"Prime! Optimus!"

The Autobot leader turns around, startled at the shouting, and all talk about their new major assault is forgotten when Blaster bursts into the room.

"What's going on? Did something—"

"It's Jazz!" The Communications Officer cuts, so many emotions on his faceplate and optics that they're indecipherable.

Optimus feels all his systems stop.

"Primus, did they catch him again?" Megatron asks hurriedly, servos clenching into tight fists, but the red and yellow mech shakes his helm with a large smile.

"No, no! He remembers everything!"

"Those are excellent news." Ultra Magnus answers, a bit of tension vanishing from his frame. "But wasn't he on the battlefield?"

Blaster's smile wavers.

"Yeah, well, this is when the good and bad news get really messed up. Jazz just called, said he remembers everything, and that he's with Starscream and he remembers everything too, and so do Prowl and Soundwave—" Megatron and Optimus exchange large joyous smiles, and Ironhide lets out a loud victorious 'yes'. "—and that they are on their way to the Quintesson motherships to end this once and for all."

"What?!" All mechs in the room roar, including Shockwave, before Blaster gestures for them to calm down.

"That's what he said! That Prowl and Soundwave are in one of the motherships and that they have help in the inside, and that they are going to use the surprise before the Quintessons try anything else. He said to get ready for whatever may happen, and that's when the connection cut."

"Cut? You mean, he ended it?"

"No. I mean he entered some kind of blackout bubble and I lost him."

The officers exchange a look that can be summed in two words before they burst out of the room to ready all possible troops for the largest—and, hopefully, latest—attack on the Quintessons.

As they get outside, Optimus carrying a weapon for the first time since their capture, those two words echo in his processor once more as he turns his attention to the starry sky.

Aw, slag.


Soundwave can't really talk to the Dinobots or Predacons, no matter what he tries, even though they're closer than Prowl—most likely.

Though, to be fair, it isn't as if he had ever been able to communicate with anyone else by using his enhanced field and over-developed communications suite before, bond or no bond.

He suspects it may have something to do with whatever the Quintessons have done to him, that they inadvertently—because it's hard to think of a reason why they would do that while they're trying to keep him subdued—augmented his natural capabilities, or bettered them somehow.

Which, to be fair, isn't that bad when he actually knows who he is and what he should be doing.

He almost feels like giving their captors a quick deactivation in a sort of thanks, but, as soon as the thought crosses his processor, he deletes it.

The only way he'll be that merciful will be if he has no other choice than to eliminate the threat quickly.

Nevertheless, despite being unable to actually communicate with his fellow prisoners, he has managed to establish clear enough contact that they all know he's there.

That doesn't mean he stops trying to get more.

Besides, the Dinobots are way too young to have been trapped so long without knowledge of their creators' whereabouts and status, especially because of the same bond-blocking fields that cocoon the mothership like they did the Protectodome.

So, it comes as a surprise when, during one of his probing sessions, he locates not only one new spark, but two—and recognizes them.

"Starscream?! Jazz?!" He can feel his frame tense, the servos carefully holding the datapad tightening to the point the screen cracks, but, fortunately, he hasn't spoken out loud.

::Soundwave!::

His spark swells with joy and relief at the twin shouts and mirroring waves of emotion through the until then inactive bonds.

::Soundwave, Starscream's dropping me off, but I'm still labeled as an enemy, so we need you to—::

"I'll take care of it. Are we going to—"

::Yes, once and for all!::

Soundwave's visor blazes to activation.

Ignoring the voice through the hidden speakers, the Cassette Carrier discards the pad, gets to his pedes and turns to the wall.

And then, making use of the inherent sound-abilities of all Cassette Carriers, he sends a sonic pulse that would have made Thundercracker turn green with envy, and, after a couple of nanokliks of trembling, the whole wall collapses.

