Urgh… this chapter was like one giant acid trip to write. x_x For anyone who thinks it's a good idea to try and live in Nightbeat's head for a few days while trying to write his character, just don't. It hurts your brain after a while. AND, you start talking yourself more than you already do. AND, you start seeing things as if they really are part of cosmic pattern, not that I don't already, but more so than I did before. So now, my friends, I think I'm a little crazier than I was before, which could be a benefit for writing this, but will undoubtedly make my lacking sanity suffer. O.o *sigh* But enough of that. Who wants to hear such silly little musings? You're here for a chapter, not a rant. Just let me get through a few notes and Thank You Corner, and you shall have your chapter. :)
The pearl-painted youngling- There is an accompanying WE one-shot called Invisible Puzzle Pieces that delves briefly into a specific part of Nightbeat's past. Everyone is welcome to read it, though it's not exactly necessary. :)
The Fallen/Psi- I have no doubt that a majority of you have seen ROTF already and have had your fill of the Fallen there, but as many of you have pointed out, WE has slowly become a universe of its own. The Fallen character you read of here is of my own imagining, uninfluenced from the movie. He's a lot more fun to write. :)
*******Special note****** The one-shot feature that was the continuation of Chapter 33 has been written and posted, since there was a wonderful response from readers indicating that they would like to read it. It's entitled Too Pretty for Me, and I would love to hear feedback from anyone who is interested/requested it. :)
Flameshield- Thanks so much~ Chase and Hound are still just friends, but close friends at that, if Mirage hasn't ruined that for them.
Litahatchee- Oh Lita, Lita, Lita, I think we might have gotten some wires crossed in that first review of yours. ;P What I said "last chapter" I meant previous one… Silly me. ^^; But, no matter, we cleared up that funny on msn. xD But have I ever mentioned how wonderful you are, leaving that secondary review? When I meet you in person, you're getting a hug! xD Writing of Cybertron, of Hound, and of Chase, are such delights. I'm glad you enjoy it!
Elita One- lol~ Seeing as Hound has never had lips in his lip, he probably sucked bad. XD Don't mind Mirage, though- he's just a jealous racist.
FunkyFish1991- I vote for the Bonnie and Clyde pairing! XD But, yeah, Mirage is not Chase's favourite alien right now, nor is Chase Mirage's favourite. You'll have to excuse him- he's a jealous racist. -_- IT'S ONLY GOING TO BE 1 OR 2 MORE CHAPTERS!! DON'T HURT ME! O.O
CoalTreasure- Quite jealous, my dear, and rather racist towards organics. ^^;
Jason M. Lee- You're quite perceptive of Mirage's tone, aren't you? You're quite right- there's a smidgeon of jealousy.
Kittisbat- I'd say it's bound to leave a stinging mark. . Goodness, my dear, you have no idea how much I'm enchanted by your predictions. This one is just as wild as the last, but no less entertaining! :)
Cynthia- *sigh* Mirage does, unfortunately, have a point, but he's letting his racism and jealousy cloud his opinions. Two sentient beings from different races are perfectly capable of being friends with each other. I'm glad you think Chase and Hound are "cute". You tickle me pink with the praise~
Bluebird Soaring- Every good day has to be ruined by something, right? Murphy's Law and all that… . Mirage's jealousy and racism is not a pretty thing, but he'll be forced to eat it some day!
Black Dragon- Yeah, there was a little bit of telling off on both sides. Mirage deserves a telling off, if not a beating. ^^;
Independent C- A little premature, my dear, but surely there are some fond affections on both sides. They're still struggling with the idea of being friends with someone from another, radically different, species. Your suggestion for a one-shot gets my writers senses tingling, though… *rubs hands together*
Nitefyer- Thank you so much! Cybertron was a rather fun piece of delight to envision, and I'm glad I could conjure a mental image for you. :) I'm so glad you enjoy my characterizations, as well.
CuteKitten- It truly was a fun and delightful chapter to simply write and explain things. :) You're rather perceptive of Mirage, though. I'm impressed! :D Just a not-so-subtle mixture of jealousy and racism going on there. He's having a hard time letting go of the old ways.
Balrog Roike- Sadly, Cybertronians have come to accept death with a resignation that only a human who has suffered the torture and rape of war would understand. But you're on the money with Mirage's behaviour- he feels a fondness for Hound, but he also retains the old racism of Cybertron against organics… OMG! Tungsten as clever and threatening as a slice of bread! That comment just made my life! XD
Silveriss- Thank you so much! Sometimes I worry that I put too much depth into them, to the point where others become sick of reading of their endless problems. ^^; Be as snarling mad with Mirage as you wish- he deserves your ire, the jealous, racist bastard that he is. .
C-Wolfeh- Oh wow, such high praise! I'm humbled~ Thank you so much! I'm so happy that enjoy this story arc and its prequel. I do hope you continue to enjoy. :)
He03- Oh my goodness, there are no words to describe how deeply honoured I am that you created your account in order to submit a proper signed review. There is no higher praise, I don't think. Thank you so much for the honour. I'm glad you enjoy Optimus and Elita's subplot, for it is about to become far more prominent within this arc. :) You're welcome to dabble in writing around the ideas, so long as you lay credit where credit is due.^^ Your suggestion for a one-shot concerning Elita's captivity has pique my interest, for sure. I'll be sure to consider it. :)
Tears of Twisted Angels- Yeah, well, so does Mirage and a number of other racist characters. Some people can't stand people from different races being friends.
Lecidre- Goodness, my friend, you have no idea how much I adore your review. *hugs* Chase and Hound are such a pleasure to write for, and devoting a chapter to simply having fun between them was a treat, one in which I'm glad others appreciate. :) Never mind Mirage's behaviour, though- he's still got a lot of issues wrapped up in his processor, like his jealousy and racism towards organics. Hopefully Chase will be able to overcome it in order to stay friends with Hound.
Theshadowcat- lol, whut?
Special credits to artists and friends alike who have inspired me, grown to be close friends, or otherwise are just plain awesome: Violetlight, Litahatchee, Bunnylass, Lecidre, SylentNyte and FunkyFish1991.
As We Come Together
In Which a Light Shines Through
He had been left alone for longer than he could comprehend. Alone, alone, alone, with nothing more than blackness, rotting corpses, and a preternatural silence that hung like a physical weight in the air as company. Without sensors, without chronometers, without even a porthole with which he could see the stars by, he was ignorant to the passage of time. To the passage of anything, really. At best, he could only suppose he'd been left alone an orn, and at worst, he could guess forever had passed by without knowing.
