Climax of a story? Yes, please. ^_^
Flameshield- Goodness, you're so right! The end is near! =D I hope that it lives up to your expectations~ ^_^ If there is a continuation of this series, you will certainly see what becomes of everyone. =) Oh, and good luck on your PT tests! (Even though they were on the 11th. ) =)
Queen of the Red Skittle- My friend, it is an immense delight and relief to know that you enjoyed the chapter. I do agree with you that the action of the last chapter did happen a tad fast. . However, since this story has been in the making for over two years, it could also be said the call to the final action has been rather slow. =P No matter the case, you're quite right in surmising that this call to action is the rising catalyst that finally brings it all together. Thank you for your honest opinions and insight~ You're too kind to indulge in a story such as this. ^_^
Dramastar-Mel- Yes, Virus is indeed alive and finally her own person. Whether or not that improves her disposition is yet to be seen...^_^; As for the presence of the Fallen in this series, he became a part of the stories when his brethren were first introduced in Surface of the Sun. It had little to do with ROTF. I'm beyond flattered that you enjoy my version of the Fallen character so much! =D
Phoenix13- Sorry it's taken so long to get to Elita- there was about a billion other stories to tell before everything could come together for her. ^_^;
lady_tecuma- ...okay, new chapter coming up. Just put the Hound plushie down.
Lecidre- Heh, this action has been two years in the making, hasn't it? Took long enough to get to it. I hope that it lives up to your expectations. =) And goodness, you have no idea how touched I was to know that you were happy Virus survived! There's probably more than a few readers who probably wanted her dead. . Just one reader happy that she's alive is so wonderful! *hugs* Thank you so much for you review, and I hope you enjoy this new chapter!
Balrog Rioke- Hahaha, caught on to Barricade's comment, did you? He's closer than anyone else to the truth, yet they're all so far! XD It's true that everyone is rushing into the situation a little quickly, but sometimes one's heart/spark does get ahead of their brains/processors. Now all that can be done is pray for everyone's survival...
LanturtheMarlfox- I'm deeply honoured by your review, my friend. It can be a very hard thing for some readers to let go of the black-and-white of good guys and villains and see shades of grey instead, and the fact that you were willing to endure the headache of this story with its rainbow of grey leaves me humbled. There's a lot of hardship and angst faced by the characters in this series; you're right in saying their versions here are not their typical depictions. It's good to throw something a little different into the mix once in a while, you know? =P Thank you so much for your review~ I hope you continue to enjoy the climax of the story. =)
CuteKitten- Hehehe, I'm a sucker for writing cliffhangers. =P I really hope that the battle is going to be epic, otherwise people would have been reading this story all for nothing! XD It's been a while since this writer has had a chance to stretch her action-writing muscles, so we'll see if I haven't lost my touch. =P And you very welcome for clearing things up- I'd hate to confuse my readers... more that I already do. ^_^;
Sebastian Nyte- Hey there! Been a while since I've heard from you! 8D Here's hoping that everything you hope for does come true- be it between Sunny and Moonie, or with the Autobots and Decepticons fight for their lives and loved ones.
FunkyFish1991- Yet again you point out a pattern that I completely missed before this- every time Sunstreaker tries to do something right, it usually goes horribly wrong. I guess that line I wrote for him a few chapters back about fate knowing he was no hero was more telling than I thought it was... ^^; He might as well give up on being nice, because it probably will never work out for him... . You're right when you say the only one benefiting is Sideswipe, but so long as Sides is good, he'll be there for Sunny like a good brother should! 8D Oh, yes- thank you so much for the compliments. I was preening over the 'diabolical', 'evil', 'fiendish', and 'twisted' love names right up until 'smelly poo', then you made me laugh. XD And I'm glad the Star Wars-esque title was caught by someone; you know how important is to placate the nerds. =P
Chloo- Hahaha, yeah, there's always a chance of the universe being destroyed when you have the Fallen, the Fallen's master, and Shockwave all working together... ^_^; But, not to worry, even if the end of the universe is coming, it won't arrive for another couple chapters. I think the Epilogue is chapter 54, but don't quote me on that... =P As for Prowl and Jazz and everyone else involved in this wild debacle: you should know better than to wonder if things will ever go right! XD Things only go a little bit right once in a blue moon, and then everything goes horribly, horribly wrong! XD
Shout out to Fishy: You are the bacon to my scrambled eggs.
