Chapter 49: Letum
(Latin: death, ruin, annihilation)
AN: I cannot thank you all enough for the well-wishes for me and my family. Thank you.
Again, more crap happening on the family front, because now I've got about 3 times the work I needed before. Awesome. Hence the crazed slow updates. Seriously. I am really, really sorry, but not exactly super motivated to write right now.
NOTE: This is not super-edited (mainly because I want to get this out and not languish over it for another week) so if you see some rampant errors, lemme know. It's entirely possible they exist - I had to change 'shit' to 'ship' about 4 times. If I even mention ships 4 times. Man, I'm tired.
Pain centered my world, drawing me back from the inky blackness of peace. I sucked in a deep breath, intense agony racing through my ribs from the crazed giggling mech of earlier. How much earlier? I didn't know how long I had been out, nor how long I'd been with Shockwave. Right now, no one was in the room with me.
Unless Shockwave was still here, with his preternaturally silent feet. He scared me; terrified me, actually. The thing at the back of my neck was sending dark throbs of agony through my body.
::Sunstreaker? Sideswipe?:: I tried again, to nothing. My mind hurt, the emptiness calling to me and begging me to join with it. I shoved it back, although the suspicion was growing in me.
Every time I called for them, the emptiness called to me. It pulled at my very soul, calling out in sweet tones. Was… were they dead? No. That couldn't be right. The two were nigh unstoppable. Dead?
It couldn't be. Until he shoved their cold frames into my hands, I wouldn't believe it. My heart couldn't take it.
Maybe he was just blocking our bond. This was Shockwave, and he had done that exact same thing to Sunstreaker some vorns ago. It was possible he'd done the same thing to me. He'd managed to hack into my memories and even my stream of conscious thought, melting my resistance like an ice cream cone on a hot day.
It didn't feel like the program that had pulled my thoughts from me was active right now. I was grateful for small mercies. It made me think that Shockwave wasn't here – he'd have noticed I was onlined and started back to information-stripping.
Unless he'd copied everything already and deemed me useless other than bait.
I winced as a twinge in my neck grew into a wild pounding, from muscles that had been sitting too still for too long. I stayed absolutely silent, however. There was no chance I was going to make a noise, despite the pain I was in.
More noise meant that Shockwave would come back and cause even more pain. Every single part of me rebelled against this idea. Therefore staying silent was in my best interests.
A creak of metal had me tensing, back muscles so tight I didn't know if they would loosen up. I held my breath, listening intently. All my muscles hurt, from how hard I was holding myself. There was no further sound.
My heartbeat started roaring in my ears, and I felt like cursing. Now all I could hear was my own heartbeat. Fucking hell.
I started taking shallow breaths, hoping that nothing was lurking over me, even if I felt like I wasn't alone. I swallowed hotly. Please, help me, help me, help me, help me. I chanted over and over in my mind, wishing to be nearly anywhere but where I was right now – strapped to a table, blinded, with something implanted into my spine, sucking out memories.
My throat was tight.
Help me.
Shockwave gazed dispassionately at the three mechs that returned. Wildrider was toting a silver form over one shoulder and snickering. He was repeatedly lifting one hand of the limp mech, and letting it flop down to clang against his chest plating. Motormaster was carting the other one.
His precious experiment was much heavier than the silver one, it only made sense for Motormaster to carry him.
The last of the three was mincing behind the black transformer, blue paint nanites rough and choppy over his chest. Energy marks seared the nanites to grey.
"Return to lab three. Place the subjects in restraints, drain the excess energon from their tanks and separate them into two rooms."
Along with these instructions, he included the amount of energon that should be left in their tanks, how thoroughly he wanted each subspace cleared out, the restraints for each, and which room he wanted them in. No one could accuse Shockwave of being less than thorough.
Motormaster nodded his head in agreement, and Wildrider laughed in a human fashion. This irritated Shockwave. Breakdown meekly followed Motormaster, jumping slightly at his shadow.