But, in all fairness, he could not say he had been left completely to his own devices.
Elita was gone, yes. She had been gone since the moment he had opened his optics from the disturbed recharge he had fallen into. The sense that someone should have been screaming in the dead silence of the demon-ship returned tenfold as Nightbeat thought upon Elita's absence. The sick awareness that she was most likely enduring a torture unfathomable by any other living creature made his tanks churn in revolt. He tried not to dwell on what could be happening, finding that his processor prickled like ice-cold needles burrowing into the data, implanting vicious whispers of fates worse than death.
The thoughts that he knew could not be his own reminded Nightbeat that he was not alone. How could one possibility be alone on a ship that was one giant living monster?
When Nightbeat blinked, he caught glimpses of the Fallen's spectre self. It was wretched being that did his mythology justice, burning forever more with the damnation of his betrayal to his brethren. When the Fallen was near, all Nightbeat could hear was screaming in his head. The voices, his instinct, hated when the Fallen's raw consciousness was near. They called him Entropy. Chaos. They called the apparition many things. The Fallen did justice to them all. He was a gifted tormenter. Even when he was unseen, he could be felt. One was driven paranoid by strange noises in their audios, an odd brush along their plating, displaced thoughts in their processor; at any given time, it could have been the Fallen, or else their own minds were slowly driving them insane.
And even when the Fallen chose to stray to whatever other amusements his innards housed, Nightbeat was still not alone. The singular unblinking optic of a drone assured him in every waking moment that he was being watched. Shortly after that first exchange with Elita, the drone had come to stand beyond the force field of their cell and had never left. Never blinked. Perhaps it changed places with its fellows when Nightbeat wasn't looking, but for the most part it was no more than a splotch of dead light in an endless sea of nothing. Primus only knew what the drone was looking for.
It is looking for what cannot be seen.
Nightbeat cringed as the clash of noise in his head parted only long enough to have that one sentence ring true. It sounded more like a warning than the usual riddles and knowledge he already half-knew. Strangely, it was the first break in their screaming since he had first come online within the Fallen. With the constant assault of cacophony bearing down on his mental capacities, he was being worn to the quick. A headache had started joors ago- or was it orns?- and had yet to cease.
For once in his life, he was tired of riddles. He just wanted answers.
Disgusted and frustrated with himself, Nightbeat shoved to his feet. He could not outrun the voices, but he could certainly pace long enough to turn himself numb to them. Under his feet, rusted corpses crunched and cracked. Dirt scattered. If something sharp jammed into a break in his armour, Nightbeat made no move to acknowledge it. He kept moving, pondering on thoughts that were only half-formed.
A deeply nauseous sensation churned in the pit of his tanks, drawing him to turn around in search of the source. Elita One. Another deep-seated feeling of dread clenched his insides. Whatever was happening to her was going to be his fate, too.
While Elita may have survived all this time, it was unlikely he was going to be so lucky.
That thought alone made him angry.
What was the point of him coming here if all he was meant to do was die? What part of the puzzle did that serve? What greater purpose? How could he have been so naïve as to think he could have possibly done anything to save the captives of the Mastermind? No, correction; not Mastermind. Shockwave. Shockwave in league with the Fallen. Two horrible monsters working side-by-side. Monsters he had never had a hope of defeating or outsmarting. Nightbeat hated himself for his own stupidity. He fell right into their hands without even putting up a fight.
He spit a bitter laugh that sounded too loud and too harsh in the omnipresent silence. There were no echoes in the backwards universe of whatever pit the Fallen existed in, so as soon as he made the noise, it died.
Nightbeat couldn't even claim that he had thought of discovering the monsters' lair on his own. It had been whispered to him. He had been drawn here. Of all the mysteries great and small, this had been the one that had pulsed in his energon like a poison. Before he had even known of it, there were things that had whispered to him. This had been the one great puzzle he had to find. Now that he thought of it, had it ever really been his will at all? Had it been him who wished to find the Fallen, or had some other will been whispering in his audios all this time?
"That's it, isn't it? You want me to come here. It's been you all the time, hasn't it?"
Again his voice was too loud, too alien, too empty. A muted shush of diodes moving announced the drone was adjusting its optic. He waited for a break in the silent screaming to hear an answer, but none came that he could discern. That was answer enough for him.
A deep wash of violated betrayal filled him. "You brought me here to die!"
No acknowledgement came. A lash of anger flamed him. If he had been their puppet all this time doing their bidding, the least they could do was give him an explanation before they tugged his strings one last time.
So deep was the feeling of betrayal, Nightbeat failed to realize the thickening of the atmosphere around him. He was so numb already he did not notice the temperature drop below even the frigidness of space. Without sight, he did not see the cracks in his paint forming from the extremity. He forgot that it was not just himself and his damning voices. There were other things within the Fallen that lurked and watched, including the Fallen himself. Whatever watched him now was intensely interested.
"I trusted you! I swore when I was a youngling that I would listen to you! And this is how you repay me?" Drags of icy air seared his intakes as he heaved hard. The sudden onset of betrayal by his most trusted allies left him scorched, sick. Building fear and anxiety whirled up in the mess, pouring out like bile in his words. "When my Creator copied his programming into to me so I would hear you, did you know then that you wanted me to find the Fallen? Were you the ones who told my Creator to make me like him in the first place? Did you want me to die back then, too? Even before I was alive?"
Still not a word whispered to him. He failed to notice in his anger how distant even the screaming had become. As if something was holding them at bay.
A rush of insanity glazed over his reality, fuelling his next violent gesture. His foot came down on a rusted limb. The part was so old that it blew to dust. Had he been able to see it, there would have been a rust-coloured cloud taking to the air as metal disintegrated. He swung his fist as if trying to whip away the treasonous voices, but instead he hit a wall. He kicked out so hard that the tip of his foot, made brittle by the preternatural cold, cracked. Little notice was giving to the twisted neural wire that had been hit.
"Even when I didn't understand, I did what I thought you wanted! Were you just using me all this time? I was one of the few who could hear you! I believed in you! I trusted you with my life! And now that the universe is done with crazy, voice-hearing Nightbeat, you're going to get rid of me, is that it?!"
No! Wrong! You've got it all wrong!
