Arc 4: 04 Nor the Moon By Night

by Macx

Several Decepticons are murdered and there is no clue as to why or by who. Cyclonus and Silhouette set out to catch the killer, discovering a strange ally along the way. Note: This story runs more or less parallel to Metamorphosis

...Nor the Moon By Night
by Birgit Staebler

Cybertron hung in space like a tiny, gray pebble, gleaming dully in the weak light of its small sun. It had never belonged to any particular system, had never been born out of gas and fire. It had been constructed and shaped through millions of years, the tools of its birth machinery and computers, developed through wars and finally coming to rest under the flag of the Cybertronian Alliance. It wasn't young, but it also wasn't as old as many worlds in the universe. It had seen its share of wars and catastrophes, the latest just years ago.
It had survived.
The history and the results of the last war, as well as the immediate future of Cybertron, made for quite a tale. It was as ugly and grim as it was full of opportunities for the future. The Tji were gone, except for a few which were hunted down now. Counterstrike was happily doing this. Cybertron was under constant reconstruction, though some areas would never be as they had been before. Energon was still rationed, but it was not as bad as it had been after the Civil Wars had died down, had almost come to a stand still.
The Council had tried to reestablish connections to Nebulos, but the few survivors had declined. There was no cure and maybe in a few centuries, their race would be gone. A casualty of the Tji war.... Nebulos had been an innocent world in a cruel war waged against a superior enemy with a lot of advantages and it had suffered. And still did. Relationships to Earth were strained and both sides worked on finding a middle way now. It would take some more time.
But those were political problems and they were not the ones giving every leader restless days. It were the smaller, more petty affairs and every member of the Council was up to his neck armor in work.
And they would soon get more problems......

* * *

At four Standard Time in the morning there were quite a few people on the streets of the old city of Empra. Powerplay had had a long day and an even longer night, spending some time at the space port with his dealer. Rounding a corner he entered one of the many small side streets as a short cut. It was still dark this early in the morning at this time of the year, but Powerplay had no problem with that. Cybertron's small, weak sun did not spend much light and most of the 'daylight' was artificial, coming from the large freighters passing overhead on their way to the space port or the powerful flares in the better parts of the restored cities. Empra, the former capital of this district, was still more or less in a state of disrepair and it would take a long time to rebuild it into what it had once been. Maybe it would never be totally rebuild. He didn't care.
Suddenly he saw something shift in the shadows, then someone stepped away from the buildings. It was a dark colored stranger. He was Cybertronian, a robot, and he was armed. The stranger didn't utter a word as he slowly walked toward him. Powerplay discovered a faded Decepticon symbol on his upper arms. Powerplay warily watched the other; somehow he thought he knew him.
But he never had a chance to find out. The first strike, delivered fast and hard, hit him at the base of his neck, not hard enough to break something, but hard enough to stun him. Then a second strike punctured his armor and he felt something enter him. His body betrayed him a split second later and he found himself with his back on the street, facing the stranger. Light reflected off the strange blade of the knife the other Decepticon had used and his ruby-red eyes were icy cold; those of a born killer.
The blade descended.
He didn't even have time to scream as it cut into his fuel pump, going up and destroying vital parts. And then he saw him. A shadowy creature, wispy and almost undetectable, hovering in the darkness of a building. Strange, crystalline glittering eyes regarded him hungrily.
Then there was nothing at all.

*

He smiled coldly as he fed. A wave of fear radiated from the dying robot and he relished in it. The mass of psychic energy -- caused by his fear and looming death -- he emitted was enough to satisfy his appetite. For now. He felt his hunger growing. He wanted more.
A silvery object clattered to the ground next to the dead Decepticon.

* * *

"That's the third victim in five days!" Silhouette threw the file down on Cyclonus' desk with disgust.
The Counterstrike commander took the creme colored folder and opened it. "Powerplay, Decepticon," he read. "Dubious dealer of used parts in downtown district of Empra." Cyclonus knew Empra. It was close to the Badlands and one of the cities severely in need of energon and repair. He also knew Powerplay by name. He was dealing with everything that he could lay his hands on.
Cyclonus made it a habit knowing who was who and what was happening in the underground of Cybertron and the black market. He was like Kup in that regard.
Now he put the file down again. "Anything?"
The female Dinobot shook her head and slumped down in a chair standing beside Cyclonus' desk. "No, nothing. Just like the other two. He had no real enemies and led a normal life -- for a crook." Silhouette shrugged, "Everything was normal."
Cyclonus frowned. "Well, this isn't normal. Why should someone kill a no-name dealer like Powerplay? He was a no one, a nothing.
"The same goes for a technician and a warrior. They were all killed in the last five days, apparently by the same guy, with the same weapon, but nobody sees a connection between them, except that they were all Decepticons."
Cyclonus nodded and went through the data in the file again. "Except maybe for that," muttered.
"You think someone kills because of racial hatred?"
He looked up into her clear blue optics. "Yes."
Silhouette sighed. Counterstrike, formerly used to strike against Tji installations and for sabotage missions, was now a small police investigation force. They still hunted Tji who had survived the last battle and were hiding out on Cybertron, but lately they were busy dealing with unexplained murders probably connected to renegades. This case smelled like one. The renegades, those robots unable to accept an alliance between Autobots and Decepticons, had been a nuisance at first and were slowly growing into a threat. They sabotaged, killed and harassed, and always hid out in the Badlands again. They were trying to restore the 'old order', a state of chaos and war.
And the latest chaos, well, problem, had just happened. It didn't even concern them; it concerned Rodimus Prime and the doorways. She had heard about an accident happening but Counterstrike had kept her too busy lately to talk much to anyone aside from the Counterstrike members. She knew she would have to take some time off to see him in the near future.
Take some time off, yeah, right! Sil's job didn't allow a lot of off-time, just like Rodimus'. When she had applied for a position inside the Counterstrike team she had not thought it would develop into something like this. Now she was the second-in-command of the small special forces team consisting of Autobots and Decepticons. Her superior and team partner was Cyclonus. All Counterstrike members had a permanent partner and knew every quirk of him or her. It was necessary for their survival and Silhouette knew Cyclonus as well as she knew Rodimus Prime.
"So what now?" she wanted to know.
"We investigate," Cyclonus answered and rose from his chair.
Sil smiled wryly. "Okay, let's investigate. Where do we start?"
"Interviewing the ones closest to the victims."

* * *

Optimus Prime started his daily office routine by linking up to the network and then uploaded his files. A message flashed up on the bottom of his screen.

YOU HAVE 146 NEW MESSAGES AND 13 PERSONAL MESSAGES.
DO YOU WANT TO READ THEM NOW?

A list of the mail addresses where the mails had come from appeared. The personal mails were mostly from the Council members, two even from the Venerakkin commanders Tarakk and Rikkochet.
Prime sighed and typed,

YES

He went through his daily mail and sighed even more when he came upon a message filed by Cyclonus again. From the mail header it had also been sent to Megatron and it concerned the murders occurring in the Tetra Sector. Tetra was the closest one of West Continent to border to the Badlands and it was one of the poorest ones as well. Tetra had suffered immensely through the Civil Wars and it had just rebuild part of the ruined areas when the Tji had struck. Though South Continent had been the one to be obliterated, the rest of Cybertron had suffered as well, and Tetra most of all. It wasn't the damage or the rebuilding, it was simply the energon. They needed more than the rationing provided. While sectors like Omega or Gamma were bad off as well, they didn't have to struggle for survival every day. Tetra was a sore spot and moving more and more to become a part of the Badlands every day.
Optimus shook his head and read through the message. Three bodies. All three Decepticons. And no hint as to who the killer was.
Suddenly a new message flashed on the screen.

RODIMUS_PRIME@COMMAND.WESTCENTRAL IS PAGING.
PRESS COMMAND KEY TO CONTINUE.

Optimus was surprised, pleasantly surprised, and acknowledged.

ENCRYPTION ENABLED, the screen told him. PROCEED WITH TRANSMISSION.

A second later he was busy receiving a briefing from his partner and briefing him in return.

* * *

Silhouette sat on the chair in the non-descript back room of the rather shabby bar, elbows resting on the table, facing an old Decepticon called Defold. He had been what could be called a friend to ParaCode, the warrior who had been killed. Defold had to be ancient, even by Cybertronian terms, one of the few first generation Decepticons who had survived the wars. His hands were in constant motion, his optics fixed on the table.
"Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I'm sorry to bother you," Silhouette started, "but I need to know a few things about ParaCode, find out who did this."
"I'll help you in any way I can," Defold told her, the voice hoarse and sounding raspy.
"Thank you." Sil got out a little plastic bag containing the knife that had been found next to the badly slashed body. "We found that next to your friend's body," she began, handing the bag over to her. "It's not the murder weapon. Do you recognize it?"
Defold looked at it. "It's a bit familiar, but I don't know why."
"From your past or from ParaCode's?"
He frowned, turning the knife over and over in his hands. "Both."
Silhouette tilted her head. "Care to elaborate?"
Defold shrugged. "I've known ParaCode for so long now.... I don't know if there was a time when I didn't know him. We were in the war together, fighting side by side, partners. I think that's when I saw the knife, throughout the war." He frowned. "But not as a weapon."
"As what then?"
"I don't know, really."
"Which side?" she wanted to know.
His ancient red optics me hers. "Ours."

* * *

It was a dark and dreary place, cold, ruined by the war, dirty. No one came here and no one who accidentally did stayed very long. The only occupant of the vast complex made certain of it. Once there had been an energy conversion plant here, but it had been one of the first targets in the war and no one had rebuilt it in the years later. Now it served as a hide-out, a home.
A figure lounged in a battered chair, playing with a glinting, silver knife. "It was a good night," the man remarked.
The second occupant looked up, red optics fixing the figure as if he had difficulty seeing him at all.
"You did well, I'm pleased," the other went on, grinning.
"He had nothing to do with the Cause," the Decepticon said, voice slightly rough from age.
"Oh, I know. It was just to throw those probably investigating the deaths off course." The knife whirled in his hands. "And it was fun, wasn't it?"
"The Cause is not associated with fun."
The man sighed. "The Cause, the Cause, the Cause. You need to get out more and find yourself a better life, Striker." He leaned forward. "And that's where I come in. With me as a partner you can follow your Cause and have fun, and I get something out of it as well." He chuckled and it was a rather unpleasant sound.
The red optics looked at him again, more or less troubled to keep their gaze fixed. "I will not kill outside the Cause again," Striker stated firmly.
The other shook his head with a theatrical sigh. "You really are no fun," he said and slid off the chair, tossing the knife at the Decepticon, who caught it. "And we should keep a close eye on our next target. This one will be harder to hit."
Then he disappeared.