Shout out to my other peeps- Lecidre, Litahatchee: cosmic love!
As We Come Together
In Which All Hell Breaks Loose: Part I
A soft gasp filled the gloom, the first noise made in the last joor. Flamewar ceased her pacing along the edges of her cage to cast through the darkness for Elita. She spotted the dim glow of the other femme's optics near the opposite wall.
"Well? Did you get a hold of him? Are they coming?" Flamewar demanded.
"Yes," Elita groaned, hunching forward. The effort of making contact cost her the last dregs of her energy.
"Good, that means we'll have a ride back to Earth when we get out of here," Flamewar growled.
"What do you mean?" asked the other femme, curious of the tone the Decepticon used. Had she not of been blind in the utter darkness, Elita would have been privy to the sharp smile that curved her company's faceplate. Nonetheless, Elita could see pitfire glowing in Flamewar's optics.
"You didn't think I was just going to stand around and wait to be rescued, did you?" Flamewar barked a derisive laugh. "Sorry, I'm not that kind of bot."
"What do you plan to do?" Elita wondered, listening as Flamewar resumed her agitated pacing. It was safe to question the femme out in the open like this; the Fallen felt distracted by something other than his favourite plaything. It was unlikely he was lurking about eavesdropping.
"I don't know yet. I still have to figure that part out." It was hard to think when her spark hurt so damn bad, like some fresh wound that was ripped raw over and over every time her spark beat. Had it been a physical wound, she'd easily have been able to ignore it. An internal pain like this though... Damn it, she hated the downsides to sparkbonding!
Elita fell silent as she allowed her company to seethe.
Flamewar made a perfect circuit around their cell before she spoke again. "You've been here for a long time, haven't you?" she asked sharply, searching for Elita again. The other femme's optics were closed, effectively letting her disappear.
"Yes."
"Have you ever come across a weakness in the force fields? Anything that would help us escape?"
"Nothing that I can think of," sighed Elita.
Flamewar snorted, glaring in her company's general direction, "Have you even tried to get out of here?"
Elita's optics reappeared in the darkness, glaring harshly. "Of course I have. Obviously I'm not staying for the health benefits." Her glare subsided into something less potent. "You have no idea how long I've been here; I can hardly even comprehend it myself. All I know is that every attempt I've ever tried at getting away has failed, so I gave up. All I'm trying to do now is survive."
"And how's that working out for you?" Flamewar sneered.
"I'm still alive, aren't I?"
With a short snort, the Decepticon femme turned on her heel to make another circuit around their cell. Doing something helped keep her mind off of her incarceration and let her focus on other more important subjects- like escaping. Walking around in the dark was pretty much like trying to figure out how to escape: you never knew when something was going to trip you up. Miscalculating where Elita had been lurking all this time, Flamewar tripped over the poor creature. Elita gave a yelp of surprise, scrambling away. Flamewar went down faceplate first. They both tried to stand at the same time, smacking their heads together. Flamewar recoiled into the wall while Elita stumbled blindly across the cell until she hit the force field. A flash of white erupted, silhouetting the femme. Unlike Flamewar, her reaction to the electrified field was entirely anti-climatic, not even tossed away by it.
Flinching from the sudden shock of light, it took a moment for the Decepticon to understand what she just saw. Once her wits came back to her, she rushed to Elita and hauled her to stand. "How did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Touch the force field! You didn't even flinch!"
Elita met Flamewar's gaze, canting her head slightly. When she answered, she used the tone of an adult addressing a particularly dull youngling. "My neural net doesn't work anymore, and my pressure sensor grid is a 50/50 thing at best. I don't feel much of anything."
"No pain?"
"Not the physical kind, no," Elita admitted. "There are a thousand other ways to feel pain, though. Through the spark, for one."
"Never mind that; don't think of that pain. Focus on right now. Focus on getting out of here. If we get out, you won't hurt anymore. I promise." Flamewar's hands tightened under Elita's arms where she held the other femme up. She pushed Elita's back against the force field, illuminating a short sphere around them. "We can use this. I don't know how, but we can."