Nightbeat froze, distracted from his own rage. It was the acknowledgement he's been demanding, but he heard it as if from a great distance. In the new silence that came from his ceased ranting, he heard them all still calling out for him. Still screaming. They were so faint now that he had drowned them with his own thoughts. He had never noticed how distant they were slowly becoming. They sounded desperate to be heard through whatever veil was keeping them away.
"I can barely hear you now!"
They tried to shout louder, but all that happened was they became even more of a mess.
"What's wrong? What's happening?!"
Finally, three little words managed to whisper through.
Chaos destroys Order!
"Chaos," Nightbeat breathed, realizing how oppressive the darkness in his cell had truly become. The air had taken on a new staleness that was overpowering to the point of choking. Chaos. Entropy. The Fallen. Nightbeat suddenly felt very, very cold inside. "He's here."
Yes!
The answer could have been nothing more than a sob on the wind, it was so quiet. They were being forced farther and farther away as every moment ticked by with growing terror.
You were never brought to him to die! they called, so desperate to get their words across that each syllable hissed. Had they not been the metaphorical cogs turning in the universe, Nightbeat would have almost thought them capable of crying. You were brought here to make sure a part of you lives on!
A tangible snap could be felt, and suddenly Nightbeat found that all was quiet within and without his head.
"No…" He stared hard through the darkness as if he could have seen where they went, his voices, but as expected, he saw nothing. He was looking for what couldn't be seen. Looking for what couldn't be seen… Sudden understanding hit him. The warning. The drone was looking for what couldn't be seen. Swinging back to the drone, Nightbeat noted no change in its stance, no perceivable gleaning that it had gained any knew knowledge from what it had just recorded. However, a malicious glee beamed down from all corners of the darkness. The drone was not the only one watching.
Feeling the physical terror of his spark plummeting, Nightbeat bent to the backwards law of the Fallen's internal universe. He shuttered his optics to see. Standing not even a breath away from his faceplate was the Fallen's spectre, grinning mad with a monstrous joy. Gasping, falling back, Nightbeat's optics shot open and the image of the Fallen disappeared. Panting hard like a rabid animal, he scrambled for footing and shoved himself upright, shuttering his optics again. This time the Fallen was near the edge of the cell, standing unnoticed in front of the blind drone. Once sure Nightbeat was watching him again, a wider grin split the monster's faceplate and beckoned Nightbeat forward. Nightbeat's frame moved without thought, walking through the pit-borne flame feeling nothing but numbing cold. Trapped by the monster's will, he could only crane his head away as the Fallen leaned in with a too-wide grin on its alien faceplate.
"What do you want from me?" Nightbeat asked, his voice cracking.
A wider-still smile came to that terrible faceplate. What first looked like a small mercy as the Fallen took a step back became another measure in horror as the spectre glided through the force field and into the mindless drone. Possessed by a greater evil now, it stood and came to the very edge of the force field that separated them. A voice that one would not expect from a monster- eloquent and elegant, like a perfect poison- issued from the drone's mouthplates.
"I know your secret."
Each sung note left Nightbeat swallowed in a deeper horror. He stared helplessly as the Fallen stepped from the drone, still grinning as wild fire licked at him, and then slowly he sank into the floor. He disappeared completely without even a ripple. But the feeling of high, cold laughter ringing over the walls lingered for a long time after the spectre was gone.
Feeling particularly giddy that he had figured out what purpose the unknown program served, Psi paid no heed to the electrical surge he cast off. He could be giddy if he wanted after so long of being bored. Millennia after millennia of being bored, bored, bored, with nothing more than insects to torment. And now something interesting was finally happening!
Another electrical surge traveled along his innards, passing a flash of electric light through him. Unlike most monsters in fairytales, he did not shrink from the light, but laughed at it. Several drones went flying along his floors, their innards fried. From the cells housed deep within himself, he heard and felt the cries of surprise as several captives received a sharp shock. He particularly loved the extra pitch to Elita's scream as she writhed in the part of Psi that served as a lab for Shockwave. She was a joy to torment, whether intentional or no. How he loved her screams.
But even the joys of agony were not enough to distract him from his current goal. The parasite, Shockwave, had to be informed.
In the tangled nest of wires high above the bridge of Psi's alt mode, Shockwave was predictably lurking with his head open, connected to all the greater systems through his cobwebs of cables. The gall of the little pest, so bold as to think he could interface with a being as great and as terrible as Psi. He was the Fallen One. The Great Betrayer. He had sold his Maker and brethren out for the power the Unmaker could grant. Yet an insect without a fraction of his greatness, power, or presence presumed to be of such equal standing with a monster that he dared integrate his thought processes. There was no shortage of disgust or amusement when Psi regarded his leech-pet/charge. Transformers of present orn had lost the respect and reverence for the old ways that their predecessors had held in spades. No one feared monsters like they used to.
Had strict instruction not been left to allow Shockwave his sway, it would have been Psi's absolute delight to throw the pest into the nearest black hole.
The only good purpose Shockwave's current connection to Psi's consciousness served was the convenience of conveying the news without having to mime it.
"No luck trying to make the dead duck sing?" Psi greeted, transmitting directly into Shockwave's processor. The active view screens displaying Elita's current session fizzled out, replaced with an alien faceplate of dark metal whose optics blazed like infernos.
"There is no logical point to making such an enquiry," came the reply, mentally issued through their connection because it was most logical to reciprocate the exchange in the manner of least resistance. One wire hissed as it disconnected from the great tangle of Shockwave's head, replaced by another as he shifted to a new focus. Instantly, Psi was aware that power was being diverted from a previously running energon drill to a wickedly painful probe meant to be inserted directly into a spark to measure the possibility of division. The probe detected nothing as it was inserted, but Elita's cries once again tickled Psi's innards.
"No, but this dreadfully disgusting little ball of puss we're parked by has such funny little idioms that I couldn't help but use one." For the eons he had existed, and for all the planets he had seen consumed by his master, it was Psi's personal opinion that Earth had to be amongst the most absurd of all. Which was very much a compliment from a being like himself.
Shockwave, unfortunately, did not share the demon-ship's fondness for everything chaotic in the universe. "There is no point in indulging in the idioms of an inferior race; you are wasting time and energy that could be better spent seeing to the task we've been set."
