Well editing obviously took a little longer then I expected...sorry about that. I really wish I'd gotten this up yesterday, but once again my brain wouldn't focus for nothing. That and I also may have gotten sucked into playing Transformers Legends all night...n_n; But here's a nice long chapter to make it up to you! The past few weeks have been...weird so...yeah.
Thank you though to Flarefox, Fallen Angel 1243, Cloud-Dancer103, Autobot-Bre, Bee4ever, and PepperCornPie for your reviews though! And everyone else who favorited and such. It made these last few weeks a little bit brighter overall, so thank you all so much!
I hope you like the newest installment of The Long Road Home and I hope you'll all review! We're almost to 300! o.O Now there's something worth boggling at! x3
...
The Long Road Home
34 – What Lies Beneath – 34
There were lots of entrances to the Underworld, little holes that seemed to appear out of nowhere over night. Dank, shadowy openings that were revealed after buildings had collapsed that not even the Decepticons went near. But the most direct way to the Core lay through the Well of AllSparks.
Aria sat stiffly in Ironhide's passenger seat as they approached the edge of the chasm that marked the Well of AllSparks. The long drive had been silent and she knew without having to ask that everyone was on edge. The Well didn't have any tactical advantage after it had sealed itself off in the early stages of the war, so technically they were out in no-man's land. But that didn't make it any less dangerous than going directly into Decepticon territory. The 'cons liked to come out here occasionally, looking for any neutrals that might be seeking safety near the Well of AllSparks.
But so far they hadn't picked up any other life forms. Even the few animals that were still clinging to life out here didn't come near the Well. Like they thought it was unnatural for the Well to be shut. Or they were afraid of whatever else might be lurking around at the bottom of the chasm.
Aria shuddered. Even after being with the bots all this time, she'd never heard them mention any Underworld before. And her imagination was running rampant with creepy, crawly things as she wondered what could possibly be so bad that it creeped the Autobots out to this extent.
Aria finally couldn't stand the silence any longer. "So what's with this Underworld place?" She whispered to Ironhide, unable to shake the feeling that she should keep her voice down. "Why's everyone so scared to even go down there?"
She felt Ironhide 'look' at her as he rolled across the rough terrain, making Aria bounce and jolt where she sat. Not for the first time she wished that the Transformers had invented seat belts for...whatever kind of passengers their alt-modes had been designed for.
"It's not so much the place," Ironhide told her, also keeping his voice low, "as what's living down there."
Aria waited, trying to find a good grip on the dash so she wouldn't be bounced into the window again, but Ironhide didn't elaborate quick enough for her liking.
"So," she asked expectantly, "what's down there?"
A deep throated, "Hrmmm..." went through the cab as Ironhide debated whether he should tell her this now or if it would only scare her into not going down at all.
"There are lots of stories," he finally said, figuring that she should at least have an idea of what she was getting herself into, "some bots say that they're Transformers whose sparks got sucked into the Underworld before they got out of the Well. Others say that it's only the bad sparks that get pulled down there. Some of the old timers even think that the things down there were the first creations of Primus."
Aria raised her eyebrows at the steering wheel. "Older than you?" She asked.
Ironhide gave her a somewhat sarcastic rumble of laughter. "Watch it short stuff." He growled without any real anger. But he sobered quickly. "The only thing anyone seems to agree on is that they're...terrible. Monsters living down in the subterranean levels of the planet. No one goes down there if they can help it."
Aria looked up and out the window at the dry, barren scenery rolling past them. "Great..." she mumbled, "I mean, if the Well of AllSparks didn't shunt Megatron's spark down there in the first place, what kind of psychos did it send away?"
Ironhide was silent for a moment. "...I try not to think about that." He eventually admitted.
Aria tried to think of what kind of creature in the known universe could scare a bot like Ironhide, and immediately regretted it.
She swallowed hard. "But you've been down there before right? Have you ever seen one of these...monsters?"
"Not up close." Ironhide told her. "I was only called down a handful of times when I was in Praxus, and that was only when some bot disappeared and others were saying that they'd been dragged away by the creatures."
"Were they?" Aria asked hesitantly.
"Nah," Ironhide told her, "nine times out of ten it was just bots gettin' hysterical. Most of the time it was the usual kind of criminal you'd expect. Kidnappers and murders, things like that. Though there were a couple 'a runaways too."
Aria watched him nervously. "M-most of the time?"
Ironhide heaved a sigh, but then they hit a pothole and the sound was cut off short. Ironhide grunted at the impact and Aria's head hit the top of the cab with a loud smack.
"First time I was ever called down there," Ironhide went on as Aria rubbed at her head, "a kid and his mech creator disappeared around the mouth of a cave entrance that connected with the Underworld farther down. We found the kid maybe 'bout," he made a thoughtful noise, "half-mile into the cave. He was hidin' out behind a cluster of stalagmites, jumpin' at every shadow. Screamed at first when he saw us." He mumbled, remembering the state the youngling had been in when they'd finally found him after almost a day and a half of searching.
"And his dad?" Aria asked after a moment.
Ironhide shook himself slightly, nearly sending Aria into the window again, as he came back to the present. "His frame wasn't far away." He told her darkly. "Looked like it'd been torn to pieces by something."
Aria cringed, looking slightly sick at the idea.
"Anyway," Ironhide said after another silent moment of remembering, "even after we got the youngen out of there, he kept insisting some sort of monster had attacked them. Apparently they had gone hiking around the cave mouth and somethin' came chargin' at them from behind. They tried to hide in the cave, but the monster-thing got the mech. The kid hid while the thing was...busy."