Elita didn't even flinch with the contact, though dawning comprehension was slowly lifting her faceplate. She was set back on her feet, bracing her hand against Flamewar's prickly frame for better support. "I hadn't thought of that before..." Had they still be illuminated by the sparking force field, Flamewar would have been privy to the painfully humiliated look Elita was wearing. "I've been so focused on keeping alive in this place for so long, I forgot about searching for a way out."
Flamewar snorted, peering down at the pinpricks of white light hovering not far from her side. "Just waiting for Optimus Prime to show up and save the day?" The words came out more scathing than she meant, though the tone seemed to go right over Elita One's head.
"No, not even that. After you spend so long in this place, you forget who you are. You become a number. I hardly even remembered Optimus." She sounded miserably guilty. "Until the moment when you were thrown in here, I could hardly remember what hope was."
"If you remembered me properly, you'd know I wasn't someone who bots regularly put a lot of hope in," the Decepticon warmed grimly.
"Then it's a good thing I don't remember you; I think I like this version of you better," Elita replied. She pushed herself to stand on her own, turning to face the force field. "If we're going to figure a way out of here, we better do it quick. You can feel it, can't you?"
Flamewar raised a hand to her spark. "They're getting closer."
"Yes." Elita touched her hand to the electrified field again. "Close your optics- have a look around. Tell me if you see someone."
"What?"
"Just do it."
Flamewar shuttered her optics, searching through the flames warily. "Who am I supposed to be looking for?"
"The Fallen," Elita replied. "His... spectre, or whatever it is. If he was around, you wouldn't be able to miss him. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't lurking around. I don't hear him, but you never know with something like him. He's tricky."
"No one's around."
"He's probably still distracted by something..."
"I can only imagine," Flamewar sneered, thinking of the pit-born creature that brought her here. If the Fallen was a real creature as fickle as Elita described him, than he was probably having the time of his life poking at an undead Megatron. Shaking off the thought, she announced, "We better work quick."
Together, they pushed as much debris as they could against the force field so that it was permanently lit up. The smell of burning rust filled their olfactory sensors, but they ignored it. While it wasn't the best quality of light, flickering and staticky, it was all they had to work with while they pondered over how to defeat the force field. Elita seemed to come into herself the more she focused on the task; the vagueness in her optics and speech was slowly replaced with a new sharpness and coherency. Flamewar remained just as agitated as she had been the moment she'd been thrown in the cell, but at least now she had something to invest her frustrations in.
"What if you run at it hard enough?" the Decepticon suggested. "It's just energy, right? There's no actual physical presence there to keep us in, and if you can't feel the burn, you could probably pass through."
"Doesn't matter if it's only energy, it can still repulse me. If I run at it, it'll throw me back with equal and opposite force," Elita sighed. "Did you forget what it did to you?"
"I'd say that was greater force than what I ran at it with," Flamewar huffed. She leaned in close to the field, peering out through the flickering energy. There was a walkway with a railing, followed by a sheer drop whose bottom disappeared beyond sight. Across from that was another walkway and another prison cell parallel to theirs. Pinpoints of light stared back from that distant cell. Flamewar jerked back, pressing her mouthplates into a thin line. "Frag, this place is disturbing."
"You have no idea," Elita lamented. She touched the field again, pressing lightly. The smell of her own metal burning quickly filled her olfactory sensor, though she was numb to the burning sensation. When she pressed harder, her hand moved through a fraction before being met by resistance.
Flamewar observed the action calculatingly. "You're not being repulsed as strongly as I thought you'd be."
"I'm not pressing that hard," Elita informed.
"It's more than that, I think," Flamewar murmured, looking down to the copious amounts of frame parts they'd pushed against the field. "Do you think piling the junk against the field disperse the energy enough to lesson the repluse-reaction."
"Possibly," Elita said unsurely. "Unfortunately, even if the field is weak enough not to incinerate me, I don't think I'm strong enough to press all the way through. If you haven't noticed, I'm barely holding it together as it is."
"Yes, there is that..." Flamewar frowned, pointedly looking away from her companion's frame. She could admit that Elita One had once been one of the most beautifully designed femmes she'd ever known, but now... Among all the disturbing things she'd witnessed as a mercenary, Elita was easily up there in the top ten.