Clearly, this prototype set of gestalt members needed more research. Shockwave hated sending out inferior protoypes – of the five, two had been destroyed by Prime's elite warriors, even though the gestalt had been designed to take down the twins.
Nevertheless, the prototype gestalt had succeeded. Breakdown, with his vibrations ready to take down the twins; Motormaster, modeled in physical fashion off of Prime, with enough power to take down Sunstreaker; Wildrider and Dragstrip, fast and unaware of limitations to deal with the speedy silver twin. And Dead End.
However, they had served their purpose. That was all that was necessary. He turned and moved after Motormaster, intent on making sure that his golden one was perfectly, completely secured. He wanted absolutely no chance of him escaping again, ever.
As Motormaster lugged his prize to the room Shockwave had designated, there was a blur of movement, a flash of yellow-gold nanites. Shockwave's optic had barely an astrosecond to notice that a gleaming silver dagger was planted in Motormaster's lower lateral joint when the black mech staggered to the right, dropping Sunstreaker on the ground. There was a roar, and the yellow mech blazed to his feet, optics brilliant, enraged blue.
One slice of another blade ripped from subspace pierced the primary lines in Motormaster's neck, blue energon pouring down his chest and back. The black mech dropped into stasis immediately.
"Where are they?!" He roared at Shockwave, right arm transforming into a weapon. He was too slow.
Shockwave had not survived the entirety of the Cybertronian war by being only a scientist. He was more than capable of holding his own in a fight. One arm transformed at light speed into his pulse cannon, which was significantly larger than Sunstreaker's.
Motormaster had forgotten to strip the yellow transformer's subspace, the idiot. He sent a fast reminder to Wildrider, who would definitely not have emptied the silver one's subspace.
He hated sending out prototypes. They always had issues, and these had next to no real life experience, shown by their ineptitude.
One well-placed shot to Sunstreaker's chest had the snarling yellow twin down on the ground, twitching. Shockwave moved faster than his frame belied, planting a hefty foot in the middle of the chest, scraping deadened grey nanites and fresh yellow ones from the Autobot's chest. They sparkled before losing energy and going grey.
Sunstreaker was still online, which was impressive. Most of the time, if Shockwave hit something, it stayed down. The Autobot was twitching from the residual energy bursts, trying to coordinate his arm enough to move and grab the blade that was sunk in Motormaster, leaking all over the floor. Shockwave levelled the pulse cannon over the mech's face.
Shockwave shot him in the face, immediately taking the yellow twin offline. The form slumped, limp.
Immediately, he opened a link to Wildrider. It was entirely possible that the mech was having the same problem with the silver one.
-Confirm continued stasis of subject,- he sent quickly. There was silence.
How irritating. He was torn between grudging admiration at the tenacity of the two Autobots, and annoyance at the incompetence of new prototypes. Damn Megatron for now allowing him adequate time to test his prototypes. Always impatient. Again, he thought it would have been wiser of Soundwave to leave Megatron offline longer.
He stood over the stasis-ed body, accessing the cameras in his base. Several were black, and he growled, so faintly it was unlikely anything would have heard him. Wildrider was pinned to the wall by an arm, his own blade shoved into the bricks to hold him.
-Breakdown, status,- he growled.
There was a slight squeak over the line. –I'm hiding, Master, he's going to get me!-
The nervous creature (Shockwave needed to take a look at his coding; nervousness was not part of his coded programming.) stuttered and pulled out the last word in a squeal.
A crackle of static echoed through the base.
"Yo, Shockwave!" A chirpy, perky voice washed into his audios. "You've been a great host and all, but I'm taking back what's mine now."
The last few words were dark, promising lethal intent if he found Shockwave.
Shockwave paid him no mind. If he followed the trail of blackened cameras, he would know exactly where the silver mech was. Within a few astroseconds, he knew. Unfortunately, he located the escapee with his fingers deep in a control panel tucked into a wall.
Shockwave located where the transformer was, moving that way swiftly. If left untended, Sideswipe could do a lot of damage. Fortunately, Shockwave was more than a match for the mech, especially since he was alone.
