Chapter 20

"Are you sure you don't want to come? I'm sure one of Jaune's sisters can take care of the baby," Ruby said to Pyrrha as she, Jaune, Nora, and Ren remained on the tarmac behind the Crimson Nebula, whose new engines were thrumming with untold amounts of power as Weiss finished prepping the first Remnant origin space craft for take-off. The Twilight had already left with Changewing and the Reds and Blues, and Anakin was waiting for them all in orbit.

"We'll be fine without a little adventure, Ruby," Pyrrha replied.

"Yeah," said Jaune. "Besides, someone has to watch the school and make sure Cinder doesn't take over while we're gone."

"Good point, Jaune. Be careful, and watch out for my moms, okay? I don't know what I'd do if I lost either of them again."

"We'll watch them, Ruby," Ren said in a moment of speech. Nora, meanwhile, was uncharacteristically silent. When Ruby gave her a questioning look, Nora simply smiled with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Okay then, guys. Take care of the planet for us."

"Will do, Fearless Leader," said Jaune, as they turned to vacate the runway that would soon be the site of the Nebula's first launch with super-luminal (technically) flight.

Once the Reaper had reached the cockpit, Weiss handed her a headset so they could talk without having to shout, as the cockpit was not as sound-proof as the cabin.

"Alright, Weissy, what's left to do?"

"Just a manual control test, I already took care of the Autopilot and the test firing of the Dust."

"Alright; ailerons, check; rudders, check; elevators, check; control jets, check; manual override, check. This is a pretty damn good ship, Weiss. Let's get going."

Ruby put her hand on the throttle and started easing forward, allowing the turbo-ramjets' turbines to begin cycling up. Once they reached what her indicators told her was "safe operating speed", she released the parking brake and took full control of the ship. As the craft started moving forward, she slowly pushed the throttles even further forward, allowing the ship to start moving down the runway incredibly fast, before the Reaper pulled back on the yoke and lifted the ship into the air.

As she climbed through Remnant's atmosphere and breached her ship's old maximum altitude, the engines began to cough as they were expected to. To combat this, Weiss reached over and pulled a lever which completely closed the forward intakes and opened up the pump to the mega crystal of Air Dust. Once the engines had completed their transition, Ruby fired the after-burners to catch up with the Twilight.

"Attention, Commander Tano and General Skywalker, this is the Crimson Reaper. We'll see you at Cybertron," said Weiss as she used the ship's computer to single out Cybertron's gravitational field. Once she finished that, she activated the White crystal and the Gravity drive, which caused time to drastically slow down for those aboard.

"Alright, Ruby; time to break physics, again. Point her at the 'ground' and open her up!"

Ruby smirked her little half smirk as she did just that.

A/N: "sampletext" is someone else speaking through a Spark-Bond. "sampletext" is the main focus speaking through a spark bond. Even though Changewing is talking to two people, it seems like he's talking to one because they actually basically are the same person with minor memory differences and personality quirks.

"Attention, Twilight crew, prepare for lightspeed. Repeat, prepare for lightspeed," said Epsilon over the intercom.

Changewing sighed. He was finally going back to his home-world. He hadn't seen another Cybertronian for too long. From what he'd heard, though, things weren't going well for the Autobots. All of their holdings, from Altihex to Tyger Pax, had been lost. Even the main fort outside of Iacon had been sacked. All they had left was the one spaceport and its defenses, which were meager at best as far as the green triple-changer could remember.

"Don't worry, Wings. We're doing fine, for now. Optimus wants you and any forces you've brought to run the blockade and begin defending Iacon. If we don't even have to launch the Ark it will be a victory. Once we've stabilized Iacon, we can start taking other things back."

"That's good to hear, Silver. Where's Mercury?"

"I'm here, too. Ratchet just told me to tell you that there is a wrench with your name on it when you get back for the amount of injuries you've accrued."

"And how does he know of my injuries?"

"…No reason."

"Sadist."

"Masochist."

"Guys. Regardless of Wings's fate upon his arrival, we have to discuss landing strategies."

"I know that at least I and one other ship are fast enough to punch through the blockade, but we have two destroyers waiting to rendezvous with us outside of Cybertron's sphere of influence. I don't think they have enough firepower or enough speed to make it through intact enough to be of use."

"Let me ask Optimus about that."

Changewing stuttered his vents in frustration. He'd actually been struggling with that predicament for a while now. The only thing that he could think of is either somehow disabling Soundwave and sneaking in, or having someone on the surface that was much more important than Autobot reinforcements attempt to leave at the same time, forcing the blockade to focus on two targets rather than one, and thus being able to deal with.

"Optimus says that he thinks something Jazz did a few days ago might help."

"What's he got?"

"He says that he has had Slicer infiltrate the Decepticon ranks. He's currently able to cause a distraction in Kaon, which should force the Decepticon Armada and their Armies to withdraw."

"What distraction could Slicer do?"

"He's going to lead the Wreckers, some of our team, and the Dinobots to kidnap Soundwave and hold their spacebridge and Sounders hostage. With Megatron currently AWOL, Starscream will have no choice but to pursue them."

"That's a bold plan, even for Slicer. Who actually came up with it and who sanctioned it?"

"Charger did, and Dreadwing sanctioned it."

"Of course, with prodding from Charger, Spectre, and Skyquake I'm sure."

"Oh, absolutely," replied Quicksilver and Mercury at the same time.

"How is Angel doing?"

"She still misses you. Why you insisted on leaving your deployer behind I will never understand."

"You know, I almost offlined from Energon deprivation, right?"

"WHAT?! AND WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO TELL US THAT?"

Changewing flinched; and even though he couldn't hear them, his audio receptors began ringing from the force of the Twins' mental shout.

"I was going to tell you face to face so you could have just hit me rather than scream so loud it actually affected me at this distance."

"I cannot believe you. Well, no, actually I can. Which makes you that much more infuriating."

"Must suck, being in love with a mech you get mad at so easily."

"Well, we're not mad. We can never stay mad at you; we're just scared for you. Are you sure you want to continue to wait until the War is over to become Sparkmates?"

"I wish it didn't have to be this way, but if we become Sparkmates and any one of us dies, all three of us die; and since Flashback's abilities are being blocked I don't want to take any chances. Besides, fifty percent of Sparkmating Ceremonies cause sparklings, and an even higher percentage for 'matings between Split-Sparks and their One. We can't handle a child in the middle of a war; look at how we've grown up and we were Sparked before the War."

"Okay, Wings. We understand. We just want this stupid war to be over soon."

"You and me, three."

A/N: yay double update. I'm getting back into my stride; let's see how long this lasts. Also, The Crimson Nebula, while it is a VTOL, it is much safer for it to use wheels like modern day aircraft because Turbo-ramjets don't exactly have reverse thrust, so without the braking power of chutes, wheels, and dragfins, it would be nearly impossible to stop it from hyper-sonic flight while still in the air. Also it saves energy.