Author's note
This story features three characters, Enigma, Synthes and Cloudnine, that belong to my friend, known on deviantART as Towerte. I thank her for letting me write them.

Sometimes I like to take time to myself and think about how things have piled up. How my choices have led me down a path. How others might have been affected by them. Not always the brightest trail of thought, but it might help me avoid some of the worse decisions later on. I'd have to have another one of those ponders soon, assuming I survive bein' beaten by these five.

Carbide was the largest of everyone here. Probably could have benched pressed a planet the way he exercised. Once he got in 'the moment' however, he became a brand new kind of monster. Currently, he was in a calm mood, laughing a little as he threw me through the wall. They had beaten me while climbing this abandoned spire in this as abandoned city and I now had a nice view of the star filled sky. Not bad as last views go.

"You holdin' back? I don't want that," he said, pulling me up to punch me to the ground again. Pointless.

Then Breechload appeared and started to kick me. Scrawny for a Decepticon, he had a large sniper rifle on his back and a retractable zoom lens on the side of his head. I never really knew him to be up front when it came to the dangerous work, always the last one for that stuff. Its why he prefers to fire that gun from miles away. He was also bad at close range, his kicks were doing little but annoying me. I was just happy he was the quiet type right now.

"Let off. I want him to fight," Carbide said, pulling Breechload back.

"I don't. Makes this easy." In comes Blast Cap and his billy-clubs. Less annoying but very much more painful than the kicking. I knew he liked blowing things up, but for Primus' sake, he somehow made his clubs detonate with a small explosion with each hit. Like a glancing shot from a gun, but in succession they were taking a toll. I kicked his leg out from under him and stood, backing from them. "Oi! Now he's fighting." I wasn't.

"I'll stop him, you baby," Crash-Dive moved forward, pushing Blast Cap aside. He grabbed me and threw me to the ground twice and stomped on my back. He came close to being Carbide's size and even though he transformed a marine vehicle, he wasn't out of place with this lot. But then pure strength and ruthlessness could always get one very far with the Decepticons. He pulled me up to at least my knees and let go, Carbide moving to my other side. Breechload and Blast Cap stayed back to flank the last one, their leader, Dragline.

"Given all you've done, that you are just giving up… I'm very disappointed," he said. He was a little taller than me, a little broader than me and a damn sight angrier than I've ever been. Most of him was a dark grey like a shadow on a wall with red accents here and there. What was once a miners helm was now well suited for the soldier he had become. And I know… It's not fair talking about one guy more than the others, but he's the driving force behind the other's violence. He gestured for Carbide to take hold of me and Crash-Dive drew his trident. "I expected more trouble from you after you've killed so many of us."
Dragline was trying to get something out of me beyond my extinguished spark casing. An apology, some fear or pleading, maybe just something to keep this from being a one-sided ending to a story he had planned out. Couldn't say I was up for any of ending these guys would come up with. And I didn't want to fight back. Five-on-one are terrible odds, but that wasn't it.
"Nothing to say for all you've done? Not one last spark of defiance before we send you off?" I was a little committed to giving him nothing so I just offered more silence. Dragline sneered a little and Crash-Dive ran me through with the trident. Now, if you ever get impaled, its alright if you don't tough it out, it hurts like hell. Especially if you get lifted into the air, because then your internals are being used as leverage and the pain ramps up quite a bit. With the gang laughing, me hissing through my teeth and sliding down towards Crash-Dive and Dragline ready to drag this out, he says, "Have you nothing left for your friends, Spitfire?"

"Sorry," I said before I slammed my palms against Crash-Dive's head, got a good grip and twisted his head until it was very loose in my hands. His body collapsed and I landed on my feet enough to do a quick assessment. Crash-Dive was down, Carbide was right on my flank but shocked out of his comfort zone, Dragline was yelling in horror, Breachload was still a little shocked at how things turned out and Blast Cap was swearing. We were on a rickety spire in an abandoned multi-layered city called Xericon or something and they were dragging out my murder to exact revenge for killing someone in self-defense just like now only then it was one on one. So I hopped over the railing and started to fall.
Looking down, my slim chance at survival was looking slimmer and slimmer. I mean yeah, they were going to kill me, that was a given. But in my head I had convinced myself I could probably survive falling off of a giant building. Wishing obviously wasn't doing, so I drew my axe and swung it into the side of a building. The energon powered weapon cut through the old wreck like it wasn't even there, leaving a molten scar behind, or above. Whichever. All that mattered was that I was slowing a little, so that was good. Then the building ran out because a sloping design that looked pretty but was screwing me over at present. Free fall. Crashing straight through a balcony. That sent me into a diagonal spiral where I kept bouncing into another building with a slope, only now it was at a downward angle. Almost like sliding down a hill only less fun. Then I hit my left temple on something and my optic went dark. Not good. Though my other optic was just fine and as I was tumbling around I could have sworn the gap between the buildings I was bouncing off of were getting smaller. Then the trident began to catch on the buildings. Then the other end of the poll. I put tried to put my legs out to one building to slow myself and take the pressure off my innards. Worked out great until the poll snapped and I wasn't ready for it. Back to free fall. Two more balconies. A very poor swing with the axe I could probably blame on the recently ruined depth perception and repetitive concussions. So I retracted it before I could cut my own head off. Balcony. A growing hatred of balconies. Taste of energon that was another bad sign. All through this, I could see the ground floor coming up fast. I just had one last balcony to slow my decent and then a fall of a couple of stories until the ground. I turned so my left side was facing the ground as it was already pretty banged up, I mean how damaged could something get, right? Wait, that didn't sound right.