Aria grimaced, feeling sorry for the youngling. "So..." she asked slowly, not really wanting to finish the question because she felt a little foolish asking about the Cybertronian equivalent of Big Foot or the Chupacabra or whatever the heck this was.
She felt Ironhide look at her. "So what?" He asked tightly.
Aria hunched over slightly in her seat, leaning closer to the dash as she whispered. "You know. Did you..." she lowered her voice more, "see anything?"
Ironhide seemed to blink, despite the fact that he was a truck. "Oh." He grumbled as he avoided another patch of bumpy ground. "No, none of us saw any monsters."
But there had been a shadow on the back of the cave wall. A lean, tall shadow of a hunched over form with scraggly arms and legs that ended in what had looked to be knife-shaped claws. That, and a noise that they had told themselves was just the wind rushing towards the back of the cave.
Ironhide shook himself again, putting the thought firmly to the side. He was being ridiculous. There were no such things as monsters. There were only cruel bots and weak processors that would believe anything.
They were close to the Well of AllSparks now and they spent the rest of the drive in silence, each member of the small party keeping a careful eye out for any Decepticons, or anything else that just might happen to be out there.
Optimus called a halt when they reached the edge of the chasm. Aria climbed out of Ironhide's cab, her feet hitting the dusty gravel with a crunch before she backed away to give the black mech enough room to transform.
As Optimus and Ironhide found their feet, Aria craned her neck back to look at the sky overhead, shielding her eyes with a hand despite the gray light that surrounded them. For a long cycle she didn't see anything except flat gray sky, but then a small speck of movement caught her attention. She focused on the darker colored speck as it wheeled lower and lower in large sweeping loops until it eventually materialized into the winged form of Peg, Nathanial sitting behind her wiry neck.
As they continued their descent, Cloudraker appeared through the heavy clouds as well, his blue accents standing out brightly against the dull sky. Unlike Peg and Nathanial, he came down in a more or less straight line, transforming at the last instant and hitting the ground with a muted thud, boots first. Peg wasn't far behind him, landing with a couple back sweeps of her wings to kill her forward momentum.
As Nathanial dismounted, Aria looked away, frowning as she carefully looked over the side of the chasm. She tried to focus solely on the uneven cut in the ground that housed the Well of AllSparks, but some part of her was still aware of the other human as he and Peg drifted closer to inspect the Well with her.
Once she actually saw the state the Well was in though, she felt her spark-heart sink into her stomach. The one and only time she'd seen the Well of AllSparks was ingrained so deep into her memory that she still remembered it like it was yesterday. The fear as she fell over the edge, dragged down by a malicious mini-con, her long trek through the red-tinted darkness of the Well, the marvel at finding the spark chamber, finding the younglings' seven sparks and little Bluestreak hiding down in the caverns.
The memory was so strong that for a moment she felt the heat of the lava hitting her face, making her sweat.
But the molten river of metal had dried up since she'd last been here, leaving behind an ash gray cut in the ground, dry and dead like the rest of Cybertron.
Aria tried not to shake at the sight. Of course she had heard that the Well was closed. She had just never realized what that meant until now.
Next to her, Nathanial was inspecting the chasm as well, but with more purpose than Aria. "There," he said, pointing at something to Aria's left, "I take it that's our entrance?"
Slowly, Aria closed her eyes and made herself turn away from the dried up Well. She followed Nat's finger to the far end of the chasm and found herself blinking in surprise.
"Huh," she mumbled, "never noticed that before."
That was, in fact, a giant crack in the far end of the chasm, near what she supposed had once been the source of the Well of AllSparks. 'Crack' was a misleading name because it was still tall enough that Omega Supreme could have fit through it quite comfortably if he'd been here, but otherwise it looked like just any other ragged hole you would find in the side of a cliff.
But it gave Aria the creeps. Maybe it was Ironhide's story, maybe it was her own wild imagination, but goose bumps rose up on her arms and she shivered, suddenly cold.
Nathanial must have noticed because he suddenly said, "Here, you can have my jacket if you're cold."
She had been so focused on the Well and the cave and the idea of the Underworld that Aria had forgotten he was standing that close to her. She startled, spinning around with wide eyes, the sudden change in balance nearly sending her toppling backwards into the dried up Well. Both Nat and Peg jumped forward, Nathanial snagging her wrist as Peg clamped onto Aria's shirt with her teeth. Between the two of them, Aria managed to keep her feet on the solid ground instead of flying backwards into empty air.
Still anchored by Peg and Nathanial, she carefully looked over her shoulder just in time to see a few small rocks go bouncing along the steep side of the cliff.
Heart pounding at the thought that that could have been her, Aria quickly stumbled away from the edge, yanking her hand and body away from the other human and techno-organic.
She was shivering all over now. She'd been terrified of heights since she's fallen out of a window when she was three, but after living with the bots for so long, she'd gotten used to dealing with them. Now though... Now she wanted to crawl into a two-dimensional universe and never come back.
"Sorry, Aria, sorry," she eventually registered Nathanial's voice. She looked up and saw he looked almost as shaken as she did as he tried to struggle the rest of the way out of his jacket.
She swallowed past a dry mouth. "Keep it," she told him, "it's probably hot down there anyway."
She didn't realize she'd snapped until after she'd said anything, but her heart was busy trying to crawl its way out her throat so she didn't get a chance to say anything else.
With a miserable little groan, she sank down to the ground and put her head down to try and get rid of the dizziness that was currently making her head spin. Her hearing felt slightly distorted as she heard Nathanial tell Optimus that he would take Peg down into the chasm to check out the surroundings.
She didn't say anything until after she'd heard the creak of leather and flap of wings that meant Peg and Nat had disappeared into the Well.
