Can you handle him?”“I’ve got this,” the other assured, not once taking his eyes off Helmbreaker, who was now rather annoyed.“I’m a femme, you inconsiderate slag,” she snapped. “And if you had even half the broken processor he does–” she gestured at Starburst, “--you’d both be running for your sparks by now.”“You wish, ‘Con. Radio for help and get him back, I’ll–”And before he could even finish his sentence, she lunged. The aerial one discharged his weapon immediately, a painful bolt firing clean into the right side of her chassis. Her armor smoked, an irritating heat building just beneath it, but held. She was on him before he could even comprehend the lack of damage, claws swiping straight for his helm.It didn’t knock it off, like her proper fists would have. Instead, she claws pierced clean through the metal, ripping it open like paper. She felt cables snap and heard metal shriek as the impact knocked him to the ground, rifle abandoned to grip at his face. Energon splattered into the water and painted her claws in a thick layer.She flicked the stuff away and she turned her gaze on the terrestrial one. His optics were wide with terror, caught between defending himself or trying to make a break for it with his injured ally. She took immediate advantage, charging for him.He dropped his ally just in time for her to tackle him to the ground, crushing him with her full weight. Judging from just the creaking of metal alone, he’d need a trip to the mechanic after the action. She’d change that to the morgue.Rearing up, she clicked her claws together into their scythe mode and punctured clean through his helm, ripping it free from its cables with a twist. Pink rained out of the wires that hung from her trophy, which she raised overhead as if displaying to an invisible audience. Rivulets of the stuff ran down her helm and chassis, leaving trails over her new black paint.A burning pain suddenly lit up in the center of her back, the impact causing her to stumble forward ever so slightly. Glaring over her shoulder, she spotted the aerial one on one knee, pointing his rifle at her again. Several gouges had completely torn his faceplate and helm, displaying his delicate inner workings to the world. One optic was threatening to fall from its socket. He didn’t care.Bolt after bolt shot into her as she turned, tossing the helm of her trophy aside, and calmly walked to finish off her prey. As death closed in on him, manifesting as a wickedly sharp sickle, she didn’t once see fear in his optics.SLUTCHAnd his limp frame hit the ground, now devoid of its vital helm. She met its gaze on her scythe as his lights went out, ensuring that the last thing he saw was her victorious expression. He was a fighter, that one. How unfortunate he picked the wrong side. Then, like she’d done so many times before, she raised his helm over her head and roared.There was no audience besides the organics, but they would suffice. And hey, perhaps there were a few Autobots in waiting, hiding after what they’d seen her do to their friends.“REMEMBER MY NAME!” She screamed. “KNOW WHOM YOU FACE! I AM–”A ripple in the water caught her attention and drew her gaze to her own reflection. There, looking back at her from the murky depths, was a black Insecticon. Long hooked claws made up her servos. A shell in the shape of wings hung on her back. Segmented plating covered up her chassis and bent antennae twitched on her helm.She was Helmbreaker. But the mech looking back at her was not. She’d felt it when she first woke up, all those millions of years ago, this sense of wrongness, that all of a sudden, the plating she had been forged into had changed, and it wasn’t hers anymore. And the thing in the water, the thing she was currently inhabiting, was not named Helmbreaker.She was not Helmbreaker, if she was this. Then who was she?The sound of water splashing broke her out of her thoughts. She looked to the sound only to see Starburst back on his feet despite his injuries. Their optics met for only a second.And he immediately transformed, blasting off into the sky before she could swipe at him.A dozen thoughts ran through her processor. He’d bring back reinforcements. He’d announce her presence to everyone. With his escape this planet’s hostility towards her was sealed. The entirety of the Autobot army could very well come for her now–her and the Seeker. The clock was ticking on them both–the very last of the Decepticons.And she laughed.“TELL THEM! TELL ALL OF THEM WHAT HAPPENED HERE!” She roared after him. “AND REMEMBER MY NAME!”She had about one second to pick a name, and decided to follow the tradition of her finishing move.“I AM PUNCTURE!”—---------The organics were weak, but they did their job well enough. Puncture pulled the vines taut and wrapped them around the roots of the trees, suspending the Autobot’s heads just below where the branches sprouted. Beneath the trees she’d dragged both the bodies, slumping them against the trunks. Stepping back, she admired her work only for a moment–it was a pitiful display of her capabilities, but it would serve well enough as a warning to any who wanted to approach this place.She’d have to bet on it intimidating her future opponents in some way. Autobots attacked in swarms. There were few lone fighters who knew the true glory of combat and who dedicated themselves, body and mind, to the thrill of taking down an equally skilled opponent in a rapturous death match. No, the majority tended to pair up and gun down whoever they saw running across the field. And they called it victory.She spat, additional pink Energon mingling with the stained water. Then she headed back for the Insecticon ship.The Seeker was slumped against a chair on the bridge, optics dark. It had entered stasis before she’d even found it, and no amount of banging its helm with her claws had woken the damn thing up. This was inconvenient to her for a multitude of reasons, with the least being that she didn’t have someone she could boss around, and the most being that her connection to the rest of the Decepticon force, be they alive or dead, was now cut off.She perhaps had herself to blame for it a little, but she was too proud to admit such a thing, and instead blamed it on the faulty wiring of mass producer shlock. It wasn’t like Seekers were particularly useful on the best of the days. The Elite Trine earned their name (and place) from the fact that, unlike the rest of their ill-fated brethren, they’d had the fortune to be blessed with abilities that made them slightly more than sitting cyberducks on a pond.Didn’t mean any of them were particularly good at combat, though, and didn’t mean that the Seeker she had, despite boasting such an ability, was any good.She stepped into the ship and did her best to at least partially pull its stuck door closed. She’d done a number on it while enraged, and the metal cried with an agony often reserved for gamblers regretting their life choices. Leaving it, she gave the damn thing a powerful kick that left it dented, just as she’d done for all those gamblers who’d been thrown into The Pit. The door, unlike them, survived.Her best bet was the stasis pods, she thought, or perhaps reactivating the bridge in some way. All ships had self-repair mechanisms, and all of them had at least some way of repairing their crew. It had been millions of years, and she didn’t doubt that her Insecticon brethren had possibly ruined their ship beyond repair, but she had to have some hope.Because if she didn’t, and what the Seeker had said was true…But it wasn’t, because Seekers were weak and lied to get what they wanted. Ask Starscream.She snickered and ducked into the stasis pods room, her danger sensor already going off. She tried to mute the damn thing as she approached the last of the pods, still as dark as the day she’d stepped into her own. It was fully intact and completely unused; surely, it had to be functional.She tacked her claw onto the screen and encountered her first problem: it wasn’t picked up by the sensor. Puncture tacked it a few more times, tried pressing all of her claws against it, and even bopped it a few times with her palm. Nothing.Without proper servos, she was dead in the water. Well, nothing the Autobots couldn’t fix. One torn off servo later, she was back with a proper appendage. The screen responded this time, lighting up with a cheerful blue…and immediately corrupting.She growled and gave the pod a kick, which made a dozen error messages pop up. When she tried to close them, more took their places. Her danger sensor was beeping wildly in her HUD, filling her processor with reminders of being trapped in a small, circular space, crammed in on herself, plating melting and reshaping, code being pushed straight into her mind and replacing everything she was, rewriting her from gladiator to Insecticon–She yelled and punched, not even thinking about what she hit. Despite claws having replaced her fists, they still broke through the glass from force alone. The entire upper half of the pod shattered and fell away, clacking onto the floor in a glittering mess.She screamed in frustration and threw the severed servo away, turning and unleashing her frustration on the pod. Metal tore and sparks flew. Wires poked forth and were promptly chopped. Throughout it all she screamed, over and over, as if berating the mindless thing would somehow make its death all the more humiliating.When it was done she gave the mess of mangled metal one final kick before returning to the bridge. The damn thing was probably fried from the stupid Seeker anyways. That meant she only had the bridge to work with.She approached the computer that had once powered their small shuttle and tapped on its keyboard, commanding it to wake up. When the screen failed to respond to the buttons, she yelled at it, demanding it function. That didn’t work either.Exasperated, she ran her claws over the keyboard, scattering keys everywhere. They made quiet ploosh sounds as they disappeared into the water submerging half the ship. That irritated her even more, and she considered turning her rage on the walls before her optics landed back on the Seeker.Perhaps she could just pick its processor instead. It ran the risk of killing it, but hey, can’t make a clock without breaking a few gears. Stepping forward, she grabbed the Seeker’s helmet and attempted to wrench it from the Con’s head.Cables and wiring strained as she pulled. It seemed Seeker helmets were directly attached to their heads, which made the entire process more difficult for her. Scowling, Puncture let go and considered just what parts she could rip off nonlethally. Audials, optics, finials…But the more she thought it over, the more it seemed that she wouldn’t be able to access the Seeker’s processor without ripping half of its helm open and killing it. Huffing, she backhanded the thing and crossed her arms, glaring down at its unconscious form. Part of its faceplate was now ruined, stricken with three marks.“You sure left me in one hell of a situation,” she muttered, tapping a claw on her arm as she began to pace. “Where the hell even am I?”Earth, she knew that. But where on Earth? How close was she to the nearest Autobot and Decepticon outposts? What was the approximate amount of soldiers each side had?How hadn’t her side won yet?She needed answers. Before taking on any great opponent, it was important to study them–their habits, their flaws, their strengths, and most importantly of all, their morals. How depraved her foe could become when desperate was key to preventing herself from being caught off guard.They always grew desperate when they realized they were going to die. She’d seen it happen thousands of times before, whether it was her hand causing it or one of her brethren’s–her real brethren. The mechs she’d been forged alongside in the Pit.They were dead now. They’d been stupid. Strength was the most important trait to have in the Decepticon ranks, but intelligence could not be understated–and that was what she’d had over them. Even if her fighting spirit had also once demanded to take on Megatron, despite seeing what he’d done to Strutsnapper and Sparkripper.Strength wasn’t cutting it here. She’d killed the two Autobots with ease, but what of when fifty of them came raining down? A glorious death in the field was her fate, but so early? And as this…thing? Her claw tapped faster. No. There had to be something else more she could do.Passing by the open door, Puncture looked at the display she’d made. The two Autobots had been weak, and all they were now was evidence of such. They were weak, and their brethren would come to take them home and bury them in coffins, as opposed to leaving their bodies out in the middle of the field…Her gaze drifted back to the Seeker. Trapped in stasis and on the brink of death, if she left its body outside by the Autobots, then they would certainly find it, and being soft-hearted, take it in. Repair it. Claim it was to be “brought to justice”.And wherever they went, she could follow. Wait till they were finished, then take her freshly repaired ally back.It would be a lot of fighting though…and she had no way of repairing herself. She looked at her newfound claws and frowned. They were nowhere near as effective at instant incapacitation as her fists had been. Her body had been drastically changed from its original state as a tank, surely it had to have come with some kind of benefit to make up for such a loss of power.She supposed, then, it wasn’t an awful time for a self-examination. Even if it was something she had been putting off. Acknowledging how much she had truly changed made it harder to convince herself that reverting completely was possible.She didn’t know if she wanted to live in a world where this was what she was stuck as forever.Running a self scan and checking her joints and features over, Puncture learned a few things about her frame she already knew–and didn’t.What she already knew? Her new frame was modeled after an Earth organism. This modification came with new features such as claws, a shell to defend her back, antennae to detect changes in the air, and venom in her proboscis to incapacitate prey.What she didn’t know? It was something called an “ambush bug”. Ambush bugs were, true to their names, ambush predators. They used their scythe-like claws to grip onto their prey, and jammed their proboscis in to paralyze it. From there, all the prey could do was watch, trapped in its own frame, as its innards were liquified and consumed.As a predatory creature whose primary food source was Energon, her prey choice was apparent. The probosces on her faceplate were designed for piercing plating, and the venom boiling behind her mask was more than sufficient for melting it. And as an ambush predator…Well, it wasn’t her style. But it would do fine enough for infiltrating an Autobot base. They’d come back for their dead. They always did. They’d find the Seeker and take it in. She’d follow right behind.And if what else she read on her scan was true…they wouldn’t once see her coming.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Worried” would be the wrong word for describing how he felt. Uptick tapped his pede impatiently outside of the clinic, checking its virtual queue every thirty seconds. Forty full minutes had passed since he’d arrived to pick Luster up, and there was still no word from anyone about his progress.To say that he was “worried” would be an understatement.He vented sharply and sent a query to the front desk again, requesting information on the mnemosurgery in Room I12. Almost immediately, the worker pinged him back with the pre-recorded response she’d made twenty minutes ago: mnemosurgery was a complex thing, and until the doctor indicated it was safe for them to contact him, no one was to enter the room or disturb him. Any interruptions could mean the end of the patient, the doctor, or both at once. His concern was noted and rest assured they were doing everything to ensure that his ward was taken care of.Six. Hours. If that didn’t scream something was wrong, he didn’t know what did. Mnemosurgery was complex, but it didn’t take six hours to perform. He knew because he himself had undergone it several times. Even extended mnemosurgery visits tended to last no more than an hour–the most talented could rewrite a mind in just a few minutes.Uptick couldn’t say he knew much about Redactor, but he’d checked his credentials the moment he’d left the clinic, which indicated he’d been practicing for at least ten thousand years. If he wasn’t experienced, then Uptick himself wasn’t even a real soldier.Well, he wasn’t anymore, but the fact still stood. Something had happened, he just knew it. And if the bots in the clinic were too stubborn–no, too concerned–to try checking in, then he would himself.And he knew just how to get in.It was mid-day in Autobot City, slowly creeping towards the evening. The shadows had not yet grown long; in fact, most were still attempting to retreat from the afternoon sun. The season was beginning to shift from what humans referred to as “summer” to “fall”, which meant the sunlight would become more sparse and the night would come sooner. But that wasn’t for another few cycles, which meant when he stood by the edge of the clinic, there were no shadows to hide him–and thus, keep suspicion off of him.No, he was a completely normal enforcer and Autobot, he had no reason to stand in the shadows. And he certainly wasn’t about to contact someone with a fairly detailed history of crime. Who would do that?Still, he checked to ensure no other mechs were around. The clinic was housed in one of Metroplex’s corners, bordering a wall and a morgue, so it was a particularly unpopular location. The street that ran by it was not even worthy of being called a street, really. This played to his advantage: such an area was unlikely to attract unwanted attention, and thus–Primus, was he truly thinking like this now? The war was over. He gave his helm a knock and reminded himself that she’d been pardoned, as had he, and contacting her wasn’t illegal.Though, his request certainly was.Pulling up Channel’s contact in his HUD, he promptly called it. It would be a long distance contact, so he expected a long wait, but surprisingly, after only twenty seconds, they connected properly.She answered after three rings, as she always did. He was immediately met with the background ring of drilling.“Tickers, I hope you got a good reason for callin’ me at this time.”"Channel!” He smiled despite the fact that she couldn’t see him. “It's good to hear your voice! I hope you're doing well, I need--""Hold that thought, Tickers, I just found the lil' fraggers responsible for this entire operation. Get...over...here...you...little!" Her voice quieted for a moment as she grunted and hissed. "Ow! Come on--oh, stop squirmin', you, you know you ain't feelin' nothin' right now—almost—ha!"An angry squeak deafened the line accompanied by the tearing of metal. Uptick's optical ridges furrowed in concern."What are you doing?" He asked. “Are you, uh, with a patient?”“You can call ‘em that, sure. Hey, you can get up now, the fraggers are out. " Her voice grew a little distant as she continued. "Soak in some fresh water for a few hours 'n lemme know if the itchin' comes back. Aight, go on 'n get now."He heard another voice say something unintelligible, followed by the sound of pedes. Then Channel vented, a clacking and angry chittering joining her as she spoke."Sparklets, Tickers. I just pulled sparklets outta that ‘bot’s chassis.”“You’re still practicing medicine? Didn’t you–”“It ain’t medicine,” she interrupted. “It’s fixin’, there’s a difference. One only needs wits ‘n the other wants fourteen-hundred kilocycles ‘a school. Who out here got time for that nowadays?”She huffed.“Sparklets, Tickers. Not scraplets, sparklets. They're straight up evolvin' to start tryin' to eat sparks. What’s a doc gonna say, take four an call in the mornin’? You’ll be drained fully before then!" An echo of a dozen little sparklets being tossed in a cage sounded. "Yeesh, I tell you, I've fought on fifty different planets n' ten times that many battlefields, an' I ain't seen as many weird things up there as I have down here. The nerve a' this planet n' it's creatures!"Finally, she leaned against something, her plating creaking in response to the action, and grumbled. "Alright, present n' willin'. What're you callin' about?"He did a quick scan to check for anyone listening before speaking. "For a favor, Channel, if you would be willing to hear me out. You know I’m trying to stay clean with this work--""Yeah yeah, I know. You ain't boutta ask me to disable another Energon vault lock, are ya? Roddy Prime's pardon had some fine print, I tell you, an' that print states I lose my immunity if I go around unlockin' more vaults. I ain't gettin' in trouble 'cuz you got a fueling problem, Tickers, sorry.""No, it's nothing like that," he frowned, sounding hurt. "I've worked on my habit, you know this, Channel. I'm clean! I've been clean since..."A pause. He didn't want to say that name, and he knew Channel didn't want to either. She was quiet, which was uncharacteristic of her."Since the end of the war," he finally finished. "No more of that.""Aight then, what're you wantin' me to pick, then? You got about fifteen kliks—sorry, MINUTES, since they're wantin' us to convert to Earth time—before my next patient, Tickers. Try 'n make this quick, yeah?""Right, of course. I...wait, you have another–" His scanners picked up on a motorcycle driving by and a nurse walking out of the clinic on break. His optics narrowed slightly. "I'll push you a data package. Can you open your receptors?""Ooh. Gotcha. One sec, lemme check the connection–” He felt a slight zing in his head, like a spark had tapped against it, “--alright, we ain’t bein’ watched. Send it over." She opened her link, and he promptly created a data package, wrapping it up with two passwords before pushing it her way.It took her about four seconds to break them both."...that's it?" She said with a laugh. "That's nothin'. They don't even double encrypt their files, system's so new.""How long will it–wait, how do you know about thei–""Twenty-four seconds the moment I'm on their network. You gonna hand me the address or I gotta find it myself?""I’m…concerned, Channel…"“Don’t be. Their fault for bein’ outdated. Get me a frequency and I’ll connect to it.”Venting, he sent another request to the worker at the front, immediately being met with the same response from her. Instead of accepting the message, he sent it Channel’s way, who took all of five seconds to link to it.The feeling of her transferring from his connection onto the clinic’s was strange, but it was something he’d become adapted to long ago. Channel could ride the wavelengths between Cybertronians like a meteor surfer. It wasn’t ever too pleasant for whoever she happened to surf upon, but one quickly grew used to the sensation of a slight weight at the edge of their mind. If she was being careful, he wouldn’t feel it, whether he wanted to or not.Truth be told, that aspect scared him more than some Decepticons, but he tried not to think on it. Channel was an Autobot, and she wouldn’t use her powers maliciously. He hoped."Wow," he heard her say over their connection. "This thing's got more holes than a chronic driller. Aight, gimme twenty-four."Their connection closed, her weight disappearing from his mind. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the clinic, tapping his pede even faster as he anxiously awaited her return. Five seconds, ten seconds, fifte–A voice suddenly sounded to his right."Hey, you're Uptick, right?" The nurse from before was walking over, a thermos of Energon held in his hand. "Luster's guardian? I've read your file." When Uptick nodded, he frowned. “I’m guessing you’re waiting on him.”"Ah. Yes, I am. You wouldn't happen to know anything about his current...treatment, would you?" He asked. "I can't say I'm a mnemosurgery expert, but it has been a while since he was admitted, and I'm just a little concerned--""Oh, don’t worry," the nurse said cheerfully. "Redactor's good at what he does, and he's got Epistaxis as his assistant. She's the nursing director for this week, and I've never heard a single complaint about her. He's in good servos, promise. But if you really want, I can probably ask her how it’s going. The secretary said you’ve been out here for what, half an hour now?"He wanted to trust the mech's words so badly. Luster was in good servos, he had to be, but something at the back of his processor told him otherwise. Six hours without a single update on anything, even just that the surgeon was tired. That didn't make sense."I–" he was going to correct the other mech when Channel suddenly called back, startling him. I, ah, yes! Please do ask! I, uh, have a call, please, excuse me.”The nurse dipped his helm and headed to the clinic doors, downing his Energon swiftly before vanishing into them. Uptick gave him a polite grin until he vanished, then promptly turned away from the street and headed into the alley.The moment he answered Channel’s call, she spoke."I'm in," she announced, pushing him an encrypted data pack. "Here's everything they've recorded since this mornin'. You lookin' for something specific now or--"He hadn't even managed to start on the first of her five passwords before she stopped."Hold up...what in the...well, I'll be.""What's the matter?""There's this one nurse, Epistaxis." Without waiting she sent him a string of unencrypted data, everything he'd need to know about the head nurse—​appearance, occupation, age, forging city, years of work, monetary value​, favorite color, favorite Energon flavor, and morning timetable. "Check out her schedule."He gave it a look over and grimaced—some of the patients she was seeing were on full display. Returning his expression to neutral, he vented. That was private information, and he wasn't keen on invading the space of others for long."Channel, this has nothing to do with Luster--""No, no, it does. Look. Luster was her fourth patient a' the day. An' now look at the rest 'a her schedule. Missin'. She ain't showed up to any 'a her appointments since she saw him."His spark felt cold. "Channel, what about--""Already lookin' into him. Redactor, right? Mnemosurgeon, fresh offa Cybertron. Rich story, that one. Most recent victim of an Autobot prison break." She huffed. "Alright, there he is—​wow, clear schedule for the day, just work on your mech. Looks innocent eno--"She stopped. Before he could even speak the data was jammed through their connection and flooded his head. Uptick had to blink a few times as his processor attempted to focus entirely on its new contents and momentarily shut off his external senses."Gentle, Channel, please--""He's missin', Tickers."And that made him shut up, letting his optics blur and his senses dull as he dove into the data. Redactor's schedule was cleared for the day as Channel had said, with his focus to be entirely on Luster. But there were periodic checkpoints he was required to update as he went along. The first of these had been at 11am.He hadn't even made the first."They're both missing," he said aloud, then immediately shut himself up. No one was nearby, but Uptick didn't quite trust that everything was fine. "Channel, can you--""Camera's ain't in use in patient rooms, Tickers.""Then I...why haven't they told me? Why haven't they alerted me? If they're both missing--""Maybe they're hidin' something. You seen any other Enforcers around?""No, I...I haven't."Hiding something. If they were hiding something, they wouldn't have alerted any of the Enforcers. Word spread quickly once those like him were alerted. But what could they want with Luster that was worth hiding?Whatever it was, he didn't like it. Something was wrong, and he wasn't the type to let it pass idly by, taking everyone he was supposed to protect with it. Uptick turned back to the clinic’s front and frowned. The information he'd acquired was done so illegally, he couldn't just waltz in demanding anything, not if he wanted to keep his position."Channel, help me think of a--""Hold that thought, Tickers, I've got another patient to deal with. Call you once I'm sure he ain't a wannabe Prowl."Their connection severed before he could protest. Uptick blinked a few times, steadying himself. The nurse who’d offered to check on Luster, what about him? He tried to ping the secretary, asking to see the fellow, only to be given her pre-recorded response again. Frustrated, he balled a fist and stormed for the doors, prepared to demand to speak with someone real.Which was right about when the alarm went off.----------------------------------The warning came just as he'd reached the back of Autobot City, a full hour after he'd originally expected it to. It blared over his systems, momentarily drowning out the endless screech of his notifications with its message:A SPARKEATER HAS INFILTRATED AUTOBOT CITY. LOCKDOWN INITIATED. ALL CITIZENS SEEK SHELTER.There it was, that damn word that he didn't want to speak or think, that reminded him of just how bad his situation was. The word that made it impossible for him to call this place home. The word that defined the mystery of his past and made him wonder if he'd ever really been a true Cybertronian.He'd run out of time here. And he wasn't even close to properly escaping it.Escaping the clinic hadn’t been easy. It had taken him hours to quietly drill through the back wall, creating a small hole that had opened into the back alley. He’d lucked out in the clinic’s location–it’s back alley joined with the space behind the morgue, which then led to a back street that he’d followed to Autobot City’s waste disposal site. It had taken a lot of dumpster pushing and a lifetime of mini spark-attacks, but he’d really done it:he’d escaped that damned clinic with his captive, and no one had seen him do it.Redactor was a constant weight on his tentacles, two of which had wrapped around his body and moved to drag him behind. He'd tried to carry him, but the two weren't sufficient for the task, and using all four would leave him vulnerable. He needed his weapons in case anyone found him. If they found him, they'd try to stop him, and with how much his processor was screaming, he didn't know how long he could keep himself from giving in.SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCESEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCEIt had stopped feeling like a suggestion the moment he revealed himself. With such a constant screaming the only way for him to take his mind off of the order was to focus on what was directly at hand. He wasn't thinking anymore—he was acting, and reacting.That was why poor Epistaxis was passed out on the clinic floor, her chassis completely torn to shreds. He’d managed to keep from damaging her spark chamber, but the more he’d torn the harder it had been to stop. She’d been alive when he’d left with Redactor. He could only hope that would stay true.He didn’t know how long he’d be able to say the same for himself.The waste disposal site was large enough to hide him for now, but it was undeniable that they’d find him eventually. He couldn’t hide his spark signature, and he had an entire other Autobot with him. Once they started scanning they’d find them both.Where could he run? The bar? Not with a captive. His room? Why wouldn’t it be the first place they checked? The clinic? Nope, absolutely not.Which meant the only place to go was out.He dragged Redactor (who, through some miracle, was still out) through the waste disposal site, feeling his tentacles strain as they pulled his frame past piles of trash. Had he gotten heavier? It hadn’t been too long a walk, right? He was hungry (starving, some might say), but surely, if he’d had enough energy to escape the clinic, he’d have the energy to escape the city, right?Climbing over a few mounds of trash, he found himself face to face with one of the walls of Autobot City. It extended far-beyond the height of most of the buildings, and was doubly fortified to protect against Decepticon attacks.His plating was already itching. This would take a while. Transforming his arms into the drill modes, he touched both their tips to a single spot on the wall and set their speed as high as he could.It was like trying to force a blade through stone. He grit his dentae and pressed harder. It was either break through, or die in here, or become a science experiment for Perceptor. He didn’t fancy the other two options.The alarm continued to blare in his head as he increased the speed of his drills, working to try and expand the wound inflicted upon Metroplex. The urge to fully transform and speed this up exponentially made him start to feel twitchy, which made his tentacles coil tighter around their prey. Transforming would make his escape quicker at the likely cost of preventing it entirely—the noise ​of a whole drill tank would surely attract other Autobots.Granted, his current method wasn’t exactly the quietest either, but there didn’t seem to be anyone working today, so he didn’t have any unwanted visitors to worry about. If he did, though, he’d just have to knock them out as well. A quick jab through the chassis would do it, followed by a jolt of electricity. He could hide their body in one of the many trash piles. Then he’d just–Primus, what was he doing!? The thought made him pause. He'd revealed himself as a Sparkeater and taken a hostage! He’d attacked a nurse and doctor and shocked them into submission! The entire city was locked down and Enforcers were prowling looking for him! If he was found he was dead, and yet here he was, loudly drilling the back wall and praying that no one would find him!He felt sick all of a sudden, his arms falling to his side as a sickness spread through his body. Whatever warnings he received were immediately drowned in more notifications, clouding his head and making him groan. He focused back on drilling.The hole was expanding by a few millimeters at a time. Theoretically it could be finished in the day if he kept up this pace. Theoretically he'd be noticed by then and taken to prison. Theoretically he could survive being taken apart and held in pieces forever to study. Theoretically--A groan sounded behind him. His spark skipped a beat."Uuugh...where...?"SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCEHis tentacle shot out and jammed its jaws back into Redactor's chassis, intending to shock him again. But when he focused...the shock never came. Luster paused, glancing back at the twisting appendage and trying again. No electricity crackled through it despite his best attempt.The writhing made Redactor squeak in pain, his frame squirming beneath the intrusion upon it. "Ow! Stop, please! What are—why are you doing this?" He tried to pry his arms free and failed, visor lighting up as he came properly online again. "Who are--"SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE"Sh," Luster shushed, pulling the tentacle out of his chassis and instead moving it to his mouth. How badly he wanted to instead plunge it into his spark chamber. "Quiet."Funny, coming from him. Raising his head from his work, he quickly scanned the area. The warning blared in his head again, apparently on a two minute loop. There were no signs of Enforcers—​yet. He didn't know how long he had before they found this area. Probably not much more.The same warning which gave him a moment of clarity blared in Redactor's head as well, and the reality of his situation set in as the drowsiness of forced recharge wore off."SP-SPARKEATER!" He immediately yelled, wriggling wildly against the tentacles holding him. "HELP! ANYO--"The tentacle at his mouth shot to throat, pressing its claws right against his voxbox. Luster felt awful as he uttered his threat, but he knew he had no choice.SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE"If you don't be quiet, I'll remove your voxbox. I'm not going to hurt you. Just hold still, and be. Quiet."SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCERedactor whimpered. "What are you going to do with me?"SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCEHe turned right back to his work, drilling faster, deciding the extra noise was worth the progress. The itching in his plating was growing worse, like scraplets had found their way beneath it and were writhing in their nest. "I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated. "I already told you what I want. We can't stop. I'm...you helped me remember Solace. I need to remember more, and I need to remember now."SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE"But...I...Lu-Luster, you know I-I called off our session because, uh, present conditions aside, you--"They both heard the roar of an engine nearby, followed by the scraping of tires on pavement. The tentacle gripping Redactor's throat tightened, almost daring him to call out. A tiny whine escaped, but no words along with it.Luster ceased his drilling, turning towards the source of the noise. They were at least nine-hundred feet from the front, and tucked behind several piles of garbage. No way they’d been spotted yet.Raising a finger to his dermas, he crept away from the wall, dragging Redactor’s stumbling form with him. He bee-lined for a large mound of trash, ducking behind it as he listened for his pursuer.The scraping of tires ceased nearby, and the distinctive tschu chuk of a t-cog at work sounded out. Heavy pedes plodded at the entrance, pausing there.“Hello? Is anyone there?”Luster immediately cast Redactor a venomous glare. If the other mech had been planning something, the gaze shut him down.“I know someone’s here. Your signal’s showing on my radar. Come out. City’s on lockdown.”Of course he was scanning for signals. Why hadn’t he brought something to hide his own? Or received an upgrade for it?Luster said nothing despite the truth glaring him in the face, his tentacles coiling tighter against his back. Redactor flinched as the grip around him grew painful.“If you don’t come out, I’m going to have to arrest you,” the Enforcer threatened. “I can see where you’re hiding. Don’t make this difficult, it’s for your own safety.”Redactor moved a servo to his tentacle. Luster almost snarled at the touch."Don't," he threatened, then let up ever so slightly. "Redactor, I don't want to hurt you. I need you. I'm going to let you go the moment we're really finished. But until then I need you to cooperate with me. Or..."SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCE"Or else."He really hated having to threaten Redactor. The doctor had done nothing but attempt to help him. He was the monster here, and his actions certainly weren't helping to clear his name. But what was the alternative? Give it time, and give in to his urges before he remembered what he needed to about Solace? Give it time, and lose himself entirely? Give it time, and become a lab experiment for Perceptor?"Ye-yes," Redactor responded, voice barely a whisper. "U-understood."SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCEHe sounded so pathetic. Pathetic, afraid, and weak. Prime for consumption. There was already a hole in his chassis. It would be easily to burrow in and pull his spark free. Solvent gathered in his mouth at the idea. He could take this Enforcer, if he just had a spark–SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCEWhich sent a bolt of fear as cold and heavy as the nearby stomping pedes through his entire frame.“I’ll give you one last chance.” He heard the sound of servos turning to a blaster. “Come out.”His tentacle uncoiled from Redactor’s throat, the other three joining it as Luster slowly stood. His plating was itching wildly, notifications screaming endlessly. As he walked towards the edge of the pile he became more aware of the humming in his head, growing in volume with each step.“Okay,” he said absently, raising his clawed hands as he emerged from behind the pile. “I’ll come out.”“Good. That’s a good–”He barely had a moment to widen his optics before Energon burst from his mouth, pooling out along with his brain. Pink spattered over the ground as he fell to his knees, coughing, gagging, and grabbing at his mouth. Before he could even try to secure his own mind it was out, dropping to the floor like a discarded coin.Luster stared blankly at the dying mech, now little more than the garbage that surrounded him. Redactor gasped in horror behind him, but he barely heard him. No, his focus was on the glowing ember in the Enforcer’s chest, the waning light that promised him life.His tentacles shot to the body, immediately turning it over and shredding the plating. He followed them, crouching beside it as Energon spattered against his chassis and face. As the light grew brighter and the spark rose from its chamber, he realized that a silence had settled over his mind: for once, there were no notifications or humming.Just an ancient, primal urge, compelling him forward, demanding heEAT.The cracking of his jaw was the only sound in the entire site as he dove forward, clamping down on the divine light of Primus and swallowing it in an instant.It was like drinking warm Energon after a trek through a planet of ice. It was a rush of electricity after an eternity of powerlessness. It was a new T-cog after an eternity of root mode only. It was life itself rushing into his dying frame, animating him with the power to finally move.His tentacles crackled to life, their power returned. For just a moment his hunger waned, and he threw his head back and laughed–the feeling was so foreign now, it felt wrong. And how badly he wanted more of it.A whimper sounded behind him. His optics widened and his head snapped to its direction. A lavender mech was cowering back, terror filling his eyes.He rose to his pedes, tentacles spreading out and pointing towards their target. It shook its head and begged in a language he was starting to forget.Please, no. Please, stop. Help me. Anyone. Please. Luster, no.Who’s Luster?His tentacles shot for the mech’s plating, burrowing for its spark. A scream of pain escaped it, only to be silenced as claws pinched onto its throat and closed. Energon burst from the wound, spraying over him.Luster forced him to the ground, moving his claws to his chest. The silence had broken, and the orders were back.SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCEThe mech gurgled, grabbing at his claws and kicking its legs. There were two bleeding holes in its chassis.SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCEThey had pierced clean through its plating and wiring, down to the spark.SEEKALTERNATEFUELSOURCEThe gentle light of life itself, gifted by Primus, was peeking out.FEEDMEIMSOFUCKINGHUNGRYHe obeyed.—--A sparkeater was in Autobot City. He didn't believe it when he'd first heard the message played. Epistaxis had been out cold for hours, but it had only taken a slight shock from the on-site defibrillator to online her, and she'd immediately begun to scream about the monster. A sparkeater had infiltrated the clinic and attacked her.And it had taken Redactor and Luster.His spark had fallen into his tank at that knowledge, and he'd shot into the air the second he’d left the clinic. Before the lockdown alarm had even sounded over the entire city he'd begun his search, trying to ping Luster's frequency, struggling to hear it over the noise and his own pounding fear.Luster had been taken by a sparkeater. He'd failed to protect the one 'bot he'd promised he would.It was just like the war, but this time, it wasn't 'cons he hadn't kept away.Aerial support was appreciated by the Autobots below, but the more he'd circled the city, trying to hone in on Luster's signal amongst the noise of everyone below panicking, the more he'd realized just how disadvantaged he was up here. The many structures Metroplex supported made for excellent cover and there were hundreds of places a sparkeater could lurk. Though the midday sun of Earth banished many shadows to the furthest corners of Metroplex, there were still hundreds of corners and only so many Enforcers. They couldn't check all of them at once, from ground or sky. And with each failed search the sparkeater got further and further away. Who knew where it could be? Who knew what it would kill next?No, Luster couldn't be dead. He couldn't be. He would not see another Autobot die while under his protection, no matter what he had to do.Winging for the nearest communications tower, he transformed back and landed with a heavy THUD on the rooftop. Immediately he opened his comms and spoke."This is Uptick, reporting from tower 3. Everything looks clear up here. What's the situation on the ground? Over."He received a few pings from the others below who had nothing to say, providing their locations and what data they'd collected—​which was to say, virtually nothing. ​Momentarily he considered sending them Luster's signal, scrambled as it was in the current panic, then hesitated. Even he couldn't home in on its exact location, what good would it do any of them?Well, he knew someone who could, but from so far away? Would it be worth it to bother her now?Better yet, why not attempt to contact Luster himself? But what if he was dead?He wasn't dead. He couldn't be. Uptick opened his frequency in his HUD and promptly pinged it, sending his location and a request for feedback.It was dead silence for all of ten seconds before he received a response. It was no location, no status, no life signal. What came through from Luster's frequency was a low hum, reminding him of the planetary song of Jupiter.And then it went silent.Frowning, he tried again, and again. The ping reciprocated once more before the connection closed and did not reopen.He growled. Well, if it was going to be uncooperative, then he knew someone who could brute force it. Swapping to his other frequency, he promptly called Channel.This time, she picked up on the second ring."Ticker's, I got news for y--""I need you to hijack a signal for me." Whatever she had been talking about could wait. "There's a sparkeater in Autobot City and it's captured Luster. I need you to find him."There was silence for about two seconds before she spoke.'Well, I'll be. Sparkeater's a bit worse 'an this I s'ppose. Aight, gimme the signal."He immediately sent her Luster's signature, then grabbed the tower's satellite."Channel into my processor. I can connect you to one of our satellites.""Channel into you? From this far? Tickers, ya over three thousand miles--""Channel. Please." He vented, gritting his dentae. "He could be dead. I need this. Please. I need to find him."She sighed in response. "Aight, Tickers. But ya owe me one later, aight?""Add it to my tab."The sensation of having his processor invaded by her was a familiar discomfort, like cold energon spilling into his tank. For a moment it was unpleasant, and he was acutely aware that an invader had just ridden through their established connection straight into his mind. She was there and he couldn't stop her—​anything he thought and felt in the moment would be completely open to her.And then she had integrated, his processor growing used to it, and she was the same as any other background hum or intrusive thought. Good, that was the first part of the process. The second was channeling her into the satellite, which he promptly did, finding its frequency and connecting his own personal one to it.Like a drop of water moving between pools, Channel slipped from his mind into the satellite's projections. It only took a moment before she began to report back.Thousands of signals were filtered at once. He saw Autobot City as a skeleton of itself, populated with thousands of dots of light, which one by one winked out as they were eliminated from Channel's search. The city began to shrink as the signal became more and