WHAM.

I hit the ground so hard I was sent to a dimension where pain was god and I was the prophet of its return. The taste of energon still in my mouth brought me back to the real world. I opened my optics and took in my surroundings.
Xericon, or whatever, had seen better days. What was once a humble marketplace could have been called a riot's aftermath now. The war surly didn't care about the lives made here, it just rolled over all in the path whether it needed to or not. Looking up, I was marveling at my luck. The fall should have killed me. So either I'm very well put together, super lucky, immortal, or terribly unlucky. I was ruling out the last one because my tormenters were completely out of reach for the foreseeable future. I liked when Decepticons couldn't fly, couldn't lord it over anyone.
However, the unlucky theory was an option given my state. From my left shoulder down, I was still in that pain dimension. Left optic wasn't giving me anything, but I could feel it move with my right, so it could be fixed. The rest was a pulsing ache, save the remaining bit of trident that had scrambled the internals during the impalement and the fall. I could also see a growing pool of energon from the wound and it felt like it was running down the lucky left side of my face whenever I lifted my head. No radio and no one to contact in a dead city. iSo why was I hearing voices./i
I propped myself up very slowly. The world whirled around for a minute and then I tried standing. I listed over and caught the wall. Okay, now one foot in front of the other. I was limping on the left side, surprise, surprise, but I was moving. Looking down at myself was little comfort so I faced forward. A paranoid look back showed only my energon soaked footprints. No, focus on the voices.

"…C'mon, you know it is completely weird."

"It really isn't."

"Yes it is! We use the name for what we mine, what we eat, what we use as a power source for all of our stuff, and our lifeblood. They should be called their own thing, not just 'Energon'. It's confusing."

"It's not. There are clearly defined procedures for each, but its all the same stuff, anyway."

"So if I took the energon from my gun I could eat it straight up without a problem because it's the same?"

"No, you'd probably blow a gasket or something."

"So they're different?"

"I'm not falling for that. Energon is energon, just some refined for this and some is refined for that."

"Then they should have different names."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"Nn- Did you hear that?"

"Is that a trick to get me to say 'no'? Because you know I'm not dumb."

"I'm serious. I know someone's here."

"You're crazy. There's only three of us. You, me and… And…" He was trailing off as he got a look at me. Primus knows what he was thinking. His companion turned and I could see something was odd about them. Both were very solid, tall and broad bots. One had midnight blue and dark grey coloring and the other was honey brown and the same grey. Blue had purple optics and Honey had yellow. Blue had three plates, one on each side of his head and the third on top of it, all were flat and swept back. Yellow had two protrusions from his forehead and they hugged his helm, sloping back like Blue's plates. Other then that, they were identical, same build, same armor shape, face shape. It was eerie. Blue found his voice again and said, "Uh… Four of us."

"Are… You okay?" Yellow asked in mild horror.

"Oh.. This?" I said with a smile I shouldn't have had. I coughed and a mist of energon came out with the breath. Maybe he had a point. "You should see the other guy."

"Was the other guy atomized?" Blue asked, stepping forward. I knew he was going to help me walk and I wasn't going to stop him. Yellow was on my other side without a word, but he was there as a just in case. I was very grateful he wasn't touching me, I'm sure it would have been very tender. "How are you even standing?"

"Two legs, sense of balance." I was weirdly caviler now. I shouldn't have been, I don't normally joke when energon is spilling. Maybe I was punch drunk or something. "Who're you?"

"I'm Synthes," the bot formally known as Yellow said. "And this is my brother, Enigma."

"Spitfire. Nice to meet you guys. You're both very nice."

"You hardly know us," Enigma said.

"Yeah… But I get feelin's, you know? Also, you are for sure the two nicest bots I've talked to today."

"Speaking of, who did this to you?" Synthes asked, "And why are you out here?"

"This place was deserted," Enigma said, not giving me the chance to speak, "So it provides shelter from rust storms, cover from reconnaissance, and best of all, solitude from those who would judge."