"Give me a push?" the other femme suggested.
"We can try," Flamewar conceded.
Elita placed her smoldering palm to the electrified field again, pressing against it with the same strength of a summer's breeze. When the field starting pushing back beyond what Elita could resist, Flamewar added her own strength to the push. Planting her hands firmly on Elita's back, she gently eased the other femme forward. A crackle-hiss-pop came from the field as Elita's hand breached the other side. It smoldered and smoked from the deep charring it sustained, but it was at least free.
"We're actually doing it," Elita exclaimed breathlessly as she watched her elbow follow her wrist to freedom.
"Don't get ahead of yourself- we still have to get the rest of you through," Flamewar growled, now forced to place her shoulder to the centre of Elita's back and put her weight behind the push. The closer to freedom Elita came, the greater the force field resisted. If Flamewar started shoving harder, it pushed back harder. It was a hard paradox to fight; she had to invest all her strength in the act, yet be as gentle as she could.
A tremble passed through Elita as she neared the one obstacle she feared the most.
"What is it?" Flamewar asked, glaring over the femme's shoulder in case the drones were coming back.
"My spark," Elita murmured. "It's going to hurt."
Flamewar's own spark plummeted a little. "Do you think you can still go through with it?"
"I... yes, keep going. We might only get one chance at this."
She tensed as the first electric vibrations of the force field brushed against the metal of her sparkcase, plucking at her spark. When the electricity started burning her in earnest, she shook with the effort it took to stay silent. It was pain like what Shockwave dealt when she was under his microscope; an unyielding burn that spread into regions that touched beyond the physical. It was a violation so deep that she knew it would leave a stain on her for the rest of her life. Flamewar was behind her, alternating between hissing curses and uttering words in an attempt at being soothing. Elita felt herself shaking so badly, it was a wonder that she didn't shake herself apart. When it all became too much, her optics blacked out, with the rest of her consciousness following suit.
When next she came to, which couldn't have been more than a few astroseconds later, she was collapsed in a heap on the floor and her designation was being screamed at her.
"Elita One! Elita One! Get up! Dammit, they know you're out! They're coming! Get up! Get up already!"
Jerking up too fast, Elita collapsed back to the floor in a heap. She found her limbs useless, charred to a crisp from the electrocution the force field had kindly supplied her with.
"I can't get up!" she exclaimed.
"You have to get up!" Flamewar howled, rocked into a frenzy on her side of the field. "They're coming! I can see their optics! Frag it, Elita, hurry!"
Coming through the gloom were the small dots of yellowed light that heralded the approach of the drone. Their heavy steps were lost in the new cacophony of the prison room as other formerly-lifeless experiments realized that one of their own was out. It was an explosion of light, noise, and chaos as the prisoners howled, roared, and cursed. Their fists banged against the force fields, throwing bright blasts of light into the gloom. Above it all was Flamewar's screams for Elita to get up, to run, to do anything!
With panic starting to take hold, Elita forced herself to her feet. She felt her charred joints crack, on the verge of crumbling under the strain of her weight. With great effort, she rocked herself to the side where the control panel was, scrabbling at the indecipherable buttons for any kind of release that would free Flamewar.
"Forget about me! Run, Elita! Run!" Flamewar shrieked.
The drones were already on top of her, acting as the cold and calculating contrasts to the chaos erupting around them. An arm shot out to capture Elita. She cried out, ducking in time. There was no way she could fight them all off when she was a fraction of their size and stood as purely a husk of her former self. Gritting her mouthplates, she did the first thing that came to mind. Grasping her left forearm with her right, she ripped as hard as she could and tore it from her body. Bright blue energon, poorly glowing and mostly congealed, spattered up the wall. The sharp rods of her endoskeleton jutted out like spikes from the severed limb. Without a second thought, Elita plunged the makeshift weapon into the control panel. A shriek rose from the console, followed by acrid smoke and angry fireworks.
The force field dropped.