"Oh Lord," she mumbled breathlessly, one hand pressed over her rapidly thumping heart, "I hate heights."
"Yeah," Cloudraker said, sounding a little surprised, "we noticed."
"Are ya sure it was the height that scared ya?" Ironhide asked.
Aria frowned up at him, daring to lift her head away from the safety of the ground. Was he...mad at her?
"He took me by surprise is all." She grumbled defensively. "I forgot he was there."
Ironhide snorted. Obviously he thought there was more to it than that. "If you don't think you can handle bein' around him Aria-" he started.
"Now wait just a minute!" Aria cut him off as she climbed, still somewhat shakily, to her feet, "I haven't said anything about him being here. And I'm not the one making a big fuss about the two of us working together!" She shot Ironhide a meaningful glare.
"You haven't said two words to 'im since he told us about the lens." Ironhide told her, voice rising slightly.
"Why should I?!" Aria yelled back.
"Enough!" Optimus' steady voice cut through the argument. Aria and Ironhide immediately snapped their mouths shut as the big mech looked first at one, then the other. "We're not here to argue." He finally said. "I suggest the two of you sort this out when we get back to Iacon. Right now," he stressed the word, "we need to worry more about getting to the Core."
Ironhide and Aria nodded to show they understood, Aria looking away in embarrassment at losing her cool like that. A quick glance at her bond with the gruff old mech told her that Ironhide wasn't too pleased with his own actions either.
She tugged briefly at their line to show she didn't hold it against him. He nudged her with a digit to show the same thing.
The whoosh of wings against air told them that Nat and Peg had returned. Aria looked up just in time to see them arrow up over the edge of the chasm. Peg stiffened her wings to keep from rising much higher before she turned and landed expertly at the bots' feet.
"There was nothing that I could see." Nat told them, not bothering to dismount this time. "No guards, no cons, no monsters. Just a dark empty hole in the wall."
Optimus nodded. "Good," he said. "There should be a way down to the base of the ravine closer to the Underworld entrance that way." He pointed farther up the chasm before turning to the young mech near him. "Cloudraker, you and Nathanial go down to the entrance and keep a look out for any other life forms."
"Remember to watch for things inside the cave too." Ironhide told Cloudraker seriously.
Cloud nodded. "Yes sir." He snapped before collapsing down into his sleek alt-mode and rocketing down into the Well.
Nathanial nodded once at Prime, his face grim, before wheeling Peg around and diving off the cliff into empty air.
Aria instinctively held her breath as he disappeared over the edge. She had to forcibly remind herself that Peg could fly. They were not falling to their deaths.
Despite that though, she didn't start breathing again until she carefully peered over the edge and saw Nathanial and Peg gliding safely towards the bottom of the chasm.
She let out her pent up air with a whoosh, telling herself it was just her recent near-fall that had her worrying for the odd pair's safety.
"Well come on them Sparkfinder." Ironhide's voice came from behind her. "Let's get to it."
Aria nodded, turning to see Ironhide's black truck form waiting for her with the passenger side door open.
The path down turned out to be a rim of cracked and crumbling metal just barely wide enough for Prime's alt-mode to drive down. It was made up of tight switchbacks that zigzagged down the side of the Well, forcing Prime and Ironhide to drive at a crawl. Aria sat frozen in Ironhide's cab the whole way down, eyes squeezed shut and lips moving silently in an ongoing prayer that the road (and she used that term very loosely) wouldn't collapse out from under their axels.
They had some trouble when they reached the level where the river of lava had been. Over the eons the river had rubbed the chasm walls smooth, leaving no straight path for the ground-based alt-modes to take safely down. In the end Cloudraker had to take the other three down one at a time.
He was certainly feeling the strain by the time he got Prime down to the bottom of the ravine.
"By the AllSpark," he groaned as he landed, sinking in relief onto his landing gear.
"How ya doing?" Aria asked as she reached up and patted his nose. Behind her, Optimus and the others were inspecting the entrance to the Underworld.
"At least you were small enough to fit in the cockpit." Cloudraker groaned. Prime and Ironhide were so big that they'd had to stand balanced on his wings for him to carry them down. "I mean, I expected Prime to be difficult, but Ironhide is shorter than him! How is he so heavy?" He whined.
Aria found a grin for him. "It's all those cannons I'm sure."
"Couldn't he have left some of them behind? Just this once?" Cloud moaned.
Aria managed a small laugh. "I guess not."
Cloudraker groaned again as he started his transformation sequence. Aria stepped back, giving him space, but she could tell that he was definitely having a harder time with it than when they'd been at the rim of the Well.
As soon as he was on his feet again, Cloudraker recovered faster, and he and Aria joined the others at the mouth of the cave.
"-this entrance must have been covered by the lava flow while the Well was active." Optimus was saying as he, Ironhide, and Nathanial inspected the opening. Aria looked up at him, a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. She caught Ironhide's optic and saw he was doing the same.
"You can take the data clerk out of the Hall of Records-" she said.
Ironhide chuckled.
Optimus, for his part, didn't notice their humor. He was too busy staring up at the mammoth entrance in a mix of trepidation and awe. "It does not appear naturally made." He commented as he ran a hand down the far side of the cave. "It wasn't cut with any tool I'm familiar with, but I still don't think this opening was made by any natural phenomenon."
Nathanial nodded as he went and got a closer look at the other side of the entrance. The metal ore was smooth up until the hole. The edges of the hole itself were jagged, reminding him of a wound left behind by a wild animal.
"It looks like something...bit its way out of there." He said warily.