"Now you're just showing off."

"Not done showing off either. I'm also going to say multiple Decepticons, because you're an Autobot, but not enough of them to cause a big stir. We would have found out about them if there were too many. So… Three to seven. Ten, if they're really sneaky."

"Five," I corrected.

"Heh… So only the why is escaping me." They were both looking to me for answers. I was starting to feel up for anything really, pain had gone very numb, just one or two sharp jabs, but even that was fading. "Hey, Spitfire. Stay awake." I felt like responding, but that just seemed like too much work. The world faded more and more while the Twins whispered at me. Or were they shouting, hard to focus on that. Whatever was going on, I felt like I could forget about the pain I was in, the pain I had caused, pain yet to come.
Yeah, genius, you'll also forget about your friends. A chance for more than this war offered.
The war wasn't going to end. We'll kill each other and the last one standing would be a wreck of a person. And what friends?
Torrent, for one. She's probably trying to find you now.
Yeah, Ren never gave up on anything. But I'm not her. And the world was already far away now.
That didn't stop you after you fell off of the building. Now get up.
I'm being carried. Or something. Doesn't feel like I'm moving…
Then wake up.

I opened my one optic and became aware of a body wide numbness. My other optic was moving but it seemed weighted down and I still couldn't see anything from it. Looking over I would have thought I was One with the Allspark as I was looking at a beautiful femme. She was a pristine white with brilliant blue coloring on her armor and in her optics. I was reminded of stories I had heard of guardians for deities, shepherds of mortal races and escorts of souls. She did look a little small, maybe smaller than Torrent, and she was looking at me with a striking gaze and… I've never thought this way about anyone. Probably whatever was numbing me. I wasn't passing on, I was in recovery. She turned her head and called, "I told you he wasn't dead. You owe me a quart of engex."

"I remember." I looked and saw Enigma sitting on the far side of the room we were in. Synthes looked to be in the middle of some repair work on some sort of transmitter when I woke up, but he turned has attention when she spoke. Enigma stood and walked over to the femme. "He still looks like scrap."

"Well I do fantastic work with what I have none the less," she said, looking at him with a smirk and a slight bump of her shoulder. She turned to me and with a gentle smile she continued, "Hello. I'm Cloudnine, and don't worry! I am a professional medic, I've fixed up a lot of bots worse off than you."

"Yeah, this one guy got chopped into three pieces. So gross. But that was a while ago, the worst thing she's dealt with before you was my arm getting torn off," Cloudnine stuck her tongue out at him and he put an arm around her, "But seriously Spitfire, you couldn't be in better hands."

"Thank you, all of you," I said. My voice was croaky, probably the painkillers, "Where are we?"

"We got you to our little hideaway. We're still in Xerra Core, if you wanted specifics."

"Right…" I did want specifics. Dragline and his crew were probably looking for me by now. And Torrent might run into them. "What are you three doing out here?"

"Oh… This and that," Synthes said, coming over to stand with his brother. Odd.

"Well, have you seen a blue femme? She'll be looking for me."

"We haven't done anything but get parts for C to save you and sit around," Enigma said, "We were about ready to leave when you found us. And now you're too messed up to move and we can't leave you unguarded."

"You two could look," Cloudnine said, "He'll be safe with me."

"Not alone," Enigma said flatly.

"Of course not, I'll have him!" she counted with a smile and a wink at me. Odder.

"Spitfire… Is your friend capable?" Synthes asked, "Like, could she be okay on her own while she looks for you?"

"Yeah… She's done dangerous stuff before all alone. But I don't like it, not with Dragline around."

"Who's Dragline?" Cloudnine asked.

"Probably the one who did this to him," Enigma said, narrowing his optics at me. It was weird, like he was trying to read me as someone else would read a data pad, "Why does he want you dead?"

"It's a long story." I said, turning away a little.

"We've obviously got the time."

"'Long story' is code for 'I don't want to tell it'."

"I know. And I don't care. We're risking our lives for you, we can at least know why." Damn… I turned to face them. It was like looking at a family, one that wanted to know why I was half dead in a ghost town of a metropolis. I did owe 'em, and if they could find Torrent, I'd better tell them.

"Okay, can I sit up? I want us all to be comfortable." The three of them all together sat down by my little bunk as I propped myself up. Cloudnine was leaning into Enigma's torso and Synthes was on Enigma's other side and they were looking up at me like sparklings wanting to hear a tale about the Knights of Cybertron. I smiled slightly at the thought. "Okay, so this story, like a lot of good ones, starts in a hole in the ground."

"No they don't," Cloudnine said, " They start with explosions and colors and energon spilling everywhere!" Oddest.

"Well this one doesn't have that till midway, so at least it builds."