more clear, zipping past buildings and over roads towards the very back. It paused at the clinic for a moment, then raced along the back wall and finally locked in on the back wall at a waste disposal site.Three signals blinked, then one went out as the lock-on finished."Found your kid," Channel announced.The coordinates logged into his internal map the second she'd sent them. The second she retreated from the satellite he released it, ignoring the sensation of her mind leaving his own."Thanks Channel. I'll update you when I've found him.""Right, Tickers, but you should--"He closed their connection and transformed his arms, testing to ensure that his blasters were working. They powered up in two seconds, as if they'd been used yesterday. Then he tested the launchers on his shoulders, which unfolded and loaded their missiles with the same speed.Alright, a sparkeater. He could take a sparkeater. It couldn't be worse than the sixth infantry. Just one sparkeater. For Luster.He leaped off the building and promptly transformed, almost breaking his wing against the nearest structure. He was too big to be flying so low. He didn't care.Luster was in danger, and he wasn't about to--An SOS ping shot through his head. It came from another Enforcer, one on the ground. And then it cut off.Panic shot through him as he searched rapidly for the signal’s origin, finding it in the exact spot he'd already planned on going.Oh no. Nonononono--Three minutes. He had three minutes until he was there. Three minutes flying safely.He promptly diverted all fuel to his thrusters and shot forward, turning the world below into a blur. Thirty seconds. He had thirty seconds.Each one felt like too long.The waste disposal area came up so quickly he almost missed it. He immediately banked up to force a stop, entire body creaking as it fought against air and age to obey his command. He was a decent flier, he'd say, but no Decepticon jet—cargo planes weren't made for such steep turns or jerky movements. He forced them anyways.Primus, his back strut would ache in the morning, though.With his momentum halted he immediately began to fall. Transforming back, he used his thrusters to manage what could barely be considered a controlled crash onto the nearest roof, hitting his knee hard against it. The damage came through in an immediate report and the pain momentarily caused his processor to flash. He forced them both to be silent and dropped to the ground, hearing a snap along with the landing boom.Luster's signal was less than a hundred feet away, hidden amongst the trash. Uptick half limped into the waste disposal site, drawing in a sharp ex-vent at what he saw.Lying on his back, a hole punctured through his chest, was the other Enforcer. Already his frame had turned gray, the death pallor broken only by the pink of his Energon. His mouth was open in a scream, optics wide and offlined. Next to him, snapped free of its cord, was the small orb of his brain.Uptick closed his eyes and turned his head away, saying a silent prayer to Primus at the sight. He'd been too late.And he couldn't stop now. Heading deeper into the site, he quickly spotted drag marks highlighted with Energon. They moved around the trash piles, heading right towards the back.So it had taken its prey somewhere private to kill it. He had hope, then. Luster could still be alive, pinned beneath the thing and terrified, but alive. He had to be.It was the only thing keeping him going. With each step his leg hurt even more. It reminded him of the war. His plating bristled, arms already transforming into blasters.The marks lead around one final pile of trash. He could see a pool of Energon leaking around it. Just beyond he heard the sound of metal snapping.Uptick steeled himself, bringing the memory of that day back to light. The sixth infantry was below him, the ground awash in pink. And around, the jets had already formed into their kill formation, one behind, one on the right, and one on the left. There was only one form of escape:forward.He trained his blasters on the monster before him, crouching over the flickering body of Redactor. The doctor's cheerful lavender paint had been stripped away from struggle. Wiring burst from the joints where his hands had previously connected. His back was arched, legs broken, and chest bared to the creature crouched over him. Writhing tentacles gripped the open hole in his chassis, presenting his spark chamber to the beast as it lowered its head to eat.And yet even as it did, Redactor spoke."Help..." He whispered in a final prayer for safety.The sparkeater atop him paused, neck cracking as it raised its head and turned to look at him.His optics widened in horror. His spark felt ready to go out. And his blasters trembled as the pain in his knee threatened to drop him to the ground."Luster?"No. It can't be.Anyone but you.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The rain had already begun to pour by the time she laid the tiny Autobot on her work slab. Just moments ago, when he'd crashed outside and staggered to her door, it had been a drizzle at most, a quiet, tapping suggestion of presence. Now it was a downpour. Her optics automatically adjusted when the natural light from the windows darkened.He wasn’t even able to properly speak. The damage to his helm was so severe she thought he must have stuck it in a press. Usually Channel would have degraded him for being so stupid; she'd quickly realized there was no time for a scolding when he'd collapsed at the door.Her patient was tiny, less than half her size. She focused on supporting his head, energon pouring over her servos as she carried him across the clinic. It really wasn't much of one: the structure she called an abode was a glorified garage with two rooms attached to it. The "entrance" was a shabby, nondescript door which opened straight into her storage closet, which was so cluttered that only the suggestion of a floor could be garnered from a glance.Despite the obstacles she'd been cautious to avoid jarring her patient (or exposing him to the chittering cage of sparklets) as she'd brought him into the garage area—her "operating room". It was a wide open space with an operating slab, a single surgical aid machine, and assembly tables scattered about, all covered in tools.Energon stains dotted the bare stone floor like stars in the sky, mixing into fat blobs around the slab as she laid him down.His optics were darting around the room constantly, trying to evaluate where he was, how to escape, if he was safe or not. Poor thing. The scared animal look never quite left the eyes of the dying, even after they recovered. Brushing against the beast that was mortality left every victim traumatized, and the one on her slab was no exception. But just what had happened to bring him there?She didn't linger on it and sedated him with a quick injection of spiked energon. The moment his optics quit fluttering about, she picked away what pieces were left of his helm and pressed the modified pads of her fingers to his paneling. A few communications from her own systems to his granted her immediate access into him, permitting her to order a temporary offline. Before leaving, she collected a few memory files, then snapped back into her own body. blinking as she onlined again.From there she went to work. His helm was almost completely crushed, though his brain was intact. Repairs wouldn't be as simple as hammering out a few dents; he would need an entirely new helm and faceplate. It was a job for someone with parts at their disposal, not her tiny "clinic" in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Idly, she wondered if this was a job she could even handle with her current tools. The gray light pouring in suddenly lighting up with a flash. She winced at the sudden boom that followed, her servos clenching instinctively at the sound. The war was over, there was no reason to panic. Earth's weather just did that every now and then. Even so, a dozen notifications opened in her HUD, warning her to take cover and scan for survivors. She closed them all. There was no choice. She’d have to repair him as best she could with what she had here, then wipe his memory. If she failed with either, she risked his life and her safety. First, she checked his sparkbeat--stable--and cleaned his wounds. I ain’t a doctor. I didn't learn in no system. I didn't attend no classes or read no datapads. Then, she worked on the warping in his plating. I got all my experience fixin' everyone I found in the field. We ain't had time for studyin' an' readin' an' practicin'. After that, she welded what breaks she could and carefully molded his head back together. His visor was a lost cause. Everythin’ was hands on, in the moment, right there, an' either you got it right, or they died beneath you. Only once she was sure she'd properly fixed all of his helm did she check his Energon levels, finding them to be lower, but still at a safe level. Her medical Energon stores were shoved right against the always closed garage door, in case she needed to quickly dispose of them. Retrieving a cube from the small pile, she brought it to his dermas and, with only a bit of effort, convinced his unconscious form to drink. When the cube depleted she placed its empty shell next to the others and returned to online him. It was a careful process to open his helm again and connect. As she turned his head she took in the full sight of his faceplate, with all its mended seams. The bleeding corpse still looked up at her, his face contorted in agony. Her fans clicked on instinctively to cool her down. Her hands shook as notifications began to crop up in her HUD again. She disabled them both and pulled her hands away, choosing to let him sleep for a bit longer. No use trying to wake him up if she wasn't fit for it. Outside the storm raged. She hadn't seen such strong weather in a while--not for at least two earth months. It was lucky the little Autobot had found her before the winds had turned. There was no way in The Pit that he would have been able to fly in such conditions. Then again, with the damage to his helm, there was no way he should have been able to transform safely either. Luck seemed to be on the little one’s side. How cruel that the fickle creature decided only now to make its presence known amongst the Autobots. Crossing the garage, she leaned against one of the window frames and watched the rain fall. It was the perfect distraction for letting her mind wander: the files she'd retrieved would need to be reviewed so she could learn about her patient. That would determine whether she'd contact someone to pick him up for travel to a proper medic, or if she'd give him a knock on the helm and tell him to fly there himself. Opening the files in her HUD, she let the white noise of rainfall train her focus into her own processor. Starburst was his name. He turned into a rocket—made sense. Speedster build, forged during the war. Had pride issues, liked to flirt. Good thing his vox box was probably broken, then. Visiting Earth to catch up with the Aerialbots; it seemed competitiveness ran in his wires. Before he'd been injured, he'd been responding to... A distress call. She raised an optical ridge at that. A distress call from humans. On the island of Bali, there had been a call claiming a winged robot had walked out of the sea and crushed several buildings on a tourist beach. Supposedly it had then made for the Demon Swamp. Eager to prove himself, Starburst had rocketed off first, leaving the Aerialbots he'd been intending to challenge behind. Once at the swamp, he'd found-- Two of them. One enormous, one average. A common build, that of a Seeker, and a custom, hulking monster. The Seeker was lime green--a familiar lime green. Flaking pink paint covered her chassis and ran up her wings, but the rest of her was eye-bleeding green. The larger one was almost entirely black, accented with gold and yellow. Her armor was spiked and segmented, resembling an earth organism in its make-up. Hiding her face was a steely mask and a red visor, over which a helm resembling an insect's head almost seemed to bite down, like it was never meant to be there in the first place. An Insecticon and a Seeker. Though the memories playing before her vision barely noticed the purple sigils on their wings and chasses, her own systems blared with panic at the sight. There were no cons left on Earth. They'd abandoned the planet after Megatron had died during the assault on Autobot City. Following the Unicron incident the remaining forces had retreated somewhere unknown in the galaxy. A search over the entire planet Earth had concluded there were no cons left. The planet had been declared a safe haven, with the official announcement that the war, at least here, was over. And playing right before her vision was proof it was not. She opened her comms immediately, closing the memory files she'd been viewing. Before she could even open his channel, however, Uptick was pinging her. How convenient. Accepting his request, their communications line opened. "Ticker's, I got news for y--""I need you to hijack a signal for me. There's a sparkeater in Autobot City and it's captured Luster. I need you to find him."She paused for just a moment, surprised at his interruption before it truly hit her.'Well, I'll be. Sparkeater's a bit worse 'an this I s'ppose. Aight, gimme the signal." She followed along with his requests, channeling into his mind through their connection, then into the city’s own signal. It was intimidating, connecting to a Titan–she was no Cityspeaker, and passing through a Titan’s personal frequency made her feel like a bug beneath the eye of Primus. Metroplex, luckily, did not crush her. Or perhaps it was not luck, for Autobots were notoriously unlucky. Rather, he chose to pay her little mind to avoid overwhelming her, watching her right back, waiting to see what she would do. Using the radio waves from his own satellite, she mapped his entire body, searching for a specific life signal. He gave her a small boost, aiding her in filtering through the thousands currently populating him. In milliseconds she was zipping through his corridors and over his streets, honing in on the Autobot Metroplex had dubbed “the waning one”. Uptick could feel most of the information she sent to him, but not that of her momentary connection with Metroplex. It spared him from the sudden pain she felt when the signals were located and one winked out. It spared him from the sudden desire forced into her mind: Save them. "Found your kid,” she announced, and pulled out, breaking from Metroplex’s signal to retreat back into Uptick’s. Environmentally speaking it was like night and day: one was comfortable, familiar, and enclosed. It had been damaged and the cracks showed, but it held together despite them. The other was vast, open, and unknowable. Metroplex’s feelings were wild and enormous, each one a punch to her helm. She could not understand his words or thoughts, only the immensity of his feelings. If she was in her frame she would have purged. But as a signal in Uptick’s helm, she had no ability to do so. Orienting herself, she promptly sent him the information and retreated back to her own form, crossing thousands of miles instantly. It took only milliseconds in a literal sense, but to her, it felt like hours. By the time she was back in her own frame her systems were indicating immense stress. Two transfers over such a long distance in so short a time was threatening to overload her. "Thanks Channel. I'll update you when I've found him."His tone reminded her of their war days. She couldn’t see him, but the intensity of his voice put the image of that day back in her helm like it had just passed:He stands over the bleeding corpse, both blasters raised, missile launchers hissing despite their depleted barrels. The fuel boom extended from his side, bleeding out brilliant pink against his black war paint. As another laser bolt blasts into his wing, the corpse lurches, life giving Energon splattering from his mouth as he coughs.There was no darker day than that. The danger in his tone was equal to himself."Right, Tickers, but you should--" She began, and their connection severed. He was off to hunt a sparkeater, and she was not invited.She blinked, then huffed. Of course she wasn’t invited. Of course he had to do everything himself. Of course he was hellbent on sacrificing his safety and well-being in the name of protecting someone else. The memory was fresh in her mind, and though so much of it had been pulled from his, its pain was still undoubtedly fresh.She’d have to contact this Redactor fellow when it was all said and done, probably when he was back on Cybertron. Another round of mnemosurgery might be necessary for keeping Uptick safe from himself. But in the meantime…She took to cleaning her tools and workspace, gathering up the trash and raising the garage door to toss it outside.A sparkeater. A sparkeater in Autobot City. How was that even possible? Sparkeaters were rumors at best. There didn’t even exist any real photos of them, only artistic depictions. She’d long theorized that they were made up to scare sparklings into behaving, and when the war had started, soldiers into keeping their ranks.Of course there had been talk that Shockwave was working on creating real ones, but no one really believed him capable of it. Whatever strange spark experiments he’d been performing, if any at all, they’d died with him when Cybertron had been attacked. She’d listened in on what they’d found in his lab. It was gruesome, but nothing as extreme as a real sparkeater.Still…the Decepticons rearing their ugly heads in Bali and a sparkeater's arrival in Autobot City. Could the two be connected? She closed the garage door and headed for her quarters. The door to them was at the very back, and unlike the rest of her poorly constructed, cinderblock clinic, actually mechanical. She tapped a code into her keypad and the metallic door slid open. Her quarters were small and extremely cramped. Technology was crammed into every square inch of the place. Her computers and signal jackers covered the walls, their wires engaging in a delicate dance for dominance as they crept downwards towards a generator. The energon powered human tech kept the entire place functional, even if it constantly belched fumes and threatened to explode. Today was not a day where its threats were felt. She climbed over a gathering of human radios, all tuned into different frequencies, and seated herself on said generator, reaching out to tap one of her many touchscreens. It activated, and she pulled up a map of Earth, zooming in on Bali, then Autobot City. They’d said Shockwave had failed to create a sparkeater, but what if he’d kept something underground? No body had ever been found, and he was currently listed as MIA. She wouldn’t put it past him to create some kind of atrocity in secret. A real sparkeater, though? It seemed a stretch. And Bali was far from Autobot City. A dual attack on both places at once was idiocy. Zooming in on the Demon Swamp, she pulled up her informatics on the place and read it over. The Demon Swamp was the home of the Insecticons. Earth-adapted and skilled at hiding themselves, the Insecticons were notorious for their ability to produce clones. Not even one could be spared, otherwise they’d come back with an army. During the attack on Autobot City, they’d seen many, many Insecticon clones bite the dust. And more than a few had bit the dust. She furrowed her optical ridges, pulling up an image of Shrapnel. If the cons wanted to start invading Earth again, it would make sense to start with the Insecticons. They could silently create an army from their home location, using the massive distraction of a sparkeater (real or not) to keep eyes off their efforts. And once enough had been reformed, they’d launch a full scale invasion. She knew for a fact there were still Decepticon bases under the oceans. They were, supposedly, abandoned. But with how lax Earth’s security was, how easily could a Decepticon sneak in and reactivate one, utilizing its cloaking to transport soldiers with an onboard space bridge? But why a Seeker? A Seeker coming out of the ocean no less. That was about as expected as a tank falling out of the sky. Replaying Starburst's memory, she tried to check if she could recognize either of the cons in it. Seekers were a dime a dozen, but she swore that the one she witnessed, blurry as it was, resembled Acid Storm. The Insecticon...she drew a blank. Acid Storm. As far as Seekers went he was one of the more notorious; as a Rainmaker, she’d seen him melt more than a few dozen of her allies. If he was on Earth, it was awful news. Seekers always moved in trines, they were forged for it. Two at the sides, one at the lead. It was how they fought, how they flew. Knowing their movements made them predictable but no less deadly. “There’ll be three, one behind, two at the sides. You’ll need’a fly low. They’ll outmaneuver ya no matter what height, but if ya stay low, the environment becomes yer friend. They’re delicate. You’ ain’t.” He looks at her with determined optics and nods. “All you hafta do is get us close to camp. Aerial support takes it from there.” She supports his head on her knee, elevating him so the energon stops leaking from his intake. “We’ll be wit’ ya the whole way. Hey, when we make it outta this, we’ll have a wicked story ta tell, right?” There were three Rainmakers. Together they could level entire cities. If they had been present at the attack on Autobot City it wouldn’t have been declared a victory. She tapped her servos together, considering her information. A Rainmaker, an Insecticon, and a sparkeater. None of it felt right. She couldn’t confidently say what the cons were up to, but she could say it needed to be reported. Glancing out at Starburst’s inert form, she grimaced. She wanted to alert Ultra Magnus to all she'd learned, there was just one issue: everything she'd just done was illegal. Not only was she not supposed to be practicing, she hadn't been approved for the 'clinic' she'd built, hadn't received informed consent to probe Starburst's mind, and certainly hadn't acquired the comms of anyone she'd be contacting legally. In theory she could contact Ultra Magnus or Rodimus Prime at any given time. In theory, she could pretend that it was an incorrectly made call. But considering how much they knew about her now, she highly doubted that anyone would believe anything from her to be accidental. Whatever information she learned, she kept, especially the pieces she wasn't supposed to have. How much she would love to contact the Ark or the officials in Autobot City—and how much she would love to lose all her freedom because she'd broken their contract the moment she’d stepped foot on Earth. No, there was really only one 'bot she could entrust this information to, and it certainly wasn't Starburst. She groaned, already dreading the helmache she was sure to develop after pinging Uptick. This would have to be quick, otherwise she risked temporary offlining at best. He picked up on the first ring. When he spoke his voice almost sounded distant, like he was yelling into the wind. She recognized why immediately: it was the way he sounded when transformed. "Channel, I need a favor." Three in one day. He was getting bold. She cocked an optical ridge and frowned. "Now's a bad time for it, 'Tickers. There’s–” "It can't wait. I'm sorry. I'm heading to you now." "Wait, wh'?” She furrowed her optical ridges. “'Tickers, I'm callin' you because I needa’ tell ya somethin'! "It can wait." "It really can’t--" "It has to wait. This isn't negotiable.” "No, it ain't!" She snapped, slamming a fist down on a radio. It shrieked static, igniting her rage. "'Tickers, I done you two favors today, you're gonna sit your aft down and listen t’ me! A sparkeater's bad, but it ain't alone! The cons are back!" Silence. “Ain’t you heard me?! The ‘Cons are–” “Where are they?” The dangerous calm in his voice went over her head. “Where? The Demon Swamp! You needa contact Mags--" "No." Of all responses he could've given, she never thought he would have said that. It shocked her so much she sputtered. "Y-you what?!" "How many of them are back?" "You--what!? WHAT?!" "How many?" Her dermas curled down angrily. "Listen here, you, don't you think for a moment that--" “How. Many.” It was her turn to be quiet for a moment, the shrieking of the radio joining with the white noise of the rain outside. She almost wanted to join them, her spark threatening to burn through its chamber walls. “Two,” she finally said, so much venom dripping from the word that it could melt plating. "Perfect. Don't tell anyone. I'll deal with them." There it was. His stupid, self-sacrificing tendencies, rearing their ugly head. If someone didn’t set him straight he’d bleed himself dry trying to fill a broken cup. And she was the only voice of reason he’d listen to. "'What the hell are you on about!” She bellowed. “I've a right mind to knock you over the helm!" He vented. "I know, Channel. I'm...you're going to call me an idiot. And a glitchhead. And a complete and utter fool." "I can think'a way worse than that, Tickers.” Her helmache was growing, and now the buzzing was starting. She pinched her enstril and vented sharply. “The hell're you up to?" "It's...bad. It's really bad. But you can fix almost anything, right? You even fixed him, and they said he was a lost cause." A bolt of pain shot through her processor as her voice dropped dangerously low. "Don't you go bringin' him up. That ain't no way to get on my good side." “Sorry. But the bot I'm bringing to you is also a bit of a lost cause. The entire city wants him dead at this point. He's got nowhere to go, and I--" "Tell me you aren't doin' what I think you're doin', 'Tickers. Tell me he ain't..." She didn't need to say it. There was silence between them for too long. The rain beat heavily, as if howling its disapproval. "It's Luster," Uptick said at last, voice hesitant. "He's the sparkeater."