The scientist rounded the corner, noise dampeners working at full output to mask the sounds of his quickened approach. It made no difference, however. Sideswipe was gone. Only sparking wires, stripped out of the wall, showed that had had been here. Shockwave accessed the cameras again, wondering where the mech was – he wasn't showing up on the camera. A tiny flicker alerted him – a loop. The fragger had hacked in and created a loop.
He ruthlessly attached himself to the same wires, stripping the loop from the cameras. Immediately, they all went dark.
Irritation flared. There was no way that the irksome mech had managed to disable all of the cameras. He must have programmed in a trick, so that once the loop was disabled, they would all go down.
What would the mech's first move be? He would most likely try to revive his twin, to increase their firepower. Both were injured, however. It would be an easy fight for Shockwave.
He ran through some of the other options as he tried to break the nasty little virus that took his cameras offline.
Soundwave commed him. –Prime approaches your location.-
This was accompanied by the information that it was not just Prime, it was also his Weapons Specialist, the Chief Medical Officer, two of his previous experiments, a flashy red vehicle, a small vehicle he suspected to be another medical officer – or a scientist. There were also packs of humans, following the mechs. Shockwave was outnumbered, and the prototypes were too damaged to be effective.
-Shockwave: Require assistance?-
Soundwave sounded smug.
-Negative. I have not been spotted, nor do they have my location.-
-Lord Megatron inquires as to your progress.-
-I require more time.-
He cut the comm. line. He had experiments that needed tending.
Arcee wished with her whole spark for Blaster – with Soundwave orbiting the planet, any communications were well and truly controlled by him. Other than quantum bonds such as herself and the other twins had. Even though she wasn't a true quantum bond, it functioned quite similarly to one. All three of her were feeling the discomfort the extended distance caused on their portioned spark.
::Base report?:: She sent to her blue self, still on the base.
::All clear, here. Jolt's got the brother working on a method of tracking us.:: Her internal disdain for the traitorous brother came through her spark easily. She thought Prime soft for taking him in so easily.
"Blue-three says all clear," she said to Prime. Both of here were driving just in front of him, the holographic human on her back crouched over her form. She didn't have the size to pull off a holoform emitter, so holographic humans it was.
Ironhide was at Prime's rear, protecting his back. Ratchet was in the very back, in a slightly more protected location, with Doc in front. The humans were following in various vehicles, carting their weaponry and equipment.
Soundwave had even knocked out short-range comms, and she could hear the complaints from the humans. Prime had stated that they would be remaining together, because if they separated, it would be much too easy for Shockwave or even Megatron to take them out.
Her engine burned hotter as she thought murderous ideas about Megatron. He'd been down once, and was now back. She wanted him to die, and stay dead, forever rotting in the Pit. Shockwave and Soundwave could join him.
The traffic was absolutely horrific – Soundwave's little trick with all frequencies had caused the lights to stop working, effectively slowing traffic to a standstill. Crashes littered the city, and pedestrians were starting to sprout from their stopped vehicles. Some even walked away entirely, cursing and bemoaning their fate.
One woman threw her phone at the ground, cursing about the lack of service. The plastic shattered into three pieces. She stomped off. Emergency vehicles could be heard, with no effect. There was nowhere for them to go. Repeat ad nauseam for the transformers.
"Prime, we're not going to reach Shockwave like this," she muttered in English, just in case one of the humans heard her.
"I fear the same," he sighed. "Shockwave and Soundwave working in tandem gives us little to work with in assisting Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, and Alex."
"It's likely Shockwave has all three by now," Ratchet grumbled from the back. Doc moved up closer to Optimus to speak – shouting was not dignified.
"We might consider a retreat, Prime. It would be too simple to attack us right now. Essentially, we're pinned down."
Ironhide rumbled his engine. "I don't like this."
"I agree, old friend," Optimus answered. Arcee spun her back wheel in consideration. Doc was making a lot of sense. William Lennox came from the armoured truck behind Ratchet, walking up to Optimus' grill.
"What's happening, Optimus?" he asked.