Behind him, Peg's wide nostrils flared and she snorted. "I do not like it down here." She told him, her panic skirting the edge of Nathanial's mind. "The smell is wrong and there isn't enough sky."
Nat reached back and patted Peg's neck distractedly. "Don't worry Peg. We're alright down here. Prime said the Well's been closed for vorns."
Peg glared at her human's back where he stood peering at the edge of the opening. "Because that is our greatest concern down here!" She snapped at him, dancing from hoof to hoof in aggravation.
Nat just rolled his eyes. "Quit worrying Peg. You're getting yourself worked up over nothing. I'm sure we're perfectly safe down here." He told her firmly.
"Says the creature with weaker senses." Peg muttered derisively, but shut up nonetheless.
"What I do not understand," Prime said after a moment as he reached up as high as he could to feel the torn metal ore, "is why this ragged edge was not worn smooth by the river, like the rest of the chasm walls were."
Aria shrugged. "Maybe there's some kind of door?" She suggested. "Some safety mechanism that released when the Well closed?"
"Perhaps," Prime said, "or possibly this is some sort of overflow structure that was not needed while the Well was flowing normally."
"Maybe the river did seal the hole and something re-clawed its way out when the Well dried up." Peg suggested almost bitterly.
Everyone went still at the suggestion. Nathanial withdrew his hand from where he had been touching the wall just inside the cave.
It was Ironhide's gruff huff of air that broke the stillness. "Well standin' around here's not gonna do us any good. Let's get a move on."
Prime nodded, steeling himself for whatever may be hiding inside the darkness of the tunnel. "You're right Ironhide. We must reach the Core as soon as possible. Autobots," he took in his compatriots with a steady look, "let's roll out!"
They had only made it a few feet into the cave when they encountered a problem.
"No!" An inhuman scream suddenly shattered their thoughts. "No I won't go! You can't make me!"
Aria turned around, not taking her hand off of Cloudraker's ankle so she wouldn't lose his gray form in the dark of the cave. Silhouetted against the dim daylight behind them, Peg was dancing furiously from hoof to hoof, her dark eyes showing white all around the edges.
"No!" She was still shouting. "No darkness Nathanial I won't do it!"
Nathanial was anxiously trying to match Peg's skittish movements, keeping his body in between her head and the cave. "Peg. Peg! Calm down! We won't be underground forever. It's just for a little while!"
Peg's sudden animal scream said she didn't care how long they were going to be down there. "Don't care!" She shrieked in her ghostly voice. "Don't care! Don't care! I can't do it Nathanial I can't!"
"Yes you can Peg. I know you can be brave. I need your help-!"
"Not here! Not like this! Don't ask me Nathanial! Please don't ask!" She pleaded, shrieking again.
Her frightened sound echoed down the darkness of the cave, reverberating along metal walls and making the metallic rocks shake infinitesimally in the depths.
"Get her under control Nat before she gives us away!" Ironhide growled. Even though he was only a few feet ahead of her and Cloudraker, Aria couldn't make out his black frame from the general darkness of the tunnel.
As if on cue, a deep rumble appeared from farther up the cave, one that didn't have Peg's high pitched tone to it.
Her ears flicked back against her skull, going flat. She screamed again, rearing and tossing her front hooves so that Nathanial had to duck backwards to avoid getting hit in the head. As soon as he was far enough away from her, Peg landed back on her hooves with a thunk and turned and bolted for the dim light behind her. She skittered to a stop just a few yards shy of the cave entrance, rumbling nervously as her skin twitched and shivered.
Nathanial sighed as he straightened up and dusted himself off. "Alright," he said more to himself than the others, "new plan."
He strode determinedly from the cave, but slowed when Peg backed away from him nervously. He approached her more slowly, hands held palm up to calm her, before finally grabbing hold of her halter. Aria and the bots waited in the cave, watching as he spoke to her. They were too far away to hear what he said, but whatever it was seemed to calm her. A cycle passed and she shook her mane out, brown eyes returning to their normal size.
She whickered some sort of relieved agreement, and then turned and trotted off to the side of the cave entrance where she positioned herself so she could watch the sky and the mouth of the cave at once.
Nathanial jogged back to where Aria and Cloudraker were. "Peg's going to stay here. She'll tell us if anyone follows us into the cave or comes out while we're inside." He said, looking in what was roughly Optimus' direction. With his bold red and blue coloring he was a little easier to see in the dark.
Optimus nodded. "Very well. Are you sure you will be able to...hear her that far underground?" He asked.
Nathanial nodded sharply. "Yes. We're linked together. Stone and metal won't block that out. Distance can weaken it, but I should still be close enough to hear her."
Optimus thought about this. "Tell her that we will check in every thirty cycles. If we don't, order her to return immediately to Iacon and inform Ultra Magnus of what happened."
Nathanial nodded, a faraway look on his face that Aria recognized as him talking with Peg. She looked up at the cave entrance just in time to see Peg toss her head affirmative.
"All set." Nathanial confirmed a half klik later.
"Very well." Optimus said as he activated his headlights high on his chest. "Let's move out."
Ironhide and Cloudraker activated their own lights before following their leader deeper into the cave, the humans close behind them. Nathanial fell into step a few feet behind Ironhide, but Aria stuck close to her brother.
The deeper they walked into the tunnel, the darker it became, until soon enough the only light came from the three bots' high powered beams. They turned this way and that as they walked, looking for alternate pathways or anything that might be down here to watch them. The walls became slightly damp the farther they got and in the distance Aria could make out the non-steady drip of some kind of liquid.
"This place gives me the creeps." She whispered, the hard, rocky surfaces carrying her voice farther then she would have liked.
Above her, Cloudraker nodded.