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It was only when the dark shape of the Marshall Islands came into view that he really began to question what he was doing. Twelve hours of flight time would do that to anyone, but Uptick had been resolute for all of them that his actions were the right ones. Through Channel's yelling, the shrieking chatter from his fellow Enforcers, and the constant pinging from Autobot City demanding he return immediately, he'd held strong to the belief that his choices were for the benefit of everyone.But now, with Channel's island coming into view and the weight of his actions bearing down on him, he finally began to question himself ever so slightly.He checked his cargo hold again. The shape of Luster's crumpled form, curled in on itself, whimpering quietly, was still inert. Redactor’s hands were held against his chassis, the Energon leaking from them long dried. His tentacles were curled around his body, almost as if they were trying to hug him.A pair of stasis cuffs around his wrists kept him locked in place. He'd placed the cuffs on Luster the moment he'd pinned him, but Uptick was beginning to wonder if they were truly necessary. It hadn't been a long or difficult fight, and Luster, for all the new tools at his disposal, had given in fairly easily. All he'd done since capture was cry.It gave him hope that not only was he still in there, but he was fixable. Sparkeaters were mindless monsters who ate life itself and fought mercilessly to the death. Luster wasn't any of those things.Well. He had eaten a spark. But only one. And besides...Enforcers died in the line of duty all the time. They could forgive him for that.As he neared Channel's island he picked up her jamming signal, which immediately scrambled his GPS and almost tossed him off balance. In response he disabled it and chose to fly freely, blinding one of his senses in favor of staying afloat.The island Channel had chosen as her base was a small one. No more than several miles in length, it lacked a runway for him to land on. Hers was completely devoid of any human civilization, with its two sandy beaches taking up the majority of space. Boulders dotted their expanses, marching into the ocean to form closed reefs. Beyond the beaches was an expanse of greenery that broke for only a single building. It was small and rectangular in shape, bearing a massive satellite dish next to it and a large, closed garage door spray painted with "LEAVE" in Cybertronian. The entire structure was made of Earth materials: cinderblock and aluminum.It was a miracle the shack was even standing, considering the weather known to circulate in the Pacific. He had only visited Channel once, at the beginning, when he'd first helped in smuggling her onto Earth. She'd fit comfortably in his chassis, disguised her signal, and moved her own spark close enough to his that they read as the same on a scan. After that, he'd flown around the planet twice, giving her time to choose just what secluded spot of land she wanted to call her own.The Marshall Islands were, apparently, her dream destination. He'd dropped onto the beach, turned back, and opened his chassis with all the delicacy of rolling a rug out for the human known as the “Queen” (apparently, she also lived on an island!). Channel had clambered out, slammed him shut, and told him exactly what materials she'd like him to bring. Everything else she'd do herself.Considering she was no Constructicon, and certainly not an architect or designer, the shack she called her clinic was by no means a failure. It did its job of housing her and providing a space for her patients. Still, it went without saying that most bots who came to Channel found her because they couldn't ask for help from conventional sources. She wasn't a high-end doctor and she'd never claim to be. No, she was a back-alley mechanic who'd joined the force because they promised her enough money to rescue herself from the slums crumbling around her, and it was on-site field work that had seen her skills become as capable as they had.A lot of bots had died beneath her wrench. He'd almost been one of them. And now he was bringing her Luster, praying she could fix him.She had to. No one else would even try. Channel, in the least, would make an effort. She'd screamed and cursed at him, and she'd probably punch him for bringing a sparkeater to her door, but she'd still try.That was why he was doing this. He wouldn't give up on Luster, just like he hadn't given up on him. He would have survived if they'd let Channel work on him more. He would have made it if they hadn't declared his parts worth more than his brain. They would say Luster was worth more as a science project than as a mech, just the same.He wouldn't allow that ever again.Circling the island twice, Uptick pinged Channel over and over, waiting for her to open the garage door to her clinic. Only when he saw the aluminum door shaking did he wing for the beach, flying low before transforming. It hurt—his knee was in poor condition and Luster was far too big to fit properly in his chassis. His body ended up falling into the sand as Uptick's own rejected it, focusing instead on balancing his weight to give him a safe landing.The gambit would have worked were it not for his knee.Uptick crashed onto the beach, tumbling over himself twice and hitting his wing--hard--on one of the boulders. He hissed, finally coming to a stop on his back, and gripped at the sand, cursing it for creeping between his digits and into his plating. He'd be scratching for weeks after this.Moving to shaky legs, worsened by the bolt of pain that fired from his knee, Uptick limped towards where Luster's inert form lay, back to him. The ocean was brushing against him in gentle waves, making his lustrous peacock blue paint shine brilliantly in the sun. He wasn't moving."Luster?" Uptick said as he neared. "Are you alright?"His response was a quiet cough. Luster was lying on his side, attempting to curl into himself. The hands he clung to like a lifeline were pinned to his chassis.Uptick let out a sigh of relief, detecting no initial damage on first inspection. "Good to see you're alright," he said to him, giving him a weak smile. "Well get through this, Luster, I promise. Channel will fix you. You'll be back to normal in no time."He stooped next to Luster, reaching his arms under his form to pick him up. The ocean's gentle waves brushed over them both, leaving a thin layer of itself behind on their plating. Uptick paid it no mind until he noticed the blue fleck.It was at the edge of his forearm, the only part poking out from beneath Luster's frame. As he lifted him up, he felt a tiny crunching beneath his servos, like he was breaking through a layer of sand.But what dropped from his arms and into the waves was not sand. It was blue in color and fell like a tiny flake of rust. His optics widened in horror as he noticed the water.It was swirling with the flakes of Luster's paint."Channel," he pinged immediately, turning towards her clinic, "I need you to--"He took one step and fell forward, knee shrieking. Luster’s limp form dropped into the sand just before him, rolling over to reveal his front. Uptick felt something in his chassis crack as he faceplanted. Lifting his head, he caught sight of Luster.His gasp caught in his intake.His arms were crossed over his chassis, hugging Redactor's hands to it, but they couldn't hope to hide the damage. Energon was spilling down his chassis in thick rivulets, clumped with sand and streaming from his dermas. Most of his brilliant blue paint had flaked away, revealing a complete corrosion of his lower plating. Exposed wiring threatened to fall out at any moment. His yellow optics held no brilliance in them and were growing fainter by the moment.As he watched Luster suddenly coughed and spat up a stream of Energon, groaning weakly in response.Uptick practically leaped to his pedes, forming a fist to grit through the pain in his knee. Limping forward, he grabbed Luster by his shoulders and moved to place him over his own, only stopping when he let out a distressed cry. With the stasis cuffs locked onto him, the action would threaten to crush his precious treasure.He didn't really think about what he was doing, just pointed his blaster at the cuffs and shot them off. Freed of his bindings, Luster clutched the hands tighter to his chassis and fell completely silent. He gave no fight as Uptick hoisted him over his shoulder, his once frozen tentacles dragging limply on the ground as they began to move."Channel," Uptick began again, hissing with each step, "prepare the clinic for two.""Oh hell," she finally replied, "what're you bringin' me now?"--------For as casual as she tended to be about her work, there was a reason Channel had such a good record. Before he'd even arrived she'd prepared two slabs, one with restraints meant enough to hold even the angriest Decepticon in place. Upon seeing him trudging through the foliage, wheezing and hissing, she'd rushed out, machine blaster in hand and taser staff in the other. Dropping the gun, she'd lifted Luster off his shoulder like he wasn't a sparkeater bigger than she and carried him right to the slab, strapping him in before Uptick himself had even recovered enough to stand tall."Channel—" he started, but she raised a finger to shush him."Don't even start. Get on the slab. I'll see ya' when I'm done with 'im."That was all they exchanged. Heaving a sigh, Uptick stumbled to the slab and sat on it, carefully raising his injured leg to rest it on the cool metal. His joints shrieked and his wing stung. Even his head was threatening to pound, from both the stress and the sheer amount of traffic he'd been receiving.He shuttered his optics and vented, giving himself time to recover as he turned to watch Luster. If he was in bad shape, Luster was on death's door.Channel worked quickly to secure him in place, tying his tentacles to his arms and placing the hands next to him. Then she immediately pulled out her tools and went to work. The first thing she did was connect to his brain, as she did with all her patients—first, she needed to understand what hurt, where, and how it had happened. That gave her instructions for what to do next. He watched her open Luster's helm like it was a sparkling's puzzle and tap the pads of her servos to it, optics blanking as she connected.She stood like that for an uncomfortable amount of time, her dermas mouthing words he couldn't make out. When she finally disconnected, a scowl twisted her face."Primus, Tickers," she said, backing away and shaking her head. "Primus.""What's wrong with him?" He asked immediately, injured wing sending a pang as it rose instinctively."What's wrong with him?" She scoffed. "It'd be easier t' say what ain't wrong with him." And with no more words she closed his helm and moved to his chassis. "Ain't never seen decay this bad 'r fast. He needs raw sentio metallico yesterday.""Decay?""His frame's eatin' itself, Tickers. Needs material for new parts. Can't find it, gets it from elsewhere." She didn't look up as she spoke. "Tanks're empty. Grab me a cube—" She paused, noticed his leg. "Oi, what'd you get yerself into?!"He shrank a bit beneath her gaze. "It...I rushed a bit. No big deal." He reached for a cube, couldn't quite get it, and grumbled, moving to his feet despite her protests and grabbing five. "Here."She gave him a wicked glare as she took two, pointing with her free hand to the slab. Before he had laid on it again, helping himself to some of her Energon, she'd forced some into Luster, who coughed and gagged at the intrusion."Aw, come now, no bellyachin'!" She scolded. "Yeesh, you'll be a chore t' clean." She raised the second cube and Luster suddenly attempted to jolt up, straining his restraints as he wretched and coughed. Energon flew over the slab and onto the wall, trailing down in thick, opalescent droplets.She grumbled, pushing Luster back down as Uptick stared at the wall. The sheen on the Energon was concerning; it was supposed to glow pink, not opalescent."Channel, his purge...""I know about 'is purge, Tickers!" She placed the pads of her fingers to his torso. "Primus...""The color," he continued. "Why does it look like that?""Pit if I know, Tickers, I've never treated a sparkeater!" She placed her servos on his chassis."He's not making much medical sense at the moment!""What do you mean? He looks...well...he looks mostly intact.""His spark's beating faster than the turbine engines of a Seeker," she said, "and his tank sounds like it's full ‘a scraplets. His head's so scrambled I can't induce stasis, and this—" she pointed at the gemstone in his crest, "is constantly yellin’ with enough volume to keep me from connectin’ t’ him!"The gemstone? No, it was probably nothing."Well, what can you fix, then? What's wrong with--""Everything, Tickers! Everything!" She threw the energon cube at him, sending a wave of the stuff over his frame. "He's a sparkeater, he's not like us! I can't..." She paused, servos balling into fists. "I can't fix what's goin’ to die anyways!"He was going to die anyways. There's nothing you could have done. Don't feel bad about it.It felt like something broke in his mind. He tried to speak, found his voice died in his intake.Luster was going to die. No, he couldn't die. Not after all this.Sparkeater, what did a sparkeater--Sparks, of course, spark energy, they--"Sparklets," he said, moving to stand again."Tickers, sit down before you ruin that leg further.""Sparklets," he repeated. "Channel, the sparklets. Feed him the sparklets. They feed off spark energy, right?"She gave him a look like he'd sprouted a second head. "Yes, an' if I put 'em on a weak mech like this, they'll drain him to an empty frame. Tickers, you're proposin' I kill him.""I...then...then feed him my spark! I--""No." Her tone dropped dangerously and she stepped around the slab, walking right up to glare him in the eye. "Don't you ever let me hear that from you again."They stood like that for a moment, her glare locking him in place. Only when Luster began to cough again did Channel take her attention off of him. Uptick watched her work, holding Luster down, feeding him tiny dribbles of Energon at a time, wiping off his chassis with a rag. When he began to cough and spit a second time, she grabbed some of her jumper cables, connecting them to his chassis."I'm going to jolt his spark," she explained. "Overload it to force a reset, calm it down. You get back on the slab. Once he's stable I'll see 'bout that leg."He had no choice but to sit and watch, his spark aching in its chassis as Luster whimpered and began to cry. Solvent ran down his cheeks, solvent that was strangely pearlescent.Pearlescent. Like the energy of a spark.Electricity crackled and a flash lit up the garage. Luster jolted, mouth snapping open far too wide in a silent scream. Then his optics darkened and he slumped.Uptick felt his spark drop into his tank. NO. It couldn't be--"He ain't dead," Channel said, pulling the cables off. "He's overloaded." She tapped his chassis and frowned. "Still mile a' minute, but not outrunnin' a Seeker for sure.""But he's not better.""No." She shook her helm, turning to him. "There's too much wrong for me t' fix. His frame's tryna remake itself. He needs sentio metallico and spark energy. Ain't got either of those 'ere—not without one of us dyin'.""The sparklets--""They'll eat 'im from the inside out, Tickers.""Then...the Decepticons."She didn't look at him. "They're thousands'a miles away, Tickers.""But they have what we need."A silence hung over them, settling like ash as it crept between their plating and wires."How...how long, to fix my leg? And my wing?""I ain't got spare parts for it, Tickers. Yer wing'll be...it'll be a patch job.""I've flown on worse. What of my leg?""Same thing.""Then fix me. As soon as you can. I'll go after the 'cons.""You'll get yerself killed doin' that." She crossed her arms, faceplate dark. "If you even make it there, ya won't be in fightin' shape.""If I don't try, he'll die.""If you do, you could both die!" She yelled, grabbing his arm.He was much bigger than her. Always had been. At his respectable forty-five feet, he'd lorded over many Autobots. For the longest time he'd thought it a good thing, since it meant he could carry everyone, his friends included.Now, it felt like a distancing factor. Her servos only just closed around his forearm as she pleaded with him."I can't lose you, Tickers! Not you too! So don't you be sayin' you'll give up yer spark, an' don't you be sayin' you'll fly into death again!" Solvent pricked at the edges of her optics. "Ain't enough of us died savin' each other? Ain't enough of us played hero?"Playing hero. Yes, that's what he was doing, wasn't he? The thing that had killed Optimus Prime. The thing that had driven many Autobots to cold frames and empty spark chambers. The thing that had carried him over that battlefield, cold frame cradled against his chassis, fuel boom pumping his very life blood into him, keeping him online even as his spark flickered and his optics died.We'll make it. I promise you we'll make it. Channel will fix you when we make it back to camp. You're going to make it. Please, don't look so scared. You're going to make it."Channel..." he said, moving a hand to her cheek. "It's okay. I've got my weapons. I've got my wits. I'll make it back. I promise."Her derma trembled."You know what I’m capable of. You know I can handle it. It’s just a Seeker and Insecticon. Please, don't look so scared."------------------It was a patch job, just as she'd promised. His leg still ached and his wing would only be fit for flying in perfect weather with ideal conditions. Both would have to do.He’d dealt with worse, after all. He’d flown and limped on worse, with wires poking out and plating flaking off, being pursued by Seekers and Decepticons, and he’d done it all while carrying another Autobot in his arms.His helm had lolled back, optics flickering. His voice had almost died, and all that came from him was the shriek of static. Still, he could tell the younger mech was in pain. Energon was pouring hot and fresh from his side. It was a clean shot straight into his fuel line. He had about ten kliks until he bled out.The shrill laughter of a Seeker had sounded overhead as a fresh barrage of laser bolts rained around them. He’d thrown his arms over his head and bent over the small frame beneath him, gritting his denta as the shots singed through his plating and burned into his wiring. A deafening crack had sounded overhead, making his helm spin.He’d heard the rumbling of panicked engines as his fellow Autobots fled for their lives. Explosions rocked the ground. The smell of singed plating and burning soil was thick in the air. The air roared as the Seekers made their rounds again, wind howling as it raced after them.They were enjoying this. One by one they were picking off his compatriots. Not swiftly, not honorably. Tires were burst and treads were severed to force root mode. Only on pede would the Seekers go for the kill.It was why they’d shot his wings off. It was why they’d blasted off his rotors.Blasted them off only when they’d found just where he was returning to.He’d pushed the data slug into Uptick’s servos, voice crackling as he spoke.“To…Magnus…”He’d accepted the data slug, closing his servos over it. The action had been enough.“Globetrotter…till all are one…”Nearby, the death rattle of a motorcycle had rung out.His tiny stubs had shaken as he prepared to give up his spark.No.He wouldn’t let him.—-----The journey was easy. Channel had warned him that just hours ago a storm had blown through and she’d barely had time to send off her patient, but the air he traveled through gave no indication such an event had ever conspired. He disliked that about Earth: the planet always seemed to be hiding something, be it the horrors of what had come prior or the promise of what would come next.And as he circled over the Demon Swamp, he couldn’t help but feel the approach of the latter. The data Channel had sent him indicated a Seeker and an Insecticon were calling this place home, but the sight of only two didn’t mean there weren’t others. If anything, the coloration of the Seeker indicated there could be an entire trine hiding nearby.The Rainmakers, Channel had warned him. He’d never felt the acidic storms they could produce, but he knew better than to disregard them. Whether together or alone, any Seeker could outfly him, especially with his injury. The best advantage he’d have was his weaponry; his missile launchers packed enough of a punch to make quick work of a Seeker, and for the Insecticon, well…Channel had handed him her taser staff. He’d just have to pray that it was enough.Winging over the Demon Swamp, he saw the ship from well over a mile above, surrounded by mangrove trees and drowning in water. Its door had been ripped off and the water submerging it was tinged pink. Even from the height he was at, he could see a display made before it.Touching. Decepticons and their infamous hospitality. Steeling his resolve, Uptick made for a nearby clearing. Transforming back before he’d hit the ground, he let his patch job knee take a painful brunt of the landing, letting the pain serve as motivation. It hadn’t stopped him once, and it wouldn’t stop him now.He unveiled his weaponry, turning one hand to a blaster and holding the staff in the other, and took in his surroundings. The trees around him were tall and dark, their foliage hanging around him in organic curtains. Their roots formed cages within which dead organics floated, killed by the energon tainting the water pink. Said water was about halfway up his cadulens, and left behind a salty sheen on them.Another battleground for him to wade through. He could still recall the feeling of stepping into a burst chassis, the sickening scrunch almost making him purge. Though the air here smelled of water and organics, he was already recalling the scent of scorched metal, the electric tang of energon thick in the air.He waded through the grove, making his way to the ship. A signal suddenly pinged into his head, Decepticon in origin. It came from his quarry and bore a single message:WELCOME.He certainly didn’t feel it. The ground around him had risen on both sides, making him feel like he was walking down a half finished tunnel. The foliage of the trees had grown thicker, forming a curtain that obstructed his view of the ship. Keeping his blaster at the ready, Uptick held out his staff and brushed it aside, finally spotting the wreckage of the Insecticon ship.And there, waiting for him like a sparkmate in a berth, was the infamous Decepticon hospitality he’d seen from above.The headless bodies of two Autobots had been slumped against a large tree, their arms tied behind them like prisoners of war. One had had his arm severed. From the branches above hung their heads, cords and wires dangling like the organics suspending them. Energon dripped in a slow trickle from the cords and welled slowly out of the headless bodies, running down in thin streams over their gray plating.He scoffed at the sight. He got the message.