The large image of Psi across the screen waved a hand as if to show how inconsequential Shockwave's concerns were. When one was a truly immortal being connected to the greater machinations of the universe, everything else was very small by comparison. "You, my pesky little parasite, were charged with the duty of discovering a way of creating a new spark without the use of that blasted Allspark. I, on the other hand, was merely told to be your chauffeur, so I may waste my time and energy on anything I see fit, seeing as I have both infinite amounts of time and energy, and you do not." And because he was petty enough to do it, he sent a particularly nasty surge through his internals to shock the mortal leech sucking off him. This time, he was satisfied with Shockwave's reaction, which was a violent involuntary spasm that made the drones he was connected to black out and reboot instantly. And because Shockwave was still connected to him, when the effects of the surge died down, Psi knew the mech was not pleased.
"What is the point of this harassment when I am conducting delicate scientific research?"
For a short burst of time, Psi's faceplate was replaced with a real-time visual of Elita One laid out on a berth, her chassis strapped open to expose her withered and rotted life force. Psi returned only to laugh. "Scientific research, you say?" It was no more than a long-running joke. A pathetic one, at that. "There's no point in trying to make a dead duck sing, and no matter how many times you tease that little pet's spark, you can't rip it in two. You're better off playing with that new toy of yours, the one that talks to himself."
"The purpose of the unnamed program running in Experimental Applicant XX2-4620008PSI's processor has yet to be determined. Until that variable can be discerned, experimentation will be put on hold."
"Then you will be delighted to know that I have figured out what that quaint little program does." And even now, Psi was aware of Nightbeat's presence, pacing like the caged animal he was. Now that he knew what the mech was capable of hearing, he found it greatly amusing to cut him off from it all. The panic that oozed off the little scrap heap was delicious.
"Inform me of the purpose."
Psi's faceplate drew down into an expression of pensive displeasure, chaffed by Shockwave's incessant bluntness. "The program is proof that my brethren are, or more accurately were, active amongst your kind, at least until you left Cybertron."
"Your brethren: the others of the Original 13." A statement, not a question.
"You can't help who your family is, unfortunately," the Fallen One sighed. "My brethren were, in fact, the other 12 members of the beings your kind call the Original 13 Transformers; self-proclaimed righteous defenders of everything good, weak, and pathetic in the universe." There was no fondness in his tone for those he had been created alongside.
"You speak in past tense," Shockwave noted without curiosity.
"And past tense they are. Unlike myself, they are still bound to the spark of Cybertron; their sparks depend on Cybertron's spark. And seeing as Cybertron is nothing more than a rotting rust-ball now, it wouldn't come as a surprise if every last one of them have faded to dust along with it."
A brief silence ensued on Shockwave's part as he processed the information and updated his memory files. While he had long since confirmed the Fallen, Psi the monster insisted as his designation, as an actual metal-and-bolts being, Shockwave had not taken the liberty to assume the other 12 had been real. Now that it was confirmed they had been real at some point in time, it felt pertinent to correct the error in his data tracks. Once done, he moved on: "This information is insignificant to the subject at hand. Inform me of the purpose of Experimental Applicant XX2-4620008PSI's program. What purpose did it serve your brethren in bestowing it?"
"As powerful as I am, and my fellow members of the 13 were, not one of us has ever mastered the gift of omnipresence. A good second to that is employing your kind to do our dirty work for us. However, as it stands, compared to us, you are blind, deaf, and incredibly naïve to the universe around you. Essentially, you're useless as you are." He chuckled, as if enjoying laying out all of Shockwave's shortcomings. "But say your disposition was tweaked just a little…"
Shockwave's singular optic dimmed, brightened, the lens always adjusting and readjusting. "Define 'tweaked' in this context."
A terrible amusement crossed Psi's faceplate. "There are infinite ways we can change you to suit our purposes; some great, some small, and some ways are completely beyond your comprehension. For your sake, I'll give you a simple example."
By now accustomed to the constant slights on his intelligence, Shockwave wisely overlooked the Fallen's tone for the sake of hearing the explanation.
Psi, having received no interesting response, continued. "It usually starts with a throwaway life- some dying bot or nameless heathen whose spark is about to extinguish. With the onset of death, whatever fate they had been meant for becomes wasted and void. In other words, they become perfect candidates for, say, a cleverly disguised stranger to come along and offer a different fate, in exchange for whatever would suit that stranger's machinations best." Psi waved an experienced hand. There was no counting the number of occasions he had appeared at the berthside of the near-dead, breathing life back into their sparks in return for seemingly innocuous demands, ones which usually led to the collapse of transport way, the spread of a deadly virus, or some other fun that only required a tiny whispered catalyst. "Become this; become that; whatever we ask of you. Most of you are so grateful for your shallow lives that you'll bend over backwards to serve our demands. It's not a great tweak, mind you- not like Nightbeat's, but it's a way of putting pawns in the right place at the right time, which can be just as important."
"Do you claim awareness of future events?" Shockwave enquired, suspicious of the nature of how Psi referred to 'the right place at the right time' as if it were a definable constant in the future instead of an ever-shifting variable one could only estimate.
"Only my brother, The Seer, claims knowledge of what will be," Psi informed curtly. "The rest of us are merely in tune to the patterns of the universe in ways a mortal could never understand. But, as in Nightbeat's case, there are ways of making you little rust heaps useful to us. All it takes is a little touch. We can make it look like a harmless corruption of data, or an innocuous program no one will ever look twice at. In reality, we can give a chosen individual a fraction of our abilities. A tweak here, a tweak there, and one can be made to read the darkest desires of a spark, or heal by mere touch. I even know of one chosen bot who claimed he could interact with the energies of those already passed. Few actually live up to their potential, though. Too much for them to handle. Most are driven mad." And he'd be a liar if he said he didn't have a hand in lending to the madness.
Madness was of no concern to Shockwave. "What manifestation does Experimental Applicant XX2-4620008PSI suffer from?"
Psi's burning optics appeared to burn even brighter as he contemplated the nature of what had been done to Nightbeat. "His gift is a special gift, indeed. In all my time, I have only once come across this particular ability, and there is no telling what the original giver had meant by bestowing it." He canted his head ever so slightly, adopting a lightly pensive look. "It's powerful, and undoubtedly a great asset to those who can hear and understand, but to a mortal? What purpose could it possibly serve? Primus- urgh, I mean the Unmaker only knows what madcap sibling of mine came up with something like this. It's absurd to think specks of consciousness like you creatures could handle something so immense."
"You have yet to state what the ability is."
An impatient noise came from the Fallen One. "Nightbeat hears the echoes of the present."
"That explanation does not compute."