Hungry red optics were suddenly blazing out from the deep cavern of the open prison cell. With a snarl, Flamewar leaped from her cage. Every ounce of fury and pain she currently suffered was effectively poured into her assault. In the wild strobing of hundreds of force fields lighting up under pounding fists, her attack was reduced to a series of vicious stop-motion images: her claws burrowing deep into the collapsed faceplate of a drone: the head of a drone severed from its frame: Flamewar's frame swooped low, claws slashing out the tension wires in the drones' legs: diving into the downed fray with growing lust for the kill. She was grabbed and torn at, but she now held the upper hand. Her fury far outweighed the frigid calculations of mindless tools. Limbs were ripped off. The gore of spattered energon glowed across the walls and floor.
As the last drone fell, Flamewar rose from the massacre like a god of war. Her frame glowed with a fierce blue aura from spilt energon, while her optics blazed with victorious, feral light. She heaved from the effort of the battle, one hand gripping her upper leg where a drone had managed to twist the plating off, her mouthplates stretched wide into a grin.
"That felt good."
Elita raised her one good hand to her mouthplates, stunned by the violence she just witnessed. "You were terrifying."
"Like you said- we do what we can to survive. I just happen to like that part of surviving," Flamewar replied, kicking her way out of the pile of drones to get the the other femme. She knelt to the cold floor, presenting her back to Elita. "Climb on. You're not going anywhere on your own in the condition you're in."
Steeling herself for the effort, Elita threaded her arm around Flamewar's neck and hauled her frame against the stronger femme's back. Clawed hands gently skimmed beneath her legs, hoisting her higher and wrapping her legs around for support.
"What about the others?" Elita murmured, casting a mournful glance to the hundreds of howling prisoners rattling their cages around them.
"We don't have time for them," Flamewar sighed, breaking into the quick lope for the exit. "They saw how we got out. Hopefully that will be enough for them to figure it out for themselves. We can't waste anymore time- if Megatron or Shockwave show up, we're done for. I can't fight them off."
Elita shuddered, arm clenching around her saviour's neck. "Alright, go."
They bounded into the hallway beyond, briefly blinded by the suddenness of the grey light that met them there. It was like being tossed into another reality; once the door to the prison closed, silence pressed in from every side. The panelled walls moved of their own accord, hissing and shifting in perpetual clockwork. Two directions were immediately available to the femmes- left and right. Both equally alien. Equally ominous.
"Dammit, which way?" Flamewar snarled.
"Shhhhh," hushed Elita, cocking her head to music only heard by her. It was loudest in one particular direction. "Go right."
Upon reaching the outer most limits of Earth's atmosphere, the tension aboard the Darksyde drew to an all-time high. One of the most gigantic flaws of their gung-ho battle plan was quickly coming to the forefront of everyone's attention.
"If the ship is cloaked, how are we supposed to find it?" Wheeljack asked.
"We can try a vector-by-vector grid search of the area," Prowl offered in sharp monotone; his emotional centre was off.
"Do you have any idea how big space is? That could take forever," Ratchet snapped, sending the tactician a narrowed look. "We don't have time for something like that."
"Unless the Fallen has learnt to subspace himself, there'll be some sort of trace around here for us to follow," Hound intoned, bent over a nearby console as he scanned space. "We just have to find that trace and follow it."
"Without knowing what kind of technology we're dealing with, we don't even know what kind of trace we're looking for," Smokescreen sighed grimly, coordinating with Hound on another console. He steadily shifted through every phase variance known to their species, only to come back with nothing. He was quickly coming to the end of all phase variances and becoming more and more frustrated with each failure. His fist striking his console was loud enough to cause the entire crew of the bridge to jump. "There's nothing out there! No ion trail! No energy signatures!"
"It's out there somewhere- we know it is. Keep trying," Optimus insisted, searching through the view screen for any given sign that his sparkmate was out there. He could feel her so close now. It was a very bizarre feeling. Her presence felt so overwhelmingly encompassing that is was as if she were stretched to the infinite corners of space, yet at the same time she was so small she could have been threaded through the eye of a needle. The contradictory feelings left the Prime disorientated and wary to trust his own senses.
Soundwave came to the aid of Hound and Smokescreen, silently commandeering the controls. He was far more familiar with the Darksyde, and as such had a better rapport with the ship's internal workings. As well, he had a few personal tricks of his own he had yet to try out.