“Decepticons!” He announced, glaring around. “I am Uptick! The Autobots knows you’re here, and we won’t stop until this planet is rid of you! Now come out!”Silence. He quickly scanned the area, found no life forms. Then he expanded his scan, searching for spark energy. It came back positive from inside the ship.Uptick narrowed his optics and stepped forward. “I know you’re in there! Come out!”No response. Cautiously, he made his way for the ship, blaster trained before him. It was a trap, it had to be, but what else could he do? Wait for them to launch an assault first? If the Seeker was in the ship, this would be his best chance to deal with it. Once it took to the skies he was cooked.But what of the Insecticon? Was it waiting in ambush, preparing to leap on him the moment he stepped into the threshold?Pressing a panel on the staff, the tip crackled to life. It gave his position away, but what did he care? They already knew he was here, just as intended. Whether they fought fairly or not didn’t matter. It would end the same regardless:Someone was going to die. Either them, or him…and Luster.So, them.The threshold of the ship was dark. He held the staff before him, ready to swipe if the Decepticon inside chose to lunge suddenly. When nothing came, he tested the space before him with the staff, expecting to see some kind of door trap go off.It didn’t. Warily, he placed a single pede in the doorspace, then ducked inside.His surroundings were dark, illuminated only by the light from outside. With his frame blocking the entrance only slivers of the pale stuff made it inside. He could make out the remnants of a bridge and some seating, upon which a familiar frame was lying.His optical ridges furrowed. Uptick would recognize that shape anywhere: Seeker. As his optics adjusted he made out the colors on it: brilliant, eye-bleeding lime green. The lower arms, wings, and parts of the chest had been painted pink, but the rest was completely, entirely green. Its side had been practically ripped out, exposing wiring and cables to the water in which it laid. Energon ran like tears from its dark optics.It really did look like Acid Storm. A quick scan of the Seeker revealed it to be…Acid…Storm?The body designation and the number came back positive to him. But the spark…Sweet Primus, he thought. The spark energy radiating out from the Seeker was atrocious. Normal spark energy felt like a constant pulse. It had a charge and reacted to scans by providing its specific imprint, usually an image or a pattern.The imprint he received from the Seeker was so scrambled it was like looking into corrupted code. His grip tightened on his staff. This had to be a trap.He nudged the Seeker with the staff, but it didn’t move. Checking the area around him, he didn’t notice anything off about it.“What did this to you?” He asked aloud. “What’s wrong with you?”No answer. The sound of water moving rose behind him. Jerking back, he looked to the entrance.The space was empty. All he could see was darkness. But the water rippled like something was standing in it, and as he watched, it swished, broken by the step of a massive leg.“Primus!”She appeared all at once, visor lit up like a flame.“He won’t help you here.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Time of death: 17:23:51. She moved the clasps away from his chassis and willed for her mind to stop its recording.She failed.Cause of death: spark failure. His spark had completely lost its charge and ceased its beating.She'd failed.Luster's misshapen form laid completely inert on the slab. The bindings she'd tied him down with had come off hours ago, when she'd realized his arms were so atrophied they couldn't even rise. The pink of Energon has formed a puddle around him, changing what little peacock blue was left on his plating to bright pink. His tentacles hung limply off the sides of the slab like organic vines. Among the four he’d presented with two more had sprouted, eating through his body in their desperation to be born.Uptick had promised he'd be back in eight hours. She watched him consume so much fuel it'd make anyone else sick, then fly off with a speed that would threaten to shred his plating and send him crashing to the ocean below. He hadn't even pinged her if he'd arrived safely, he'd been so focused on his flight.And it was all for nothing. She stood over Luster like the Necrobot himself, staring down at the wretched pile his corpse had become. Perhaps it was mercy Uptick hadn't been here to watch him wither away.Though she couldn't imagine just how he'd react when he came back. If he came back. No, he had to come back. He had to. She couldn't accept anything else. Primus, why had she let him fly off? Why had she let him convince her to leave?He couldn’t see Luster like this! When he came back and saw the broken remains he’d fought for, killed for, and betrayed his life for, it’d break him in two.She took her helm in her servos and leaned against the slab, Energon dotting her elbows as she stared at the floor. It was on her calves and knees, spotted on her abdomen and helm. She'd tried. She'd really tried. He just wasn't like them. There wasn't anything she really could have done.Just like then. And just like then, if she didn’t do something to keep him safe, the truth would eat him alive.Luster had been so special to Uptick. She could still remember when he'd eagerly pinged her, seven in a second, to tell her about the 'bot he'd been assigned as his first Earth mission. After all those years in the mnemosurgeon's chair and the therapist's couch, he’d finally been judged suitable to integrate into a peaceful Autobot society. They'd offered him the chance to care for Luster after it became apparent how lonely and out of place the old bot was. It was something, they'd said, Uptick would have experience with.She felt pricks of solvent at the edge of her optics and bit her derma, straightening back up. There was work to be done. She couldn't spend all her time here crying over one more failure. He was the first dead Autobot she'd seen in years, but that didn't matter. What did was getting rid of the body.She could already see how she’d do it. Luster was barely a skeletal structure with tentacles at this point. She could cut him into pieces and bury them individually, or toss them into the ocean from four different directions on the island.Uptick would ask what happened, of course. She’d form a lie, for his safety. Or even better…eyeing the hands, she glanced at her own. It would be a fast fix. She wasn’t that experienced with mnemosurgery, but with a willing and grieving bot, it wasn’t hard to slip in and out.It was decided, then. Lifting herself off the slab, Channel moved to her storage closet to retrieve her tools. She clambered over the multitude of niche spare parts and communications gear as she crossed the room, heading for the medical tools she kept on the back wall.Which was when she noticed the silence.On the Marshall Islands, there wasn't too much noise, as the organic wildlife in the area often avoided the place. What remained were a few birds that spent the majority of their time at sea and a few land mammals that kept to themselves. The most background noise she heard on an average day was the sound of the ocean crashing against the beach. That was normal. She'd tune it out.What wasn't normal was the dead silence she picked up as she moved in the storage room. For about a day ago, now, she'd thrown a cage of angry sparklets into the room, and they'd been hungry enough to cry in their demand for spark energy. Elongated neglect had hushed them into silence, but considering she was an able-sparked mech stepping into a room with them, they should have immediately activated.They hadn’t. She squinted over at the cage, seated against the far wall, observing all of their tiny forms huddling together. None of them were looking at her. As one, despite the wall standing between them, they'd all turned their gaze to Luster's slab.She raised an optical ridge. Grabbing her saw, she moved over to the cage and lifted them up. They reacted to her then, several turning around and snapping at her, trying to reach through the bars of the cage to get at their prey. The others, however, remained transfixed on something they could not see.Uptick had proposed feeding them to Luster. Desperate times called for desperate measures, but she was sure that such an action would only make his condition worse. Sparklets didn't necessarily store the energy he so desperately needed, and considering they were a different species than scraplets, they might not even be made of sentio metallico. She'd turned down his plea to save her patient—the unknown was simply too dangerous.Now, she wondered if, perhaps, she should have tried at least one. Could he have even taken it? Luster had been fading and unable to even keep Energon down. An entire solid, live sparklet...No, she'd been right in her assessment. She sighed, hating herself for that. Was there really anything she could have done? Had she just been entertaining Uptick's delusions the entire time? Was she responsible for him flying off to death?Her grip on the cage tightened and she placed it down, frowning deeply. The chatter of the sparklets died as she did so.It was just in time for her to hear the scraping of metallic claws over stone. Channel froze, gripping her saw tighter. Her danger sensor began to ping in her head as she ordered a scan.It picked up on movement just beyond the wall.No. Not possible. He was dead. Spark failure. Without that energy the frame couldn’t move. She gripped her saw tighter, servo on the activation button as she stepped out from the storage closet. Immediately her optics fell on the slab.It was empty.Alarms rang out in her head as she vented sharply, scanning again for life forms. The reading came back negative. She swapped it to spark energy and saw the wall and floor light up where Luster had purged on it. Otherwise all that came back were the tiny embers of the sparklets.He was gone. Where? How? His legs had been reduced down to his frame, there was no way he could even walk. She’d tried to get him to lift his arms, they were practically a single tube with wires wrapped around them. And his helm, the decay it had would be fatal for any Autobot.But he wasn't an Autobot. He was a sparkeater.She suddenly felt cold, her systems responding by increasing the temperature around her spark. That made her feel even worse. Channel quickly crossed the clinic and grabbed the string to the garage door, pulling it to bring the door down.And right as she did, two silver tentacles pooled over the edge from outside, waving in the air as they turned their pincer-like claws on her.She drew in a sharp ex-vent and slammed the door down, hearing the shriek of metal outside as massive slashes tore deep gouges into the door. Cheerful sunlight poured in through the wounds, followed through by the claws that had inflicted them. They tapped around momentarily, feeling the door, climbing up to the ceiling and searching for weak points.She backed away from the door and dove for her private room, throwing caution to the wind. Frag this. A sparkeater was a sparkeater. Didn't matter if he was Uptick's favorite Autobot on the planet. A sparkeater was a sparkeater and she was alone on this island, far from any kind of help, with only one Autobot who knew of her existence who could be dead for all she knew--Primus, why had she let him leave!? Why had she fixed his knee and his wing in silence and let him go?! Why had she listened to him when he said sparkeater?! What had happened to her self-preservation? Her wit? Her rule that what's going to die should be left to die, because otherwise you hurt yourself trying to save them?!It would get her in a world of trouble, but she wouldn't have a world to be in trouble with anymore if she didn't reach out. Fighting was off the table at the moment, sparkeaters could rip brains from helms by merely looking at them. Her best bet was to barricade and hide.That was the first thing she did, grabbing every ounce of equipment she could in her private quarters and shoving it against the mechanical door. As she did so the shriek of tearing metal sounded louder. The garage door wouldn’t hold for long.Frag. Frag. Frag frag frag frag frag. She threw a few computers before the door, considered the generator, and then pulled it over as well. It was heavy, and if he hit it in the right place, it’d explode, but if it served its purpose as a barricade, he’d never manage to get in. It was a risk she had to take.There were no windows in her private quarters. She’d seen to that. If they could see you, they could shoot you. The only way he was getting in was through that barricade. It would have to suffice.Crouching beside her berth, she checked that her last resort weapon was still present–it was–before grabbing a computer and connecting to it. The rattle of aluminum accompanied her as she dove into the world of radio waves and signals.Locking onto Autobot City's, her mind crossed the planet in seconds, seconds that she prayed wouldn't cost her body its spark. She arrived into a blaze of traffic, narrowly avoiding being swept up in it.The Wavescape, as she called it, was like a giant, open field, with hundreds of thousands of voices speaking, hundreds of thousands of emotions crashing against each other, and hundreds of thousands of tiny fires burning around, above, below, behind, and before her, all at once. In this ocean of information she'd have to find and pick someone who could help her, someone who could get here fast and actually survive a sparkeater.The first signal she looked for was Ultra Magnus's. Of course she knew his, it had a particular cold, closed-offness that others lacked, nevermind the size of it. When she couldn't find him, she searched for Springer’s, then Kup’s. .Nothing. There were her hopes of recruiting a Wrecker.Perceptor. She found his, but upon trying to connect, his mind automatically forced her out, with an automated explanation that Perceptor was not to be interrupted during his lab work. Jazz–emptiness. Goldbug, or Warpath, or Powerglide, or Skyfire.All completely silent.Her systems began to scream for retreat. Her processor was already starting to ache. There was less information here than on Cybertron, and she'd only been in the Wavescape for a few minutes, but it was already starting to overload her. Primus, she'd become weak. She needed to find someone to connect to, and fast.Metroplex. She zoomed out too fast, sent herself stumbling, and tried to ping him over and over and over. A massive presence arose, upturning all the sound, colors, and voices. All of a sudden the abstract nature of the Wavescape took shape, coalescing into a titanous form, one which turned its wretched gaze upon her and pinged back a simple reply:>Query?A simple request. That was all.It completely overloaded her. She felt like her head was screaming with a million voices, echoing and ringing and bouncing around inside of her helm. They were trapped and would remain so until she returned to herself. She had to return. She had to return, or she would break, and if she returned she would die--She mentally screamed and Metroplex backed off. An offer was given to her, a single wavelength at the very edge of his body. She took it without thinking, plunging into the signal and burrowing inside it, bypassing its security through sheer desperation and force of will.She didn't know who she dropped into, just that they were very calm about the entire thing, and didn't talk to her at first. As her own mind lay inside their field recovering, performing the mental equivalent of panting and clutching her head, they asked a simple question:> Who are you?She didn't answer at first, too exhausted and stressed to form proper thoughts. They picked that up through the shared connection, reciprocating with a few calming waves of their own. It was difficult to describe, but by sharing their own stability, they helped bring her back from the drowning edge of the Wavescape, pulling her from the tumultuous waters to a solid island where the noise ceased and the signals fell away. It was just her and them in a quiet, lonely place.Finally, she recovered enough strength to respond.> Channel.She shared her location with them, then quickly accumulated a data packet to push over. They paused at that, cautiously scanning and examining it for malware.> Where did you come from?> In the packet.> Say it first.> Marshall Islands. Don't have time for this. Need help ASAP. Who are you?> Stall.He wasn't opening himself up to her, just letting her rest within his mind. She focused on gathering her bearings, pressing the data packet to him again.> Everything's in there. Need help ASAP. Please. It's not malware.With all the care of a surgeon cutting into a sparkchamber, Stall opened the data packet, extracting and reading the information in seconds. In the meantime, Channel let herself sense his field and what was in it—they actually were in a quiet, lonely place, it seemed. There was no one else alive in the vicinity, though there were other Autobots. Two of them, recent deaths.Oh. She understood. He must be the mortician for Autobot City. And the two bots here...> Sparkeater?He asked, and she gave him an affirmative.> Could have guessed.And he sent her over the information he'd gathered from the two bots in his care. Redactor of DCC-12, Grease of APF-01. Both dead following a suspected sparkeater attack. The information he sent her showed their bodies, splayed on gurneys, chests torn open. One had his brain next to him after it had been torn out of his mouth. The other's head wasn't even intact.She grimaced.> Eaten by a sparkeater...what a horrible way to go.> Not eaten.> What?> Redactor's sparkchamber is intact.> Then what killed him?> Laser bolt to the head. Execution style.Something in her felt colder than ever before. Redactor, where had she heard that name before? Redactor, Redactor...Redactor, the mnemosurgeon they'd recovered from one of the Decepticon Containment Centers, where the minds of war prisoners had been held in stasis while their bodies were repurposed for parts. One of the many Autobots who'd been taken out during the war, he'd been fitted with a new frame and granted a place in the rebuilt Cybertron while he recovered. She'd read about him in the news—of all the Autobot mnemosurgeons recovered, he was one of the few who survived returning.And now he was dead from a gunshot wound cycles after the war had ended.There wasn’t time to think about the implications. She had to get back to her body.> Need help. Sparkeater on my island. Don't know how long I can avoid it. Send Enforcers.She pushed her exact coordinates to him, again.> Help. Please.He pinged her an affirmative, and she pinged him a thanks. Then, as seamlessly as she'd entered him, she left, dropping back into the sea of the wave scape.But this time, she let herself drown.-------Channel snapped back up, panting over and over as feeling returned to her frame. She was so overheated the entire room had gone up five degrees, and her helm was splitting with pain.. Back on her island, the Wavescape was quiet. She took a moment to recover, waiting for the noise to die down and the sensations to fall away.But they didn’t. Through the thin door of her private abode she could hear the chittering of the sparklets, loud and panicked. She turned her head in their direction and extended her sensors, then winced from the pain of it, retracting her scan. Her normal senses would have to do, dulled as they were.But even dulled, she could hear the scrape of metallic claws over the floor, moving about in the main area. Her optics went wide. He'd broken in. How long had she been away? Not long, that was impossible. Travel took seconds in the wave scape. She couldn't have been more than ten kliks.A low scraping ran over the door to her room. She froze. It ran the length of the door, then came back and ran it again, as if deciding whether or not to break it down.scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpscrrrrrrrrpShe heard his pedesteps stop. A hundred warnings flashed in her HUD at one as her gaze froze on the door.The chitter off the sparklets was all she could hear.Then his pedesteps picked up and the scraping went away.In its place fell the shrieking of sparklets as they screamed for their lives and fell silent.She wasted no time, reaching under her berth and grabbing the weapon beneath it. It was a rocket blaster, one of the last things she lifted from Cybertron on her way out. Unloaded, all it needed was a bit of energon and some of the ammo next to it.She'd destroy her damn clinic, but at this point, it was going down anyways. She'd rather escape with her life than her dignity. And if that meant blowing up the thing she'd worked so hard to maintain and keep hidden for cycles, then so be it.A crunching was sounding from the other room. She estimated fifteen kliks before he was done with them.Two options were available to her: hole up and wait for help to arrive, praying it would come on time. If he got in, she could fire at him, but the explosion would likely kill them both. If she left her room, abandoning her barricade, she ran the risk of him chasing her down. If, however, she escaped the clinic and fired at it as she left, he’d be caught in the collapsing rubble.Only one of those scenarios saw her survival. Then again, it was possible he wouldn’t break into her room, but...was she willing to risk it?In war, what had kept her alive? She remembered those days, hiding behind rocks, within caves, rubbing the Energon of her slain comrades onto her faceplate and playing dead as their pursuers stepped over her. Staying put when the world burned around you was a good way to ensure you formed its ash.It brought her back to that moment, pushing him forward, assuring him over and over he’d make it.“There’ll be three, one behind, two at the sides. You’ll need’a fly low. They’ll outmaneuver ya no matter what height, but if ya stay low, the environment becomes yer friend. They’re delicate. You’ ain’t. All you hafta do is get us close to camp. Aerial support takes it from there. We’ll be wit’ ya the whole way. Hey, when we make it outta this, we’ll have a wicked story ta tell, right?”Wicked story. Was that what this would be? Another wicked story that she would hide and that Uptick would forget? God, she’d been optimistic then. If only it hadn’t died alongside him.Pushing her past to the back of the mind, where it belonged, Channel climbed atop the generator she’d shoved in front of the door and crouched, pressing a hand to it. The door responded and she ordered it to open on a delay in five kliks.One klik. She readied her rocket blaster, feeling its weight against her body.Two kliks. A sparklet cried out and fell silent.