* * *

"Cyclonus," Disaster greeted the fellow Decepticon as he entered the pathology section of med bay, an area rarely used for their own kind, but a lot for off-worlder autopsies. "Nice of you to drop by, though I suspect you're coming because of the latest victim of that mysterious killer." The medic smiled.
Cyclonus and Disaster had met several years back when Cyclonus had been attacked by a virus-infected Springer and nearly killed. There was no close friendship between them, but Cyclonus found Disaster's approach to the alliance and the sudden merging of Decepticons and Autobots into one Cybertronian race a fascinating one.
Disaster had been part of a combiner, a secret project that had been a major failure because of one fact: the five different individuals had never found a way to combine their minds. They had been far too different and when one had left to escape reprogramming for the good of the Decepticon cause, the team split. Then the war broke out full force. Several attacks and bombings had left Disaster and another member of the former combiner, Calamity, stranded in the Inner Maze. That's where they had met the three Autobots later making up the combiner Havoc with them: Catastrophe, Chaos and Overload. All survived in the Maze and grew into a tight and special team: the first Autobot-Decepticon combiner.
Disaster had become second-in-command to Catastrophe and his calm and reasonable way had brought him the acceptance of the other team members. Cyclonus had rarely seen him lose his temper and he was a calming presence wherever he was.
"Anything new?" Cyclonus now wanted to know.
"More or less." Disaster gave him a sign to follow him and walked over to the stretchers where two bodies were lying. "I just finished him." He took out a chart from a drawer. "Powerplay, that's his name."
"Cause of death?"
"Like all the victims: stabbed with a very sharp and very smooth object right in the fuel pump, then sliced open and left to die."
"Knife?"
"Exactly. And no knife I ever saw before." He shrugged. "The stab wound doesn't look like a normal one. It's triangular. There's the bruise at the neck again, just like with every other victim. Somebody struck him down, quite hard I've to add, and then killed him. The blow to the neck didn't damage, just bruise the upper layer of sensors."
"So the killer was a professional," Cyclonus stated.
"Looks like it."
"What about the analysis of the knives found next to the bodies?" Cyclonus wanted to know.
"Like the others we found with the first two victims, this one if made out of silver, ornamented, old, and not triangular, I might add." Disaster gestured at a safety box with warning signs on it. "Both are sealed in there, if you want to take them with you again. The metal analysis gave us an approximate age of the metal from around the beginning of the Civil War. Each knife was hand-crafted."
"I see." Cyclonus took the box. "Send me a report on the bodies," he told the medic. "If anything else comes up, I want to know it first!"
"No problem. I forwarded a report to Megatron as well. He requested it."
Cyclonus nodded, then left med bay, deep in thought.

* * *

"So nobody knows anything about the killer," Optimus muttered. "Security?"
"Nothing we haven't read in the computer files," Megatron answered darkly. "They don't have a lead and word is that the attacker is a homicidal maniac. Nothing we didn't know," he added wryly.
Both leaders were in one of the smaller conference rooms, fleeing from their offices cramped with files, papers to sign, requests hovering in the in-boxes and people walking in and asking for a signature, decision or order. Their latest common problem was an apparent killer loose among their kind.
"What about that knife he uses?" Prime asked.
A dark cloud seemed to cross Megatron's features. "Yes, the knife." He frowned. "The wounds are triangular, which points to a three-bladed knife."
Optimus regarded him closely. "Which you know?" he questioned carefully.
Megatron's optics met his and he nodded slowly. "I heard about it. A phurba."
"A what?"
"A ritual dagger; mostly used by Earth magicians. Its blades form a triangle. A very deadly instrument."
"Daggers always are," Prime remarked. "But an Earth weapon? It's too small to create wounds as big as those were."
"I didn't say it is an original one." Megatron shook his head.
"How do you know about these weapons?"
The Decepticon smiled coldly. "Searching for ways to defeat your kind brought me in contact with intriguing weaponry and methods. One was a Tibetan knife called phurba. Deadly and magical."
"You believe in magic?" Optimus asked, slightly amused.
Megatron shot him an annoyed look and the Autobot leader smirked. Magic was a widely interpretable word and some of what a Cybertronian could do, like transforming into another form, was viewed as magic by other sentient life forms. The Cybertronians had experienced magic in various forms on Earth, either as a superstition, a psychic or a physical form.
"So this three-bladed knife the killer uses is most likely a copy?"
"Most likely," Megatron confirmed.
"But why use an Earth weapon? What connection is there? Whoever is committing the crimes knows Earth mythology or has spent a lot of time researching it. Maybe that gives us a lead," Optimus said thoughtfully.
Yes, maybe ....

* * *

Silhouette was already in the office room when Cyclonus entered. The Decepticon was clearly frustrated. Silhouette tilted her head.
"Nothing," she guessed and he nodded.
"Dead end. Autopsy is the same as the others. Three-bladed knife, silver, unknown origin," he told her in brief words. "You?"
"Natai."
"I beg your pardon?"
She smiled. "That's what Defold gave me. A name. Natai."
Cyclonus frowned. "Meaning?"
"That he didn't tell me. He and ParaCode knew each other for almost all their life and fought in the war together. He told me he saw the knife throughout that time, way back in the past, and all he remembers is Natai."
The frown deepened. "He has to know more!"
"He didn't. But," she continued, holding up one hand as he was about to say something again, "I thought a trip to the computer library might be helpful."
"Well?" Cyclonus demanded impatiently.
Sil smiled, used to his way. "Natai is ancient Cybertronian and the word hasn't been heard or used since the Civil War had kind of a stand-still after both faction leaders disappeared. Before that the Natai were the successors of the Assassins. The details are sketchy, but I think after all Assassins died at Thorkas Eight, the Natai were born and trained. The rough translation into new Cybertronian would be 'Erasers'. They took over where the Assassins were stopped, though not as successfully, and soon after that the Ark left with Megatron in hot pursuit. The war came to almost a stop after none of them returned and the Natai had no leader anymore. They disappeared and didn't resurface."
"Until now."
"Looks like it."
Cyclonus rubbed his chin. "And the knife?"
"Natai ceremonial dagger. Not a weapon, just an ornament." Silhouette shrugged.
"How many of the Natai are still alive today?" the Decepticon second-in-command now wanted to know.
"Uncertain. I was planning to interview Nightmare or Riverdance on that, though I might have more luck with Riverdance. Nightmare was dead for a long time, but he still might know stuff."
A soft chime alerted him that a personal message had arrived in his mailbox.

YOU HAVE MAIL, the screen declared.
MEGATRON@COMMAND.WESTCENTRAL
PRIORITY: HIGH

Cyclonus opened the file and then gestured Silhouette over to read it as well. "Looks like we know what the strange knife is now," he remarked.
Silhouette's optics narrowed as she read the few lines Megatron had mailed and then lingered on the picture attached to the file. It was the picture of a dagger. The head of the hilt looked Asian with female features. The long, flowing hair was intricately carved and the full sensuous lips where more life-like than anything she had ever seen. Delicate eyebrows swerved up and the high cheekbones gave the face an aristocratic look.
"So that's it," she muttered. "An Earth ritual dagger."
Cyclonus gave a low rumble. "Looks like this cursed planet keeps spelling trouble for us."
She smiled. "Seems like it. At least we now know what to look for."

* * *

Samantha stood on one of the many balconies overlooking part of the city sprawling around West Central. The sounds coming from below didn't penetrate much and it was like a small island of serene tranquillity up here, close to the stars. But right now Sam didn't feel so tranquil and calm at all. Something was bothering her and had been for the last week or so. She hadn't been able to pinpoint what it was that disturbed her meditations from time to time or entered her dreams. She wasn't even sure whether it was really threatening or just a feeling of something new and unaccounted for in the city. Until early this morning.
Sam had come to the metal planet called Cybertron several Standard years ago, drawn to it, wanting to be back among those she knew. Of course, she only knew Soundwave and his cassettes, but them she knew quite well. She liked Cybertron, was fascinated by it, and she had chosen to stay for now. She followed the events around West Central, she explored, she examined, she watched and she helped out. Helping was mostly done in secret. No one knew her real face, except maybe for Soundwave who had a good guess already, and she preferred to keep her heritage a secret.
Now people had been murdered; brutally and in cold blood; senselessly. Not that there was ever a sense behind a murder, but this time it was different than most. Through her own channels she had discovered that there had been more similar deaths. Someone was stalking his victims, singling them out precisely, then hit.
Samantha closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, stretching her senses and searching for a lead on the killer. It wasn't her job, but something about this put her off. Something was not right! She felt the victim again, an old Decepticon, surprised and shocked; she felt the coldness of the killer; he felt ...... Her eyes snapped open and widened in recognition. She knew that aura!
"You are here," she whispered.