So concentrated was everyone's attention on the complex equations Soundwave was manipulating, the small crowd of warrior's failed to notice the small crack in the bridge's door hiss closed. An off-blue shadow crept away. Slithering off deeper into the bowels of the dark ship, Dealer slowly morphed into his proper counterpart. In the privacy of the engine room, the double-agent resumed his bipedal shape and stretched with a flourish. Doubledealer's faceplate was alive with a satisfaction both twisted and sinister.
From subspace, he withdrew the small communications device that would put him in direct contact with the Mastermind. Before making contact, Doubledealer tilted his head and beckoned to the nearest shadows.
"Why don't you stop hiding, Punch? It's a little redundant when I know you're there."
Punch released the dampener hiding his spark signature, stepping out from the shadow of one of the Darksyde's massive engines. The noise of the ancient machines was normally deafening, but under the gravity of the given moment, they were rendered mute. Punch's sudden question rang with disturbing clarity through the rattling recesses of the room.
"What are you doing with that communicator?"
Doubledealer let an acidic smile curl his mouthplates. "Isn't it obvious?"
"If you warn him we're coming, we'll all die," Punch pointed out darkly.
The dark-blue mech laughed. "We're all dead anyways, but this way is more entertaining. I might get paid for handing you all over to him."
"You can be serious!" Punch exclaimed.
"Deadly serious," Doubledealer drawled. "You should get in on this. If you're in this with me, there's a chance you could survive. I'd share the credits, too- it'd only be fair." He leaned against an energy distributor, his smoldering red optics glinting in the dim gloom. "What do you say? Ten percent? How about twenty?"
Punch recoiled a step. "Are you even listening to yourself?"
"Sure I am," Doubledealer shrugged. "The question is, is it me who's listening, or the other me? You can never be quite sure, can you? Tricky thing, that is." His optics flashed red to blue, his smile stretching too wide to suit Doubledealer, but not quite wide enough to be Dealer. An enigma wrapped in a puzzle and tied with a riddle.
Punch was suddenly disturbingly unsure of who he was addressing. He shifted in agitation, optics flicking to the communicator still clenched in his friend's hand. Doubledealer's fingers were too close to the buttons. "Stop playing games," he demanded tightly. "Even if you did do it- even if you sold us all out, do you think you could live with it for the rest of your life? Think of all the deaths you'd have on your shoulders!"
"I couldn't care less. This won't be the first time I've sold sparks off, and it probably won't be the last." Doubledealer's optics returned to their deep-red setting, his Decepticon self taking full precedence. "You and I are so far above all this, we shouldn't have to go down with everyone else," he said, slithering forward. "We've been playing both sides, but we're not really either one, are we? We shouldn't have to die for either side if we don't belong. We could hand everyone over, take our credits, and run far from here." He slithered close enough to touch. "We could find a place to be ourselves," a long, teasing claw ran down the length of Punch's chassis, "-all four of us."
Punch jerked away. The part of him that was Counterpunch, the part that seemed to be taking on a life of its own, was interested in the offer Doubledealer was making. Counterpunch wanted to beg for the chance to keep his life. He clawed at Punch's insides to get out. The cowering, snivelling, programmed Decepticon side of him fought like a living virus to take over, to escape, to sacrifice everyone just for a chance to live.
"No," Punch growled, to himself and to his fellow double-agent.
An optic ridge arched mockingly. "Counterpunch could in a sparkbeat."
"I'm not Counterpunch," Punch snarled.
"Of course not, he's his own bot, isn't he?" taunted Doubledealer, dangling the communicator just out of reach so as to further incite his opponent.
Punch's optics flashed, his innards clenching tight. "He's not real."
Doudledealer's optics blazed with poisonous delight as he asked, "Are you sure?"
Punch swung away, bristling. "Dammit, Doubledealer, stop it! Counterpunch is not real, and neither is Dealer! You need to stop this right now!"
"I'm not the one getting worked up right now, Punch. You are." A dark, knowing growl accompanied the words. "Are you sure Counterpunch isn't in there somewhere, getting you all agitated? You're normally so calm and cool. I bet little Counterpunch is in there, clawing to get out. I bet you feel him in there, screaming as loud as he can. Let him come out and play, Punch. He can be the one to hand over the Darksyde. You won't have to feel guilty at all."