Optimus looked to either side of him to check their surroundings again, and stopped with a sharp vent of air when his headlights fell on a sadly familiar sight.
"Frag..." Ironhide muttered as he turned his own light on the crystallized dark energon Prime had found. "Looks like it's spread faster than we thought. It's already embedded in the wall."
He was right, Aria saw. The violet colored crystal had grown out of the wall. All around it she could see veins of violet spreading like cobwebs through the metal ore that made up Cybertron. How deep did those veins run, she wondered with a frown.
The silence was a little grimmer from that point on. The group of three bots and two humans carefully made their way deeper into the cave, which had turned into a long, dark tunnel at this point. Aria had never been good with time, but she lost sense of it even quicker down here. But even then, it didn't feel very long before something in the air changed.
Aria frowned, trying to put her finger on the sudden difference. It took her a moment of pointless squinting to realize that the echoes of the distantly dripping water sounded different. Not just closer, but...louder maybe? More echoy?
"I think there's a cavern up ahead." Optimus whispered from up front. He swept his headlights over the path in front of them again, and this time the light hit the side of the wall and then went farther before hitting wall again; the entrance to something other than tunnel.
They quickened their pace, eager to have some space around them again instead of the claustrophobic darkness of the tunnel. Optimus drew his blaster, motioning Ironhide to watch the other side of the opening. They waited a moment, listening for anything else that might be lurking in the cavern beyond, before quickly stepping through-
-and then just as quickly stopping as they found themselves on a ledge standing nearly fifty feet from the bottom of a large cavern.
"Easy." Optimus warned the others, motioning Cloudraker back altogether. He wasn't sure just how much weight this ledge would hold before crumbling away altogether.
Aria peered into the dark near Optimus' feet. "Just how big is this place?" She whispered, but even then her small voice bounced around rough metal walls like a bullet ricocheting around a room.
Optimus fed more power to his lights so they could see more than the five feet of walls to either side of them. But even when they were burning bright enough to make Aria squint, the light still didn't reach the ceiling of the cavern.
"Oh scrap." Ironhide muttered as he squinted through the light at the walls of the large, underground space.
Aria's mouth was hanging open. "Holes." She said in a voice that was just a little higher than normal. "It just had to be holes."
The cavern walls were covered with holes. Holes that led to tunnels just like the one they had taken, leading to only Primus knew where. There were rows of the dratted things sitting at uneven intervals all over the rounded walls. Aria tried to count them, but stopped at thirty-one because there just wasn't enough time to add them all up.
Behind them, Cloudraker leaned up on tip-toe to try and see what they were staring at. "Which one leads to the Core?" He whispered.
Ironhide harrumphed, propping his fists on his hips as he glared at the holey underground. "Can't tell." He told the young Seeker. "And it'd take us stellar cycles to map all of 'em."
Aria looked up when the light suddenly swung upward, throwing the walls once again into darkness. Optimus frowned up at the ceiling, which now appeared as a shadowy slab of rock looming over their heads.
Cloudraker redirected his lights as well, bringing the ceiling more into focus. "There are more of them up there." He commented when he saw the spots that refused to be illuminated clinging to the ceiling. Aria followed his gaze and felt her spark-heart fall a little farther when she saw the dim, rough edged patches of blackness. Distantly she heard Optimus vent a sigh and Nathanial mutter a curse she'd never heard before.
Ironhide just squinted up at the holes above them and made an irritated noise in the back of his vocal processor.
"There's no telling where they all lead." Cloudraker murmured. "How do we find out which one goes to the Core?"
"If any of 'em do." Ironhide muttered darkly.
Optimus ignored him. "Some of them probably lead back to the surface," he told them, optics slowly crossing the ceiling and walls around them, "but most of them are probably dead ends."
"So best case; we end up back where we started." Ironhide clarified. "Worst case; we waste time tripping around in the dark only to run up against a wall."
"Even worse case; something's nesting in the back of one of those dead ends and is very unhappy to have guests." Cloudraker muttered under his breath.
Aria sighed. "Well thanks for that image Cloud."
Nathanial looked up at the older bots as Cloudraker shrugged at Aria. "So what do we do now? Split up and start checking individual tunnels?"
Optimus shook his head. "No, that would take too much time. And Cloudraker's right, there may be more than Decepticons living down here. We should stick together.
"However," he continued with a thoughtful frown, "if the path to the Core is one of these tunnels, it's entirely possible that the Decepticons have already found it."
Nathanial leaned toward Aria, making her stiffen slightly. "Why would the Decepticons be roaming around down here?" He whispered.
Aria forced her shoulders to relax a little before whispering back. "Megatron's been looking for Vector Sigma – that's the main brain of Cybertron – since he was a gladiator. Most of the rumors say it's down here somewhere, close to the Core."
Nat nodded. "Ah."
He leaned away again and Aria relaxed more, but not all of her inner tension went away.
"So we just have to follow the Decepticons' trail? Is that it?" She asked, hoping to distract herself with the present.
Optimus sighed. "If they already know where it is, then they probably marked it so they wouldn't get lost down here. And even if they didn't, then we may be able to track their recent passage." He told her with far more certainty than Aria felt.
Ironhide snorted and frowned. "And besides, we don't have any other ideas."
Aria released a long breath of air, the wind rustling her hair. "Good point." She mumbled.
Optimus glanced up at the ceiling again. "Cloudraker, check the holes above us-"
"Yes Prime."
"-Ironhide and I will check the lower levels-"
The black mech nodded.
"-and Ariah and Nathanial," he finally turned toward the two humans, "will stay here until we find the correct path."