* * *

"Am I disturbing you?"
Riverdance looked up from cleaning her weaponry and smiled at the female Dinobot. "No, not at all. You called ahead, remember? I have time." She sent the sword back to subspace. "What can I do for you?"
Silhouette sat down on one of the chairs. "I'm investigating the murder of three Decepticons, killed by an unknown Cybertronian, in the last weeks."
Riverdance frowned. "Murders? I didn't hear anything about anyone getting killed."
"That's because Megatron ordered it to be dealt with quietly and without alerting the general public." Sil shrugged. "And maybe you can help me with some background information on who might be the killer."
"You have a lead?"
"No, not really. I have a name, but not the killer's name. Only what he might have been or still is. Natai."
Riverdance's optics flared a deep red and her posture grew tense. "Natai?" she echoed. "Are you sure?"
Sil nodded and got out the dagger. Riverdance took it with careful fingers and frowned.
"A Natai ceremonial dagger. Where did you find it?"
"With the bodies. Riv, what can you tell me about the Natai that isn't in the archives?"
Riverdance started pacing. "You know they succeeded the Assassins?"
Sil nodded.
"Well, they were never born as assassins or spies or suchlike. They were recruited out of their squads and given hard and cruel training. Megatron wanted them to replace what he had lost: his elite assassins. But that was impossible. No one can replace an Assassin. They had been created to serve as silent killers and bodyguards by Vector Sigma. The Natai were copies, weak copies. I trained some aspiring Decepticons in the art of war for some time, but they were never good enough." Riverdance sighed and shrugged. "When I .... left, the Natai were a small group of killers, bloodhounds and hit-men. Just like the Assassins nothing could stop them, but while the old Assassins worked with elegance and secrecy, the Natai worked with brute force."
"What happened after Megatron left? The files say the Natai disappeared," Sil wanted to know.
"Yes, they disappeared. They had been trained to follow a leader, which was Megatron. With Megatron gone they were like headless chickens. The war was coming to a stand-still, with the planet depleted of energon and the fight for survival of oneself sometimes much harder than the fight against an Autobot enemy. There were battles, yes, and raids and killings, but it was all on a very down-scaled level. The Natai, with all their rules and regulations as an elite force, were no longer needed." Riverdance stopped pacing. "They went underground. Throughout the millennia they kept on living by old codes, trying to imitate what had been taken from them, and their ways became almost religious. That's when the daggers were developed."
"Ah, I see. Are any of them still alive today?"
"I have no idea," Riverdance confessed. "They went so deep underground they are but a myth to many as old as me."
"One might have resurfaced," Silhouette muttered.
"Maybe they heard about the alliance by now. News and rumors travel differently and many parts of Cybertron still haven't received word of the alliance, Silhouette. They are so remote and so shut-off from the newslines .... " She shrugged again.
"Thanks for the help." Silhouette rose. "I got an idea now."
"Glad to help."
Silhouette left to find Nightmare.

* * *

"Out of my way, guys! Out of my way!"
"Excuse me, but do you have an appointment??"
"How many were there?"
"Hey, Eject!" - "No time, Silverbolt!" - "Oh, come on, you said...."
"Get your hands off my disks!" - "I wasn't even close!" - "Says you!"
"Blaster! Incoming priority transfer!" - "I'm on it, man!"
Dozens of voices carried through the command center and Optimus Prime leaned back in his chair. It was a busy morning and it promised to be even worse in the evening. As he looked at the pile of papers on his desk he knew he had to spend some additional hours behind closed doors of his own, private office to get all his work done. Cursed paperwork! He hadn't been able to get out of West Central's central command today and he knew he still needed to talk to Rodimus about some of their minor problems. He sighed. There seemed to be no time in his schedule.
"Never a dull moment," Midnight muttered as he read through some files.
The slender, black Sentinel was leaning against Prime's desk, paging through some stuff, shaking his head, then looked at Optimus Prime. "Need any help?"
He shook his head. "No. Cyclonus and Silhouette are in charge and we decided to let them run their investigations alone." He smiled wryly. "I have enough to take care of without trying to play detective as well."
Midnight chuckled. "True. I'll be on Alean for the next weeks and Tornado is on his way back from Mernan. I think he needs to relax a bit, the poor guy is totally stressed out." A grin passed over his face. "I guess he is living through Nicholas' pre-marriage stress."
Prime smiled slightly.
"How is Roddy?" Midnight then wanted to know. "Haven't seen him since.... I have no idea when. Must have been the last Council meeting."
"I haven't seen him since the doorway accident," Optimus confessed. "We converse through email and the paging system."
"He's shutting down the explorations for now, right?"
"Yes," Prime confirmed. "At least until we know what caused this. Too dangerous."
Midnight closed the file and tossed it onto the desk. "Well, I guess I'll be off now. Wild Card is taking over as usual."
Optimus nodded and watched him go. The hubbub around him was rising in volume and he tried to shut it out, returning to his duties.

* * *

Silhouette entered the doorway chamber, looking around. Starscream was present, checking something at the control cube. He looked up as she entered, his face set in the usual annoyed expression at getting disturbed.
"Is Nightmare around?" Sil got right to the point.
"No, he's off duty," the Gatekeeper replied curtly and turned back to his work.
Silhouette didn't mind. She knew Starscream and his 'manners', and with the last doorway trouble he was even more wired than usual. She retraced her steps back to the surface and to West Central, then asked Metroplex for the location of Nightmare. Each member of the Council and doorway team wore a tiny, invisible tracer. A second later she got an answer. He was in his quarters.
Nightmare's quarters were rarely used since he spent his on-line duty time mostly in the doorway chamber or the surrounding rooms. That's why she had automatically assumed he would be there today as well. His quarters were located in the same wing of West Central the Council members had their private quarters and Sil had no trouble finding them. She stopped in front of the door and rang the bell. It chimed softly and when the door opened she entered.
The room she was now in was sparsely furnished, bearing little to no personal aura. It looked like someone had either just moved in or was about to move out. Only the array of blankets and unidentifiable stuff, creating a nest, told her this was not the case. Bat, Nightmare's dragon companion, had made sure he had his own little kingdom -- made out of whatever he had been able to drag together.
A soft sound to her left made her turn. "Nightmare!" she gasped. "One day you'll give me a heart attack!"
The blue and black Gatekeeper merely smiled slightly. "What can I do for you?"
He sounded tired, exhausted, and his optics held the same expression. Silhouette knew he had been discharged from med bay yesterday, after receiving extensive repairs.
"I need your expert help in something."
"Expert help?" he echoed.
"What can you tell me about the Natai?"
Nightmare's optics reflected surprise. "The Natai? Our successors, yes. Megatron tried to train a new breed and failed."
Silhouette smiled a bit. "More or less. I know they came after you and you returned just a short time ago, but have you heard anything from them?"
Nightmare shook his head. "No. I'm completely out of touch concerning Cybertron matters except for doorway related events." A rueful expression crossed his features. "I regret it, but it's better this way."
"I understand. Thanks anyway. In case you hear anything, let me know?"
Nightmare nodded and Silhouette left again. Another dead end.

* * *

The coffee served in the cantina was dreadful. Maybe that was one reason why she had been so easily convinced to go downtown and stroll through the arcades. Samantha grinned. She wasn't a coffee person but once in a while she found the black liquid quite a change from other beverages. Rumble and Frenzy had no idea about organic food and had only been interested in going 'out'. Not that they needed her for anything. They were quite able to have tons of fun on their own but in the last years she had grown close to the cassettes, sharing a different friendship with each. And she kept them out of trouble.
They were on their way to the sky rail, Rumble and Frenzy bickering just as usual, when the feeling hit her. Samantha was confused for a moment, then her eyes widened as she picked up something she hadn't felt in .... a very long time. She looked around, her mind peripherally registering that they were close to the sky rail station. And then she was shocked as she identified who she had felt.
She turned and looked at a human male. He was maybe in his late thirties, at least he looked like it, and dressed in an expensive business suit which couldn't hide completely that it was also made for more than just body clothing. This suit was a multi-purpose cloth, intended to be both for representation but also protection. Sam knew the material. She was wearing the same. Dark hair crowned his head and pale, gray eyes narrowed at her.
"Danyan," she whispered.
"Shekendra! So it is you I felt," the man growled. "Come to mess up my life again?"
Samantha gave a sad smile, though her whole body was tense and ready to move if he made any, ever so small, threatening gesture. "You can do that by yourself."
He sneered.
"What is it this time?" she asked. "Why are you here?"
"Nothing you can hunt me for!" he triumphed.
"Who is this dude?" Rumble asked, stepping forward and giving Danyan a suspicious look. He looked like a weak and puny human creature, but so did Sam and Rumble knew Sam was far from human and even further from weak.
"An old enemy," Sam answered calmly.
Danyan did a little bow, never taking his eyes off her though. "Why, thank you!"
"Give up before you do something that might involve me, Danyan," she said.
"Nothing I do here involves you, Shekendra," the man said and smiled. "You don't know who you're up against. You never knew." He laughed. "And I never knew why the Patrol sent you of all to hunt me down."
"You know why. You are a menace -- even to yourself!"
He sneered again. "And poor little you has to deal with this menace." He laughed. "But you can't bring me in and you know it."
A faint aura appeared around his body and Frenzy shot the man a nervous look. Whatever was going on here was turning worse by the minute.
"I have power," Danyan went on. "More power than you could imagine, but then, you never were the one to appreciate power -- and wealth." His smile became seductive. "You never appreciated what I could have offered you."
"I don't need this kind of power. Not at that price. You need help and the Patrol wants to give it; with no strings attached."
"How chivalrous," he laughed. "But I don't need help. Least of all the Patrol's! You know what they will do? Strip me down to my original self!" The aura strengthened and a ball of pure white light appeared in his left hand. "No thank you," he whispered. "I have my life here and you have no jurisdiction!"
"Give up," Samantha said calmly. "Don't make it any worse than it already is."
"You think it can get worse?" he asked. "Well, you must have a good imagination. The Patrol will hang me for what I have done." He shook his head. "You won't get me alive, Ken." With that he threw the ball of light at them.
"Down!" Frenzy yelled, hitting the floor hard. His brother followed the example.
Sam felt her inner self react and the wings spread behind her, ripping the material of her clothes which molded back into another dress in the process, flowing and shifting. She shot her own ball of energy at him, but it flowed around him without inflicting any harm.
"Is that all you can come up with?" Danyan mocked and lifted his hand. The cold sparkle of energy reflected off the walls around them. "Now it's my turn."
"Uh-oh," Rumble muttered from his position on the floor. The blast had not hit him, but in had singed his back nevertheless! That stuff was highly powerful!
Before Danyan could throw the ball of light, two energy streams struck him, this time directly, and he screamed in annoyance. Sam looked briefly to where it had come from and was surprised, though only slightly. Then she concentrated on Danyan again.