Unable to contact Prowl directly now that he needs to focus on bringing down as many walls of the rest of cells as possible before the drones arrive, Soundwave sends just a pulse of joy and burning determination, and gets a mirroring one from the Praxian.

Neither the Dinobots nor the Predacons have escaped untouched from the Quintessons' manipulations, all of them looking sharper and rougher, no longer bearing the rounded and simple frames of their times warring on Earth or, in the Decpeticons' case, of their past on Cybertron, but showing instead bladed spines and sharp ridges and enormous natural weapons in the shape of teeth, claws and horns.

And, while all of them are more than happy to see Soundwave and be told the time has come to get rid of their captors and regain their freedom, even if that means they have to cooperate with members of the opposing faction, all their cheer and playfulness vanishes when the first wave of drones bursts into the corridor.

To the Cassette Carrier's delight, the Quintessons were even nice enough to improve their armor to resist the scrambler shots.

So, he allows those freed to enjoy themselves by ripping their enemies apart while he brings down the rest of walls to liberate the remaining ones.

Time to do some damage.


Prowl's rank as an operator has changed a lot since he first joined the ranks.

Once, he had a post in the lowest tier, monitoring two Cybertronian.

Now, he sits with the Reflector Gestalt in one of the highest, looking after three crafts.

He would like to influence the fighting by giving them inaccurate instructions and indications, but, in order to maintain his position, he can't.

Regardless, it isn't as if the drones he's tasked with watching over are that efficient to begin with, so he has yet to manage to keep all three functioning during a battle.

Useless. If it wasn't because of the advantage of numbers, they could never represent such a danger to even the less trained of Cybertronian.

He's snapped out of his musings when he cuts the connection with the remaining two drones—and he's sure they are drones, no real Cybertronian would have acted as his 'charges' did during battle—and sees that Viewfinder, sitting next to him, seems about ready to suffer a panic attack.

Spectro, at his other side, is trying to calm him down, but the Decepticon is still attached to the cable connecting him to the console to organize his comm lines and whispering hurriedly.

"—slag it all, Screamer, answer me for Primus' sake or I swear I'm going to rip your wings off next I see you if you don't give any signal of—"

"Wait, wait." He hisses, grabbing the Reflector's arm, and immediately finds himself faced with two pairs of optics covered by a pale red visor. "Viewfinder did you just say—"

"Starscream, yes, that's him, and the slagger isn't answering me and the Air Commander isn't either, even though they're both active, and there's that Black Beast with them and none of them is doing anything and—"

"Give me that." He orders, gesturing to the cable, and, without another word, the Decepticon does so. "Did you give him my message?"

"Yes, and he said he's Steve Reeds from the Ark Protectodome, but I think he was lying because he's not, he's Starscream, but then he started saying that his scans weren't working and he was getting a visual and that the Black Beast isn't a Black Beast—"

"Starscream, this is Prowl, can you hear me?" He calls once the connection is reestablished, hope making his spark pulse faster, but gets nothing. "Starscream?"

No answer.

A look at the screen, however, shows the two dots representing Steve Reeds and Air Commander Shiloh Grant in their humanoid modes simply standing close together with a red dot marking a Runner next to them.

But they're not fighting.

That's all the Doorwinger needs to know the radio silence is a good thing, because, together with Viewfinder's words, that means Starscream must be back to himself and has closed all contact with the Deliberata to avoid being overheard by the Quintessons.

The line crackles.

::Viewfinder, are you still there?::

Prowl lets out a relieved laugh at the words, if not the voice, unrecognizable due to the scramblers in place.

"Scared to almost spark failure, but he's still here. What took you so long, Starscream?" He answers, observing the scans in the screens vanish as the Tetrajet cuts the feed back to the mothership.

::Prowl, glad to hear you again! Though I'll like it better when we're back faceplate to faceplate. As to your question, I had to pick Jazz up.::

"Jazz? He's with you? Does he…"

::Remember things? Yes, he does. And we're coming to get you all out and end this thing once and for all, so you better clear a path to allow a Black Beast through.::

And that's when he receives the pulse from Soundwave, and allows a large sharp smirk on his faceplate.