Punch shuddered, looking away. His fists clenched at his sides. "You're sick, Doubledealer. You need help, and so do I." He held out his hand. "Give me the communicator and I will make sure we get the help we need."
The double-agent looked down to the potentially sinister device sitting so demurely in his palm. It had so much potential; its worth was beyond priceless. He looked up to meet the deadly serious gaze of Punch, whose optics pleaded with him to hand over the communicator. In those glittering blue optics, Doubledealer saw the telltale flicker of red; the blinding yellow-orange of Punch's paint turned shadowed. With a sharp laugh, the Decepticon jerked back.
"Looks like a part of you doesn't want to get help," hissed Doubledealer, laughing. His optics flickered bright, lively blue. "Oh, lovely little Punch," Dealer sang, twirling the communicator like a toy. "Looks like Counterpunch doesn't quite agree with you." The bubblegum-blue bot danced close to his fellow Autobot, leaning in to croon in Punch's audio. "I know you're listening, Counterpunch. Thank you, thank you, you sweet, smart thing."
Punch gasped, the world blacking out as his optics bled red. A shaking hand reached for Dealer, grasping for him. "I w-w-want t-to live!" Counterpunch stuttered helplessly.
Doubledealer returned, stroking Counterpunch's trembling faceplate with a mad sort of glee. "You will live. All four of us will. All we have to do is hand everyone else over."
"NO!" Punch suddenly wrenched back into his own mind, gripping the sides of his head as he fought with his own mind. "I'm an Autobot!"
"You're only an Autobot as an afterthought," Doubledealer sneered.
"I won't do it! I won't betray everyone!" Punch snarled, glaring at Doubledealer. His fists clenched over his chassis, above the sparkcase he had branded so long ago with the decal of the Autobots. That brand existed to forever remind him who he was: an Autobot. He met Doubledealer's gaze, then glared at the communicator. It was the tipping point of their match. He couldn't risk it any longer. Playing around like this only increased the chances that the other double-agent's fingers would slip. With a snarl, Punch leaped for his former-friend, tackling him to the ground furiously.
They skidded into the dust of the engine room. Fists flew, sparking angry flashes of light as metal struck metal mercilessly. There wasn't just two combatants in the fight, there were four. Three against one. Punch fought with all he had, but it wasn't just him in his head. If he had the upper hand, he would black out for a moment, his fist would freeze, something would hold him back. Doubledealer had no qualms with taking advantage of the handicap, striking Punch with deadly accuracy. Dealer would slip into the fight whenever he saw an opening; bright-blue paint would flash, a dagger would ram up under Punch's plating, followed by whimsical laughter. It quickly became a losing battle for the one Autobot when even his own frame fought against him.
They rolled again. Through the oily grime and smears of dirt that tracked the floors of the Darksyde. They fought with all they had. Grappling. Wrestling. They kicked, clawed, punched, and fought for their lives. As the world whirled around them, Punch somehow ended up on top. By a stroke of luck, he'd managed to pin the other mech. His blaster was drawn, pointed for Doubledealer's head.
Seeing the black barrel charging, the Decepticon became an Autobot. "You wouldn't shoot a friend point blank, would you?" Dealer whimpered.
Punch faltered.
Dealer's optics grew wide, piteous. "You said you were an Autobot, Punch. Autobots don't shoot their friends, right? You don't shoot fellow Autobots." A timid hand rose, grasping Punch's wrist, trying to point the blaster elsewhere. "Prove you're an Autobot, Punch. Don't shoot me."
"I am an Autobot," Punch stated, almost sobbing. Counterpunch was fighting as hard a he could for control. His fingers felt like they belonged to someone else, unable to move, unable to squeeze the trigger.
"Yeah, that's right, you're an Autobot," Dealer encouraged, continuing to push Punch's gun away from his head. "You and I are Autobots. You can't shoot me. It's not in you to shoot me."
Punch's optics flashed bright, fevered, as he stared down at the creature pinned beneath him. He couldn't shoot an Autobot. He couldn't. He wasn't a Decepticon. He was an Autobot. He was an Autobot. He was an Autobot. But the bot beneath him wasn't.
A single shot rang out in the engine room.