Arcee swivelled her pink body around. "We're discussing retreat. The roadblock is too severe."
Lennox frowned. "We're leaving the twins? What about the girl?"
"Shockwave has the advantage here, and Soundwave has blocked all forms of communication other than quantum bonds and speaking face to face."
"At this point, it's tactically impossible," her purple body finished.
Lennox sighed, kneading at his eyes. "She's still a civvie, we can't abandon her."
"We've got nothing here," Arcee countermanded. Prime was silent, and she knew he was thinking their options through.
"I dare Sector Seven to show up," Ratchet rumbled dangerously. The medic was seething, engine growling darkly.
"I agree with Arcee. We do not have any chance of assisting Alex or the twins. For now, we fall back," Prime said finally, traffic moving ahead about an inch. The sound of horns was loud and overwhelming. Irate pedestrians wandered over the curbs and across the streets, carting their work bags. Women tried to stagger home in four inch heels. Some of the more practical had taken off their shoes.
A few kids ran around in excitement.
The transformers and vehicles sat in traffic.
"Great plan," Ratchet rumbled sarcastically.
Sideswipe was on a mission. His mind was blank, his plan simplistic. However, he still had enough of his processor focused on fooling Shockwave that he wasn't just blindly racing for his twin.
Alex was probably here. So where would Cyclops keep her. Couldn't track her, but he did know where Sunstreaker was. Twin bond still sort of working. Sunstreaker in stasis.
He could repair his twin, and they were much stronger together.
Hot air was rushing from his vents as he skated around corners, using his momentum to slide up the walls when he hit the end, blades out and gleaming in the human-style fluorescent light Shockwave was using. Golden sparks were flying out, sparking off the walls and cascading to the floor behind him.
Both were his, and he was going to get them both back. A feral grin split his faceplates, optics gleaming a brilliant, crazed blue.
Shockwave couldn't escape him this time. This time, the coward couldn't run any further.
Sideswipe slid to a stop, the grating of metal on metal too loud in the silent corridor. He plunged his hands into the wiring on the wall, behind the layer of brick, punching his reinforced fingers through the steel plating to strip out handfuls of wiring.
Swiftly, he stripped them, pulling a datapad from his subspace (rookie mistake, not stripping the subspace).
He eyed the connector that hooked the datapad to a cybertronian's form, and grimaced. Not the same hookups as wires in the wall; wouldn't work. Obviously.
A few fast slices from his fingers, and he'd spliced the datapad wiring into the wall, stabbing it into place near his head with a small, thin blade tucked away in a wrist subspace pocket. If he was really going for speed, he'd have hooked himself into the system, but he'd learned ages ago, from Jazz, that unless suicidal, don't do it. It would make it too easy for the system to hack him back, and that would be the end of it.
His silver fingers flashed on the datapad, inputting coding and long-buried hacking skills that eagerly jumped back to active memory files. Not many mechs knew that Sideswipe was a decent-to-brilliant coder. Part of that was from being a merchant with black market contracts, and part was just the natural talent of his spark. Against someone like Perceptor or Red Alert, or even Elita One, he was an amateur. Unfortunately, Shockwave was of that same caliber. So if the larger mech tried to code against him, Shockwave would win.
Sideswipe would get in a few good shots, however. And right now, all he wanted was the cameras… to Alex. He knew where Sunstreaker was, but Alex was completely unavailable to him. He couldn't even feel an echo of her soul or mind, and he'd searched the bond thoroughly. He even had subprograms that were informing him that she was gone.
The crazy thing was that he also had little alerts, wondering why he was looking for something that had never existed. It was making him jumpier than he should be – it wasn't the first time he was alone in an enemy base, looking for Sunstreaker.
The whole thing was weird, and he just wanted them back, safe, and all together mentally. No matter the weirdness of his processor, insisting that she had never been a part of the bond.
He growled, sliding codes and ripping apart programming. Splicing codes together, he inserted them into Shockwave's programs. The little coding, designed to sneak under the radar and cleverly locate Alex, was just one of the dozen subprograms he had created for the system. Shockwave's detection programs would undoubtedly discover most of them, but there was a chance that even one or two would get through, and he had to take that chance.