"Consider it done."

"Prowl? What are you—"

"I need your help." He cuts, once more facing his computer and disconnecting from Viewfinder's when he hears the comm end. "There's a timed pulsing of certain electromagnetic waves we need to cancel, most likely hidden behind who knows how many firewalls or even in a different server, and I'll need your hacking expertise."

"You want us to hack the mothership?" Spectro asks, dumbfounded, but he's already facing his screen and getting to work, while his brothers and the Praxian surround him to watch him work or, in the Decepticons' case, to help.

"Do you trust me?"

"You know we do, mech." Viewfinder answers, distracted by some side typing on his own computer that makes Spectro's jump to a more easily cleared point, and Prowl smiles at the unconscious answer.

"Then trust me when I say this will save us all."

"That's a pretty big thing to say." Spyglass whistles, not stopping on whatever he's doing on his own console. "What will it do? Get rid of the Black Beasts?"

"No. It will deal with what is behind them."

All three Decepticons stop to stare at him in bewilderment.

"Er, are you sure you are—"

The alarms start blaring, bright red lights tinting the room with their blinking.

"Quick!" He shouts, turning to the drones that are hurrying out of the bridge.

"But that's the emergency alarm! We're under direct attack! We need to—"

"Finish this, Spectro!" Viewfinder cuts, pushing his brother away to continue their hacking. "I don't know what the Pit is going on but—"

A roar. Loud, menacing, and so well known that Prowl almost smiles out loud.

However, that's when he sees the Quintesson Judge run towards the emergency door, so the Doorwinger snarls instead and, ignoring the Reflector siblings' startled cries, jumps on the table and uses the higher position to leap to the highest tier and cut their captor's escape.

"Fowler, what are you doing? We need to—"

"You're going nowhere, Quintesson." He spits, doorwings flared wide and optics crisscrossed by the lines and spots of his targeting systems, and the oval being turns so that its doubt face is the one at the front.

Without losing another nanoklik, Prowl strikes.

He may not have a weapon and he may not be as bulky and heavily armored as other mechs, but that doesn't mean he's defenseless.

He's a Doorwinger, and all Doorwingers have claws.

The Quintesson shrieks when he stabs its yellow face, its tentacles wrapping around his arm but being easily ripped off by his free servo, but the drones are coming back inside—

With the loudest roar yet, a large red and gold pneuma-lion pounces on them and efficiently uses claws and denta to deal with them.

"Holy Primus, what is that—"

"Got it!"

Prowl can feel it the instant the pulsing stops, all his sensors lighting up and registering far more than any other time before, and judging by the startled gasps of the three Decepticons huddled around the computer, they can feel it too.

"Razorclaw! What the Pit is going on here?!" Spyglass screeches, looking around wildly, and the Praxian smiles widely at that.

Not only feel it, then.

The Predacon gives them a soft growl before turning around and roaring, and, a moment later, a squared deep blue vehicle rushes inside and transforms.

Soundwave's red visor immediately meets Prowl's blue optics, and despite the facemask covering his faceplate, the Autobot knows he's smiling.

The Quintesson shrieks again, renewing its efforts to free itself when the Cassette Carrier gets to their side, but to no avail.

When the Communications Officer presses his servos on either side of the death face, visor going black, all struggles cease.

The room fills with tension, if not silence, for there are still roars and shots coming through the door, as all Cybertronian wait for whatever may happen.

And then, the Quintesson falls to the ground lifelessly, and Soundwave almost follows, stumbling back with a pained gasp, but the Reflector Gestalt suddenly at his side catch him while Prowl takes his stained servo out of the body.

"What happened? What did you find?"

