Author's Notes: This chapter is yet more of Elita One's POV, but the next chapter will revolve more around Optimus's POV as well as the Decepticons. I'm very happy with the initial positive response to this fic. You guys are a great audience, and the reason I keep writing these stories. Please review, favorite, and follow to see more :)

Chapter 2

Our Darkest Hour

The femmes survived, but the world they inherited from their Prime was a devastated one. Elita One appointed Ultra Magnus as the second in command of the Autobot forces, and organized the troops in Iacon to keep them hidden from Shockwave. Soon Optimus would return...or Megatron would. They knew the battle for their world was surely being fought beyond their skies and out in space. Until then, Elita One was their leader, and the wise old Alpha Trion was her adviser.

Elita One was a strong-willed femme and considered more of a realist than Optimus Prime, but this new position was more than she ever thought she'd have, and though she led her people with grace and determination the burden still took its toll on her. She now knew how Orion must've felt when he was named Prime shortly after his reconstruction. Being rebuilt was weird for her as well, and at first Elita hated the large new helmet she had, but overall she knew her new body and outlook was an improvement over the silly and weak girl she used to be.

The orns turned to deca-orns, and the deca-orns turned to vorns. Time sped by, and there was no word from anyone. The Autobots never contacted them. The only solace they could take was Blurr's intelligence gathering missions that informed them that Megatron's forces had not contacted Shockwave either.

Shockwave was a different sort of creature that Megatron, but no less deadly. While Megatron enjoyed the spectacle of burning cities to the ground and publicly executing his enemies, Shockwave cared more about efficiently forcing Cybertron to accept Decepticon rule. He often sent out lifeless drones to do his bidding while he stayed behind in the guard tower at Darkmount and worked on experiments designed to either produce energon or kill Autobots.

Some said Shockwave was so reclusive because he was a coward. Others said he stayed behind to guard a terrible secret weapon. Elita's theory was that Shockwave simply couldn't fathom a world without Megatron, and was staying in that tower to await the day when Megatron would issue further orders for the purple cyclops. In a way, it was kind of sad.

Elita would not cave in to such sentimentality. It was clear that both forces were lost forever. They had likely killed each other, and therefore were never coming back. Her bondmate was never coming back. She had accepted that a long time ago, and now she was married to the Autobot cause and to Cybertron. Whatever it took to free her people, she would do.

At first the femmes and mechs stayed together and fought together. Ultra Magnus had stayed on the north side of Iacon with his troops while Elita One stayed on the south side to coordinate their soldiers coming in and out of the city-state. All was not exactly well, but everyone was adjusting as best as they could.

That all changed when seekers invaded Iacon one vorn. There were hundreds of them; enough to cover the sky! The Autobots were outnumbered but fought them off valiantly. Eventually the Autobots fought them off and kept their city, but something about the attack seemed unusual. A disproportionate amount of femmes died in the battle, and it seemed that the Decepticons went out of their way to kill femmes specifically. That seemed odd, so Elita One ordered Blurr to find out what Shockwave wanted from this attack.

It was worse than the Autobots feared. It was orders given by Megatron before he left Cybertron that were being posthumously honored by Shockwave. Megatron had ordered allAutobot femmes to be extinguished once Vector Sigma was shut down by Alpha Trion! Alpha Trion kept the key to Vector Sigma hidden away to keep new Decepticons from being born, and Megatron somehow knew that was what the old 'Bot would do. Megatron didn't want Autobots to be able to produce merge-spark younglings, so he ordered the genocide of all Autobot femmes!

The worst part was that Decepticon sentry drones were kept on constant watch around Vector Sigma. If the Autobots went back there with the key, the Decepticons would simply take it and use Vector Sigma to build their own army of newsparks. There was nothing the Autobots could do, and it seemed as if Megatron's final legacy would be the extinction of their species.

Part of Elita One wanted to go to Shockwave to try to talk some sense into him, but she knew it was pointless. He was a devoted follower of the departed warlord, and nothing would change his processor now. Their race was doomed to kill each other in a war that had lost its purpose.