Sideswipe was throwing out dozens and dozens of programs, some that he had created vorns ago and others that he had half-formulated just joors ago. His mind was always throwing up new ideas for causing mayhem.
An idea came to his proceesor, and he smirked. A few astroseconds later, and he had downloaded the game Alex gave him – now altered and morphed to something far beyond the scope of human programming – and popped a copy from a port on his wrist into a detachable disk. He slipped it into the datapad, and threw TradeWinds, Sideswipe-edition, into Shockwave's system. What followed was beautiful. Of course, the human programming – what was left of it – was dismantled and ripped apart systematically. The programming that Sideswipe had done wreaked havoc on the systems. Shockwave's problem? He was too logical. Way too logical. Which made it easy to think about how he would wreck it.
TradeWinds became the map and cameras, and even the files. They were corrupted and would take a lot of effort to repair.
An alert pinged on the datapad, just a flash of blue in the top left, and he followed it. Three subroutines had been taken down. However, one had gotten through and taken out the cameras. Perfect.
One of Shockwave's programs made it to the datapad, and attempted to shut it down. Sideswipe countered that neatly, dropping the coding into a locked firewall, making it think that it had succeeded. It went dormant, and he dismantled it easily.
A small red light pinged on the datapad, and he grinned broadly, following the alert back to a map. A map that had two dots on it. Alex and Sunny.
He'd get Sunstreaker back first. Sideswipe left the datapad connected to the wall, leaving last minute instructions for the pad to mess with Shockwave's systems. The more he could frag them up, the better. Shockwave deserved all of it. First though, he downloaded the locations on the map to a different datapad. Ratchet was going to be upset he had 'misplaced' another one.
Sideswipe skated around the corner, trying to speak to Sunstreaker through the bond, yet disregarding it once Susntreaker didn't answer. He didn't have time to keep on trying to reach Sunstreaker, it was more important that he actually got to the fragger.
Maybe he'd get to tussle with that damn Ferrari as well. He'd like to rip his axles off, and then pop his spark chamber. Sideswipe slid down the hall, working his legs as quickly as he could, sparks flying when his heels touched the ground. His blades, tucked into the subspace pockets at his wrists, were ready to spring out at the slightest provocation. The halls were silent. He checked the pad, and adjusted his course slightly.
A plan was taking shape in his processor. He had a tank of oxygen in his subspace, as well as some 'human survival pack' Ratchet had stuffed at him. He himself had blankets that he'd bought online, about a dozen in fun colours and varying thickness.
He slid into a wall, closed by a control pad. The surrounding wall was brick, and it would take too long to hack the control pad.
His blades slid out and he slammed them through the wall. The old brick crumbled, and he allowed himself a tight grin. Shoddy human materials.
Then everything went wrong. A cackling blur roared around the corner, red and shiny. He slammed into Sideswipe, and Sideswipe ripped his blades free from the wall. Dust poured into the corridor.
Silver followed him from the other side, single red optic glowering from slight shadow.
He couldn't let himself be trapped down here. Not a chance. He needed to get to Alex, needed to get to Sunstreaker. Without them, he wasn't… he wasn't complete. He needed them.
Sideswipe swirled on his wheels, blades slicing out and across the chassis of the red one.
Without even an astrosecond of delay, the crazed red mech threw himself forward, catching one of Sideswipe's ankles. He swivelled, snapping the blade in his right hand out and down with a clean slice. Blue fluid gushed over the floor until the valves snapped closed. Sideswipe flicked his leg out sideways, the metal hand flying off and clanking against the wall. It landed, and the red mech didn't even flinch.
Sideswipe had a pithy comment for everything.
But Shockwave was right there and he needed to get his bond back. He could feel Sunstreaker, but not Alex. And this was terrifying but he knew where she was, and where Sunstreaker was. He needed them back.
A realization came to him as he maneuvered around the corner, away from Shockwave. Cat and mouse. He could easily take any one of Shockwave's lackeys, and if he kept the cameras out, they couldn't gang up on him.
