All of my fanfics are kind of on hiatus, but i worked long and hard on this after my writer's block was broken.

So for all my PLACE fans. The next world has arrived!

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PLACE - Shattered Glass

CH.1

The impact rattled Amy down to her endoskeleton. Concrete? She pushed herself up slowly, but the effort was too much. She waited a moment, took a breath then pushed again, and managed to sit up. The first she noticed was the smell. Oil. Strongly of oil, and something indescribable. Amy was more stunned for a moment that she had the ability to smell rather than what exactly she may be smelling. She rubbed the nose-like shape in the middle of her face, and shook her head. Moving became increasingly easier as long as she took it slow. A clatter of metal somewhere off made Amy jump, and suddenly she became aware of how alone she was in this dark place. She stood, and saw a silver moon slowly orbiting by. It filled most of Amy's vision, and parts of it looked like it had been riveted together, or sliced apart. She tilted her head at it as if it would explain itself to her, but Amy just shook her head, and barely managed to stand up. The red-orange femme brushed off her plating, and came away with heavy smears of black.

"Oh damn!" She looked down at her body once more sullied with black ash, ad burn marks. She turned her exasperated expression up to the sky, and rolled her optics. "Oh, really? Am I to assume the universe hates me or something else irrational, and inexplicable like that?"

"An interesting thought." A voice said behind Amy.

The femme stiffened, but then relaxed. "I know that voice." She murmured as she turned. A smile started to glow on her face, but it quickly vanished to confusion. "Hey...Bumblebee? What's with the black?"

Before Amy stood the unmistakable figure of her sparkmate and friend Bumblebee. His normally cheery yellow exterior was black with mere glimpses of the yellow that was once his primary color. He said nothing as Amy scrutinized him, his gaze seeming to scrutinize her in return.

"Can't say I like the black," Amy forced a chuckle. "So, who died?" She watched black Bumblebee as he shifted his weight, and folded his arms. The femme suddenly felt very uneasy. He's mad, she thought, at me? No, some other part of Amy's mind told her this wasn't anger, it boasted something else, something dark to be sure.

"You're skinny." He said, moving his arms until he was looking at a transparent screen that projected from his arm. "You'll do."

"Bumblebee." Amy said. The black mech glanced at her with no regard. "Bumblebee, it's me Amy. I know you don't recognize me, but it's true." She cupped her hands to her chest. "Bumblebee!"

Bumblebee lifted his head, considered Amy for a moment then said something in Cybertronian that didn't sound nice at all.

Amy's brain threw up little red flags, all of them waving madly for her to get out - get out now. Run away, because this for sure was not Bumblebee. This wasn't home. Not yet. She took a tentative step backward.

"Ah ah." Bumblebee said in a low tone.

Amy took another step.

Bumblebee shook his head. "You're not going anywhere." He raised his right arm as it shifted into a cannon, and fired a spiny net at Amy.

Amy held up her hands, and the net passed through her.

Bumblebee shouted in is native tongue then got on his comm., still shouting.

Amy turned, and bolted, not sure where she was running to, or from. What planet was this? Why was Bumblebee so quiet, and black? She dodged through alleys, and suddenly became aware of more than one bot chasing her. Shadows became moving objects, and the shouts and footsteps were suddenly above the femme. Amy ran as fast as her legs could carry her. She vaulted a fallen support beam from a building, and hit the ground running.

"Don't stop, get it! Prime wants it, go after it!" Another familiar voice bellowed. Amy willed herself on, not to stop. Her optics searched frantically for an escape, there was just no shaking these bots!

Above Amy, jumping rooftops, three figures tracked her. One got on its comm., and in Cybertronian said. "We have it, it's headed for the crater. Hound and Mirage are set up for the trap."