"That's because you are a narrow-minded insect." Nevertheless, the demon-ship reached for an explanation the blind, deaf, stupid parasite could grasp. "If you were to imagine the universe as a giant clockwork, all internals working in tandem with each other so that the device as a whole may move forward, you could say that Nightbeat hears the sound of the cogs themselves turning. He hears the Order; events being set in motion, one moment sliding into the next, the movement of the universe moving forward. What's more is he speaks to them and they answer back. It's unprecedented in mortals. I've cut him off for now, but there is only so long I can keep even my anti-space from moving."
There was a long silence as Shockwave's logistics ran furiously to quantify Psi's personification of the "universe moving forward". He could not compute such a claim. Because they remained connected, Psi sensed his thought processes and laughed at him.
"You are such a small-minded speck," the Fallen One said derisively.
The insult was ignored. "Is the program of any value?"
"Perhaps, but only to the bot it is given to." He knew of only one case where a gift had been made to pass on, miraculously copied and transferred to the mind of a sparkling. But it was unlikely that Nightbeat was that sparkling.
"Is it likely to disrupt procedure?"
Psi shrugged carelessly. "Not in the least. You deal with his spark, not his head."
A short deliberation followed, one in which Psi felt Shockwave manipulating the labs remotely. Elita was unstrapped and dragged back to her cell. Another failed attempted was filed away in the crowded data tracks of failed attempts. Energy was rerouted to other parts of the ship. Drones were directed with new motives. Finally, Shockwave spoke.
"Very well, we shall begin experimentation immediately."
Nightbeat paced like a caged animal, his spark searing a burning tempo to the inside of his sparkcase.
IT had said "I know your secret."
It knew. It. He. The Fallen knew he heard things; knew he heard voices. But it was more than that. It was not just that the Fallen knew. There was a deeper level to the taunt. Something more that made his energon run cold. He was missing a detail. Trying to understand a picture whose integral piece was missing…
Thoughts started to fly as a thousand whirling puzzles presented themselves, blurred around the edges by a growing terror he had yet to cast a name for.
No matter how great his training as a Special Ops agents had been in the past, he was no longer able to keep a tamp on the terror. His pacing had turned to a wild flurry of shuffling that turned him dizzy in the dark, clearing the floor of debris as it was kicked from his path. Everything was a blur, and he daren't shutter his optics in an attempt to find a center. Primus only knew what he would find if he shuttered his optics. Even if the Fallen was lurking close again, Nightbeat found he'd rather stay ignorant of the detail for as long as he could.
Running a desperate hand over his faceplate, he felt paint flakes come off in his palm. The frigid air had died somewhat, but still it had dried his paint to a brittle papery covering that cracked and peeled with every move. He forced a violent cough out his vents to rid himself of the building paint-flake debris, listening as the chips crackled on the floor amongst the dust and corpses.
His footsteps, his intakes, even his thoughts- they were all too loud without the secondary input of others in his head. Elita was still gone; the Fallen had left to follow its own whims; the drone had gotten up shortly before and walked away, and the very last thing Nightbeat had ever valued- his wonderful, terrible, whispering instinct- had been taken away from him. He felt wretched that the last thing he had ever done to it was accuse it of betraying him.
He tried to lay out the puzzle pieces on his own. The one pressing detail he knew right away: he heard voices. Correction, he did. Or he still could and something was preventing him from doing so. The second detail he gathered was the fact that Fallen now knew he could hear. Meaning the demon-ship had not known previously. And if he were to extrapolate from the drone's behaviour, which was connected to its controller's whims, who was, without a doubt, the Mastermind, AKA Shockwave, Nightbeat could hypothesize that Shockwave had been curious of something about Nightbeat. The drone was now gone, shortly after the Fallen's discovery, indicating the possibility that the unknown detail Shockwave had been trying to discover about Nightbeat was now known. The Fallen had informed him of the voices.
Other details of his current circumstance: one, that the voices and the Fallen were aware of each other. Case in point, the voices referenced the Fallen with the title Chaos. Chaos destroys Order. Wracking his memory banks, Nightbeat recalled old stories from when he was young, before he had even graduated to youngling status. He had been a small, confused sparkling able to hear things no one else could, and one superstitious Caretaker had taken the time to relate to him stories of the old ways of Cybertron, complete with the old transformers. One had been the Fallen, the right hand of the Unmaker; his title before the fall had been Guardian of Entropy. Entropy; synonymous with Chaos. Chaos destroys Order. Making the voices Order. They had used it as a title. Order. Chaos. Order of what? A greater order to what degree?
Unbidden as memories and thoughts collided with each other, he accidentally opened an old memory file he had buried away in his processor. It was of the orn his Creator had died. The first and last orn he had encountered the pearl-painted youngling who had appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as fast. It had been a strange orn, to say the least, where he had not cried for his Creator, but was made curious of the idea that he was not truly gone at all. One thing nagged at him, one detail about the exchange that scratched at his processor. Something the strange, ghostly little bot Daybreak had said to him…
"…Or maybe the voices are part of a very intelligent design… everything in the universe has its certain place and purpose, and everything moves in a certain clockwork to everything else; it's all so very perfect and strange for it to be all just random occurrences, so maybe the voices are part of the clockwork of the intelligent design that keeps everything running, and we're just able to hear the cogs turning."
The universe like clockwork. A perfect Order.
Could that really be it? Was the answer really so simple, and yet so incredibly immense that it was almost impossible to comprehend? All this time, he had been listening to cosmic cogs turning, gears rotating, events unfolding… It didn't seem possible that a single, insignificant bot like himself could be gifted with something so grand. Nevertheless, there was a blooming of unnamed emotion moving within his spark. The sense of being right without even having to be told; a dawning amazement and awe in the faceplate of the grandeur of the design he had been connected to. Just as real as it was to stand in the bowels of a monster, surrounded on all sides by more evil than what any living being had the right to be around, he inexplicably knew he was somehow right. It was as if he could still hear them whispering in his audios- that's right, that's right, trust yourself!
But trust was not what he felt in that moment, least of all in himself. In fact, he felt terribly, terribly small in that singular moment in time. He was trapped between two opposing forces of incredible proportion; caught between Order and Chaos incarnate. And, if he really had to be a judge of things, he'd say Chaos was winning at the moment.