Aria visibly slumped, but didn't argue as Cloudraker transformed and zoomed upward. Ironhide and Optimus went in opposite directions, each jumping to a lower level cave and scanning it before repeating the process until they reached the ground level of the cavern.
Aria felt more than saw Nathanial send her an anxious look. Cloudraker had transformed into his robot mode again, rocket boots keeping him in the air, before the other human said anything.
"So..." he eventually tried, "why are we waiting up here do you think?"
Aria frowned, but didn't look at him. "Unless you have some sensors packed away somewhere I doubt you'll be able to find the right cave." She told him tightly. "They'll have an easier time scanning for lingering Decepticon signals then we would."
The atmosphere around the two human seemed to tighten, but Aria went on doing her best to ignore it. It wasn't like she objected to Nathanial's questions. She just didn't want to talk was all. Right. That was it.
But even hyper-aware of the other human's presence, Aria just about jumped out of her skin again when Nathanial suddenly whispered, "Do you hear that?"
Aria frowned, heart thumping hard in her chest, wondering what he was getting at. But then she heard the faint scrabbling noises coming from one of the caves.
She looked around wildly, wondering where it was coming from as images of grotesque mechanical monsters sprung into her mind. It took her a moment to realize that one of the caves off to their left was now slightly brighter than the others.
"Optimus!" She hissed down at the red and blue mech and then pointed at the cave with the growing light when he looked up at her.
The Autobot leader must have sent out a silent pulsewave to the others as he took shelter in one of the dark passageways, because a klik later Ironhide had killed his lights and ducked into another, his dark paint making him nearly invisible. Aria looked up just as Cloudraker dove into one of the higher caves, the bright fire of his rocket boots disappearing as the hole swallowed him up.
Without any lights on them, Aria and Nat were as safe as they could be in the dark, but even then they flattened themselves against the ledge, heads lifted just high enough to keep an eye on the ever-growing light.
Aria just was beginning to think that maybe the light was actually the fire breath of some frightening underground dragon, when two dark Vehicons suddenly popped out of the tunnel.
Aria blinked as her expectations were shattered. Peering at the two average black and purple Vehicons, she felt rather silly for expecting a dragon...
"I'm telling you Steve, this place is creepier than Pit." One of them said to the other – Steve apparently, although how he had gotten a completely human kind of name Aria had absolutely no idea – as they walked across the cavern floor, headlights illuminating the way.
Steve – "Steve?" Nathanial mouthed at her and Aria just shrugged helplessly, still confused herself – snorted in agreement. "I'm with you Malcolm. Just the other orbit I was walking past that last turn and I swear to Primus there was something watching me from the dark. I told Roger about it, but he just laughed at me! Said I was letting my processor run away with me."
Malcolm – Aria very nearly facepalmed, but she was afraid the oddly named Vehicons would notice the noise – nodded. "Yeah, Roger's rude-"
They disappeared down another tunnel, the darkness quickly swallowing up their conversation and the lingering light of their headlights.
For a long cycle nothing in the cavern moved except for the frustratingly inconsistent drip of fluid.
"Well that was the weirdest conversation I've ever heard on this planet." Aria said when she was sure Steve and Malcolm were gone. "And that's including all those questions Percy and Wheeljack keep asking me about 'where do human sparklings come from?'."
Nathanial nodded, face slightly red even in the dark, as he climbed back to his feet. "At least now we know which way to go." He murmured.
It was Aria's turn to nod as she and Nat waited for Cloudraker to pick them up on his way down to the cavern floor.
The new tunnel wasn't much different from the old one. It was long and dark, although much more quiet now that they were leaving that annoying drip-drip-dropping noise behind them. However the most disturbing thing was that the farther they walked, the more veins of dark energon appeared growing throughout the metal rock. Large chunks of crystalline energon sprouted from the walls at random intervals that grew closer together the farther they went. After awhile, Aria noticed that the dark energon crystals were glowing. And the closer they got to the source, the brighter the glow became. Soon they didn't even need the mechs' headlights to see.
Aria crossed her arms over her stomach, feeling cold and clammy as they made their way through the violet light of the tunnel.
"You feeling alright?" Cloudraker asked above her.
Aria looked up and made an, 'Eh," gesture with her hand before wrapping it around her middle again. She noticed that Cloud had tightened his armor around his spark, she assumed to keep the oily feeling of dark energon out. "The dark energon's making me feel kind of feverish." She admitted.
"I know what you mean." Nathanial said from her other side. She looked over as he rubbed at the back of his neck at the tether stone sitting just under his hairline.
Aria nodded, biting the inside of her lip as she tried to ignore the sudden feeling that she should say something. "H-how's Peg doing? Did those Vehicons come out yet?" She finally caved.
Nathanial's gaze turned inward as he spoke to Peg. "No," he finally told her, "they must have come out somewhere else. Nothing's changed up there since we left."
Aria nodded, feeling embarrassed now as well as sick.
Their conversation came to a sudden stop when Optimus abruptly held up a fist. The small company stopped behind him, listening hard in the violet-tinged dark. Aria frowned. For a minute she thought she had heard something, but there were no tell-tale headlights like before so maybe it was just her imagination...?
After another long cycle of watchful silence, nothing appeared out of the dark. No sound, no figures, so Optimus motioned them forward, but quietly.
The hustled cautiously down a short stretch of tunnel before it abruptly opened up into another cavern. Unlike the first one, this one was much smaller height-wise, even though it stretched off into darkness on their right. Thick, pointed stalagmites and stalactites clung tight to floor and ceiling in clusters. They ranged in size from about the width of Aria's waist to the thickness of Prime's massive shoulders.