The footsteps both above and behind slowed, and grew distant. Amy stopped at the edge of the alley she ran down. Something was wrong. Those things, whatever they were, had tracked Amy this far, so why stop? With minute relief, the femme stepped out of the alleyway, gasped, and lost her footing as the street disappeared beneath her, and she plummeted into a wide, deep crater. As Amy fell, arms swinging out to catch on anything, she saw the city - dilapidated, and blackened, the remnants of war seeping from every window, wall, and bolt. She rolled down the side of crater, limb over limb, arm over arm. The world spun with nothing to stop her, slow her, or offer relief.

Something long, sharp, and thick slammed into Amy's leg as she came to a stop at the bottom of the crater. Amy's scream ripped the sky and ground as the pole twisted, and a mech's voice chuckled.

"I like this one. High pitch, long wind, got a lot of potential. No wonder Prime sent us out."

Amy turned, grabbed the pole, and tried to pull, but the pain was unbearable. Her vents panted, and she tried to think quickly, tried to call on Vector Sigma for help, but the little bits of power were non responsive.

The other mech slapped his cohort on the back of his head if the metal clank was any indication. "Slagger! Not that the Takion she gave off has anything to do with it! So stupid sometimes, Hound."

"Take that back , Mirage, or they'll be cartin' you back in itty bitty pieces!" Hound pulled a weapon on Mirage, and aimed it under the dark blue mech's chin. Amy could hear Hound grind what teeth Autobots had, and felt the hostility rolling off of him.

Mirage was barely fazed. "If you can catch me." Suddenly the blue pair of feet next to Amy's head disappeared.

Amy prepared herself for excruciating pain, and then jerked her leg out of an unsuspecting Hound's grasp. She jerked the pole out, lubricants, and something dark red leaked out at an alarming rate. The red-orange femme didn't wait for Hound to react. She hit him on the side of the head hard enough to knock him sideways then turned, and swiped, but hit nothing.

"Damn it." She held the pole ready, reaching out with her Vector Sigma senses to find Mirage, but he was well hidden. She knew it wasn't right to goad anyone, or bait them, lest there be lethal consequences, but Amy knew both Mirage and Hound had reputations that had her believe they were less than confrontational, even borderline conscientious objectors. "What's the matter, Mirage? Too scared to fight me face-to-face?" Amy shouted out.

Something slammed into Amy's back, and sent her back to the ground.

"You've got spunk." Mirage said above Amy, dissolving from the darkness to his robot self. "And attitude." He crouched down next to the femme, and lifted her head by one of the dangling decorative bundles of wire. "I hide because it's more fun to watch my opponent grow mad with fear before I strike them dead." With that, Mirage slammed the butt of his weapon down hard enough into Amy's head to knock her unconscious.

When Amy awoke, she could feel the bars crushing her into a space much too small for her. It was darker than outside, no light penetrating the space she was now contained in. The silence was deafening, that is if she wasn't deaf after that blow to the head. Amy started to think being knocked out was going to become some kind of trend, and made a mental note to stop underestimating Autobots just because they looked familiar.

Something moved, and scrambled up behind Amy. Arms reached out, grabbed the femme around the neck, and pulled her tight against the bars of the cage, and stuck her with a needle of some kind.

"Get off me!" Amy tried to shake the being off. "NO! HEEELP!"

"Hold still." A femme voice said close to Amy's head. "Stop squirming, or you'll hurt yourself." There was another sharp prick to Amy's neck, and then the femme released Amy.

Amy tried to sit up, but hit her head on the top of the cage. "DAH!" She turned, and pushed away from the side of cage with the crazy needle-sticking femme in it. "What the hell?" She raised her fingers to her neck, but nothing felt different to the touch.

In the dark, Amy saw the dim glow of red optics everywhere, closest being the femme that stuck her with a needle, most likely. In the faint reflection the red optics gave off, Amy could make out the nearest femme glance behind her then look back at Amy, and raise an optic ridge. "I reckon that's about as good a thank you as I can expect." The optics moved off, and the femme leaned against the opposite side of her cage from Amy.