Cyclonus had heard the discharge of energy while he and Silhouette were walking down the corridor, en route to their respective duties and exchanging their latest findings on the way. Both didn't take long to reach the place of the fire fight and both decided instantaneously that whatever was going on was impossible to determine within the nano-second they needed to join in. There was a stranger attacking their own kind and there was a winged woman defending them. Cyclonus was the first to fire a shot and Silhouette followed. The energy of the shots bounced off what seemed to be a shield and hit stuff all over the place, just not the target. There was an expression on the attacker's face Cyclonus didn't like. It was as if he let them hold him, just for the fun of it, until he decided just how to escape.
"He's shielded!" Frenzy yelled.
And then the woman who had thrown her own fireworks at the male humanoid walked slowly toward him. She didn't mind the angry and dangerous energy crackling all around her, not the least bit perturbed by the two new-arrivals.
"I know what you're planning, Danyan, but it won't work. They know you," she now said.
Cyclonus didn't think the woman was human. There were large, gleaming wings on her back, her hands were metal-gloved claws and the hair..... It was alive! He remembered seeing her somewhere before and his mind flashed back to a meeting with Soundwave. He had never introduced her, but something seemed to connect them. He cast those memories aside. They were unimportant right now.
Danyan laughed coldly. "So what?" With that he raised both hands and threw two balls of light.
Everyone ducked.
"Enough!" the woman thundered and Cyclonus was surprised by the power in her voice. She stepped toward Danyan, who watched her with an amused and superior glint in his eyes. "You won't get away this time!" she vowed.
"But I will," he only said and then, in front of their astounded optics, he transformed into a wispy shadow. The spirit chuckled and then .... jumped through the wall. 'Passing through' was a better term, since nothing shattered. The shadow whisked away.
"Damnit!" the woman cursed, hands clenched into fists, wings shaking.
Frenzy and Rumble got to their feet, clearly confused and just a tad bit shaky.
"What was that?" Rumble asked, staring at the wall as if it was an alien object.
Frenzy poked it. It was solid. "He passed right through!" he exclaimed, then turned to look at the woman. "Can you that as well?"
She shrugged. "Yes."
"Who are you?" Cyclonus asked, voice more or less a growl.
"My name is Samantha," the woman answered calmly, her wings folding back and her whole body changing subtly into nothing more than a human dressed in a casual jeans and T-shirt outfit.
Cyclonus suspicion, wariness and also confusion rose even more because the clothes seemed to flow like a living being until they were the right shape and size!
Shape-changer?
"I think we have to talk," Silhouette only said and smiled down the length of her gun.
Samantha simply shrugged.

* * *

Danyan seethed with anger. Not only had he been unable to acquire more information about their latest target, he had also been confronted with an old enemy. Shekendra! He hissed dangerously. He looked at his shaking hands and felt cold with fear. He had used too much of his power and now he was feeling the after-effects.
"I'll get you for that!" he growled, addressing the empty air.
There was not only wounded pride involved in this; there was also Shekendra. She was the enemy and had to be destroyed! How had she found him here anyway?
Angrily he searched for his 'partner'.
"Striker!" he hissed.
The old Decepticon walked out of the shadows, his steps heavy.
"We have to push ahead the schedule," Danyan declared.
"We no longer follow the Cause," Striker told him, voice heavy. "I never ...."
Danyan growled, eyes glowing. "I don't care about your Cause, old man! We have a deal. I help you get rid of your so-called traitors, and you let me feed!"
Striker regarded him solemnly. "Yes."
"Then let's move on. Who's next on your list?"

* * *

Cyclonus regarded their visitor with a puzzled frown, unable to make up his mind about her. He had herded her and both cassettes - who had insisted on coming along -- back to the command center and locked the woman, Samantha, up in one of the observation rooms, which were the most secure rooms anywhere on the planet, with exception maybe of the personal offices and quarters of the Council members.
He wondered who she was. She looked almost like a normal human being, but had appeared far from it mere hours ago. Cyclonus couldn't get rid of the image. Metal, bat-like wings, metal claws and a tail. The reptilian eyes and pointed ears, and the surreal look of her hair. All in all Samantha had looked like a female humanoid in battle armor, though the metal had had a flexible appearance and seemed to 'flow' around her, bending and reshaping, but never losing its steely look. Now she was just another human.
Rumble and Frenzy had not left and were arguing about something in the background. The alien woman, Samantha, smiled almost imperceptibly.
"Let's talk to our guest," Cyclonus finally decided.

"Oh, this is just great!" Rumble growled and slumped back against the wall, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I thought it was supposed to be fun!"
"It was planned that way, yes," Sam agreed, smiling.
"And what went wrong to get us into this mess? Who was that guy?" the cassette Transformer demanded.
She shrugged. "Not someone I had wanted to meet."
Frenzy snorted. "We saw that. Never knew you could do the flashy thing."
Sam shrugged again. "It's nothing I advertise."
"And to top it all, we had to run into Cyclonus and get arrested for doin' nuthin'," Rumble mumbled. "I dunno about you guys, but I wanna get out of this place!"
"You could leave any time you choose to," she pointed out.
"And explain why they arrested you to ol' Soundwave?" Rumble asked. "No way!"
Samantha chuckled. "You are not responsible for me, guys. I'm a big girl. I also wasn't arrested, just taken in for questioning."
"'Tis the same," Rumble muttered.
The door opened. Sam showed no reaction to the two robots who had 'arrested' her. Cyclonus red optics regarded her neutrally, his whole posture rigid and military. Silhouette seemed more relaxed and radiated an aura of calmness, the complete opposite to her colleague's.
"Hello, Samantha."
"She did nuthin' wrong and she didn't kill no one!" Rumble immediately fell into her words. "There's no reason to lock her up!"
"I think that is for us to decide," Cyclonus stated.
"Who made you head of security, eh?" Frenzy demanded.
Sil smiled slightly. "Why don't you two let us talk to our guest?" she asked.
"Prisoner is more like it," Rumble muttered darkly. Cyclonus shot them a warning look and both mumbled something under their breaths. They both left with more muttering.
"Why don't we start from the beginning and you tell us who you are and what happened back there?" Silhouette now continued, looking at Sam. "Why did you attack the man?"
"First of all he is no man. He isn't even human or humanoid. His race is called O'Shaee."
Cyclonus frowned. "I never heard of a race called O'Shaee."
She smiled. "Of course not. They .... normally don't walk among the other races."
"And you know this O'Shaee? How?" Sil wanted to know.
"His name is Danyan. At least he likes to call himself Danyan most of the time. He changes names too often to keep track of all his aliases. I didn't even know he was still alive. He disappeared a very long time ago."
"Do I smell a connection there?" Cyclonus queried darkly.
"Yes, you do," Samantha confirmed. "Danyan is of the same origin as I am. He left our realm a long time ago to live in this world, though he left in a hurry and everyone you ask will deny his existence." Samantha sighed deeply. "He has been declared a renegade because of his actions."
"Because he left your home realm?" Silhouette asked.
"No." The woman shook her head. "Not because of that. You can leave whenever you want to, but you have to know that once you have left, you can't return. It's a decision that affects your entire future." Samantha gave her a humorless smile. "Our laws and regulations are quite strict. You decide, you live with it. One reason why I decided to leave and use my powers to help instead of only watching. I never fit in and when I was old enough to make the decision I left. But that's not what this is all about. This is about Danyan. He was declared a renegade because he didn't fit into this world. He tried to manipulate, to force, to destroy if he couldn't get what he wanted. He gave life to the legends of my kind, because that's all we are where I come from: legends."
"And that legend is?" Sil prodded, surprised by her openness.
"That we live off others, their life energy."
Stunned silence filled the room.
"And it's true?" Cyclonus wanted to know, her voice neutral.
Samantha nodded. "Sadly so. We can take human lives, but it's not necessary for survival." She glanced at them and added, "I've never done it before."
"But Danyan has."
"Yes. He made a sport of it; playing with humans. And that was the moment he was declared a renegade. The Patrol contacted me and told me to find him, to get him back to our world so he could be tried. He always escaped because he never stayed his ....self... for long, only as long as he needed to accomplish his task. Then he became human again and I lost his trace. He also stopped his killings, making it harder for me to track him down. I stopped hunting him .... years ago when I discovered Earth. I wanted out of the Patrol business and quit, but it's my past and sticks to me and my instincts. Finally he disappeared completely and the last years were quiet."
Silhouette noticed the slight hesitation when it came to the time period and made a mental note to dig deeper into this.
"And now he's here and killing Decepticons," Cyclonus remarked.
Samantha sighed deeply. "Danyan has always been attracted to power, though as what he is --" Sil made another note of the fact that Samantha didn't mention what he was again, "-- he can't harness raw energies and use them. That is one reason why he was for hire, for everyone who can pay his price. Then he discovered a way to get these energies another way. Emotions."
Cyclonus' optics narrowed. "In what way do emotions help?"
"A victim experiences different emotions while he is confronted with his attacker and finally his death, and my kind can feed off them..... Raw emotions." She looked disgusted at her own race's preferences. "You see, when one of us changes shape massively in rapid succession, the natural energy reservoirs in the body are depleted and it takes time to refill them -- naturally. But there are other ways, artificial ways. Danyan decided it was worth to try this ... way. And he became an addict."
"What ... like a drug addict?" Silhouette asked in surprise.
"In a way," Samantha confessed, "it's even worse. Drug addicts get only a short burst of dreams and well-feeling from drugs, but the energy Danyan ..... consumes ..... it lasts until it is used. This way he's not going through a cycle of withdrawal."
"Why do you tell us all of this?" she asked instead.
"Because you have a right to know what you are up against."
Cyclonus frowned. "Can he mimic a Cybertronian?"
"No, I don't think so. Why?"
"Because we first believed one of our own was responsible for the murders," Silhouette explained.
Samantha was silent for a while, staring at the table in front of her. "Responsible ... no; a tool... probably."
"Care to elaborate?"
"Danyan never does any of his crimes himself. He uses others as tool, either without their knowledge, against their will or in collaboration." She sighed. "That's what makes it so hard to pin a crime on him. He operates in the background, profiting from it without endangering himself."
Profit..... the prospect of emotional upheavals to feed on. More disgust rose inside Silhouette as she looked at the smaller humanoid creature. Samantha was just like this Danyan, maybe feeding off them right now, off their anger! The Dinobot squelched those feelings immediately.
"So he found someone willing enough to kill his own kind," she said thoughtfully. "A Natai warrior nonetheless. Does a three-bladed knife or dagger hold any meaning to you?"
Sam shook her head. "No. Why?"
"It's the murder weapon. Probably an Earth weapon with supposedly mystical powers and an origin shrouded in foggy tales."
Samantha smiled wryly. "Danyan likes mythology and ancient cults."
"How do we stop him?" Cyclonus now asked, his voice neutral.
"Difficult," Sam confessed. "My kind can pass through solid objects and he has grown quite powerful concerning his shielding and blasting."
Pass through solid objects! Silhouette gave her a strange look and Samantha smiled slightly.
"Yes, I can do it too," she added.
"But you didn't do it when we locked you in here."
She shrugged. "Why should I? I'm not the enemy here. If I could help it, I'd go back right now and have some peace and quiet. I could help you hunt him down," Sam now proposed. Cyclonus frowned. "With no strings attached," she added.
"Why?" he asked suspiciously.
"Because he is a criminal among my own kind and on this planet as well now, Cyclonus," Sam said calmly. "I cannot let him have his way here. And I also like this world."
Sil smiled secretly at Cyclonus' briefly stunned expression. "I want a full briefing about this Danyan," the Decepticon second then said coolly.
"My pleasure," she replied.
And that was settled then.