Sideswipe? Sideswipe could cause sooooo much trouble if he was alone, unsupervised, and in Shockwave's private lab.
"You will not succeed," Shockwave intoned, moving from the shadows and levelling a huge pulse cannon far heavier than his size suggested he should have at Sideswipe. The inside glowed bright red, metal swirling.
"Oh, Shocky, I can do this all night."
And Sideswipe darted off to the left. A massive blast from behind him took out a sizable chunk of concrete, small rock pelting his armour.
The red mech was hot on his tail as he pelted down the corner. He was counting on Shockwave's slower frame and the exuberance of his new flunkey to help him out here. Theoretical knowledge based on programs that Shockwave had downloaded to their processors weren't going to be beaten by the millennia of experience that Sideswipe had.
This was going to be fun.
The red mech was right on his aft, just far enough that Sideswipe was out of reach with blades and had enough space to dodge the enthusiastic shots being thrown at him by the red mech.
He swivelled around another corner, sliding his wheels up the wall, swirling around as fast as he could and slamming his blades through the chassis of the red mech, slightly too close to dodge. The pop of discharged energy was good to Sideswipe, who snarled as he ripped the blades free from the empty frame.
He'd never seen yellow sparks before. But, Shockwave. This seemed to be all the answer necessary.
Sideswipe disappeared into the lab's hallways.
He had mayhem to cause.
Sideswipe ducked into a room, a frisson of excitement working through his frame as he got an eye on the chemicals in the room.
"I have such love in my spark for logical mechs," he informed the wall.
So, so, so many chemcials. Lucky he had information on how to start chemical fires. Sideswipe threw a few containers of chemicals into his subspace before ducking out of the room.
Humans were so vulnerable to smoke, he needed to get Alex out before any chemicals were used.
Sideswipe swirled around another corner, and came face to face with the white and blue mech. It shrieked and flung its hands up, scattering chunks of metal over the floor.
Sideswipe was only taken back for a moment. Then he lunged, snapping his blades out of subspace in less than an astrosecond, slicing them at the coward. White and blue paint nanites went flying, sparking out.
A high-pitched shriek of utter terror escaped the mech, and Sideswipe dialed back the audial input with a wince.
The mech fled down the hallway, screaming and yelping about 'murderers.' Sideswipe paused.
"I think you messed up on that one, Shocky," he muttered, subspacing the blades with a click. Sunstreaker.
Sideswipe skated down the hall after the still-discernable noise-maker. Primus. What had Shockwave programmed into this loon? More to the question, why the frag hadn't he fixed it?
He winced as he twirled around the corner, blades ready to pop out at the slightest provocation. Nothing.
As he shook up a few bottles of a special surprise for Shockwave to find, he scattered the powder over the floor, spreading a thin layer and making sure that nothing got on his armour. A smirk. Fifteen minutes, then this hallway was going up in flame.
He needed to get them both. Shockwave would be thinking he'd be going for Sunstreaker. So he'd get Alex first. No, he'd get Sunstreaker. Two times the power.
Sideswipe checked the map he had of the lab, and adjusted accordingly. Thirty seconds later, and he was there. Shockwave was gone, but he could come back at any time. If Sideswipe was Shockwave, all logical and linear, he'd have gone to get the cameras working again.
So he had time.
He slammed both blades through the wall, ripping out the old brick with ease. The room was empty, and he didn't question his luck. No massive black mech. No Shockwave.
Sunstreaker. His whole spark flared in greeting, flooding every emotion he was feeling at the comatose, offline lump on the floor. Ooh, Sunny was going to be mad about the grease in his joints.
He grabbed his twin, slamming a datalink cable into the neck port. Sunstreaker barely jerked, before Sideswipe was in, throwing a block to the motor relays and calming his twin with a quick pulse through the bond.
::I gotcha Sunshine, I'm here.:: He pulsed safety and adoration and love at his twin.
He ripped the block Shockwave had installed from Sunstreaker's cortex, and Sunstreaker came online with a shock through his systems.