Nightbeat's musings scattered like dust to the wind as the door at the far end of the prison block hissed open, admitting the usual crowd of two silent drones toting a single frame between them. There was no need to be curious of whom they brought. Nightbeat knew without needing to be told that Elita One was returning. He backed up against the wall as they approached, and then tried not to make a sound of horror when he caught a flash of Elita's condition when the dropping force field cast her in a dim light. The drones tossed her in and left.
"Elita One?" Nightbeat called out carefully, his back still pressed to far wall. No answer came, not even a small groan. For a single moment, he feared she had finally died and her corpse had been brought back to rot. Steeling himself for whatever he was about to discover, Nightbeat peeled away from the wall and crept to Elita's side, shuffling with his feet to find his way. When his foot tapped something larger than the usual debris, he knew he had found her.
"Elita One, can you speak to me?" he asked softly, crouching over her. A moment of hesitation froze him before he brought his hand to touch her. She didn't like to be touched, nor was it pleasant to touch her. Suppressing a shudder, he laid his palm to what he guessed was her shoulder, feeling warped metal and crusts of something he had no name for. Passing by a vent, a barely-there brush of shallow air caressed him.
As if treating a most precious treasure, Nightbeat began arranging Elita into a more comfortable position. He did it by touch alone, scooting along the floor on his knees to clear a space, straightening out the tangle of her limbs. Her optics had gone murky, greyish. It was a colour Nightbeat was not familiar with in optics, but he was sure there were quite a few more things he was not familiar with on this ship. By the time he had decided Elita was comfortable, it was Nightbeat's distinct impression that she had slipped into some kind of catatonic state. There was no reaction to any stimulus whatsoever on her part, not even a groan when he had accidentally trodden on her hand.
She was alive, but only barely so anymore.
Distracted from his earlier insanity by Elita's sad fate, Nightbeat settled down at her side, drew his knees up to his chest, and stared into the darkness as if he could see her. He couldn't grasp in words how amazing he thought she was for surviving so long in a place like this. Everything she had endured- the physical, emotional, mental torture- and here she was, still alive, despite it all. Even if she were only holding on by strings. It was as if some cruel design had granted her a sick form of immortality, making it so that she could live forever as long as they tortured her. She lived no matter what they did to her.
Nightbeat knew he wasn't even half as strong as her. He doubted there was another being in the universe who could endure as much as she had and emerge from it with half the silent, mourning grace Elita possessed.
It occurred to him in that moment that he probably wasn't even going to last a fraction of the time Elita had suffered here. Now that the Fallen knew of him, knew what he could hear, it was probably only a matter of time before he was dragged away. It was a morbid sense of resignation that told him he was not going to last through the first round. He was not like Elita One. He was going to die.
Yet something about that thought process bothered him. Not the part that he was going to die, because he had always known he would; war reminded him every orn that he was not immortal. The manner that he was going to die in disturbed him to no end, but there was a sick acceptance of his fate slowly building in him, churning like heavy tar at the bottom of his tanks. What bothered him was something half-forgotten in the madness he had let grip hold of him earlier, one of the last things said to him before his connection to the universe had been barred...
You were brought here to make sure a part of you lives on.
But which part? Which part of himself was capable of transcending death? His spark would extinguish, his frame would rust and rot…
Elita made a small noise at his feet, apparently not as catatonic as he once thought. In a bid to offer what comfort he could, Nightbeat reached out to touch her, his clumsy fingers stumbling upon her interface port. It was then that the answer came to him. Like in the cases of many mysteries, the epiphany hit in a flash of understanding; interface ports were connected to the processor, the processor was databanks, databank subclass: memory files. The part of all living beings that transcended death was their memories. The dead stayed alive in the memories of every living being ever encountered in a lifetime.
Memories, like the ones his Creator had transferred to him before Nightbeat had ever been given a spark. Memories that had passed the strange program from Creator to Creation: the part of Twilight that still lived in Nightbeat.
And now Nightbeat was to pass on his gift. He knew exactly who it was meant for.
His voice cracked when addressed the darkness next. "Elita… Primus only knows where your mind is right now, but I hope you've found some place that doesn't hurt…" If he stared hard enough, he could almost fool himself into seeing the yellowed, sickly light of Elita's rotted spark in the cracks of her plating. "Wherever you are, I hope you can hear me. I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances, and I'm sorrier still that I was not able to free you from this place. I can say with utmost certainty that I am honoured to have known you, even for such a short time. You have the bravest, strongest spark I have ever known, and I am glad that you are the one I am passing my gift on to." He touched her forehead, feeling broken metal, an unmoved faceplate. He wished to say so much, if only time was not running out. "Please don't hate for what I'm about to do. I wasn't given a choice to hear what I do, but if I could go back to the moment my Creator transferred his memory files to me, I wouldn't take it back." He could imagine her pliant form in front of him, staring endlessly. She had as much choice in the matter as he once had. "I don't know what it is you're meant to hear, but there's a reason for everything. If there's one thing I've learned from listening to them, it is that everything is connected." His hands moved, shaking, to her interface port. "Like patterns. Puzzles. You and I meeting in this place, what I'm giving you right now… It's all part of something bigger. The one great mystery I've been following all my life." He sucked in a shuddering drag of air as he established connection, letting it all out in a strange rush that was half laugh, half sob. "It's up to you to figure it out now."
There was no warning as his consciousness plunged into Elita One's. He had not been expecting the transition to be so sudden, when normally there was some resistance from active programs and the usual bustle of a bot's busy mind. As confusion cleared, he found the reason for the lacking resistance was because there was practically nothing to resist with. Elia's firewalls had long since crashed, all protective measures overwhelmed, laying in scattered lines of code about her wracked processor. Where Nightbeat found his consciousness now was the equivalent of their cell in the Fallen- dark, cold, and deceptively empty until someone shifted and found the floor covered in debris. But it was a place where the flames did not follow Elita, and for that this place was probably her haven.
Accidently brushing a broken string of data, Nightbeat found a memory activated- it was shaky and greyed, Optimus's faceplate peering down into Elita's optics, touching her faceplate, his mouthplates moving but his words did not match the pace.
"I love you. I love. I love you…"
The memory replayed the words over and over. Optimus's voice was the only thing that rang with crystal clarity.