Three kliks. Her helmache was growing worse, and her danger sensors were shrieking again.Four kliks. Metal crunched between teeth that had grown sharp with hunger.Five kliks. The pistons in her legs tensed as the door slid open.The clinic was in ruins. Energon was streaked over everything, the cubes she'd stored knocked over and shattered. The gurneys and tables had been torn to shreds. Her tools were scattered about like ashes and interspersed with broken glass.At the edge of it all, just beyond the threshold to the storage, she could see his skeletal frame crouching.It stood up. She leaped from her private quarters and bolted. In seconds she was outside in the sunlight. Whipping around, she immediately took aim.He hadn’t even left the storage closet, though he’d moved–backwards–to its entrance. His head cracked back, the last few bits of proper helm falling away and crumbling against the floor. Yellow optics met her own, sending fear like nothing else through her frame. Her servos began to shake in their iron grip.There were two signals coming from him, his own and the hum of the crystal still embedded in his helm. Together they locked onto her with bottomless hunger and commanded her to be afraid.She felt her helm starting to split, a pain building in her brain that was worse than any helmache. He took a step backwards, towards her, silver bones shining with the glow of energon.Her jaw threatened to crack open. Her spark seized in its chassis, so terrified that it was ready to explode.One of his tentacles ran the length of the doorframe, and attached to the end of it were purple hands from which five needles sprouted.The scream escaped her all at once and she fired.---------------------------"Channel? CHANNEL!"When she came to her helm was ringing and her body ached. Fire burned all around her, sending up huge plumes of black smoke into the clear blue sky. The heat was unbearable. Coughing, she slowly pulled herself up, dozens of damage notifications lighting up her HUD all at once.It was burning. Before her were the bones of her clinic, burning and broken, blasted apart into hundreds of pieces. A mass of molten metal had formed in the center of it.She hoped Luster was somewhere in there as she moved to her pedes, gasping as she nearly fell forward again. Her plating was singed and her wiring was threatening to short at any moment. Her jaw felt like it had been broken, and her helm was hurting like someone had taken a saw to it."Hello...?" She said, trying to respond to the voice in her head. It was familiar and masculine. She felt like she should know it immediately. "Who is this...?""Channel? It’s Uptick."Her optics widened. "Tickers? Oh, thank Primus you're okay! I—""No, Channel, I'm not.""Wha--""You were right. I couldn't take them. I couldn't take either of them. I'm sorry. I should have listened to you. I shouldn't have been so stupid."The fire’s heat suddenly didn’t feel so intense."What're you sayin', Tickers? What's wrong?""I'm coming back, Channel. I don't think you can fix me this time. I want you to...I want you to know that I'm sorry. I never wanted it to end this way."Her spark fell in its chamber. "No, Tickers--""Look up. To the West. Do you see me?"She moved on shaky pedes to the first break in the trees she could. There, on the horizon, was a black speck."I've got someone with me who's a greater threat to us than any Rainmaker or Seeker. I promised her I'd bring her back here, Channel, so she could contact her allies.""Tickers...""I'm not going to let that happen. She's...agh...she's got my...brain...but...but I still have control of this body. And I'm not letting her hurt you or Luster.”
"Tickers, wait, Luster, he's--""So. So I need you to hide. Both of you. Take Luster to someone who can help him, someone who won't make him an experiment. And tell him...when he comes back online, tell him...tell him I enjoyed it. The time that we had together. Even if he hated me.""Tickers, that's just it, Luster isn't...""He isn't what? Channel…the smoke. He isn’t what?"And she watched his path waver slightly, knowing already that the knowledge would kill him."He's...doing better. You were right. Sparklets. All he needed was the sparklets. Don’t worry about the smoke, it’s just…I just…don’t worry about it." She choked it out, vision starting to spin.He gave a weak, forced laugh."I'm glad to hear it. Channel?""Yes, Tickers?""Will you tell me his name, one last time? The one they took from me?"She remembered it like yesterday. Uptick, fresh out of the mnemosurgeon's office. They handed her the datapad and its hundred warnings. As part of his therapy, they weren't to mention his old name, and never to activate the trigger of his name. Doing so would let every delicate seam the mnemosurgeon had sewn shut break apart. Doing so would let Globetrotter remember just what had happened that day.To think, for eight hours straight, he walked through the remnants of the fifth infantry, pursued by Seekers and just barely staying ahead of the advancing 'Cons. The spy was cradled in his arms, bleeding from a ruptured fuel line. Using the fuel in his auxiliary tanks, he kept him alive with his fuel boom.For five hours, he kept him alive. For the final three, he bled into a corpse. When he'd presented the small body to the medics, they'd told him it was a lost cause. His mind was so broken from what he'd seen, he couldn't comprehend anything else. For hours, he'd called her name, demanding they let her work on him. She could fix him, she could fix anyone. She’d promised.Never speak that name again, lest all those cracks reopen and his mind break, permanently.She watched his form drawing closer to her, imagined the Decepticon aboard, holding his brain, telling him what to do, preparing to kill him the moment he landed.And with tears of solvent running down her cheeks, she spoke it."Rotors."Silence. Silence for far too long. Then he spoke, with nothing in his voice."Thank you, Channel. Till all are one."And he dove, straight into the ocean.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

That was the last time she’d trust an Autobot. That was what Puncture told herself as she walked along the seabed, prize clenched in her right claw, servos of her left twitching in anticipation. Behind her, folded up like a cube puzzle, were the remains of the Autobot she’d dispatched.For such a large opponent he’d been a shockingly easy fight. He was almost as big as she was, and after listening to him announce himself, she’d felt quite eager about engaging. An Autobot who came equipped with war weapons and wanted to fight honorably would have to be something worth investing her time in, she’d thought.She’d been right, in a way. He’d definitely been partially worth it. Their clash hadn’t bored her to tears like the others she’d slain. She’d ambushed him, gotten the first hit, and displaced his staff with a brutal swipe. He’d fired straight into her chest, but her armor had held, and what might have been a fatal shot once had only left a particularly irksome gouge instead. From there she’d tackled him over the bridge, using the body of the Seeker to knock him off his balance, and shoved him below the water.That had been a mistake–the staff had electrified the water. They’d both spasmed as the current ran through them, causing her to seize and him to squirm.It had been an uproar of foam and splashing. She’d seen him trembling on spasming knees.At the sound of his T-Cog activating she’d snarled.Oh Pit no. You don’t escape me that easily.She’d lunged, wrapping her claws around the tail of his alt mode as he’d launched out of the spaceship window. Her weight had thrown him off balance, sent him immediately spiraling downwards. They’d crashed into the trees together, uprooting the cages and creating a rain of dead organics.She’d landed on her back and struggled to flip over for a moment, immediately chastising herself for her weakness. In The Pit the seconds she’d taken would have been enough to kill her. To be a proper gladiator, proud, strong, and undefeated, she couldn’t risk leaving herself vulnerable for even a second.But with her luck, the Autobot hadn’t taken advantage of that. He’d crashed nearby and staggered on one knee, gritting his dentae and threatening to keel over. Still, as she’d bared her claws and approached, he’d glared and pointed his blaster again, a panel on his shoulder opening to reveal missile launchers.Impressive, she’d thought. Something that could actually hurt her. But even as he’d prepared to launch them, it was apparent to her that he was in pain. She could take advantage of that.“You don’t win this,” she’d said, circling around him like a shark. Beneath her mask, venom broiled. “Surrender, Autobot, and I’ll make your death quick.”“I can’t,” he said back, keeping his blaster trained on her. “And even if I could, I wouldn’t. Monsters like you don’t belong on this planet.”“Is that so.” And her mask had vertically split, releasing a wave of venom as she buzzed out a roar.It had hit his eyes. He’d screamed and staggered back, blaster firing rapidly as he tried to wipe the stuff off. That had been her opening.And from there she’d pinned him beneath the water, dug her claws into his helm, and prepared to claim her trophy.That was when she’d paused. The Autobot below her was a cargo plane, and a large one at that. He was big enough to carry her and the Seeker. Under almost every other circumstance Puncture would have killed him and moved on with her day, but the circumstances she’d found herself in were special.Namely, she was alone, out of touch, and grounded on a planet she knew nothing of. And here, out of the ether, Primus had delivered her a mode of transportation that only put up a little bit of a fight. If she killed him, she’d have to manually transform and fly him, and she knew nothing of piloting.So instead of claiming her helm trophy, Puncture had decided she would take the entire Autobot. All it had taken was piercing her claws straight into his brain and demanding access to his navigation systems. And don’t even think about calling for help, or flying to an Autobot base.She’d pinched his brain between her claws, just for effect.On the way out she’d cast a final look at the ship that had imprisoned her for so long and flipped it off. Something had been moving in there, but it wasn’t her problem. A flightless Seeker had no place in the Decepticon cause. This was just natural selection at its finest.It had all been going so well until he’d decided to crash himself into the ocean. The navigation systems she’d hacked told her the island they were heading to was important. Surely it had to have something she could use, like Energon, or a working space bridge. Before she could confirm what that was, though, the Autobot had offed himself, so for all she knew he’d marked this place falsely and she was walking into a dead zone.She supposed that was what she got for trusting an Autobot. Self-sacrificing fools, the lot of them.At least she’d made it out with a trophy. His helm leaked pink Energon into the blue ocean water around her, leaving a trail behind her as she marched for the island they’d been flying to. There were no guarantees this place was worth anything, unfortunately, but she’d take dry land as opposed to the vast ocean.An orange glare was cast over the surface of the ocean water as she approached it. Before her helm even breached, she could guess as to why. Breaking the surface of the water, her suspicions were promptly confirmed: the island before her was a pyro of flame and stone.It was a small thing, only a few miles at max. Beginning with a beach surrounded by jagged boulders, the land quickly turned into a sheer rock face, upon the top of which grew dozens of green organics. They were all blackened crisps, shedding their ash to the pale beach below and turning it gray with soot.And upon that beach there was an Autobot. As Puncture breached the water fully, trophy clutched in her right claw, her systems performed a quick scan over the femme awaiting her. She was a standard issue female Autobot, gray and black in color (whether that was from soot or not she could only guess). In one hand she held a military rifle, the kind designed to fire heavy bolts that would pierce through any armor class.Good. An actual weapon that would sting. Pain was the best teacher, after all, and once she’d ripped it from the Autobot’s corpse, she could make use of it herself.There was only one off thing about the Autobot: she had no Autobrand displayed anywhere on her body. Odd.The Autobot suddenly trained her rifle and Puncture paused in her step. Ocean waves licked at her cadulens. As the wind picked up, it brought a hot and dry gust with it, dotting the water around her with soot.“Hell–”“Gimme yer name,” the Autobot said, her voice low and dangerous. Her servo was tight around the rifle’s trigger, barrel pointed for Puncture’s helm. “I wanna know who took my best friend from me.”Puncture scoffed, raising the helm in her claws. “Your best friend? This honorable fool was a bot you considered an equal?” She laughed. “Well don’t just stand there!”And with a flick of her wrist she sent his helm flying through the air to embed itself on the beach.“Fetch.”The Autobot’s optics widened with rage, rifle shaking in her hands. But she didn’t fire. Not yet.“Tell. Me. Your. Name.” She growled. “Or I’ll rip it from the fried remains of your brain.”“Hm! Puncture. I am Puncture of The Pit.” She leaned forward for emphasis, spreading her claws. “I am of the highest standing in my home and have sent far stronger than you to the Afterspark, Autobot. Not only were they bigger…” she took a step, “and more equipped…” and another, “and fitted with powers to bail them out of what fights they couldn’t handle, they were paid to fight to the death, and had eliminated every bot they had come across. Until. They. Met. Me.”The Autobot fired. A streak of laserbolt sheared one of her antennae off. Her systems immediately screamed a damage report and were promptly suppressed. Puncture’s optics glowed slightly as the Autobot reloaded, aiming again before she could gain any ground.“You stay right there,” she threatened. “Be a shame to blast your helm off ‘fore I’m done fryin’ it.”She huffed, narrowing her optics. “Oh really? You think you can do it, Autobot? You think you’ll be any different from your allies? From your friend?”“You don’t know me.”“And you don’t know me.”She kept her distance, circling around the Autobot, clearing the water and making it onto sand. A rush on such uneven terrain would give her several new injuries, and with the gouge the cargo plane had given her, a well-aimed blast could be fatal. Yet all she needed to do was to grab this Autobot once and it would be over. She calculated the risk of a charge as the wind picked up again, bringing a few flames between them.The Autobot kept her rifle trained the entire time, never losing focus. She noted that there was something about her hands that seemed off–unlike average Cybertronians, her servos had pads on the end of them. Wires ran their length and down her arm, vanishing into the crook of her elbow.It would probably be beneficial not to let her make physical contact, then. Years of facing unknown opponents in the arena had told her that before a charge, one must never underestimate their opponent. Years of killing Autobots in the field like they were turbofoxes had dulled that instinct a bit, but observing the fearlessness of this particular one was giving her pause. No one who couldn’t back it up stood so fearlessly against their foe.Her optics were slightly unfocused. She was crunching numbers while watching Puncture, yet her aim never wavered and her grip remained steady. This was no fresh recruit.Oh, this would be fun. They were both dancing around one another, waiting for an opening, a weakness. If she charged, she risked injury without any form of aid, possibly ending in death. If the Autobot charged, if she fired and missed, if she didn’t hit the fatal wound, she risked death.The prospect was so exciting to her she almost began to buzz.Her pede kicked against the helm of the Autobot she’d killed, and Puncture stopped in her circling. Casting a quick glance downwards, she had an idea.“Tell me, Autobot!” she declared, gesturing with a claw. “What was his name? You were so eager for mine. Was he even worth a designation? Or did he die a nobody?”“You ain’t worth his name.” Her tone remained even. “I know what you’re doin’. Tryin’ to rile me up. Tryin’ to get an openin’. You ain’t gettin’ that, gladiator.”“Not fool enough for emotions, Autobot?” She smirked. “Good. I hate an opponent who kills themselves with their mistakes. Failing to take advantage of openings, failing to punish faults, failing to make that vital first move, and most importantly of all, failing…”Her claw hooked the edge of the Autobot helm and, in a single motion, she launched it at the Autobot.“TO FIGHT DIRTY!”And she charged.The Autobot dodged to the side, discharging her rifle as Puncture swiped where she had just stood. The bolt singed into the left of her chassis, smoke curling as she opened her mask and spat forth a wave of venom. Swift as a turbofox the Autobot raised her rifle to the oncoming wave and moved back, blocking the majority of droplets with its sacrifice. The metal began to melt as she flipped a switch on the side and threw it straight for Puncture’s helm.She raised her claw to block the projectile right as it exploded. A flash of pink was all she saw as the blast knocked her back, smashing her against the rock face. Her systems buzzed with damage reports as her vision momentarily glitched.And the Autobot was on her in a millisecond, punching her clean in the face. Blunt pain exploded in her faceplate, worsened when her helm smacked against the stone again. It struck her again, again, again, aga–She didn’t need her vision to grab the fist about to hit her again, crushing it with ease between her claws. Through the sounds of twisting metal she heard the Autobot hiss. Her other claw was at her waist in a second, deadly tips poking against wires with only the slightest press.“Was that all?” She taunted, turning to face the Autobot again. Her vision was slightly blurred, but she could make out the rage in her optics. “You wasted your opening to punch me in the face, instead of going for the spark?”The Autobot roared, free arm punching clean through her visor. The pads on her servos tapped onto her inner working all at once and an electrical current ran through her. Puncture’s vision suddenly failed, her systems forcibly redirected into her memory banks.And she was no longer on the beach. She stood in a dark alley, the buildings around her forming walls so great she could not see their ends. Before her the path stretched into endless darkness. Behind her was the clamor of death itself.The walls all closed in at once. Puncture grunted and slammed her claws against them, holding them off with brute force alone. The clamoring behind her grew louder and the path before her began to fall away.She risked a look back.Rapidly approaching was a creature made of wires and sharp points. Burning flames formed its spark and poured over its broken chassis. Its faceplate had been torn up, exposing its skeletal understructure. Tentacles formed from spines burst from its back, each tipped with claws sharp enough to tear steel. And as she met its yellow eyes, she felt the spark in her chest skip a beat.The walls closed in even tighter. Her arms creaked with strain, pain shooting through her body. The ground beneath her feet was threatening to crumble at any moment.If she gave up, she’d be crushed. If she held on, she’d either fall or be eaten. Perhaps both at once. That thing was gaining distance fast. Its claws scraped the metal eagerly. And yet despite it all…She wasn’t afraid. Her systems were screaming for her to be. But she wasn’t.She couldn’t be. It was the first thing they took. Fighters who were afraid would run. Fighters who were afraid would hesitate. Fighters who were afraid made poor entertainment. If you felt fear, you didn’t make it in The Pit.She remembered the day it was taken from her as clearly as she remembered coming online. The overlord had gripped her by her chin and told her to hold still. She’d watched his fingers open and turn into drills. And with no anesthesia, he’d drilled straight into her brain.The scraping that had echoed through her mind would never leave her. As it rang through her head, the entire world melted away. Suddenly she was standing on the metallic surface of a brain, and over her hovered the largest drill she’d ever seen. It spun, shrieking with anticipation as it approached her.Her pedes were frozen. Looking down she saw hundreds of holes from which Energon poured. Floating within the pools like flecks of soot were parts, familiar parts painted with the colors of bots she’d once known.Brilliant silver wings, brilliant silver claws. Delicate glassy eyes and a chain woven from the finest tungsten available. Massive hands, massive enough to crush a bots chassis between them. An eyepatch that hid the scar given for insubordination. Two life chords split around a large helm that connected to a brain delicately held between dentae. And in the midst of it all…Her own head, empty and devoid of substance. Not the ugly Insecticon one attached to her shoulders. No, it was her. The real her, with her two curved horns and trifecta of spikes. There were her two red eyes, glassy and always broken from fighting. There were her dermas and her dented cheek and the uneven curve on the left of her helm that resulted from Sparks trying and failing to give her a new style.The drill was just above her head. Not her real one. The one she inhabited now, by no choice of her own. She looked at her claws and found they were melting. Her entire body was melting.The body that she had been given, that she never wanted, that entrapped her like a cocoon, was melting away.And in the face of death, she laughed.The drill collided with her helm and splattered the world with its droplets. Yet still her laugh echoed through the space with its gurgle. As her body fell away, taking her mind with it, she laughed, and laughed, and laughed.There was nothing else she could do.