A quick situation report blasted through the bond, and he pulled the cord from Sunstreaker after releasing the motor relay block. Normally, he'd do this more safely, but Sideswipe wasn't really interested in safety at the moment.
They'd done this a few times on the battlefield, and being in Shockwave's lair definitely counted as a battlefield.
Sunstreaker rolled to his feet as Sideswipe tucked the golden arm into his subspace.
::I'm never letting her leave the base,:: was interspersed with ::Let's kill Shockwave.::
::We need her.::
::She's ours.::
Granted, it wasn't the most coherent conversation, but the beauty of having a bond as deep as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker was that everything was coming across in only a few sentences, which only took a few astroseconds.
So within six words, their plan, the level of devotion for Alex, their love for each other, was ready and they were both moving. Sunstreaker was a little slower on his pedes, and his furious anger at missing an arm was raging through the bond, feeding the fire of his anger at Shockwave.
::Let's go,:: Sideswipe curled through the door, smaller pulse cannons armed and glowing hot blue. Nothing.
Sunstreaker crunched around the corner, anger cold and simmering. He'd been in too many fights to let his anger go to his processor.
Sideswipe was feeling much the same. They worked together like they had for eons, covering each other, working as a well-oiled machine.
The bond was alive with chatter, all the sensory data flowing through both of them as they checked every angle, throwing plans out and discarding the ones that didn't work in an instant.
They were on a mission.
I was floating again. Or had I ever left? It felt like I'd always been floating, soaking in darkness and warm, soft velvet.
A smile was on my lips. I could feel Jazz.
"Jazz?"
"Hey, Alex." He smiled at me, but the look was dim. I frowned.
"Why're you so sad?" I felt great, I was floating on clouds of velvet and silk and soft, warm metal. Blue surrounded me, glowing like a great, beating heart. Shards of light flared through my eyes and glittered brightly.
"You've been so good," Jazz crooned, somehow rubbing my head with my mom's hands and my mom's voice. My good mood crashed like a cracked mirror, sadness crushing my heart, washing over me with every moment.
I was drowning in blue.
Tears flowed from my eyes, pooling around me and washing the world. I was drowning in my own tears, something tethering me to the bottom. I couldn't do it, I was going to die, I wasn't going to make it. I was a murderer.
Murderer.
The words floated around me, bloody red and seeping into the clear blue, staining them. I was scared my clothes were going to stain red, and it would never come out. My throat was clogged tight and I couldn't breath, but I was choking on blood and drowning. The blood was warm, making me feel constricted, like I was living in a massive pool of blood. All my sins, washing over me and pulling me under.
"Jazz," I burbled through the bloody water, choking and coughing and I couldn't do it.
Cool metal arms wrapped around me, the coldness a stunning counterpoint to the heat of the blood. I was lifted from the pool, and I saw it wasn't so much a pool as a tub, then a bucket, then a cup and finally a tiny drop of red on a white sheet.
I breathed deeply, clear air flowing into my lungs.
"Ah'm sorry, Alex, Ah've been holdin' it back for so long, but it couldn't be contained any longer. Ya had ta live it, an' it all happened at once. We were gonna dilute it a little, but tha' was impossible."
Holding it back? My forehead crinkled, and the cool metal arms around me tightened, or were they growing smaller?
"That… you've been helping me this whole time?"
"Your very own personal guardian angel." He hesitated. "Sort of."
I twisted, and patted his cheek with cool fingers. "S'okay, I've had a lot going on."
Jazz laughed, slightly bitter, and angry. He muttered to himself, before tightening his grip on me.
"You'll make it okay," he said, sounding like he was reassuring himself, and not me.
"Jazz, you're scaring me." My voice was small.
I had my own arms wrapped around myself. Jazz was gone. I tightened my grip on myself.
"Jazz?"
No answer.
"Jazz?!"
Was he leaving me as well?
A soothing presence through my body made me relax slightly, and a phantom touch on my head made me breath.
"It's time for me ta leave now," Jazz said softly. "Everythin's ready for ya."
