Hello! Found the time to update, and I may be able to fit one more in before I go out. Written whilst listening to Paralyzer and Stay and Drown by Finger Eleven and Pretty Girl (The Way) by Sugarcult. Thanks for reviewing, TheLoveDov! Hope you enjoy!
An hour's recharge from her chat with Soundwave later, and Twilight found herself hurrying around her quarters, quickly signing the few datapads she had forgotten about before gathering them up in her arms and sprinting out of the door, not bothering to check if it had shut properly behind her, simply waving off the slamming sound as a confirmation.
'I fragging knew I wouldn't wake up in time!' She growled to herself as she burst into the control room. Somehow, she had still managed to make it there before their leader. Before most of the mechs that were attending the raid, actually. Nine pairs of optics locked onto her frame as she hurriedly rushed off into the communications centre, not giving the mechs she'd left behind a second thought. Astrotrain let out a low whistle.
"Man, that femme can run!" Rumble and Frenzy were chuckling madly. Twilight soon rushed back into the control room, having left the datapads on whoever's desks they were supposed to be left on.
"What?" She asked with a giggle as the nine mechs stared at her. Scourge opened his mouth to speak, but was quickly silenced by the sound of the control room's doors opening. The Decepticon leader walked in, followed by the Constructicons. Twilight rose an optic ridge, opening a comm. link with Cyclonus.
'These are all the able mechs?' She heard the mech sigh through the link.
'Unfortunately, yes.' Twilight finished off his sentence.
'Which means that this raid is probably going to be even worse than the last one, in terms of the injury count.' Another sigh. It was true. They had less soldiers, and they were attacking an even bigger base. The very idea was insane, but, when you considered the fact that their leader was too, it made a little more sense.
"Decepticons, move out!" Galvatron yelled, and the group of sixteen Decepticons took to the skies, heading towards the capital of Cybertron.
Iacon. It felt like it had been so long since Twilight had set foot in the city, when it had actually just been a little less than a year. Which meant that it had only been about two years since her team's offlining.
Having nothing else on her mind whilst flying through space, Twilight briefly thought back on her crew. Techno, the communications mech, the outgoing one, always wearing a smile on his face-plates.
Firecracker, the weapons specialist, the one who liked to make things explode, whether it was an Autobot prisoner or a building full of the disgusting faction. Accelerator, the scout, the quiet one who just used to sit in silence, reading a novel, the mech who was faster than Twilight, and could easily keep up with Blurr.
The Decepticon femme's battle mask and visor slid on soundlessly as she hid a scowl. She refused to think about Nightslash, the arrogant Seeker whose fault it was that Twilight had had to bury her comrades and leave four silver grave markers behind the day she left to become part of the Decepticon army stationed on Chaar.
She sped up ever so slightly, bracing herself for landing and praying to Primus - or whatever deity that might have been listening - that she didn't have a repeat of what had happened on that moon.
Almost fainting in front of Cyclonus had been embarrassing enough, and she didn't need it to happen on front of a whole crowd of Decepticons - including Galvatron - and whatever Autobot forces were opposing them. The landing went well, and Twilight was given her orders.
She easily made her way onto the roof of a nearby building, waiting until every Autobot had been distracted by the Decepticons that were charging towards them. She waited for a while until that fragging moron Ultra Magnus stopped looking around - for her, no doubt - and then she slipped onto the roof of the communications centre.
Easily slicing a hole through the roof, she jumped down into the room. She hadn't expected to be plunged into complete darkness as soon as her feet touched the floor, but she quickly shook off her surprise. She crouched down to the floor, quickly counting the shuffling footsteps of the Autobots in the room. She made out three different patterns, and backed away behind a control panel.
She had set the brightness of her optics on the lowest possible setting, but the Autobot's hadn't been intelligent enough to keep theirs the same way.
'Amateurs.' She smirked slightly behind her mask. Yes, she could make them out clearly now. Three pairs of wide blue optics all locked onto each-other's.
They were all steering clear of the hole in the roof, which was letting in a minuscule amount of light. They thought she was gone. In their panic to conceal themselves when she had arrived, they thought that because of the silence she had left once seeing how dark - and apparently 'empty' - the communications centre was.
'Scratch that, they're not amateurs, they're slagging rookies. Leave it to the Autobots to station inexperienced new recruits in charge of the communications centre during an attack.' She straightened her back a little, pressing herself to the control panel as one of the Autobots walked past it.