* * *

Xeometry was the keeper of a whole city. It was a dead city, but it was his. No one came here, no one lived here, no one cared about this once so proud and noble collection of towers and buildings. It had been the pride of the Decepticon Empire; now it was only a smudge on an old map. The former city had been erected along the now almost dry river. There was nothing else around it. The largest building, something Xeometry liked to think of as a the city hall, was in a disgraceful state. It had an impressive front, but had seen better days. Plaster fell from the walls and the roof was missing some chunks. The windows were dark holes, like empty eye sockets.
Xeometry sighed and thought of the glorious days of the old Empire. He had been a high-ranking commander back then, but with the Autobots rising up again and the following millennia of new war, he had discovered that war was not the answer. It had all been such a waste, he thought as he stood in front of the impressive building, optics traveling over the dull, burned walls.
Walking back along the silent streets he wondered if any of his old friends were still alive. He had lost contact to most of them. Some of his memories were fond, some were nightmarish, but together they made up for a nice set. Xeometry arrived at a low building he had chosen as his home and had lived in for so many millennia now. He stepped inside and his familiar quarters greeted him.
But something was wrong. The moment he had closed the door he felt like being watched.
Xeometry took a few more steps, his body tense and battle-ready. Old instincts flared, honed so long ago and still present.
He never had chance
His dead body hit the floor before he even realized he had been hit, that a knife had penetrated his back, had severed several important tubes just like that.....

*

And Danyan fed.
But it was not enough. It never was. When he had finished he turned to his 'partner'.
"Let's get the other one."

* * *

Rumble kicked at a piece of debris and it flew straight across the empty space and hit the next building with a loud bang. Frenzy sat on the box next to him, looking morosely at the mistreated piece of metal. They were outside the high security complex Sam was held in, not knowing what to do. They had set out to have fun with Samantha and now....
"Bummer," Frenzy muttered.
"Yeah," Rumble agreed. "What now?"
His brother shrugged. They both had no idea what to do and neither of them wanted to be the first to contact Soundwave and tell him. He most likely knew about it already. Neither had any idea what kind of connection Samantha and Soundwave shared. He was a robot telepath, she was ... what was she anyway? They didn't know. All they knew was that she was a friend and had never demanded anything but friendship in return. They had met her as a human female but she was no human or any other organic. None had ever inquired.
And now she was in trouble.
"What are you two still doing here?"
Rumble and Frenzy whirled around and gaped at Samantha. She was her human self again. A blonde, slender woman with a youthful face and a soft smile on her lips.
"Sam!" Frenzy exclaimed.
"The one and only."
"But ... you ...they arrested you!"
"And now they set me free again. I gave them all the information I have and they wanted." She shrugged.
"So...." Rumble said slowly. "What are we gonna do now?"
"We will do nothing. You will continue your fun day as you had planned. I will go ahead and do my share of helping catch Danyan."
"Ey, we can help!" Rumble protested. "We are no kid-bots, you know!"
Sam smiled more. "I know, but this is something that concerns me alone. Get back to Soundwave if you want to and report what happened, but keep out of it, understood?"
Rumble opened his mouth to protest some more, then saw the expression in her eyes. "Okay, okay, okay, we're leaving," he muttered.
"We are?" Frenzy echoed.
He gave his brother a sharp elbow in the side and pushed him forward. "Yes, we are!" he growled.
"Thank you," Sam said pleasantly.
When they had disappeared she changed her behavior, her eyes growing more alien. She had told Cyclonus and Silhouette everything she could about Danyan and she knew they would do everything to stop him. Still, she had a bad feeling concerning his sudden disappearance, but maybe she was just hypersensitive.
"Where are you?" she asked softly.

* * *

"You know...." Silhouette tapped her pen against her notebook, "I looked through the victims' files again and there is something they have in common, except being dead."
Cyclonus looked up. "Yes?"
He sounded irritated and she knew why. He had not liked letting Samantha go, but they had nothing they could pin her down with. She had cooperated and she had given them all the information she had, and she had volunteered to help. There was no way they could lock her up and she could pass through solid objects anyway, so why bother? There also seemed to be a connection between her and the cassettes, but what kind? Samantha had not told them, and Rumble and Frenzy had evaded direct answers.
"They all dropped out of the Decepticon ranks and with it out of the war - while it was still happening," Silhouette now said.
Cyclonus gave her a quizzical look.
"All were warriors of different ranks and more or less professionals. All were in the Decepticon army," Sil elaborated. "And throughout the millennia Megatron was missing they all decided to go rogue and disappeared. They had new names, new lives, went underground or left the planet until recently. They were tired of fighting."
"So you think that might be a motif?"
She shrugged. "I have no clue. Just thinking out loud."
Cyclonus rose and paced up and down the confined space of his office. Both had spent hours cooped up in it, trying to find something ... anything that might give them a lead as to who this 'Danyan' had recruited.
"Could be a lead, but many of us despise those who dropped out or fled. It could be anyone. It could also be me." He smiled briefly.
Silhouette tilted her head. "Yes, it could be anyone, but this is a specific person, a Natai. Maybe the murders are connected, but we have no idea where or when." She resumed her tapping again. "We have to get access to all their files, their original ones, and see what's in there."
"Soundwave should be able to get us this information," Cyclonus said thoughtfully.
Silhouette nodded. "And I'll set Blaster on it as well. Together they should be able to do it."

* * *

Samantha stood motionlessly in the shadow of a building, merging with it so no one would be able to really see her. Their minds wouldn't even register her presence. She wrapped her cloak tighter around her body as if she was cold; but she wasn't. Danyan was out there, somewhere..... Stalking, waiting, killing. He knew she was after him and though he might be more careful now, he would also try and hit targets closer to her. She knew Danyan too well. He liked to get personal, had done so in the past, killing her friends and even family, just to get back at her.
She shuddered.
There had been too many deaths in the recent and long gone past; there would be no more!
After she had been released, Silhouette, the female Cybertronian, had talked to her privately.

"You and Soundwave are friends," Silhouette said. "You seem to know each other for a long time. May I ask how you met?"
Samantha looked at her, trying to determine how much she could tell. "We met on Earth," she finally said. "Way back throughout the war. The alliance was still over a decade away then. I was on Earth, helping a friend."
Silhouette smiled. "I see. Jay Davison?"
Her head came up sharply and she stared at the larger robot. "How do you know?" she whispered.
"Rodimus told me about it once. I think you and he talked to each other some time ago. I remembered this just yesterday."
Sam nodded slowly.
"Who was Jay?" Silhouette now wanted to know.
"A friend." When the Autobot gazed silently, questioningly, at her, Sam sighed deeply. "Jay was a special friend, a very special one," she finally said. "He had a rather eventless desk-job, a wife and kids. The Decepticons destroyed his life within a second, killing his family."
Silhouette gave her a surprised look.
"It was an accident," Sam went on. "Galvatron attacked a mall to divert the Autobots from his flight and the building collapsed, killing not only Jay's family but also a dozen or more others. Jay was devastated and moved into the mountains. That's when we met. I tried to be a friend." She smiled a bit. "And then Soundwave crashed into the woods. Needless to say Jay wasn't thrilled and all he wanted to see was his enemy die. It didn't happen the way he had imagined it though and he ended up saving Soundwave's life. They became friends."
"Ah."
"Davison was killed a few decades ago," Sam continued softly. "Motormaster and his Stunticons attacked the town and he was down there shopping. He was run over and severely injured." She sighed. "Soundwave .... well, Jay was comatose and Soundwave did the only thing he could think of: a mind link. He wanted to talk to Jay. Then Jay died while they were mind-linked. I know that Soundwave tried to hold him, but Jay didn't want to spend the rest of his life cooped up in a robot body. So Soundwave let him go -- had to let him go. It had quite an .... effect on him. It initiated a fundamental change."
"Oh.... my...." Silhouette shook her head. "Why are you telling me this? I mean, I asked, but ...." She hadn't expect this detail!
Samantha smiled sadly. "Because I want you to understand. I was close to Jay and I grew close to Soundwave. Being close to someone means something different for my kind than it does for yours. For me it means protecting them at all costs. I was too late for Jay. I don't want to repeat it ever again."

Suddenly there was a strange feeling coursing through her. It wasn't anything definite, something she could put into words. It was just a feeling .... a warning .... something was happening. And then she felt the strange presence; a presence that didn't fit into this city; a presence that wasn't Danyan..... Dark, foreboding, dangerous ..... the killer. All of a sudden she was hit by a wave of emotions, mainly fear and defiance and she was acutely aware of who the victim was this time.
Sam's eyes turned all reptilian and wings burst out of her back. "No!" she hissed.
This couldn't happen!