Here the only light came from the dark energon embedded in the wall directly to their left, but none of the mechs turned on their headlights despite the gloom. The crystals' light was enough that they could make out the hole almost directly across the room from them where the tunnel picked back up.
There were too many stalagmites in the way for them to take the direct route, so they had to settle for weaving in and out of the tight clusters of metallic rock. Some of the formations were packed so tightly together that not even Aria could squirm her way through them.
Maybe it was the eerie lack of sound, maybe it was the violet light or the long, distorted shadows it created, but the farther they crept into the room, the tighter everyone's nerves stretched. Looking around, Aria couldn't help but think there was something wrong with this place, something that not even dark energon could have created.
They finally passed the halfway point and Aria felt some of the tension evaporate from her shoulders. "Almost there. Don't freak out now cuz you're almost there." She told herself in an attempt to keep from screaming. She didn't like this. The dark was too heavy, too tangible. It made the air press down on her chest so that she couldn't breathe right. And there was just enough violet light in the cave that every twitching shadow made Aria jump out of her skin, like she thought she was surrounded by unseen enemies-
The dark was suddenly shattered by the piercing brightness of a miniature star exploding around them with the shriek of a Seeker missile. Aria's scream was lost in the noise as she was flung off her feet and hurled towards the cave wall.
She hit something hard enough that pain sparked along her jaw and ran through her skull, down her spine to her limbs, making more stars explode in her vision. A ringing in her ears drowned out the sounds of weapons fire Aria was sure must be there.
A shadowy form curled closer to her head, making her flinch. But when she looked again, the form resolved into a large, dark gray hand hovering over her. It looked familiar to her, but it still took Aria a long moment of staring to realize it was Cloudraker's hand. Brain starting to recover from being bounced around her skull, Aria realized the warm metal she was lying on was Cloudraker's upper body. He must have caught her before she hit the wall.
But that still didn't explain what had exploded in the first pla-
Aria sucked in air with a little squeak when she finally managed to twist herself around to see what had hit them. Broken stalagmites littered the floor of the cavern, their shattered forms thrown into stark relief by the violet light of the dark energon crystals that had been thrown about by the explosion. Torn away from the main dark energon vein though, their light was dying. But even in the dimming glow of dark energon, Aria could just make out Nathanial where he'd be thrown to the floor in rough middle of the mayhem.
And the...thing that was standing over him.
It had the rough outline of a Transformer, but any similarities between the creature and the surface-dwelling Cybertronians ended there. Its arms were too long, stretching almost to the floor like an ape's, but it stood on its back legs like the bots. Irregularly shaped metal plates covered its torso, like a centipede, but single plates fastened together protected its legs and back.
The light from the dark energon finally flickered and died out before Aria could see anything more, but a sulfurous yellow light prevented total darkness from creeping in. It illuminated Nathanial in a halo of sickly light where he remained unmoving on the craggy floor. Aria swallowed hard when she realized it was coming from the creature's mouth.
"It's a monster!" Even her inner voice was high pitched and squeaky. "A real live monster!"
Technically it was an Underworlder, but that didn't make much difference to Aria.
Nobody moved. Nathanial and Aria hardly even breathed. The ringing in her ears was starting to fade, but there wasn't anything else to hear except the renewed sound of dripping and the rasp of air as Nathanial pulled in harsh, shallow breaths.
The monster leaned down low, putting its weight on its overlong forearms. It cocked its head to the side like a bird, and inspected the prone human with one yellow-orange optic. Even several yards away, Aria saw Nat's breathing stutter.
She slipped the few feet from Cloudraker's chest to the floor, but before she could move away from the broken rocks protecting them, the Seeker put a hand in front of her to stop her. She looked up at him in surprise, eyes wide.
"We can't just leave him there!" She fell back on the simple sign language she'd taught the younglings when they'd simply run out of things to do one orn. "We've got to do something!"
"That thing could melt the skin off your frame!" Cloudraker argued back. "How's getting yourself fried going to help?!"
Aria turned around again in frustration, but the creature hadn't moved its large optic away from Nathanial. A different movement caught her eye and she turned again to see Optimus and Ironhide pressed against debris on the other side of the gap separating them from Aria and Cloudraker. Optimus was motioning for her to stay put. Ironhide's attention was focused on the Underworlder and Nathanial. Aria saw he had one of his cannons out, but there was no whine that said it was powered up. She could only guess that he was concerned the noise would attract the creature's attention. In the background, the dripping noise grew louder.
Feeling helpless, Aria faced Nathanial again just as the creature straightened up. It hunkered back on his back legs, making the strangely-shaped plates on its torso shift. It tilted its head to one side, then the other, and Aria couldn't help but think it was confused. But then that made sense; it had never seen an organic before.
"It doesn't know what to do with him." Aria realized breathlessly.
The creature leaned back slightly, a crest half rising off of its angular head, and then it let loose an ear-splitting shriek that shook more slabs of metal ore from the ceiling.
Aria slapped her hands over her ears as Cloudraker sheltered her with his hands again, but that hardly drowned out the sound. She couldn't even hear the thumps as rubble bounced off her brother's sturdier frame as the Underworlder did its best to bring the ceiling down around them.
It finally stopped, but Aria didn't take her hands off her ears until the last echoes of the noise died out. Heart pounding in her chest hard enough to make her ribs ache, she peered past Cloudraker's hand to see the creature shake what might have been doorwings at Nathanial with a growl.
It was like watching some kind of dominance ritual on animal planet, Aria thought, except instead of animals, it was more like mutated people with big muscles and no brains...
Aria tried to think of something to do that wouldn't put Nathanial in even more danger then he was already in, but her mind wouldn't focus. It wasn't like she could have prepared herself for a giant Cybertron monster threatening her boyfriend!