'How blind can you get when your optics are at full intensity?' She giggled, just loud enough for the mechs to hear her. The same shuffle of three pairs of anxious footsteps.
"W-Who's there? S-Show yourself, Decepticon scum!" She laughed loudly, and then called out in a mocking tone,
"Pretty brave, calling me scum when you're the pathetic wastes of space that can't defend their own city's communications centre." A different voice, but one just as frightened as the first.
"W-we can defend Iacon! Just you watch! Y-you'll see!" Another laugh. Then, quick as a flash, she moved from her hiding place without a sound, to cling to the metal pipes running along the ceiling.
"W-Where did you go?" A third voice asked.
"Foolish Autobot, don't you know that it's never a good idea to reveal your position to the opposing force?" The voice of the second soldier returned to her horned audios, the mech having gained a little confidence.
"And don't you know that hiding from your opponent when you're both in audio-shot of each-other is sometimes classed as cowardice?" She let out another energon-chilling laugh.
"You know what? That was brave of you, soldier." She could see hope glitter in one out of the three pairs of blue optics that were searching for her.
"I'll offline you last." All blue optics went round in horror, and she swung down, cutting the neck cables of the rookie Autobot that was closest to her.
Grabbing the next pipe along from hers, she brought her legs down to the ground before slicing right through the spark chamber of a second soldier. Snapping her head to the side, she dodged a shot from the last one's blaster. She ran towards him, smirking as he cringed in fear. Stopping just short of tackling him to the ground, she kicked the blaster out of his hand before pinning him to the wall.
"Designation?"
"I-It's Meteoracer, ma'am."
"Ah, okay then, Meteoracer. I kept my word, didn't I?"
"I'm afraid I d-don't know what you're t-talking about, m-ma'am."
"I said I'd offline you last, did I not?" Pure horror struck Meteoracer's features just before Twilight brought her claw-blades to his neck and sliced his head clean off. She giggled as she let the decapitated body fall to the floor.
'Okay, old friend, coast's all clear.' Not a moment later had Soundwave arrived, cutting off the Autobot's comm. signals and cancelling any transmissions for help they had sent out. Twilight slipped out of the control room and made her way onto the battlefield, cutting down a few mechs threatening to overwhelm Scourge.
"Y'know, I could've handled that." She giggled behind her mask.
"Of course you could have." Without another word, she had darted away again, offlining mech after mech that tried to stop her. After severing Springer's arm and kicking Kup out of her way, Twilight paused to look around. Her optics widened in shock as she saw a stray gunshot headed straight for Cyclonus, who was too distracted by his fight with Ultra Magnus to notice it. For the first time in years, fear spread throughout her spark. Without thinking, she broke into a sprint.
'He's not going to move in time!' Panic driving her onwards, she barely had time to yell out,
"Cyclonus, look out!" Before she pushed the mech to the floor, taking the hit for him. Pain rippled through her as the blast tore straight through her hip and part of her tanks.
The force of the energy blast combined with the fact that her feet had left the ground to push Cyclonus out of harm's way sent her careening backwards, through the wall of a nearby building, and she bit back a yell as her frame slammed into a control panel in the room she had landed in. With a groan, Twilight lifted her head up to assess the damage. She tried in vain to block out her pain sensors.
She allowed herself to let out a gasp as she saw the full extent of the hit. Her hip was practically gone, her leg quite literally held in place by a few wires. Part of the right side of her tanks was also missing, and she fought the urge to throw up when she saw bits and pieces of herself littering the floor. Then the nausea hit her. It rolled over her in harsh, unrelenting waves, threatening to drown her in unconsciousness.
Everything turned blurry as she struggled to keep her optics from shutting down and she could barely make out her own laboured breathing as her audios slowly began to fail.
She vaguely made out Cyclonus' voice as he yelled her name, his body becoming a purple blur as he ran towards her. At least, she thought, she had been successful. She'd managed to save him, and that's all that mattered. She let her head fall back in defeat. There were only two things she was absolutely certain of as she lay there in immense pain, waiting for the blissful release of offlining to take her away.
One; that being stupid and sentimental enough to let herself fall helplessly in love with Cyclonus had been a terrible idea, and two; that she wasn't making it out of this battle online.
...How many of you hate me?
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of the characters I use in this story apart from Twilight, Techno, Firecracker, Accelerator, Nightslash, and Meteoracer.