* * *

Soundwave was on his way to meet with Megatron to give him a personal report on his projects and then to proceed with a new task he had just been given by Cyclonus. The communications specialist didn't like official com lines, even the scrambled ones, and preferred a personal face-to-face report to a long-distance call. It also gave him the chance to visit West Central's latest complex. Some of his cassettes, mainly Frenzy and Rumble, hung out quite regularly around West Central's more adventurous areas. As was Samantha. Soundwave had no idea when and how this friendship had developed. They had met after he had crashed on Earth after a fight with the Autobots, badly injured, dying. She had been a close and personal friend of Jay Davison and she had been there for him when Jay had died, taking a part of Soundwave with him and adding a new part to the Decepticon's mind.
It still hurt.
It had never stopped.
Severing a link between two minds by death was like dying as well for the one who survived the separation. Soundwave had survived.

He slowly opened his hold on Jay's mind. It dissolved into a myriad of sparks, swirling all around him; beautiful life. Then the sparks faded.
He was hit by emptiness, by absolute blackness and an icy cold.
Death.
Taken away.
A wound ripped open.
How could he feel so much pain?
Jay's mind dissolving.
Nothingness.
He screamed in emotional agony and the cry echoed in Cyberspace for a long time.

Soundwave felt a tremor running through him and he tried to banish those age-old memories, but they flooded his waking mind unbidden whenever he let his guard down to think back and touch the part of his mind that had suffered, his innermost mind. Soundwave, a robot, had died a human death. It had been a terrifying experience. He fought against the emotional upheaval and cast his thoughts back to Samantha.
Their paths had separated after Jay's death, only to be reunited over fifteen Standard years later. Now she was here on Cybertron, hung out with the cassettes and was generally a friend. She demanded nothing and she seemed to understand more than she let on. He suspected she was highly telepathic, but she had never tried to contact him.
Rumble and Frenzy loved her and she 'was fun to be with - for a fleshling'. A smile flashed over his visor, brief and not even detectable for an outsider. Fleshling? Maybe. No.... not really. She was a lot more. Ravage silently accepted her presence and was content when she was rubbing a special spot between his ears, and the avian cassettes had never had any problems with her as well.
Lost in his thoughts Soundwave saw the unusual black spot when he was almost upon it. He was a communications specialist but he was also a spy. It was a second nature to him to take in his surroundings, but thinking about Jay had let him grow inattentive, as it always did. He slowed down, frowning. The closer he came, the stronger he felt that this wasn't natural. It was a shadow cast by the near-by building, but then again not. He couldn't put the feeling into words and he also couldn't tell if there was really someone there, but all in all this was unnatural and ....dangerous.
Before he could consider his options, the darkness moved. And out of the darkness came a Decepticon. Soundwave noticed briefly that the street was empty of people except for the two of them.
"Striker," he greeted the Decepticon, knowing who he was facing.
Striker and Soundwave went way back to the beginning of the war. Both had been in communications, but only Soundwave had pursued his job with such a dedication that it gave him no personal life of a visible kind. Then the cassettes had been added to his already growing, wide-ranged abilities, and he had risen in rank. They had lost touch when Striker had entered the ranks of the Natai.
Striker didn't say a word. His optics held a strange, empty look, as if he was miles away and not inside his CPU and body shell. And then he attacked. Soundwave dodged the attack, surprised, barely able to evade the strike. A sharp pain exploded in his shoulder. Another blow, coming so fast it was inhuman and impossible, made him stumble forward and the third attack left him lying on his back, staring right up at the attacker. His body was radiating pain from the blows, some going incredibly deep. Striker, despite his Natai training, had never been able to move that fast or fight like that!
Soundwave's chest plate shot open and Ratbat and Ravage ejected, attacking the enemy. They never had a chance. Soundwave felt their silent screams as Striker's weapon pierced their armor and they crashed to the ground. He tried to rise, his body protesting, circuits sparking with the strain. That was when he saw the glint of light on a reflective surface. Striker had pulled out a knife. For a second, Soundwave could get a glimpse of the knife and saw the three blades that merged into one, very sharp point.
"I apologize," was all the Decepticon and his former friend said, then the blade descended.

*

Rumble and Frenzy were hanging around in the arcades, trying to distract themselves with flipper games and assorted other entertainment. It worked for a time, but both were still worried about Samantha. Neither had contacted Soundwave yet. It wasn't as if they never got into trouble – just the opposite. Soundwave was the recipient of several complaints over the weeks, but it had always been on the level of being a nuisance, of annoying someone or damaging property. It had never been an arrest. And it had never involved Samantha. She was their nanny when she was with the cassettes, she kept an eye on them, and they automatically tried to behave. It didn't mean they were less a nuisance around others, but Sam had quite an influence on them. Neither Frenzy nor Rumble could explain it.
Suddenly the cassettes tensed, their optics growing wide. There was a second of absolute stillness to them, then they exploded into movement.

Soundwave cried out in pain, clutching his mid-section where the knife had struck him. The injury was burning like acid and racing along every neural connection. The three-bladed knife had not pierced his fuel pump, but had come pretty close. Striker towered over him, sadness washing over his features; not at what he had done, Soundwave realized, but at how he had done it. And then he became aware of someone else with the old Decepticon. A human male. There was a greedy, cold look in his eyes and he smacked his lips as if he was about to feast on something. Striker stepped back as if to give the human room and not to see what was happening now. Confusion and pain threatened to overrule all logical thinking inside Soundwave's CPU by now. He felt something latch onto his mind and he screamed silently, identifying it as someone feeding feeding on his emotions.

*

She got the call two minutes after Smokescreen had reported an emergency call coming in – via Cyberspace. He had IDed it as Soundwave and it was something out of the ordinary if the Decepticon communications specialist was calling for help. Adding to that that there had been complaints about several cassettes running like crazy through the streets and endangering everyone, Silhouette had been very interested in finding out what was going on. She had alerted Cyclonus as well and was quickly on her way. What she discovered when she arrived at the location given through the emergency call was a nightmare.
Soundwave lay on the ground, bleeding, apparently unconscious. The cassettes who had been able to get out of his chest space lay scattered around him, badly damaged. The attacker, a Decepticon, stood not too far away, and a humanoid male was close to Soundwave, a strange expression on his face.
Suddenly there was a rush of air and something large and winged descended onto the human like an avenging angel. Silhouette lost only a micro-second gaping at Samantha, then hurried over to where Soundwave lay, mech fluid pooling beside him.
"Oh no," she muttered in desperation as she had a first good look at the wounds.
Soundwave's injuries were severe. The knife had gone deep, destroying circuits, muscle cables and tubes, the wound bleeding off energon and the red visor was dim and flickering.
"Soundwave?" she asked, touching the limp form. She didn't want to imagine what internal injuries there might be, adding to the visible ones.
Silhouette, as a Counterstrike member, had had medical first aid training and she knew what to do, but this was severe!
Something roared and thrashed in the background. Sil looked over her shoulder, then forcibly turned her attention back to Soundwave. What she had seen had been Sam, in her demonic form, fighting a wispy creature that had once been the humanoid male Danyan. She tried to forget about the fight going on. Soundwave's life was more important. She switched on her internal com unit and called for a med unit.

*

Striker watched the fight and then turned to look at the heavily injured Decepticon at his feet. Soundwave was losing energon at an alarming rate. Then the female appeared and he stepped back into the shadows, apparently forgotten.
He had all done it for the Cause.
Erase the traitors; kill them. It was what he had been taught. Seek out the targets and eradicate them.
The Cause.
He was Natai.
Old, almost religious preachings from the millennia underground echoed constantly in his head. Don't let aliens take over. Don't let the Autobots win. Destroy those who have fallen weak and left. It was the Cause.
Something hard was suddenly shoved into his back. "You want to leave already?" a dark voice asked pleasantly.
He turned and looked into the unfamiliar face of a Decepticon. He had never seen this one before.
"Sorry to say, but you are under arrest," he continued.
Striker heard the words, but they didn't really register. He had to get out of here. He had to follow the Cause and continue his work.

*

Samantha had arrived at the scene within a flash. She was not yet sure what would await her, but when she finally saw it, she became mad. Well, at first she was shocked, then angry, the anger working into fury, then raging madness.
"Danyan!" she howled.
The wispy creature that was Danyan whirled around. "Well, hello," he purred. "How nice you could make it." His claws flashed and were suddenly quite real and very much made of metal.
"You made a mistake," she growled, her whole appearance shifting with her mood. Her claws were out fully now, as was her tail. The wings glinted razor-sharp and energy crackled around her body, her hair nothing but an illusion right now. It curled around her in impossible ways. "You hurt my friend!"
"I will kill you," Danyan hissed. "I will scatter your very last molecule over the seven plains!"
He raised his hands and the energy appeared again. A lightning bolt sped at Samantha, who didn't move. She raised a hand, deflecting the bolt.
"You have relied on alien power too long, Danyan," Samantha said coolly. "Otherwise you'd remember that this weak display of psychic energy can't harm me."
Danyan bristled and his eyes glowed red. "Weak?" he raged. "This time I will utterly destroy you, Shekendra!"
And then all hell exploded.

*

Silhouette had managed to stop the loss of energon from the ruptured tubes but it still looked really bad. And she had no idea how the cassettes were. The fight was growing louder and was accompanied by more discharges of energy. She tried to shield Soundwave. Lightning bolts struck the ground all around her, singing her skin. Something roared, followed by a hiss, then a loud explosion. And then she heard the shot.
Silhouette's head snapped up and she tried to make out where the shot had come from. Cyclonus appeared out of the shadows of a near-by building, looking grim and carrying a limp body shell.
"Cyclonus?" she asked.
"He tried to flee, attacked me and I had no other choice. We have our man." He looked up and his optics dimmed at the bright flares all around him. "Who is winning?"
Silhouette briefly glanced at the two aliens battling it out. "I have no idea," she whispered.
She thought she heard the sirens of an emergency shuttle in the distance.