Amy shook her head, rubbed the spot on her neck where the needle had stuck it, and looked around. She noticed all around her, pairs of red optics stared, most of them quiet.

Amy looked back to the needle-sticking femme, and frowned. "Why'd you do that? Stick me, that is." She lowered her hand to the floor of the cage.

"It'll help take the sting away when they test you."

"Eeew, it stinks." Somebot gasped. Amy could see in her mind, fingers plugging a nose. "What is that?" Something shifted in the dark. "Primus, I can't get away from it. Slaggin' cage."

"It's takion radiation." The needle-sticking femme said in a less-than-bored tone. "Get used to it, it isn't going away any time soon." her red optics blinked slowly, and Amy imagined her yawning, or doing something similar. Her optics lowered to the cage floor, Amy assumed, as they cast down a moment then turned back up to consider the red-orange femme carefully. "You a Decepticon?" She inquired.

Before Amy could vehemently protest, a deeper female voice with an unmistakable accent interrupted. "Must be, lookit them optics." The femme to Amy's right, much larger than herself or the needle-sticking femme, moved closer to the bars. "Slag-suckin' goody goody is what she is." The red optics peered at Amy, one narrowed skeptically. "Never seen 'em with green optics, tho'."

Amy glared at the large femme to her right, and hoped she could tell. She could if the way her optic ridges shifted up was any indication. "Listen, I'm not a Decepticon, so put that out of your head right now! Decepticons are evil, and I hate them, and my optics aren't that strange! At least they aren't red!"

The large femme snorted, but didn't reply.

"She still smells gross." The same annoyed voice from somewhere away made no attempt to hide her disgust.

"Stuff it up yer exhaust port, Arcee." The large femme sighed, and her optics moved back and forth as she rolled them, and shook her head. "Yer not sittin' right next to 'er."

"So move." Amy muttered. "If I smell so bad, just go to the other side of your cage." She flicked a wrist, knowing the large femme couldn't see it.

"You say somethin, shorty?" The large femme growled.

"Enough, Chromia!" The needle-sticking femme shouted in disgust. "Arguing doesn't change that we're all here."

"Uppity little-! Don' you tell me that, Firestar!" Chromia hit the bars of her cage, eliciting blue sparks.

"ZIPFILE IT!" Firstar shouted. Then in a quieter voice said. "They're coming back soon."

"I'm not afraid of them!" Arcee stomped her foot or something if the rattling of metal was any indication. "Let them torture me, it's better than sitting around in this tiny cage all day."

"I am." Whispered a voice so near to Amy, it made her jump.

"You'll wish you had that cage when they do come after you." Chromia laughed in a derisive way. "Better you than me!"

Amy searched the darkness for the owner of the tiny voice. She turned, and looked behind her, and two little blue optics stared up at Amy from the floor of the next cage.

"They come and take a bunch of femmes away. I hear them screaming all the way from the citadel." She must've been laying on the bottom of her cage because an arm or something blocked one side of her face. "Some of them come back just missing a limb if they're lucky."

"Lucky? HA!" Chromia barked. "The dead ones, they're lucky."

The little femme sat up, and shook her head. "None of them die. If they don't come back, that means Ratchet got 'em."

Heavy silence filled the air. It was the same pregnant silence that had developed when Tarantulus was spoken of back home.

Amy chuckled nervously to break the silence. "Why would you say that? Ratchet is a good doctor. He healed me, and has helped numerous bots get back on their feet." Her retort was met with more silence. "Hasn't he?"

Heavy laughter bore down on amy as dim light came on. Standing in the only large doorway into the room, an ominous shadow, a mech, stood with his arms folded. "You must be the prey caught out in the crater." He lumbered forward with a slight limp. Amy had seen that limp on one other mech, in two different realities.

"Ironhide?" Amy gasped, her green optics growing wide.

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Uh oh. Evil 'Hide. o-O

TBC, so stay tuned! :D