When Alpha Trion realized that the femmes were the most vulnerable to Shockwave, he insisted on building a new secret headquarters just for them in order to keep them safe. Elita One had objected at first, stating that all healthy Autobots were needed to survive.

"Exactly," Alpha Trion had said via a holographic projection of his head in her room, "The Autobots need to survive, and without you we won't. You and the other female Autobots must keep hidden. We are not dead yet, and we must be smart about this. Don't worry Elita One, we will survive. Until all are one."

Elita One bowed respectfully before the image cut off. She was technically leader, but she didn't know what she would do without Alpha Trion's guidance. He was like a father to her, and deep down she knew he was right. It was just hard to not be able to solve this problem and to have to force her femme troops to hide like retro rats. Still, she knew Optimus wouldn't want her to wallow in self-pity. She needed to prepare her femmes for the new transition.

The new HQ was...cozy. Yeah, that was a nice word for it. Cozy. And dirty. Very, very dirty. It was literally a hole in the ground, or more specifically an old energon filtration tube that cut off at a dead end thanks to loads of rubble. Alpha Trion had chosen this location because it was the most unassuming place he could find.

"Nice place," Chromia said sarcastically as she looked around at the dark and dusty location, "The industrial waste gives it such a modern look."

"Look on the bright side," Firestar said wryly, "It's still less cluttered than Alpha Trion's home and laboratory."

"Hey, Alpha Trion might be a pack rat, but at least he isn't ankle-deep in sludge right now," Moonracer pointed out as she shook her pedes to remove some of the slimy substances.

Elita sighed, but she knew this was the best they could do. Shockwave constantly sent scouts to monitor the city, so they had to be careful. They would clean the base out during the city's enforced curfew and during active hours would work on fixing the old computers and equipment leftover from their old base. They were the only ones left who could bring forth life to a new generation, and they couldn't afford to be careless anymore.

New life...Elita Always hated thinking about sparklings. It brought back too many memories. They were beautiful memories once, but without her son and without her wonderful sparkmate they only served to cause her more pain.

Orion was at Ariel's new apartment. She had finally moved out of her father's house, and soon Orion would join her. He still had to wait for his contract with his landlord to expire. He wasn't scheduled to move in until five orns after he and Ariel were to be bonded. It was weird that they wouldn't spend their wedding orn in the same place, but she could wait for him. She waited this long to find him in the first place.

At the moment, however, romance was the furthest thing from their processors. He was helping her decorate the nursery for their new sparkling. The spark had formed, and Ariel had it placed in a newspark chamber to await its protoform and processor. The chamber was small enough to fit in Ariel's hands, and yet held a life that would grow to be around 20 ft. tall! While some things were naturally coded like the colors and personality, there were still many decisions the parents had to make. What would his frame type be? Did the sparkling need any special upgrades? What designation were they going to program into him or her?

With Vector Sigma it was easier. The sparkling had everything programmed from the frame type to even their name. No decisions were made, and sometimes the sparkling had special abilities merge-sparks couldn't have. Ariel was starting to stress out over everything they had to do to prepare for the coming sparkling, and if it wasn't for Orion she would be an even bigger mess.

"Um, Ariel? Can we take a break?" Orion asked, "I moved a lot of furniture and could really use some energon."

"Oh, sure thing, sweetie," Ariel replied as she put down the curtains she was hanging.

Ariel led Orion to a chair in her living room. He tried to get back up to get his energon, but she insisted he sit down and let her get it. He knew that doting attitude wouldn't last, but he was grateful for it today. They had spent two joors working on that nursery, and he still had work in the morning.

"Hey Ariel, tomorrow's your day off, right?" Orion spoke loudly so she could hear him from the dispenser room.

"Yeah, I have to visit my father tomorrow to pick up the rest of my things," Ariel told him.

Ariel came back in with two small cubes of energon only half full. The rations were meager ever since the famine had forced the working classes to take severe cuts. Ariel tried not to think of it, and it didn't look like Orion was overly concerned either. He was a pretty easygoing mech about most things.