*

Samantha had forgotten everything around her, even that she was not exactly on safe grounds here. She was displaying all her powers and when this was over, she'd be as weak power-wise as a new-born. If anyone decided to take her out then, she'd have no power left to defend herself. But it didn't matter. Danyan had hurt one of those she had chosen as her closer friends, one she cared about like she had cared about Jay Davison, and in a way Soundwave was Jay. Her whole energy and concentration was focused on the man in front of her as she countered every strike and blow with one of her own.
She was more powerful than Danyan because he was relying on something he had stolen, psychic power that was not his own, while she was using what was hers and what she had honed over the years. Drawing all her power into one blow she shot a ball of energy at the man in front of her. Danyan was thrown back against a wall and gave a groan of pain. He was solidifying more and gave Samantha an even better target.
"You chose wrong to take this kind of psychic food," Samantha taunted him. "You know that strong negative emotions, though they nourish, vaporize as battle energy within a few blows."
With red glowing eyes Danyan erupted into a firing frenzy, but Sam dodged every single one of them. Danyan screamed in rage and one of his energy bolts went wide, hitting the window of the closest building ..... traveling along the reflective surface, then shattering it -- outwards! --, raining glass shreds on the ground and on the prone forms of Ratbat and Ravage.
"I had never thought you would be foolish enough to believe that you could escape me," Samantha said coldly.
"I know I can," Danyan called. "For I walk with the power of a god!"
"You act with the power of the foolish," Sam informed him, claws stretched, wings vibrating with power. "And you are dead!"
She exploded into pure, white energy. The energy lashed out and surrounded him.

Silhouette's head came up and she felt the energy -- alive and filled with painful rage. It sucked up everything around it, brushing past her with a greed she had never felt before. She heard a scream from within the crackling mass of incredible power, but she had no idea who it had been. Samantha or Danyan.
And then the cloud of energy bunched together, solidifying and finally transforming into Samantha. She looked almost like the human she had appeared to them at first. Her eyes were still reptilian and her surreal hair revealed the pointed ears. She walked over to them with controlled, measured steps. Sil thought she heard energy crackle with every step the woman took.
She stopped beside the still form of Soundwave, her somewhat cold eyes taking in the injuries. It was the same moment First Aid and a medical team arrived. The Protectobot transformed and started an emergency scan.
"Med bay! Now!" he ordered.
As they moved to drive Soundwave back to the medical unit, Cyclonus turned to Samantha.
"He is dead?" he asked.
Sam's gaze chilled him. This look could kill without eye beams lancing out!
"He made a mistake," Samantha said, her voice alien and clearly a barometer of her temper. She was tightly, tightly controlled right now and the wrong comment would make her blow. "He hurt a friend." And then she walked off.
Sil watched her walk off. "Handle with care," she muttered.

* * *

He was hit.
He tumbled out of control.
The ground came up to meet him.
Circuits tore.
His body screamed in pain and his circuits were sending out agonizing impulses.

Silence.

Pain.
He was alone.
He was dying.
Help me?

Silence.

Something inside of him convulsed.
Ravage was dying.....
He screamed.

Someone was with him.
A friend.
Help me? Please?

The human with sandy-brown hair.
Cold, pale blue eyes regarding him.
Agonizing pain.
"Why do you hate me?"
Undisguised disgust. "You are a cold-blooded murderer."
"Who did I kill?"
Rage fueled by hatred. "My family!"
Trying to understand and feeling he could in a way.
His cassettes trying to force the human to help them.
"But he can save us!"
"No. He already did more than he had to."
"But we'll die!" A weak protest.
"Yes."
Hatred turned into friendship through time.
Help in the form of an enemy.
"Thank you."
"I can't say it was my pleasure and you sure as hell weren't welcome......" Hesitation. "I just hope you won't get into too much trouble with your friends."
Years of friendship, a friendship forged by trust developing between them.
Friendship turned to dust. Forced separation.

He screamed again and memories became more vivid, the nightmares more real.

Distress at the memory of the accident.
Looking forward to meeting him every time.
The time in the mountains.
Friendship.
Taken away by his own kind.
Decepticons killed him!
Emotional pain.

He flinched away from the memories, but they pressed on. In his torment, battling the memories from decades ago, he felt someone else with him again. There were two presences, both very familiar..... Who?
Guiding....
Calming....
Close.....
Help me?
Shhhhhh.....

Who....?

* * *

Megatron closed the report and thoughtfully gazed out of the window. Striker. He remembered Striker. He had been one of his most loyal warriors and one of the first of the Natai. He had been the backbone of the small group, religiously following all rules and commands, an exemplary Decepticon. He would have been a very good commander of the Natai if he hadn't been so extremely rule book bound. He had been unable to improvise, falling back on sheer, blind loyalty, unable to get around it. It had been a handicap.
Now he was dead because his beliefs had led him to kill those he had thought of as targets. The autopsy report had told them that Striker's cerebro unit had been severely compromised, his main program running being the rules and religion of the Natai. He had followed their codes as if he was following his commanding officer. And Danyan had used it for his own purposes. All his targets had been former Decepticon warriors who had dropped out of the war one time or another, except for his last target: Soundwave.
"Why did he attack Soundwave?" Megatron mused out loud.
"Because of Samantha," a soft voice told him.
He turned his head and looked at Sparks, who was sitting next to his desk lamp, tail moving lazily.
"The alien?"
She smiled. "Yes, the alien. Danyan hated Samantha and felt threatened by her presence, so he struck a personal target." She shrugged. "Sounds logical to me."
He scowled at her. "You read through my files again!"
Sparks returned the angry scowl with a neutral expression. There was a smirk in her optics he didn't like. She was one of the most notorious lock-picks, burglars and hackers he had ever met. No lock was safe from her and no personal code was complicated enough to keep her out.
Megatron growled softly. "Keep your paws off my computer!" he warned her - for the umpteenth time. He knew it would be useless, as always.
But her theory sounded believable. That got him to the subject of Samantha. Who was she? Why was she here? What was her connection to Soundwave? He drummed his fingers on the desk. Talking to Soundwave would be the best and first option, but knowing his old friend Megatron also knew that if he didn't want to talk he would be as silent as a grave. He called up the report Cyclonus had filed when he had first interviewed Samantha. An intriguing, powerful alien who had hidden out on this world for such a long time, masked as a human female. He remembered her from a few occasions but he had never given her a closer look. She was just another fleshling creature.
Megatron shook his head. Maybe it was time to deal with those humans and humanoids, not just ignore them. He had come to accept the Interfaces, but every other human on Cybertron was simply a nuisance.
He paged Optimus Prime. They would have to deal with Samantha. She was dangerous and powerful, and even though she had helped them, they couldn't just ignore her.

* * *

Twelve hours after the incident, things were slowly getting back to normal. At least more or less. Soundwave's injuries had been repaired, though it had been touch and go for a while, as had been Ravage's and Ratbat's. Striker's body was in the 'morgue'. Cyclonus had questioned Samantha for hours and Silhouette had wrapped up the last little details in a report for Megatron and Optimus Prime. She knew both would be extremely interested in the alien woman, but she doubted Sam would return the interest. She was mostly indifferent to everything around her and her anger had cooled off only slowly. Sil marveled that Cyclonus was still one piece. Samantha had suppressed her feelings and had answered every one of his questions calmly and in a controlled manner.
Now she stood in one corner of the examination room in med bay Soundwave was occupying, watching First Aid run a last check on her friend, her mind keeping close track of Soundwave's very familiar one. She knew he was still confused and his mind kept presenting him those moments of agony when he had been injured.
It was close> she suddenly heard him in her mind and it surprised her. Soundwave had never acknowledged this link before. She had suspected he knew she was telepathic and able to talk to robots like him who were perceptive, but he had never actively contacted her.
Too close> she told him.
Thank you> Soundwave whispered in her mind.
For...?>
Being there when it all started again>
Samantha was caught off guard. He remembered her touching his mind in the nightmare?! That's what friends are for> she then said softly, almost hesitantly.
Sam met his gaze and held it. She was weak right now, all her powers gone in this one fight. She still had energies stored in her body, but they would not be released until a dire emergency came along. Right now she used tiny parts of them to uphold her appearance. It wouldn't do to morph into her natural body.
It was bad>
Soundwave's statement let her sigh. It had been terribly bad. She had nearly, very nearly lost the fight, but her determination to kill the one who had dared to harm her friend had driven her past her own limits. In a way she had entered a different level because of it, but the price had been high. And from Soundwave's expression he knew what price it was. It was the downside of the mind-link. Some things drifted over.
I'll manage. You just concentrate on getting better>
Samantha turned and left med bay, unhindered by security or any medics, and walked back to her quarters.

Soundwave watched her go, face expressionless, but his mind was racing. She had been in contact with him while First Aid and Hook had fought for his life, and she had fought against his dark memories with him. And there had been someone else, someone achingly familiar, a mind he had know such a long time ago. A mind he had lost.... Soundwave reached inside him and touched the darker part of his past, the most recent past, the part that had died and been replaced with something alien and still familiar.
A ripple passed through him and he drew back. Memories he had once touched and which had become a part of his CPU flashed back.

A birthday party. People having fun. Someone singing.
A dark-haired woman. Two children.
Names and memories of a life he didn't know.
Emotional pain.
The mall. A car. Saying good-bye until later. The car needs repairs. Don't spend all the money.
Laughter.
Happiness.
.......
Fire. Destruction. The lights of rescue teams.
Pain. Agony. Desperation.
.......
Hatred. Flaming, never-ending hatred.

Human memories, human emotions, human lives. They were part of him now; part of a robot who appeared totally emotionless to the outside. He hated and he cherished them.
The presence flowed around him and he tried to reach for it, but it whisked through his fingers.
"Jay?"

"I'm sorry." Sadness.
"Don't be. It's not your fault. Why are you here?"
"Because there will be no other chance to talk to you."
"I am dying."
"Yes."

Soundwave shuddered imperceptibly. He wasn't ready to face this. Not yet. One day maybe, but today was too soon.