"The Judge, Deliberata, he… The Quintessons didn't take any Cybertronians back to their home-world, they're all in the motherships." The Cassette Carrier answers shakily, immediately grabbing the Praxian's arms when he gets close enough.

"Then it looks like today is our lucky day!" A voice calls from the entrance, and, next the knows, there's a slightly smaller black and white frame with sensory horns and a blue visor over a blinding smile hugging Prowl and Soundwave tight enough to dent.

"Jazz!" The Doorwinger exclaims happily, returning the embrace with a pleased purring of his engine, and feeling his spark brighten even more at the rekindling of a bond long blocked and at the saboteur nuzzling back. "Primus, I was so worried about you…"

"You were worried? Those Quinta-creeps made us think they had completely reprogrammed all of you, so don't tell me about worries!" The Head of Special Operations retorts, pushing away and punching him on the arm, but he's still smiling and laughing. "And I had the joy to lose myself back to the Guardians and find myself all over again, so you owe me one."

"Whoa, you were part of the Guardians of Cybertron?" Viewfinder squeaks, stumbling away to hide behind Spectro.

"No wonder you're so scary." Spyglass whispers, shuddering.

And Jazz just smiles again, in the way only the Jazz Prowl has known for vorns can, and the Autobot Second feels like joining—

When Soundwave grabs their arms and shakes them, worry and terror filling their bonds.

"Yes, that may be good news, but it's not our lucky day!" The Communications Officer shouts, facemask retracting as if his too obvious horror wasn't noticeable enough in just his voice, shaking and pale visor.

"Whoa, Sounders, calm down! What is it, another weapon?"

"Yes." The dark blue mech whimpers, and Prowl feels himself start to shake too.

"Do you know what it is?" He asks, softly, gripping Soundwave's arm back.

"Yes."

"Well? Tell us, mech!"

"Unicron."


Cyclonus lets out a tremulous sigh as he finally allows himself to take a brief rest to absorb everything.

He's in the Derodomontatus' bridge, all systems disabled and all drones lying without power on the floors thanks to a simple order.

And with one of the Quintesson Masters, Judge Derodomontatus, tied to his throne and shrieking orders at him.

But he can't obey them. Not anymore.

They never planned to let us be ourselves. We never were more than tools.

It's so easy to see now that he knows what he's looking at, that what he once thought was worry for all their races and the protectiveness of the creator race is actually power lust and greed, that Cyclonus feels almost guilty of not having noticed before.

Almost.

It isn't as if he had any idea what to look for, anyway.

It could be the same now, true, but he's been around Cybertronian all his function, short as it is, and this new angle fits so much better than the one they were told about upon activation, that he can't deny it.

So, taking a deep intake to let the cool air lower his too high core temperature, Cyclonus relaxes and reaches for the main console, opening a line to the Deliberata.

"Cyclonus here, can anyone hear me?"

For a moment, there's nothing, and the Seeker doesn't know how to take that.

But then, the line crackles.

::Cyclonus, Jazz here. How are things on your end? And what's all that screaming?::

"The Derodomontatus is under control. And that would be Judge Derodomontatus. He doesn't agree with my change of allegiance."

::Oh, you have him functioning! Excellent! Soundwave's coming over to ask him some questions, so keep him under tight watch.::

"Questions? Couldn't he ask them of Judge Deliberata?" The Seeker muses out loud, feeling worried for his former Master despite himself.

::Yeah, he did, but he didn't have the answers. Say, what do you know about Unicron?::

For a moment, Cyclonus doesn't answers, searching through his database extensively to make sure he misses nothing.

And then, feeling useless, he turns back to the connection.

"I have never heard that name before."

Loud cursing answers him.

::Yeah, all the more reason to keep that Egg-frame active. Look, you keep that creep under watch until Soundwave's done with him, Prowler and I will go help Screamer in the Quintessa. By the way, I called the Resistance before we set off, so expect a visit from them soon. And don't worry, I told them you're on our—Oh, wait, I didn't tell them.::

"Are you telling me the glit—the rest of Cybertronian are going to board this ship and they don't know I'm no longer an enemy?" The Air Commander growls, and there's nervous chuckling from the other side of the line.