Feeling embarrassed to have intruded on such a private memory, Nightbeat withdrew, hoping to find a relatively undamaged patch with which to upload his copied files to. Fumbling in the metaphorical darkness of her mind, he bumped into several more thought trains, each featuring an emerging intimate memory of Elita and Optimus running on a loop. Yet, with so many resurfacing memories running, there was very little of Elita's consciousness to be found. He supposed the mystery was some kind of defence mechanism; if she disappeared from even her own mind, whatever was done to her mentally or physically would, perhaps, hurt less. It made him sick to think he was no better than Shockwave invading the sanctity of her private person. Even trying to justify that what he was doing was for the greater good left bitter bile in his tanks. It did not take long to find a patch of Elita's mind that looked relatively more stable than the rest. The thoughts and memories here were firmly rooted through a sense of determined stubbornness and desperation, rather than the flighty, ethereal memories resurfacing elsewhere.
Determining that this last refuge in Elita's mind was probably the best place for him to upload to, Nightbeat began the process of connecting. A draining sensation tickled his mind as copied information ran from his processor like water, trickling into its new home to take root amongst the charred and ruined data.
A sudden spike of fear shot through Elita as Nightbeat grew too close to the memories she had been protecting. First fear, and then desperate horror. He was trapped in mid-stream, unable to disconnect from the upload. Everywhere around him, he could feel Elita's presence rising like a wild storm. She did not recognize him as a friend nor alley. She felt only an intruder too close to what she protected above all else. Her attack hit with surprising strength, rattling Nightbeat. Her second attack was stronger.
Now he was scrambling to disconnect. Enough of himself had been uploaded to ensure that the program would be able to activate in her processor. He needed to disentangle from her mind before she accidentally hurt herself. Or hurt him, which was becoming an increasing possibility. Her third attack was vicious, like a strike of lightning, and in it, Nightbeat caught a flash of the memories she was protecting.
She stood beside Optimus Prime in the dimly lit ICU of Iacon, staring down at an empty berth while Optimus's mouthplates moved around silent words. He was saying something important. Their only light was the ghostly glow of Arcee hanging suspended in a CR chamber, hanging on by threads as a virus ravaged her…
Iacon was being attacked. Ironhide and Chromia were gathering Arcee from the emptied CR chamber. Optimus was scooping nothing from the berth he stood at. He held nothing to chest as he ran…
The destroyed hangar was alive with the screams of war as Decepticons flooded in from all sides. She was fighting as hard as she could, her rifle white-hot from the spews of blazing plasma she issued from it, her hands rife with energon from the several occasions she had used her blade to cut down an enemy. Out of the corner of her optic, she watched the Ark crew sprint for the Ark. Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Ratchet, Jazz… Hound was running to her aid as she fell, and Mirage pelted down the Ark's ramp to help Hound. The engines of the great ship powered up, and even though it would leave without the Master Spy, she was relieved to know there were still five bots on board. Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Ratchet, Jazz, and no one…
Finally, Nightbeat was thrown from Elita's mind. The force of his ejection physically threw him back, ripping his interface cable from the femme's port. An actual spark hissed where their connection severed. Shaken, Nightbeat lay unmoving where he had been thrown, listening as the high-pitched whine of Elita's systems died as her frenzy faded. The moment she recognized there was no longer an intruder endangering that part of her mind, she quieted, submitting to the catatonic state she had previously lain in.
"Elita One?" Nightbeat asked unsurely. As expected, there was no answer. She had only come to life long enough to protect what Nightbeat had threatened. Even into the last moments of his life, mysteries arose and followed him.
Such a curious thing to come upon… Why had Elita One deleted every memory she had of Bumblebee? What did she know about Bumblebee that was so important she couldn't let Shockwave know?
Nightbeat jumped as he felt hard hands grasp his shoulders. Drone hands. There was unforgiving strength in their grip. No mercy in their sparkless beings. He had not sensed them coming, but he resigned to his fate nonetheless.
"I'm ready," he announced to no one, allowing the drones to lever his up and haul him out. He had done what he had been meant to do, everything else would be up to those left living.
His death march felt like an endless one. With each twist and turn, he grew dizzier and more confused, until eventually the drones brought him to a lab that was more nightmare than reality. This place was well-lit, every sterile surface reflecting knife-sharp white light. A single berth lay in the middle of the room, looking recently sterilized. He could only guess that it was the same berth Elita had been tortured on.
As if peering through a telescope from the wrong end, Nightbeat watched the last moments of his life pass away in a mundane medical fashion. His limbs were secured to the berth, his chest cracked open and his spark exposed. The cold was searing on his insides, coldest on the sensitive metal of his sparkcase. The drones were colder still, efficient in all their movements as they stripped his armour to expose other points of interest, inserting measuring tools and probes, subtle torture before the main event. Hundreds of sparks had probably met their end on this very berth, murdered by these very drones. Somewhere in another part of the ship, detached from it all, Shockwave watched with indifference. This was all science to him. Nightbeat and a thousand others were not living beings; they were numbers.
Cold steel pierced his spark. The probe was long and narrow, no more than an electrified rod, its presence rigid within the life force that pulsed around it. It was a perversion. A rape of his spark. Unable to take the agony or humiliation, Nightbeat shuttered his optics, discovering the Fallen had come to watch the show. He was smiling, moving in a way that hinted at internal laughter. The Fallen did not know yet that Nightbeat was not about to die, not completely. He had completed his part of the puzzle; his voices would live on.
His wavering smirk wiped the smile from the Fallen's faceplate.
"Commencing spark division procedure on Experimental Applicant XX2-4620008PSI. Stand by."
Steeling himself, Nightbeat waited for it to come. His frame shook. No amount of accepting death would take away how much what was about to happen would hurt. An unchecked sob escaped him, breathy and broken. An electric hum had started somewhere to his left, filling the room with a buzzing. What started as pins and needles in his chest slowly began to swell into a feeling of fire. Of its own accord, his frame twisted, arched, and from his mouthplates came a scream unlike any other he had ever made in his life.
The Fallen was laughing again, and this time Nightbeat could hear him. It was in that peculiar place between life and death that Nightbeat heard the high, cold, merciless laughter of the Fallen ringing like shattering glass. And as the laughter grew louder, drowning out even Nightbeat's screams, he became aware of a crumbling sensation. Things were starting to peel away from inside of him. Barriers were falling. The world he knew was growing quieter, more distant. The telescope he peered through grew longer and longer until he saw everything through a spot no bigger than a pin prick. He felt himself thrashing, screaming, calling out for respite, but it all slowly took on a dreamlike quality. Everything just slowly drifted from agony to a sensation he could not name. There was no name for it. The world felt so very far away now.