—--Even as the shocks ran up her arms and the pain began to fry her wires from the inside out, Channel continued to torture her prisoner. It was her last resort and by Primus would she make it count. If it killed them both, she didn’t care. If it ruined her forever, she didn’t care. Puncture would pay for killing Uptick. It would pay for taking the last thread of her joy away. She’d take its name and erase it from history and die with the knowledge that while Uptick would live on in someone’s memory, Puncture was gone forever.But damn, was it a fighter. Anyone else would have died from spark failure following incredible stressing of the mind–she would know. It wasn’t the first time she’d killed someone by doing this.That was what had locked her onto Cybertron. She could kill anyone, small, large, weak, strong, impossibly defensive, impossibly offensive. One touch, and their death was guaranteed.One touch, and she could take away pain. One touch, and she could take away fear. One touch, and she could make her patients as happy as their forging day. And this war had turned her into a machine whose greatest power was killing.Damn them all. Damn them for ruining her. Damn them for ruining Uptick. Damn them for sending Rotors to his death for information that would prove useless in the grand scheme of things. Damn them for leaving her entire regiment to die on that field, to die on a foreign planet, and taking the Ark to hide away for four million years. Damn Optimus Prime for dying so foolishly playing hero. And damn the Matrix for picking someone so incompetent and apathetic he couldn’t even be bothered to visit Earth after being endowed.This entire war was so pointless. What were they fighting against? The future of their own species? Whether they drove other planets to extinction under the guise of defending them from Decepticons, burying their organics beneath gunfire and rushing pedes, or conquered them in the name of cyberforming, they were still eliminating entire worlds in the name of Cybertron. Earth was just another rock that would be fought upon, crushed into dirt, and abandoned when neither side could find use for it anymore.She’d seen it happen with hundreds of other planets. She’d seen how pointless the fighting had become. Energon was always in short supply. No Matrix endowments would fix that. And whether it was made peacefully or violently, it would drain the resources of other planets during its creation.If they did not crush a planet beneath their bodies they would drain it for its fuel. One way or another, everything her kind touched died.Perhaps she was just the personification of that. And here, on the planet where the war was supposedly decided, she was dying in her final attempt to end the fighting.Oh, how ironic it all was.Her systems blared warnings. The claw around her waist gripped tighter, breaking wires and bending plating. Her body was so hot the wind now had a chill to it. But no matter what, she would kill this Decepticon.For Globetrotter.A shriek suddenly sounded through the air. It was a sound so familiar to her, one that always sent a bolt of fear down her spine. It was a sound that portended a barrage of laser fire. It was a sound that promised a chase on foot after her alt mode was disabled. It came in threes, and was often accompanied by laughter.It was the roar of a Seeker’s engine. And it was rapidly growing louder.What was it that Uptick had said? He couldn’t take them. He couldn’t take either of them.The one beneath her was only one of them.Fear ran down her spine as charged lightning. She looked over her shoulder, optics scanning the sky in terror. And there, piercing through the air like a needle, was the green and pink shape of the Seeker.Her focus broke. Channel tore her servos from Puncture’s helm and squirmed desperately in its grip. Her danger sensor was shrieking so loud it almost drowned out the roar of the engines, system flaring with hundreds of warnings. Red covered her vision, blaring over and over as the Seeker drew closer.The Rainmaker. Acid Storm. The remembrance of acidic droplets melting her plating helped her tear her broken arm off, leaving behind a mess of sparking wires. One blockade gone, one to go. But she could not tear off her hips so easily.And even if she could, she would not make it far. He was here.Acid Storm banked up as he shot over the beach, backflipping to transform back. He did it without the deadly grace of his kind, landing heavily on two damaged pedes. His wings were inverted, just as she’d seen in Starburst’s memories, and his front completely stained with Energon. But unlike in Starburst’s memories, the gray of death had crept into his servos, his side was torn open and bleeding out its own T-Cog, and his face was gone.All she could see of it were two glowing white optics.“Get. Off. Of. Him.” He threatened. Channel raised an arm in surrender. It wasn’t enough. “Only I get to kill him.”“Look, I ain’t know what you two got goin’ on, but I–”“SHUT UP! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!” Acid Storm staggered forward, clawing at his arm, pulling off what looked like a spine. With each step he moved mysterious gears on it, unfolding the decoration into a familiar shape.A sniper rifle. It was the ugliest one she’d ever seen, but if there was one thing she knew about unnatural looking weapons, it was that they were often more dangerous than the proper ones.Channel gritted her teeth and strained against the claws keeping her in place. Her body shrieked from the damage the movement inflicted.Acid Storm seemed to find amusement in that. “What’s wrong?” He asked, a giggle in his voice. “Are you scared of me? But I’m just a little Seeker, aren’t I? A little nobody?”“I ain’t–”“SHUT THE FRAG UP!” The rifle was complete now, and pointed straight at her helm. His arms were shaking, but despite it all he was smiling. At least, she thought he was. It was difficult to tell with the lack of a faceplate. “You don’t talk unless I say you do. Got that, Autobot scum?”When she gave no answer he went on. “You really think you’ve won this planet, don’t you? You really think we’re all dead? You run around on the land like you own the place. And all the while you pretend, saying these organics are your friends.” His laugh sounded pained. “And what do I do? Where am I forced to hide? Beneath the ocean, for cycles. While you play with these WORTHLESS organics.”He suddenly gagged, spitting out a stream of thin, water diluted Energon.“ALL BECAUSE I’M A SEEKER! You…you left me! You LEFT ME! THEY ALL LEFT ME!”He was screaming now.“They think I’m so worthless! They all think I’m weak! Autobot, Decepticon! Ally, enemy! Well I’LL show you who’s weak! I’ll show you ALL!”He moved his hand from the trigger on his rifle and dug his servos into his chassis, pulling at the broken cockpit as if attempting to rip it open.“Do you want to know something, Autobot? How old do you think I am? Speak.”Channel arched an optical ridge. “A Seeker, huh? Anywhere from four million t–”“WRONG!” He fired.The laser bolt that missed her by several feet hit the stone and exploded with so much force that shards buried themselves in the sand on the other side of the beach. Her audials momentarily broke. The Seeker trembled as if his spark was threatening to burst.“I’m only one million. Such a small number, right?” He leaned forward, tilting his head as he made eye contact. “Do you know how many I’ve killed, in that time?”She didn’t answer, afraid that this time, he wouldn’t miss. But beyond that, her optics detected movement at the edge of the cliff. A hand with five long needles was running along the stone, tracking Acid Storm’s movements perfectly.“Tell me, Autobot. Do you know about the Haumerian Massacre?”The Haumerian Massacre. She knew it well. Following the disappearance of the Ark, the Autobots had split into several groups and retreated to four separate planets near Cybertron. The Haumerian Massacre was the name coined for the disappearance of one of those groups.But there was a problem.“That…that was 3.5 million years ago.”Despite his lack of a face, the Seeker smiled.“Do you believe in the Afterspark, Autobot?”“I–”“Don’t. Because trust me when I say this: I’ve been. There is life after death. But it isn’t what you think.” He clawed even more at his cockpit. She caught a glimpse of something that looked mechanical where his spark chamber should have been. “Do you want to know what it’s like?”She didn’t get the chance to answer. Puncture stirred beneath her, claws flexing against her already damaged waist. Channel screamed in pain. The Seeker hissed, training his rifle on Puncture’s helm instead.And from the ridge above them, the thing in the pyre leaped.It all happened at once. The blazing, half melted thing landed on Acid Storm, taking him to the floor as its tentacles pierced into his plating. He screamed with an agony so rich she disabled her audials, which kept her from hearing everyone else’s as his side suddenly lit up. Bolts of white energy shot out from him and connected with them all.It was a pain so great her systems momentarily offlined. She shrieked with all she had left in her, her T-cog seizing and her functions grinding to a halt. An endless stream of warnings told her about the glitches running rampant through her system. Overheat was inevitable. Her body broke, and after all these years, finally rejected her.As if decapitated by an invisible scythe, Channel’s head fell clean off her body, landing on the sand besides Puncture’s massive form.Then it unfolded itself into a tiny, black robot, whose Autobot insignia was on her back. She looked around in terror at the writhing mass before her and the massive monster trembling behind her. And with the desperation that drives parents to eat their young, she bolted into the ocean, leaving behind the titans who’d so cruelly decided her fate.—----She’d practically torn her T-Cog out, but she didn’t care. Invert grabbed the tentacle spasming above her and rose to her feet, planting her pedes as she swung with the force of her whole body. The thing slammed into the rock face behind her. Bending to grab her rifle with one hand, she twisted her T-Cog even more. Energy was flowing from her into it, and each streak made it contort even more.Her legs no longer felt ready to collapse. Her arms no longer felt numb. The rage pumping through her must have deafened the side effects. Or perhaps death was so close to her now, its effects no longer hindered her. Whatever the case, Invert didn’t care. Her ability was working to her benefit, and she would not pass up this opportunity.“Feel my pain. Feel my pain,” she spat. “I’ll take you down with me, and we’ll both die horrible deaths, and I’ll come back in that tub of sentio metallico while your body smelts into someone’s next part, isn’t that nice? Won’t that be so nice?”She purged more watery energon as she approached the thing. By consuming what had seeped into the swamp and sucking from every drying wire in the dead Autobots, she’d acquired enough fuel to fly. It had been filthy and humiliating, even more than being awoken by the shocks from that Autobot’s weapon while he struggled with Puncture. She’d been unable to speak, unable to ask for help or congratulate her ally.And then said ally had left her, like her previous allies had, like Shockwave had, like her trine had, like the Autobots had. That was all any of them ever did. She was just a thing to be thrown away and abandoned.And she’d had enough.The monster was all wires and twisted plating. It sparkchamber was exposed as it rolled on its back, arching from the energy pouring into it. Removing her hand from her T-Cog, she trained her rifle on its vital organ.Which was when it truly hit her: she wasn’t in pain.The last time she’d used her ability, it had completely incapacitated her. The pain had been almost unbearable. And when it was done, her frame had felt cold.That was how it had always been. In the million years she’d had her ability, it had never once left her unscathed.She looked to her servos and saw they were completely gray. So were her forearms. It was spreading, and soon she’d have to abandon this frame as well. But despite the death literally crawling over her, she wasn’t in pain.What development was this?Despite the fact that her T-Cog was practically hanging out of her side, she felt it shift of its own will. Looking to her wings, she saw they’d moved to a proper upright position.In the million years he’d spent studying her, Shockwave hadn’t once managed to fix her wings. And yet here, on this beach, after using the ability he blamed on her inversion, they’d miraculously fixed themselves.It was a shock so great her rage melted, and her fingers suddenly felt much weaker on the trigger than they had a moment ago. She stared down at the still creature in the sand, the thing that had somehow caused this miracle.As far as monsters went, it was a poor excuse. Skeletal in nature, its warped and jagged plating covered onto only the essentials. Its abdomen had been replaced with what looked like clear glass, displaying an empty chamber full of glowing liquid. On its head were the remnants of a blue helm, now cut into a three-fold crest, the middle of which held a large cracked jewel. From its shoulders and back sprouted six tentacles which resembled spines. Four were tipped with deadly claws, but two bore purple hands.Its optics opened. They were yellow and surprisingly alive. As they fell on her they widened with fear. The creature suddenly animated and scrambled back, two of its tentacles wrapping around itself.“Who are you!? Where am I?! What–” It raised a hand defensively, then stared at the appendage in horror. “What…what…happened to me?!”She furrowed her optical ridges. “You attacked me, and I shocked you. Who are you? No, what are you? Why aren’t you inanimate on the floor?”“I-I don’t know! What’s going on!?”The Insecticon groaned. Invert turned cold eyes on him.“You.”His one optic was onlining, indicated by the red glow behind his broken visor. There was a hole in his head where the Autobot had punched clean into it. He turned his head slightly, focusing on Invert.“See…ker…” he said weakly. “You’re…alive…”“Of course I am,” she snapped. “Did you really think–”“Your…ability…sucks.” He laughed weakly. “Frag…you.”Invert growled. “Frag you too, glitch. Oh, and before I kill you? I saved your life. No matter how strong you think you are, a Seeker is the one who saved your aft.” She spat a pink blob on his side. “Deal with it.”“Wait,” the creature cut in, “who are you? Both of you! Why are you aiming a rifle at him?! No one needs to die, we can–”The ocean suddenly exploded. Invert jerked back, looking to the source as a massive cargo plane burst forth from the waves, soaring into the sky. The Autobot insignia was emblazoned on its side.They all watched as the plane shot over the island and disappeared, the roar of its engines slowly fading away beyond the crackling of organics. Even the fire was dying down now, having consumed what it could of the island and leveling out into a fine layer of ash.She frowned, turning her attention back to the Insecticon, then the creature. If an Autobot had just escaped the island, they’d be back with more. She had limited time to escape the island and return to Victory. This time, however, it wouldn’t be to wait.No, frag that. They’d left her behind on Earth. To the Decepticon cause she was nothing but a worthless, weak Seeker. There was only one ‘Con who saw any worth in her, even if it was the worst kind, and he was lightyears away, still waiting on Cybertron.Cybertron, where ‘Cons like her ruled and Energon was at least available in rations beyond a single cube. Frag Earth. The Autobots could have this planet.She huffed and approached the Insecticon, keeping her rifle trained on his head.“You know what? I’ve changed my mind. I think it’ll be fine to leave you here. The Autobots can always use a few more prisoners.”She could feel his glare. Invert didn’t care. He could rot in an Autobot cell for the rest of his days. It was a far worse fate than death, and he would know it. Death was a mercy. There was no fate crueler than its denial.“But first, you’re going to pay your due.”Her Energon levels were less than half, and she’d need more to return to Victory. There were several singes on his plating that, if she hit them hard enough, they’d leak. One looked like it could be fatal if she struck it hard enough. His face was bleeding from the hole in it. She could take her pick of wounds…If only they weren’t too kind for someone like him.Turning the dial on her rifle down, she aimed at his shoulder and fired. The bolt pierced clean through him and several feet into the stone. The arm fell away and Energon poured from its source.Invert didn’t even need to kneel to bring her intake to the source. She could feel the hate radiating from him and taste it in the bitterness of his processed fuel. Good. That was what the strongest Decepticons were made of.Only when she’d drank her fill did she back off and give him an impish smile.“You might wanna get that looked at, if you ever find someone stupid enough to care about you.”Then she turned back to the creature, the strange thing that had stabilized her, given her proper wings, and taken away her pain. Of course she had to take it with her. Something about it filled a piece in her that was missing, or perhaps took away the excess she suffered from. More study, as Shockwave would say, was needed. She couldn’t let this blessing escape her, even if it had tried to kill her.It backed away from her as she approached, trying to give it a friendly smile. Was something wrong with her face? It looked so scared.“Why are you backing off? I’m trying to help you,” she said. “Cmon, get up. I’m going to get us off this island. There’s a way better place for us eight hours from here.”“I...uh…I don’t really…trust…you…” It said, tentacles wavering uncertainly. She rolled her optics.“Okay, let’s get names out of the way then. I’m Invert. Who are you?”“Um…Luster.” He looked at the brand on her wings. “You’re a Decepticon.”“Yes, I am. It’s the winning team. And what are you? A monster in the middle of nowhere?”He looked at his hands, tentacles sagging.“Look, allegiance doesn’t matter right now. Do you want to rot on this island with no Energon and no friends, or do you want to come with me and have a chance at getting off this awful rock?”“Off this awful rock?”“Off this planet! We’re going back to Cybertron. Frag Earth, this place is awful. The Autobots can keep it. Have you ever met an Autobot? They’re a bunch of sappy idiots. And if they want to play with these gross organics all day, they can have it!”“I…yes, they…they can have it,” he echoed, shakily moving to his feet. They were too thin to support his weight and almost immediately gave out. Instead, the tentacles on his lower back came to his rescue, bracing against the ground to let him walk.He was like a newly forged sparkling. She found it charming. “Alright then, Luster, ever flown in a jet?”“Uh…no.”“Well, you’re about to learn!” She ordered herself to transform, letting the natural feeling that had always felt so unnatural wash over her like a gentle wave. No longer was it a tide of confusion, balance problems, and navigation issues. Her body felt normal, natural, and proper, even though it wasn’t hers.She cheerfully popped her broken cockpit, sending its last few glass shards flying. “Now get in!”Luster cringed at the sight, even more so when a glass shard hit him. He was hesitant, looking around at the island, at the Insecticon, at the sky, as if he expected rescue to come at any given moment. Only when she fired up her engines in warning did he finally move, carrying himself to her cockpit, looking in warily, and finally clambering in.He was so light she could forget he was there. Good, it meant she’d have an easy flight.“Alright, hold on, my seat belts don’t work and if you fall out I can’t guarantee I’ll catch you in time!”“Wait, wha–”Her cockpit closed and her engines powered up, and with the ease befitting a proper Seeker, not a half-formed failure who couldn’t even take off without help, Invert shot into the air.The charred island and its sole occupant were left behind.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“So what are you, really?”It’s the fifth time she’s asked the question. For the fifth time, Luster sighs, this time in exasperation, and gives her an answer.“I already told you, I don’t know. I don’t even know why I look like this now. I told you, I passed out and just woke up like this.”“Mm, but you do know what you are. You’re lying about that part.”“I am not!”“Yes you are. I can tell.” She lets one of her wings dip a little, then giggles when he squawks at the shifting.He huffs indignantly, tentacles creeping along her interior to find a better grip. Invert, as he’s learned, is quite playful in the worst way. Her cockpit was completely open to the sky and she was flying at speeds so great that if he even lifted his helm, he’d be whisked out of her like a sheet of paper. There wasn’t a single seatbelt to keep him tethered, and he’d spent the last few mega-cycles gripping onto whatever he could find to keep himself carefully wedged within her.It was awkward, uncomfortable, and had taught him more about Seeker anatomy than he’d ever wanted to know. But Invert seemed completely unbothered by any of it. In fact, she quite enjoyed making him scrabble for purchase. Multiple times she’d intentionally dipped in a direction he wasn’t expecting or suddenly twisted, leaving him yelping and scrambling for something to hold onto.It was annoying to say the least, and dangerous to say honestly. But this was what he got for putting his trust in a Decepticon, he supposed.He’d just have to hope she wasn’t lying about escaping this planet. She was right about it–it was awful and empty. There was nothing for him here. Nothing besides angry Autobots who’d want him dead.Uptick fleeing the island and leaving him behind to burn had been evidence enough of that.“You can tell?” He arched an optical ridge. Somehow, he still had them, even if nearly every other part of his body had seemingly been singed off. “How can you tell?”“Well, for one, you just admitted it,” she chirped happily. He frowned. “But for another, you’re currently so close to my spark I can feel the beating of your own. Which is to say, it’s unnaturally fast. And your servos keep shaking. Plus, when you speak, you aren’t attempting to look anywhere specific, so–”“That’s all because I’m trapped in your cockpit!” He snapped back. “I don’t control my sparkbeat! I’m holding on for dear life right now! And you don’t even have optics or a faceplate for me to look at! Why don’t you tell me what happened to your faceplate, huh?”It was an object of curiosity to him. Bots didn’t just lose their faceplates. Most couldn’t survive having theirs removed. That was a delicate surgical procedure performed for cosmetic purposes or occasional medical reasons–no one’s faceplate just came off. So why was she missing hers?There’d been Energon all over the jagged edges that had marked where it once connected. The circular red bulbs that formed her optics had been crying streaks of the stuff. If he didn’t know any better it was like her face had been ripped off. But who exactly would do that?Invert had gone quiet. He furrowed his optical ridges and, wrapping his tentacles around her cockpit chair, gently knocked on the floor.“Invert? Are you–”“Don’t,” she snarled. “I’m asking the questions, not you. Do not ask about what happened to my faceplate.”He winced. “Alright, fine. But does that mean you’re going to stop asking what I am? I mean–”“I could dump you in the ocean at any given time, Luster. You think you’re in the position to be making demands right now? You think you get to order me around?”“What? I–”“You don’t,” she threatened. “So keep that in mind before you decide to start being gutsy.”He fell silent, and that silence hung between them, waiting for either to break it. They didn’t, not for some time. The wind whistled by overhead. He could see the blue sky of earth. Just beyond it was space, that familiar frontier, along with the promise of finding Solace.Solace, who was somewhere alone out there. He had to be. He couldn’t be dead. No, Luster was sure of that now. He didn’t know why, but he was. Something about the fact that he should be dead–no, he had been, hadn’t he?--yet wasn’t, told him that Solace couldn’t be either.He would bet his life on it. Somewhere out there, waiting on him to return, was–“You’re a sparkeater, aren’t you?”Her statement blindsided him and he winced like he’d been struck. His tentacles instinctively tightened, two of them arching as if searching for invisible foes. Invert let out a hum.“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I knew you were lying.”He frowned. “How’d you know?”“I have a lot more experience with sparkeaters than you’d think. Besides. The tentacles are a dead giveaway.”Luster didn’t buy it.