She stopped in her mental tracks as her face suddenly turned bright red. "Ex-boyfriend." She corrected herself. "I couldn't have prepared for a giant Cybertron monster threatening my ex-boyfriend. Totally what I meant."
Her internal monologue was cut off by the sudden drip of thick fluid hitting the cavern floor.
"And now that blasted dripping has reappeared!" Aria thought with a scowl. "How am I supposed to help Nat with that stupid dripping making it impossible to think?! It's like it followed us from-
She paused again.
"-oh Pit..."
She may have scared Cloudraker with her sudden arm flailing, but she managed to shoo him behind a large set of rocks before the second monster came into sight.
It wasn't as lanky as the first one, dragging itself on all fours instead of walking upright. Its head was broader, with large Triceratops-like spikes sweeping back from its flat face and it had jagged spikes extending from all four knee joints. Aria noticed with a shiver that the one closest to her was covered in thick lubricant, and she didn't think it belonged to the new monster either.
The first monster straightened up as the second one limped into the cavern. One of its legs lagged behind, unable to move because of the long gash running along its length from hip to toe-claw. The incessant dripping was from the oily-looking internal fluid that was dripping from the second creature's underbelly.
Aria saw Nathanial's eyes dart from the second creature to the one still standing over him. The upright one didn't seem to be paying him any attention now, but it was still so close that any movement he made would bring its head snapping around again.
Cloudraker carefully tapped his sister's back. She looked back at him, annoyed, but he just pointed at something beyond the first creature.
Confused, Aria looked, frowning at the darkness behind it.
"What am I looking at?" She signed at him hotly.
Cloudraker pointed again before signing with his other hand, "There's more."
Eyes going wide, Aria turned back and saw he was right. Three-no four sets of orange optics glowed out of the dark, all looking at the wounded creature as it crept closer to Nathanial and his inspector. The low rumble of animal-like grunts and growls started to make the air vibrate around them.
The wounded one opened its flat mouth and gave a low but loud bellow, although Aria couldn't tell if it was asking the others for help or warning them away.
The first monster obviously didn't agree with whatever it said because it snarled something in return, stretching up on its lanky limbs to tower over the wounded one. Its head crest snapped all the way open as doorwings stood straight up from the creature's back. Aria's eyes widened in fear as the yellow-orange glow in its open mouth grew brighter to a white-hot intensity.
She threw herself to the side, knowing what was coming next, but she couldn't duck fast enough before the high powered beam shot out of the Underworlder's mouth. She caught a glimpse of the same white-yellow beam that had first attacked them slicing through the other creature's shoulder and coming out at its back hip, cutting its spine in two along the way before she hit the ground with an oof.
She heard the injured one give a final scream, but the sound was cut short by the more disturbing noise of a living thing exploding outward and splattering the nearby walls.
The first monster gave a victorious roar that threatened to deafen them all again. Then there was the noise of large beings tromping forward. The sickening crack of armor and the slurp of internal fluids wasn't far behind.
Something hit the ground at Aria's side and she jumped, hands darting to cover her head. She looked up with wide eyes, afraid some part of the half-eaten beast had been thrown next to her, but it was only Nathanial. He looked just as white and shaken as she felt.
He pressed his back against one of the rocks that hid them from sight and gasped for air. From her spot on the ground, Aria saw his hands were shaking. She reached out and gripped his shirt sleeve with white fingers, just to make sure he was real.
He gripped her hand with his, needing the same reassurance.
Once it sunk in that he wasn't dead, Aria looked up at Cloudraker sitting above them. His own face was ashen gray under his paint as he stared in horror at something Aria couldn't see from her smaller vantage point.
"Wha-" she tried to ask but her voice wasn't even a whisper. She licked her lips and tried again. "What are they doing?"
Cloudraker's optics flicked towards her before another slurping roar pulled them back."They're-they're devouring it. They're stealing its armor and drinking its energon..."
He trailed off in a horrified whisper. Aria whimpered, unable to block out the sounds of the Underworlders gorging and pressed her forehead against the cold ground. The only warmth she felt was Nathanial's hand wrapped around hers.
A whistle pierced the slurping, crunching sounds, making the three of them look up. On the other side of the gap in the debris, Ironhide was motioning them over. Aria saw that Optimus was already at the exit of the cavern a few yards behind the black mech.
Nathanial pulled her to her feet before letting go of her hand altogether. Aria shivered and almost wished he hadn't, but even with the Underworld creatures cannibalizing one of their own just a few feet away, she refused to lean on him, even though a part of her wanted to, badly.
Nathanial went first, running past the gap in cover without looking over his shoulder at the feeding monsters. Aria wasn't as strong. She looked when she was almost to the other side. Her feet stuttered and she nearly fell when she saw the group of creatures, the ground at their feet slick with internal fluids, tearing apart the offline one and incorporating its armor into their own frames.
Momentum carried her the rest of the way into safety and Ironhide's hand was the only thing that kept her from falling face first to the ground again. She stood where she wouldn't be able to see the creatures feasting as she waited for Cloudraker to join them.
The Underworlders didn't pay them any further attention as they slunk back into the tunnel and away from the gruesome sight. But no one was surprised. They had what they wanted.
The last stretch of tunnel was short, but the slurping sounds died away before they reached the end of it. Aria's shakes were just starting to weaken too when they saw the light that marked the end of the tunnel. Unlike before, this was the sharp, white light of electricity, which meant they now had a more familiar enemy to deal with.
Just up ahead, a group of Vehicons silently guarded the entrance to Cybertron's Core.