He found himself hallucinating in his last astroseconds of life. Or was he already dead? Another mystery to puzzle away at…
Nightbeat turned his head to the right and found himself staring into the faceplate of the pearl-painted youngling that had appeared on the orn of his Creator's death. The youngling smiled broadly, as if so proud of Nightbeat that there were no words to express the immensity of the emotion.
"Daybreak…" Nightbeat croaked, his voice raw from screaming. He searched the familiar faceplate, sobbed, and then dared to say, "Twilight…"
The pearl-painted youngling smiled even wider. "Such a clever mech." Those strange, glittering optics seemed to go on forever. "You figured everything out in the end. I'm so proud of you." His voice was not that of the youngling from so long ago, but the deep, musical candescence of his Creator. Somehow, Twilight sounded so much more profound in death than he ever had in life. He sounded like Order.
"It hurts so much…" Nightbeat cried. Even more of reality fell away. The dreamscape of the hallucination wavered, fading. Only Twilight remained unmoved. Nightbeat stared through cringing optics, questioning whether he was hallucinating at all. The world felt so far away, but still it hurt so much. Like strings stretched taut, pulling at the deepest, most intimate parts of himself. "Please, it hurts…"
"I know, I know," Twilight soothed. "You've done so well, Nightbeat. It's almost over. Very soon, this will all be like a dream."
At last, that final barrier fell away. The strings snapped. A rush sounded in Nightbeat's audios, and he felt himself freed from the very tiny confines he never knew he'd been bound to. It felt as if he were expanding in every direction at the speed of light. The rushing in his audios was of the universe flying by. Exhaustion, pain, mortality fell away. Everything fell away. That last, single pinpoint of reality finally blacked out.
Twilight gripped Nightbeat's hand, his touch lighter than air but more alive than life had ever been. He leaned in and whispered over the rushing in Nightbeat's audio,
"It's time to wake up now."
And suddenly Nightbeat was aware of a most brilliant white light.
"It's time to wake up now."
Elita suddenly found herself back in her frame, feeling as if something had audibly clicked in her head. Something had activated. She found herself sitting up without remembering moving. She suffered from the distinct feeling of hearing someone speak, though it was useless to hope for an echo within the Fallen. Except there was something very wrong with the silence now. It was changed. Different. It sounded as if some form of music was playing. Distant, wavering music, muffled and barely there; if Elita had ever heard whale song on Earth, she would had thought it sounded rather similar.
As more of herself came back to her mind, fitting into the nooks and crannies she had abandoned during her torture, she found something had been changed. Something had been added to her that hadn't been there before. A program she could not identify. It was in the place where her most important memories lay- the ones she couldn't remember why she protected, only that she had to. For a terrifying moment, she thought Shockwave had finally determined that these "useless" memories had scientific purpose and decided to probe. However, what she felt was not malignant. Nor was it benign. It was simply there, as if it had always meant to be there.
And then she remembered Nightbeat had been in her head.
"Nightbeat?" Elita croaked, glancing about herself. There was nothing but flame for as far as she could see- across the floors, up the walls, searing the ceiling, raging beyond her cage. Nightbeat did not burn within the inferno, nor was the Fallen anywhere present. Curious, usually the Fallen came to taunt, even for just a little while.
"Nightbeat?" she called again, worried that her voice was too quiet to be heard. Perhaps he was hidden? No noise, no response. Elita didn't remember him leaving, but she somehow knew she was never going to see him again. She sighed, backing herself up to the nearest wall and bringing her knees to her chest. Alone yet again, as she had been for eons.
You are never alone.
Too tired to be scared, Elita merely canted her head when the music swelled and she heard voices mixed within. Hearing voices was the least of her problems, so when she determined the sound could do her no harm, she laid her head back to her knees. There was nothing voices in her head could do to her that Shockwave hadn't already done tenfold worse.
"At least I have company now," she murmured tiredly, shuttering her optics and heaving a great sigh once more. A curious thought struck her, and she asked, "Did Nightbeat make it so I can hear you?"
You were always meant to hear us. Somehow the music was growing louder in her head, drawing nearer. Getting stronger.
Nightbeat, for the short time she had known him, had been a funny mech. Strange in a way Elita couldn't quite understand. Now she could at least guess on a contributing factor of his strangeness. "Tell him thanks," she whispered.
He already knows
For the first time in forever, Elita felt the faintest of smiles ghost her faceplate. The gesture was stiff, like she had forgotten how to do it. In the silence, she listened to the gentle swells and rolls of music as it ebbed and flowed, moving on an invisible tide. So accustomed to losing track of time, Elita listened until the music was all she could hear, drowning out even the preternatural silence of the Fallen. It was still a contained symphony, still fighting to be heard in all its glory, but nevertheless it was beautiful. Every note blossoming, swirling, flowing in tandem to the next, working in perfect order with all other notes.
"Is this what you sounded like to Nightbeat?" Elita asked quietly, wondrously. She suddenly felt like a very small youngling at the foot of a very immense, very wise elder bot.
Even louder did the disembodied orchestra swell. No two sparks are the same.
Elita nodded absently, humming, trying to follow along with the disembodied whale song. When it felt as if they were fading again, she frowned, not wishing to be alone anymore.
"Will you stay with me?" she queried weakly, pleadingly.
Her request became some sort of magic, shattering the last barrier that kept the symphony at bay. She was suddenly swept away on a tide of many beautiful voices and musical notes, each like a physical caress that was of pure elation rather than pain. There was joyous celebration as the orchestra whirled and sang and swirled in rapturous ecstasy. Most amazing of all, as the music swept in, the fires were extinguished. She was rendered blind in the impenetrable darkness, but no longer did she burn with the pit-borne flame's presence. A balm of which the likes she never felt touched her aching spark, soothing it.
"How?" she asked, surprising herself with how close to a laugh that single word sounded.
Your strength is our strength. Order is restored over Chaos.
And then Elita laughed for real. She did not understand any of it, but felt as if it were a great deal more important than she could possibly comprehend. Her fingers came to her chest, to the seam where her ragged spark churned hidden. This seemed to be the moment of many firsts, for not only had she laughed, but she felt a sliver of hope rise in her. In that moment in time, there was no pain, no teetering on the edge of some great dark precipice, no dying from the inside out.
She felt at peace.
The greatest wonder of them all, the presence of Optimus Prime's spark within herself grew, reaching out, drawn in awe by the new joy that had taken hold of her spark.
Unbidden, Elita sobbed and reached back.