::Hey, easy. Primus, you've spent too much time with Screamer… Anyway, Spectro here is fiddling with the controls, so he'll be sending them a message as soon as he can. Besides, Soundwave'll be there before you know it, and he does know you're on our side.::

"That isn't exactly reassuring." He grumbles, glancing at the door with worry, but hearing nothing from the other side.

::Yeah, well, you can chew me up later. Look, we're out to the Quintessa as soon as Spyglass can work out how the locating system in this thing works, so what should we be expecting? Screamer has support inside, doesn't he?::

"He should, he's met quite a lot of the Cybertronian there. Though how he's going to make his way through the corridors is—" The rest of the sentence is cut by a chocked sound.

Because, even if Starscream can convince the other Taint—Cybertronian, there's still one very big, very tough, very angry problem to get past.

::Cyclonus?::

"Jazz, Judge Derodomontatus is strapped to his chair and he's going nowhere, so I'm going to the Quintessa."

::What—Why?::

"Galvatron."


He gets into the ship as easily as usual, only, this time, when he transforms to root mode at the end of the track, the first thing he does is switch his arms for cannons and start shooting.

The drones fall before they can do anything, and loud cursing immediately gives away his next targets.

Hot Rod, Springer and Elita One, all staring at him in surprise and slight fear.

But no recognition.

So, recalling an incident long ago where he used the barest minimum of his null-rays' charge to 'jump-start' a Cybertronian, Starscream adjusts the settings of his weapons and fires again.

The three Autobots skid away at the impacts, yelping at the energy coursing through their frames, and the Seeker immediately brings his attention back to the drones rushing through the corridors.

When he feels the other mechs slowly get up, he snarls at them over a shoulder.

"If you're done playing puppet I could use a couple more guns here!"

The first to react, unsurprisingly, is Elita One, who jumps back to her pedes and joins in his shooting of the drones with the two seemingly small guns attached to her hips.

"I don't know what the Pit just happened, so you better have a slagging good story to tell, Con!" She exclaims, jumping over a bunch of deactivated drones to start laying waste on another group.

"So long as you try not to shoot me before the story is over, deal!" He answers with a smirk, which only widens when Springer transforms to his Rotor alt to provide cover fire without being bothered by the immobile frames littering the ground.

"If he says we were caught and reprogrammed by Quintessons, then I can corroborate that story!" Hot Rod adds as he too joins the battle, using a tiny pile of drones as cover. "That doesn't mean I'm forgiving you for that thing with the data-stick!"

"Oh, come on, I did you a favor." The Seeker sneers back, rushing towards one of the corridors where drones are no longer coming through. "Keep them busy, reinforcements are on the way!"

"Where are you going?!"

But he doesn't answer, already far enough as he flies through the corridors that he knows he won't be heard anyway.

There's got to be a command center in this ship, with a Quintesson calling the shots, and Starscream knows they have to deal with it as soon as possible before it manages to run away or release something like those behemoth of drones they encountered back on Earth.

Or, Primus forbid, before it sends a message back to the other Quintessons.

That's the last thing they—

Starscream jerks to a stop with a startled cry when the large frame rushes out of a side corridor, and barely avoids being crushed by strong arms when he cuts his engines and drops to the floor to roll under the newcomer.

He's met with Scourge's worried and confused faceplate when he straightens, and knows just what is behind him even before he whirls around.

However, the amount of rage and delight on Galvatron's faceplate is far more than he expected.

"About time you gave me the perfect excuse to get rid of you. And this time, there will be no stopping me."


AN: And another kinda short chapter. Oops :P

I must admit, I was tempted to call this one 'Cliffhanger', but I thought that would be too big a spoiler XD