“Well, they might be, but aren’t sparkeaters just stories? There aren’t any recorded living ones, not in the public records, at least.” He remembered hearing of them, absolutely, but no one had ever seen a living one. Every story differed a little but held the same formula, and moreso, all the writings about the sparkeaters said the same thing:They feed off of life itself. Their gaze can paralyze you. They can rip your brain clean from your helm. Their shriek is enough to freeze you in your tracks. And the tentacles from their backs are made of life chords, which writhe and slither and shake, ever ready to strike their next target.Fear the sparkeater. You only see it once before you return to Primus.You only see it once. Before…“They are just stories,” Invert said dismissively, “but even stories can become reality, yknow. All you need is–”She cut off, then laughed.“Actually, I don’t think I can tell you that. Not that anyone is listening anymore. Or maybe he is? If you are, Soundwave, hi, thanks for ignoring me for the past six cycles, I hope you’re having fun by your lonesome wherever you’ve holed up on this stupid planet. By the way, I’m going to use your equipment to contact Shockwave, so if you don’t want me to do that, intervene now.”Silence. Luster looked around almost nervously, as if Soundwave could just pop out of one of Invert’s compartments. He didn’t.“...Good to know! So, as I said, no one listening, but, doesn’t really matter.” She did the jet equivalent of a shrug. “Just know that because something is said to be fiction, doesn’t mean it necessarily is. And vice versa. So anyways! You’re a genuine, bonafide sparkeater. How’d you get here on Earth? Were the Autobots hiding you? Did you get made in a lab? Is that why you were on that secluded island? Cmon, tell me!”She bounced slightly, and he suppressed another yelp.“I-I’ve told you, Invert! I don’t have any memory of…well…” Would it be worth it to share his past with her? She was a Decepticon. They were temporary allies on Earth, but once on Cybertron, he’d abandon her. She didn’t seem aware that it was currently an Autobot haven.That said, was it in his best interest to let her proceed to the planet without warning her that it was the proverbial cyberlion’s den? While he was a sparkeater, how much did he trust in his ability to escape from his fellow Autobots? No, even more than that, how much did he trust in his ability to escape from her? What if she realized Cybertron was overrun, and turned on him? What if–Oh, Primus, he really hadn’t thought any of this through.“You don’t have any memory of anything?” Invert teased. “I don’t believe you. Your servos are shaking again–”“I-I have memory!” He suddenly interjected. “I, uh. It’s just…blank, in a lot of spaces. Hey, how long until we get there? You said your ship is only eight mega-cycles away, right?”“Yeah, eight mega-cycles. We’ve got another three. So cmon, tell me about yourself, we’ve got time!”“Oh. Uh…”It couldn’t hurt. She was his temporary ally for now, wasn’t she?“Alright. So…I’m Luster. I come from Cybertron. I was forged in Helex–”Wait. That wasn’t right. He wasn’t forged in Helex. Something at the back of his helm felt like it sparked. No, he wasn’t forged at all! He was cold-constructed!“Uh. No, forget that. I was cold-constructed in a factory by the Rust Sea. So I guess I’m Luster of The Rust Sea…?” It sounded better than Luster of Cybertron, he supposed. “Uh...I came to Earth after I…they found me drifting in space, alone, in an unmanned ship. I was living in–”“Who’s ‘they’?”Ah. He’d messed up.“Uh, the Autobots, but, I swear, I’m not–”“You’re a sparkeater, dumbaft, of course you’re not an Autobot. Besides, if we ‘cons had taken you in, you’d be under Shockwave’s scalpel. Okay, continue.”She’d taken it better than he’d thought. He felt his spark warming to her ever so slightly as he continued.“So, I landed on Earth, and I’ve been…existing, I suppose.”“You don’t remember why you were alone in an unmanned ship?”“No. Well. I left Cybertron before the war with my…”Would it be proper to say conjunx? Had they been conjunx? He didn’t remember.“...with my dear friend, Solace. I don’t remember what we were looking for. Whatever happened out there, I don’t remember, either. Just that we left, and then I…then I woke up on this planet. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”One of his tentacles curled around him for comfort. He let it linger for just a moment before moving it back to holding himself steady.“I hope he is.”“Hm. So you, a sparkeater, left with a not sparkeater, and you came back alone.” She shrugged again. “Sounds self-explanatory.”“I wasn’t a sparkeater when we left!” He growled. “And I did not eat Solace! I had my first spark in Autobot City, and then I–!”He’d had his first spark. He’d had his first spark. His words died in his intake. Oh.He’d killed and eaten someone. He’d really done it.“...and then you what?”He was going to be sick, that was what. Despite the speed they were travelling, Luster raised his helm and purged over the side of Invert’s cockpit.“HEY!!!” She bobbed in the air, then performed a twist. “Don’t fragging PURGE on me! Ugh! Do you want me to dump you into the ocean!?”He groaned, lowering himself down to the floor of her cockpit and wrapping his tentacles around himself.“Are you even listening to me!? Sparkeater–”“My name is Luster,” he muttered. “I’m not a sparkeater. I’m normal. I don’t want to be a sparkeater.”“You think what you want matters?” She scoffed. “You can want anything. You can whine and complain and cry all you want. It doesn’t change what you are.”Her words felt like drops of acid on his plating. He grit his dentae, tentacles tightening around his form.“I’m not a sparkeater,” he said again. “I’m a normal Cybertronian. I was a normal Cybertronian. And I’m going to be one again. I’m going to be one again.”She didn’t respond, though he could just feel that her optics were rolling. Instead she began to descend, his systems indicating that the air pressure was changing as she did so. Her speed decreased, and the howl of the air overhead quieted to just a roar.“We’re here,” Invert announced. “I’m going to ping Victory. Get ready to land.”A few moments of quiet, and then she spoke again.“Victory has decided to deny me access. We’re going in the old-fashioned way. Brace yourself.”“How–”But before he could even finish she was transforming back.—-------Of fragging course Victory denied her access. She didn’t know why she’d thought that it would ever view her as an ally. Six fragging cycles of cleaning it, maintaining it, feeding it, and sending out signals, and the Victory didn’t even think that she was worth opening its hangar doors for. For all of one day, she’d been gone, and that was too long for it to remember her.It was the closest thing she’d had to an actual ally in the Decepticon ranks, and it didn’t even view her as a fellow Cybertronian. Frag it. Frag it all.She transformed back, using her thrusters to stay just above the ocean. Luster yelped as he was tossed out of her cockpit, his tentacles immediately latching onto her waist. He dangled from her like a bunch of loose wires, and she barely even felt it, he was so light.“Hey!” He barked, sounding both scared and angry. “More warning next time! I-I don’t want to end up in the ocean! I’m all wires and framing, I could offline!”She cast him a look that told him she didn’t care and promptly regretted it. She should care, he fixed her and talked to her and seemed to trust her enough to clamber into her cockpit and fly all the way out here. She wanted to trust him back, but…Well, they’d just met. And if there was one thing she knew about Decepticons, it was that “ally” was the best you got–there was no such thing as friendship. “Ally” was a title to work up to; until you achieved that, at best you were coworkers, at worst, liabilities.She was considered a liability by everyone she knew--including, apparently, the ship she’d busted her aft keeping in working order. So Primus forgive her for being upset and maybe giving Luster a mean look.Besides. He couldn’t run off. She’d have him in a cage soon enough and then she’d never have to worry about being nice to him again.Probably.“You’ll be fine,” she dismissed, lowering towards the ocean, “the salt water doesn’t damage anything, even wiring. Trust me, I’ve worked on Victory’s panels with wires exposed to the stuff, it has no effect as long as you’re careful with your sparking.”Her plan for breaking into Victory was simple: they’d go through the side doors, like everyone did. They led into an airlock which often refused to open, but she’d utilize her ability and bust it straight down. Once inside, she’d gather some supplies and fire up Victory’s on-site space bridge. It would take a dozen mega-cycles to charge, which would give her plenty of time to contact Shockwave and alert him to their incoming arrival.Shockwave’s personal frequency was one of the few contacts she retained, alongside the ones still belonging to her dead trine. She loathed speaking with him, but it wasn’t like she had any better options.Besides, once there, maybe she could abandon him and make off with Luster. Or maybe…she could present Luster to Shockwave, determine just what it was about him that stabilized her, develop a cure, and be recognized as a proper Decepticon scientist by Shockwave himself! If he put in a good word for her, no one could deny her worth!But then again, considering her past with him…What other options did she have? What could she do beyond flee back to Cybertron, and fall back under Shockwave’s command?Had she really thought this through? Did she really want to be back under Shockwave?As opposed to the trapped “freedom” of Autobot occupied Earth?“I don’t feel like I’m going to be fine!” Luster protested as they both broke the surface of the water.Despite his argument he was, indeed, fine. They descended to the hull of Victory and slid down it, Invert using her thrusters to glide through the water with relative ease. After cycles of being trapped below the ocean, she knew a bit about moving through it.The side bay doors were closed, as expected. She knocked twice and pinged Victory again, getting only silence in response. Then she moved to the edge and gripped it, trying to forcibly pry it open.No luck. Huffing, Invert grabbed her T-cog.“Hey, what are you doing?” Luster demanded, his tentacles uncoiling from around her waist. “You’re already injured! Don’t worsen it!”“There’s no other way to activate my ability,” she said, rolling her optics, “so unless you’ve miraculously discovered a new one, pipe down.”She twisted her T-Cog and a bolt of pain shot up her systems…but nothing came out of it. Invert winced and twisted it more. Nothing.“What the frag,” she muttered, glaring at it as if it could answer. “Why isn’t it working?!”All she received in response was silence. She angrily slammed her fist against the door, then tried grabbing its edge and prying it loose again. Not even an inch was afforded to her.“Great,” she grumbled. What was wrong with her body now? Did being stable mean she couldn’t use her ability? Shockwave would be all over this new development.“Are you, uh, having trouble with the doors?” Luster asked.“We’re locked out,” she huffed. “I’m going to need you to crawl through a vent, or…” No, there were defense measures in place, and he was small, but nowhere near cassette sized. Maybe she could break the hull glass? No, not with how weak her Seeker frame was. Perhaps the waste disposal system?“Let me try.” He crept past her, two of his tentacles gripping onto the edge of Victory’s door to secure him in place. “The door, what powers it?”“What powers it? Uh, Energon? Like all of us.”“So it’s got a similar life current to us, then?”“Yes.” She didn’t tell him, but she’d wondered, for the longest time, if Victory was, indeed, like herself. A Cybertronian who’d been locked in alt mode forever, perhaps. It wasn’t as uncommon as they’d all like to think.“Alright. Stand back.”She used her thrusters to put a fair amount of distance between herself and him, but when electricity suddenly crackled through his tentacles, it immediately became apparent that wasn’t enough. As sparks and bolts ran through the door, they swam through the currents, and Invert gasped as thousands of volts suddenly struck her. Her body spasmed, her spark seized, and all of a sudden–Something on her back ripped as it inverted.Victory’s door opened at the exact same time.Luster glanced back at her with a cheerful smile. “I think I got it! I–what happened to your wings?”She felt like screaming, but she’d done enough of that today. Instead, despite how awkward they now felt to use, she activated her thrusters and shot into the airlock. Luster waited only a moment before moving in to join her. Once his tentacles released their grip from Victory’s door, it promptly closed.Airlock: occupied. Engaging sterilization procedure.The water rapidly drained from the airlock and was promptly followed by a searing spray. Luster winced from it, then raised his tentacles defensively when the airlock vents opened and rapidly dried them both. Invert seethed silently beside him, trying not to break her servos from how tightly they were clenched.Scanning airlock occupants. Airlock: occupied. Engaging sterilization procedure.A grid manifested and ran over them both.Unknown occupant detected. Decepticon occupant identified: Acid Storm. Confirm identification.“It’s me, Victory.” She waved a hand. “Invert. Yknow, the ‘con who’s been with you for the past six cycles?”Confirm identification.She rolled her optics. “Invert of Lab P1U70. Shockwave sent me.”Identification not confirmed. Unknown occupants detected. Engaging defensive protocol.“Wha–HEY!”An alarm suddenly blared and the airlock turned red. Gritting her dentae, Invert charged for the door into Victory and grabbed its handle, trying to force it open.“IT’S ME! WHY DON’T YOU RECOGNIZE ME?”The door behind them was opening. She glared.“Luster! Keep that door shut!”He nodded swiftly and grabbed it with his tentacles, securing himself against the wall as he strained against Victory itself. Invert did the same, trying and failing to pry the airlock open. It was because of her damn Seeker frame, she could already feel it. Here she was on Earth in a stolen frame, never having received Shockwave’s official blessing, feeling the weight of her sins starting to catch up with her. With no one to tell Victory to accept her, of course the ship recognized her for what she was; of course it wanted to get rid of her. Her presence was so dangerous it had even ignored the genuine sparkeater to focus on her.Frag it. If she had to offline Victory to escape, then so be it. Grabbing her T-Cog with one hand and the door with the other, she twisted it, hard, and screamed at the frame wrenching agony that suddenly paralyzed her.It was a weaker blast, much weaker than the one she’d utilized to free Puncture and down Starburst. Those had been brewing for many cycles, built off the growing disharmony within her. But a blast from her was still a blast, and like everyone she’d used it on prior, Victory was not prepared for the sudden influx of spark energy it was overloaded with.Both the airlock doors opened. Water flooded in, sending Luster and her tumbling over one another in a massive wave. They spilled into the common area and hurled down the habsuits hallway, splatting against the closed door to Megatron’s own.Her hand was wrenched from her T-Cog, and the bolts from it ceased. As water poured past them, she felt the final wires holding it in place tear: once again, she’d lost the organ that kept her from eating herself.The clock was ticking, and fast.‘Luster!’ She pinged, trying to reach him through the wave of notifications clouding her HUD. He was literally pinned against her, tentacles flailing wildly for purchase, and she still could barely find him. His signal was so noisy, like it was being intercepted by another. ‘Close the airlock door!’‘I–WHAT?! HOW!?’ He pinged back, but neither would have to wait long. As the alarm lights continued to blare, the door suddenly closed. Victory’s voice sounded in a deafening boom.INTRUDERS DETECTED. ENGAGING ELIMINATION PROTOCOL.She slid down the wall and tried to stand, but her struts gave out. Invert hissed out a dozen curses.The airlock doors were right next to Victory's main hub. Across from them, roughly sixty yards, was the main computer and its display.It was on, and a single red optic was visible on the screen.‘Luster, shut Victory down!’ He splatted onto the floor beside her, quickly peeling himself off by grabbing the ceiling with his tentacles. ‘There’s a big computer there, flip the swi–’She didn’t get another word out before a turret suddenly shot out of one of the walls and locked onto her. Invert felt her spark chill at the sight. No. Not again. Not here. They’d never find her.‘JAM YOUR FRAGGING TENTACLE INTO IT!’Luster looked at the turret and froze. Another two descended from the ceiling. Three red lasers locked onto Invert’s spark chamber.She couldn’t move. Panic was starting to smell in her processor. Why her? Why did it hate her so much!?‘LUSTER!’He yelped and sprang forward, tripping over himself and face planting onto the floor. One of the turrets locked onto him, the red dot fixing on his head. His optics widened with terror.“Is this really it, Victory?! You want me dead so badly?” She spat, narrowing her optics. The turret turned back to her “Despite everything I did for you, you still want me dead?”QUERY: WHAT HAPPENED TO ACID STORM?“HIM?! THIS IS ABOUT H I M?! Of all the Seekers, you care about him?!”Luster scrambled away, moving awkwardly with his weaker legs.QUERY: WHAT DID YOU DO TO ACID STORM.“What did I do?! WHAT DID I DO?! YOU WANT TO KNOW? YOU WANT TO KNOW!?”Two turrets lowered from the ceiling before the computer. Luster froze in place as they locked onto him. A buzz sounded through the air as they all charged at once.“I ATE HIM!”Luster whimpered and ducked. The turrets that had aimed for him turned on her. The red optic was locked on. As one they fired.The last thing she saw before she was falling back into the void of death was the pink of lasers.—----------------------------------He heard the turret fire well before he’d jammed his tentacle into the control panel. It formed a constant drone behind him, never once letting up even as he ripped through the panel and began to tear wiring from it. Even as the alarm died and the lights went out, the turrets didn’t stop, not until they clicked with emptiness.Then, all was silent. He panted, pulling his claws from the sparking wires of Victory’s control panels, and dared a glance back at Invert.Even in the dark, he could see she had more bullet holes than plating. His spark dropped. Glowing energon was splattered all over the wall like some kind of abstract art piece. A puddle had formed beneath her, dotted with green pieces of metal. Her faceplate was gone, along with her dentae and optics.The sight made him sick. He held back a purge, reminding himself that just because he wasn’t hungry and hadn’t been since he woke up, didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be again. Whatever had changed in him that was keeping him full wouldn’t last forever. He had to hold onto it. Another purge was far, far too risky.So instead he sat in silence, staring at the giant computer before him with its sparking control panel. What was he to do? Here he was, alone on a Decepticon ship, with no one alive who knew his current location.He’d lost Solace, he’d lost Uptick, and now he’d lost Invert (granted, the latter was hardly a loss, but still). Was that all he could do? Lose the mechs who entered into his life?He hugged himself, trying not to think about how awful everything had become. No, he had to keep moving. There had to be something on this ship. Invert had said they were going to make it off Earth. The Decepticons had built several space bridges. There was likely one on this ship, he just had to find it.Turning, he tried not to look at Invert’s body as he moved past her, heading deeper into the ship. She was positioned just before a hallway of habsuits, all of which had their doors open. Glancing into them, he could see all sorts of knick-knacks and horrible weapons. Everything from guns and cannons and blasters to glaives and throwing knives were stored on the walls, along with recharge slabs and personal artefacts.One room which gave him pause was filled to the brim with datapads and communication equipment. The recharge slab on it was small, befitting a bot who was either human sized or could take an alt mode that was such. He peered in, wondering if, perhaps, he could use the equipment to contact Cybertron.Which was when one of the datapads suddenly lit up. He blinked and carefully crept in, moving over the columns and the tangling wires on the floor to reach it. It sat next to what looked like a small satellite, one conducted of a familiar silver and purple material. A wire ran between the satellite and the datapad.Someone had plugged it in before they’d left. And they’d never come back. Whoever’s room this was, they’d expected to return to the ship. He recalled what they’d told him about the bloody assault on Autobot City and shivered. Was it right for him to be looking through the records of the dead?Well, what else was there for him to do? And they were dead…Carefully, he lifted the datapad from its position atop the others. There was text displayed on it as well as time. It was in Decepticon, and he had to squint to read it, slowly making out each word one letter at a time.H-E-L-L-O-S-P-A-R-K-S-T-O-R-MHe cocked his head. Spark Storm? Was that who had lived here previously?Another message suddenly popped up on the datapad. He checked the time and felt his spark leap. Whoever was sending these was sending them now, and if the location was to be believed, was sending them from Cybertron.Some Decepticon on Cybertron was calling to his allies on Earth. But hadn’t the Decepticons been defeated and fled both planets?Apparently not. He squinted and read the next message.O-R-T-H-E-S-P-A-R-K-E-A-T-E-R-W-H-O-E-V-E-R-S-H-O-C-K-W-A-V-E-S-C-O-N-T-A-C-T-I-S-A-T-R-A-P-C-A-L-L-T-H-I-S-O-N-E-W-A-I-T-I-N-G-F-O-R-Y-O-UThe sparkeater? Did the Decepticons have a sparkeater? No, he would have been told about that. There were no Autobot records indicating the Decepticons had ever had a sparkeater. Which meant…the message had to be talking about him.But how? Whoever had sent the message knew about him. When had he become a sparkeater? It hadn’t been long, he knew that. The Decepticons had fled Earth long before then. Whoever was on Cybertron…he hadn’t been on Cybertron for millenia–A contact number suddenly appeared on the datapad. It was in Autobot.Whoever sent this not only knew who he was, but what his allegiance was. His spark seized in his chest. He didn’t like this.Call them. Contact them. What were the chances that they’d accidentally sent this now, and just so happened to get lucky in guessing he was an Autobot aligned sparkeater? And who was Spark Storm?A Decepticon on Cybertron reaching out to him now, knowing he was a sparkeater, from a datapad in a room he’d just stumbled across now.None of it lined up. He needed answers. Were they in the cameras on the ship? No, he’d disabled those when he’d broken the control panel (probably. he hoped). Everything was down from what he could tell. So how did they know?The contact number regarded him with the optics of Solomus. Did he disregard it, ignore it, and search the ship more, or did he attempt to speak with a strange Decepticon on Autobot occupied Cybertron who somehow knew about him?Slowly, Luster removed the wire from the datapad and plugged it into himself. A dozen signals shot into his head, clouding his thoughts, filling his mind with noise and clearing away its ever present humming. Then he heard a voice, loud and clear, that quelled all of it.“Hello, sparkeater.” It was low and gentle, the soft song of a trapped bird. “Now, there’s just one thing I need to know before I continue: am I speaking to Luster…or Solace?”