"You're leaving?!" I said loudly, insistent and fearful.
"Yes." He said softly, blue visor seemingly floating in the sky. I focused on it intently.
A flash of memory washed through me, and I got the impression that it was for the last time. Sadness crashed through me, then I was swept away.
Jazz had literally just set pede on the ship when Prime commed him. –Jazz, meet me in my office.-
Jazz could hear immediately that something was wrong but hid it with his usual bounce. -Sure, Prime. Be there in half an astrosecond.-
As he walked into the office, he was hit with Optimus Prime's open, unmasked face. It was bad. Bad, bad.
Immediately, the door slid shut and his spark was sputtering. "Who died?"
Prime's face was so, so sad. "There was an assassin. He was coming for me and Prowl intercepted. The assassin was rigged with a bomb."
Jazz started crumpling before the last word even left Prime's mouth.
"I'm so sorry, Jazz. There was nothing left."
Prime caught him before he even knew he was falling, and then he was numb.
Jazz's world was over.
"I get ta be with him again, Alex. After nine thousand years of waiting, an' dyin' an' bein' told by th' Primes tha' Ah wasn' done yet, Ah get ta see Prowl again." Jazz was whispering. His face creased in a smile. "Finally."
Tears were flowing down my cheeks, but there was nothing there. Just air.
"I'm so happy for you," I whispered, even though my heart was breaking.
"I can feel him, Alex. I can feel him waiting for me. Like he has been for the past nine thousand years. Prowl."
Flashes of memory washed over me, more images of the musical white youngling, the street urchin who loved music more than anything, both growing and learning together, joining the war as soon as Prowl had analyzed all the facts about both sides and Jazz had inspected the two leaders from close range. To this day, Prime didn't know that Jazz had been undercover to talk to him a dozen times, learning about the mech. Megatron hadn't passed the test.
I sobbed. I was so selfish, I didn't want Jazz to leave me, like everyone else left me, but he was heartbroken and his salvation, his rest, was waiting for him.
I placed a hand on his cheek. "I'll be fine, Jazz. Thank you. For everything."
"Ah love ya, Alex. An' Ah'd do it again. Anytime. Stay strong, girl."
I choked out a sob, and flung myself at him. He caught me, metal arms strong around me and cool against my skin.
He stroked my head, pushing my hair back from my face with curiously dexterous metal fingers.
"You'll be okay. Prowl's gunna love hearing about you. Ah'm gunna miss ya."
Then he dissipated through my arms like smoke, with a soft smile on his face.
I fell into the waiting darkness.
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker slammed through the last wall, bricks crumbling like cheese before their combined efforts.
Alex was on a table in the middle of the room, a tiny, pathetic bundle, swathed in glittering wires and snaking metal restraints. Sideswipe prodded at her through the bond, but his processor merely informed him that he was insane and should stop pinging for the thing that had never been. Sunstreaker was getting angrier by the second with the tubes and wires, and took up watch by the door. He kept a constant stream of information to Sideswipe, urging his twin to hurry.
Sideswipe scanned her as he used his fingers to gently, gently slice the wires off her fragile body. Then his processor locked on something very pertinent with the scanned data.
No pulse. No blood pressure. No brain activity. No pulse.
He tried again, and again and again. Sunstreaker was nearly leaving his self-appointed post to check and see if Sideswipe's scanners were off.
::Try again,:: he growled.
Sideswipe did, with the same results.
Sunstreaker whirled from the door in a golden blur. Sideswipe took up his post, anxiety washing through him in hot waves. Oh, if they could only get to Ratchet.
Sunstreaker was getting the same readings.
His engine was nearly screaming from how hard he was revving, armour plating shaking as he tried to contain himself.
::You have the supplies,:: he growled to Sideswipe. A nod and they swapped positions.
Sideswipe cradled her limp, cold body in his hands. A small pool of congealing blood and spinal fluid was on the table behind her, and both her optics were gone. His spark clenched.
Alex… was dead.
Shockwave was going to fucking die.