* * *

"She gives me the creeps!"
Kup paced up and down and Optimus thought that if he kept on doing it, his office would soon feature a ditch.
"Samantha is alien and she is powerful," he agreed.
"She is dangerous!" Kup added. "Her energy.... it's lethal."
"Energy in these amounts is usually deadly," he tried to calm his chief of security. "I mean, she killed one of her own within minutes."
"Exactly! She is lethal! And I know she is not what she seems! She lives off the same emotions this Danyan did!"
"We don't know that, Kup. She has been on Cybertron for a very long time, as it seems, and she never posed a problem."
"I don't care about her explanations concerning energy being substitute food. She depleted her body when she did those shape-changes and she even told us what this invokes. She needs psychic food to keep her energy household straight. I want her out of West Central and off this planet before something like this happens again!"
"Kup, you are overreacting," Prime stated calmly.
Kup stared at him. "Overreacting? I don't think so. She is a danger!"
"Yes, but not to us. She helped us and she saved three lives, maybe even more."
Optimus knew there was nothing they would be able to do if the alien woman decided to move against them. Attacking her with energy blasts would have no effect and her attackers' emotions would only feed her. He also didn't want any more hostilities.
"We'll keep an eye on her, restrict her access...."
Kup sighed and shook his head at the words. "She is a security risk!"
"As is every alien here, even the humans. I won't order her to be locked up. We don't need her annoyed and hungry. Hungry, if she really is that hungry, is enough."
From his expression, Kup was not feeling very much better about the subject, but at least he didn't pace any more. Optimus smiled slightly. Well, a little victory. Kup simply threw his hands in the air and left. Optimus sighed and shook his head, deciding to give Kup some time to calm down. He really didn't believe Samantha was a danger to Cybertron. Following Soundwave's few words she had been here for a longer time than anyone would have guessed.
His email inbox chimed. It was Megatron. He acknowledged the paging and was confronted with another wary and suspicious Cybertronian. This was going to be one of those days again......

* * *

Two days later things had quieted down enough that something like routine had set in again. Samantha had spent most of the time either with the cassettes or in her quarters. No one bothered her and she was left alone. Her quarters were in the quieter area of Strata-Mainframe in the district of Strata. She had rented the small building to have some peace and solitude and it was her haven when her nature began to react to her environment. The apartment was a small jungle of plants, intermingling with strange decor from other worlds. Nothing was from her own home. She hadn't been there in such a long time, she didn't even know what it looked like anymore.
Still, her nerves were high-strung to the limit. She hadn't met any of her own kind in millennia and could really do without it. Now Danyan had briefly entered her life and turned it upside down. She had given more in the fight than she had ever believed possible and her own nature was catching up with her now. She needed psychic food. Emotions. Whatever origin they had.
Samantha knew that taking psychic food here would most likely draw unwanted attention since Kup was watching her like a hawk anyway. He didn't trust her as far as he could throw Cybertron and she wasn't even offended. Samantha herself didn't trust one of her own race.
While in her apartment, Sam chose to relax and give her body the demanded time in her natural shape. She was a shape-changer with a definite basic form and that basic form was humanoid, though not human. There was a surreal aura around her, her blue skin and red eyes with the cat pupils adding to that effect. Her face was narrow and held a few sharp angled, her cheek bones higher than the normal human's. It could be called almost beautiful.
Sam, or Shekendra, her real name, wore a black, skintight something that appeared like an armor -- full body-armor to be precise, with only the hands and the head free. But then again it could have been some kind of leather, too, because it didn't make metallic sounds. It appeared to flow around her body with every move. The armor wasn't part of her but something that took her away from her own race. It had been an accidental joining between a mindless, metallic life-form and her energy body, and instead of killing her the joining had given her this symbiont. It was controlled by her mind on a sub-conscious level and fed off her energies. A pair of leathery wings was on her back. Shekendra/Samantha was a demon, at least that was what most of the names other races had given her went down to. Another she had heard was vampire. Both names were right to a degree and totally wrong as well.
Looking out of her window she let the velvet blackness of the night soothe her, though it was barely any comfort at all. Finally, with a low snarl, she left the room, walking through the empty streets. The few people who saw her ignored the alien. She was using her powers to warp another's mind to pass by unhindered. She didn't have the patience to change shape into something remotely human and she wanted to be somewhere she could be herself.
Sam arrived outside city limits and singled out a place that gave shelter and enough space in one. This was part of Mainframe, the construction area, a part of the city that was still expanding, still growing. Everything was silent. She loved that silence, but deep inside her churned a dark hunger. Samantha sat absolutely still, all her senses heightened. She was aware of her surroundings, felt the pulse of the planet and the life of all its inhabitants. Then this feeling faded as another feeling took over, roaring in her ears, demanding she let herself be free and feed. She had to.
Suddenly she whirled around, wings spreading immediately, as she felt someone with her. She faced a dark blue and silvery-white robot with an expressionless face plate. Soundwave. Confused and slightly angry that she hadn't heard him, she folded her wings, not even trying to shift back into the form of Samantha he knew. It was a sign of her weakened state that she had not heard him, even though she had just let the whole planet be with her.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"What do you need?" he asked in return, not answering her question.
"I need nothing. I'm relaxing," she answered and heard a growl in her voice. She cursed herself for it.
"You won't last any longer if you don't feed."
Samantha frowned a him. "I'm fine."
"Is that the real you?" Rumble asked carefully. He and his brothers Frenzy and Ravage had chosen to go with Soundwave.
She nodded slowly.
"Cool," Frenzy exclaimed.
"I never hid it," the female demon said.
"You need to feed," Soundwave now stated.
She sighed, not even surprised that he knew about her needs. "No. I'm using energy as usual and it just takes a bit longer, okay?"
"You feed on other's emotions," he stated. "You are a vampire."
Vampire. Such a dark and terrifying word.
Rumble and Frenzy exchanged surprised looks.
"I don't deny that," Sam acknowledged. "I need it to replenish my energies, but I don't feed off negative emotions. I don't inflict pain and fear just to nourish me."
"I never said you do. All around you are people bleeding off emotions. Why don't you feed?"
She bit her lower lip. Yes, why didn't she? Answer: she was afraid she would like it.
"You are afraid," Soundwave told her in his monotonous voice.
"Maybe."
He tilted his head. "They know who you are. Why hide?"
Sam laughed humorlessly. "Why? I have hidden all my life, Soundwave. From Jay, from you, from everyone else I ever met. My nature does not allow me to show and be what I am among others."
"You are yourself now. You were yourself at the battle."
She looked up and met his red visor. There were no emotions readable in it. "Yes, I am and I were. I won' t be in the future. Your friends have become aware of me because I needed to show what I am. Things will change profoundly. I am a danger to your world."
Soundwave processed the information. "There are far greater dangers than you," he finally said.
"Why, thank you, I'm flattered." Samantha hugged her wings around her body. "I'm not sure whether I'll stay or leave. One day I will, though."
"You are welcome to stay," the Decepticon communications specialist told her seriously.
"I appreciate it, though not all think like you do, Soundwave."
"It will change." He tilted his head again. "And you still need to feed."
She sighed. "Yes, don't I? Know any good restaurants?" Sam flashed him a vampire grin.
"Cybertron."
"You can't be serious....." she whispered hoarsely.
"You do not take what is not given freely," he told her calmly. "And this planet gives freely. The spectrum of emotions of this world bleeds off into space and no one can feel it but you." He held her stunned eyes. "No one would feel it."
"It would be stealing!" Sam protested.
"You cannot steal what does not belong."
"I can't.... Negative emotions are what turn us into addicts. They are like a shot, but they don't last." She spread her claws. "I didn't survive this long by taking what isn't given to me voluntarily."
"You can choose which emotions you want to take, Shekendra," Soundwave told her, voice still calm and reasonable.
She licked her dry lips, knowing it was true. Myriads of emotions bled off from all over the planet, evaporating, and she was a creature feeding on emotions, letting these free offers pass her by. Sam closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. Her mind and hunger stretched out and as she made contact, her body sent her a message that was like pure electricity racing through her. She greedily opened herself. She felt light-headed as she sucked in the emotional energy, a blazing light inside her mind, the hunger roaring in her ears.
Samantha surrendered and opened her psychic links, taking in what she could.

* * *

In her quarters, Melissa Witwicky was busy getting her life into order when the wave hit.
First there was a tickling feeling, quickly rising into distant pain, then a headache. She had felt something like this before, after the war had been over, when she had been in med bay. All the wounded around her, the stressed personnel trying to help, the dying..... Emotions swamping over her, drowning her limited skills. Now something like it was happening again, but this time it wasn't collapsing atop of her. It was streaming past, homing in on something...someone ... else. Mel brought up her shields, tilting her head as if listening, and then dimmed her opics. She almost saw the emotional waves and when she stretched out her hands she could pretend she touched the different streams of light. Anger, joy, pain and happiness, confusion, love, irritation and silliness.... everything was included in the stream.
Deciding to get to the bottom of this, Mel left her quarters and carefully followed what only she could feel. The closer she got to the destination of the emotional streams, the stronger her shields had to be. She only felt a distant pounding, a crackle or a thunder like a huge storm approaching, but if she let her shields down, she'd be totally numbed and blinded in a nano-second.
And then she was there. Mel was only slightly surprised to see the creature standing in the shade of a high, partially finished tower. Reptilian eyes looked up at her, fangs were slightly exposed, wings extended. She didn't know who she was ... no, wrong. In a way she did. She felt the emotions streaming from her and they told Mel all she needed to know.
"Shekendra," she greeted the demonic appearance also known as Samantha.
The wings folded halfway back and the glow in the eyes was receiding. "You know me?"
Mel smiled. "Yes, in a way. I felt you."
Sam's eyes narrowed. "Empath?"
"Limited. Normally I can only feel robot emotions, but you fed on so many that I can feel you through them." Samantha drew slightly back and Mel raised her hands. "I'm here as a friend, a curious friend maybe. I felt what you did and I'm probably the only one." She smiled again. "I won't tell."
"I see."
Mell turned to look into the darkness of the tower. "And you can stop hiding, Soundwave."
The dark blue and silvery white Decepticon stepped out of the shadows, his expressionless face turned toward her. "You scanned me."
"No. You know me better than that. I don't scan, just like you never do it actively. I receive and right now I'm in the epicenter of an emotional earthquake. I couldn't but see you here."
"Explanation accepted," Soundwave acknowledged.
Samantha morphed back to her human appearance and inhaled deeply. Mel watched her, then simply nodded. "It was nice meeting you," she said and turned to go.
Emotions were still around her, but no longer attracted to Samantha like to a magnet. They were dispersing, leaving her alone, but her mind was still tingling with their echoes.

Sam let her gaze linger on the strange robot until she was gone, then turned to look at Soundwave. "Who is she?" she asked. "Really, I mean."
Soundwave was silent for a while. "A stranger in both world," he then said.