"Thanks," Orion said gratefully as he took his cube, "Um, wait. Do you need this? You expended a lot of energy on the newspark…"

"I released it two orns ago," Ariel reminded him as she shook her head bemusedly, "I'm fine. You need this as much as I do."

They drank their small amount of energon slowly and in silence. They wanted to savor what little they had, as well as savor each other's company.

"Ariel?" Orion piped up after a few minutes, "About your father. Does he still, uh...hate me?"

"Not exactly," Ariel replied honestly, "He doesn't like you yet, but give it time. He's very excited about the sparkling, though. Maybe once he sees what a good father you are he'll change his mind."

"Do you really think I'll be a good father?" Orion asked uncertainly, "We've never done this before. What if I'm…?"

"You'll be a wonderful father, Orion," Ariel reassured him.

"But I never had parents the way you do," Orion pointed out worriedly, "I was sparked from the Vector Sigma to be a dock worker. I've been doing the same thing my whole life. I was raised by one of the foreman who had a hundred others just like me and only cared about getting the job done. He wouldn't even let me call him father. What if I'm cold and distant because I don't know any other way?"

Ariel actually laughed at that, and Orion pouted and crossed his arms over the windshield on his chest.

"Do you hear yourself?" Ariel said between giggle fits, "You're worried about being cold and distant? Have you ever been any of those things with anyone? You're one of the most affectionate mechs I know. You could never treat your sparkling as a burden because you treat everyone with respect. That's just who you are, and our sparkling would be lucky to grow up to be just like you."

"You really think so, Ariel?" Orion asked, genuinely touched, and she nodded, "I love you so much."

"Oh, stop with the mushy stuff and let's watch some broadcasts," Ariel said lightly as she worked the remote.

She flipped through several channels. They ranged from the news to sports shows to international weather. Ariel was bored as she searched for a movie or something when Orion hollered for her to go back to a previous channel.

It was an air show. The show consisted of newly upgraded adult fliers going up against the new war-make models that were built to fly: the seekers. They danced along the clouds and twirled together in perfect unison. The seekers were naturally faster than the non-seekers, but all had a certain grace and balance to them.

"They're magnificent," Orion whispered wistfully as he looked at the screen; his optics filled with longing.

"You really wish you could fly, huh?" Ariel asked, though she knew the answer.

"Oh, I do," Orion replied; his voice filled with yearning, "I know it cannot be though. I'm not from a high enough caste to afford such an expensive upgrade. I guess it's a silly dream."

"It's not silly, Orion," Ariel replied, "Just know though that wings don't make the mech. Whether you fly in the sky or roll on the ground, you're still the same wonderful mech I've known and loved all these vorns. Besides, I don't think those new seekers are any better off than us. They're war-makes, and since Cybertron hasn't had a war since the Rust Age war-makes don't have a lot of opportunities. They have the same meager rations as the rest of us, and soon they will be seen as no better than we are. Just wait and see."

"I heard they reformatted Vos to accommodate the new fliers," Orion said in awe, "I saw it on a magazine cover. The city is filled with beautiful anti-gravity statues that can only be reached from the air. The city looks like a floating piece of crystal! I wish we could see it someday."

"We will," Ariel assured him, "We and our new sparkling."

Elita One forced herself from her thoughts. That memory wasn't special in any way, but it still hurt. At that time all they had to worry about was their low pay and their new sparkling.

He was gone. They were gone. Her sparkling had been lost, her father had been lost, her bondmate had died off-planet trying to make a better world for Autobots everywhere, and she was left alone to pick up the crumbs of their society.

Well, if that was her lot in life, then Elita One would play her part and do whatever it took to assure the survival of the femmes under her command. Cybertron needed them, the Autobots needed them, and the universe needed them. If the Decepticons won Cybertron, then the universe would be sucked into the war that had all but wiped out her people. Elita One could not allow countless innocent beings to suffer such a fate.

With a determined look in her blue optics, she picked up a bunch of scrap and began to take it outside. This base would be clean by the end of the orn, and she would find a way to get more energon for her friends and troops. They would get through this even if they had to endure the wrath of Unicron himself.