The silence afterwards rang even louder.
"...Doubledealer?" Punch wondered brokenly.
The silence became deafening. Painful.
A wretched noise rose from the Autobot double-agent as he stared down. A sick, wavering, broken noise came from him unlike anything that had ever crossed his mouthplates before. He was covered in gore. His chest and arms glowed, spattered in horrific patterns that burned their way into the back of his mind. Energon and flakes of Doubledealer's processor; bits and pieces that should have stayed on the inside. Punch's hand spasmed, dropping the gun he had never fired. It skittered away from him. A choking sound started to work its way up from his tanks, energon slowly moving upward. He convulsed, sobbed, and then ejected the contents of his tanks right next to the cooling corpse that lay beneath him.
The presence of a hand came down on Punch's shoulder, invisible at first. It gripped their steadily, unseen yet the only steady thing in the devolving Autobot's universe. A low hum buzzed under the noise of Punch's wild sobbing, Mirage's holographic projectors powered down. The Master Spy soon materialized in the engine room, kneeling at Punch's side, his faceplate sombre. He set away his smoking gun.
Seeing his former commander, Punch launched himself at him. His shaking hands curled into the ice-blue armour. His forehead banged against the mech's hard chest. "I am an Autobot! I am an Autobot! I am an Autobot!" he chanted, becoming a fevered mantra as he rocked himself against Mirage. "I am an Autobot. I am an Autobot. I am an Autobot."
"I know," Mirage sighed, stroking the back of Punch's head. The mech had once been such a good scout. No one could have asked for a better, more steady, stable warrior. If only he hadn't been poached by Jazz to join the Special Ops division. Jazz had ruined him. "You didn't kill him. You never would have been able to pull the trigger, Punch. I did it."
Punch sobbed, shaking his head. He was inconsolable.
Mirage sighed, pulling the mech away from Doubledealer's corpse. It was not a pretty sight, not something they needed to be crouched over. Punch tried to claw his way back to the empty shell of his friend, but Mirage proved stronger.
"I am an Autobot," moaned the scout, holding on to his ex-commander like a sobbing youngling.
"You've always been a true Autobot, Punch," the Master Spy assured soothingly. "When this is over, we're going to get you help. You're going to be okay."
Punch still rocked himself, borderline catatonic as he waged war on himself for his own sanity. All he could do was keep repeating the mantra: I am an Autobot. I am an Autobot. I am an Autobot. But there was a question in his optics as he regarded Mirage.
With a sad smile that never reached his glacial optics, the Master Spy helped the former-scout to his feet. "I've been suspicious of Dealer for a while now," he said. "I followed you both here to see if my suspicions proved true, which they did. " He stooped for the forgotten communicator laying in Doubledealer's limp open palm. Turning it over, he frowned at what the screen displayed. "Unfortunately, it looks like I got here too late."
"Wait, did anyone see that?" Hound intoned, fingers pausing over the controls. "The stars... did they just... move?"
Wheeljack backed away from the view screen, suddenly feeling very cold inside. He saw the signs once before. A ripple of the stars before space opened up into that Other Place. That cold, black hole that had tried to suck him and Tungsten in once. "Oh no... no, no, no... Not that. Anything but that."
Ratchet grasped his friend's shoulder, feeling the uncontrollable tremors now racing through him. "What it is?"
"It's the black hole," Wheeljack murmured, still trying to back away. His fins flashed erratically with his sudden alarm. "It was in Beta-Zen. It's not a normal black hole, Ratch'. It's alive. What if it followed me here? We have to get away."
Ratchet's hands firmed on his friend's shoulders the the mech further devolved into a panic attack. "Wheeljack, what are you talking about? What black hole?"
Right on cue, the stars rippled as a veil was pulled aside. A gaping wound in the universe was revealed bleeding into a place beyond mortal comprehension. The stars that still flickered went dim, distant, and dead. From the depths of the hole came a long, deep, hollow groan that brought with it a blast of cold unlike anything the bots aboard the Darksyde had felt before. It pierced the hull as if it were made of paper, seeping into the bots' metal like a living force. The Darksyde shuddered in protest as it was drawn into the emptiness. Its thrusters chugged at full strength, though remained helpless to the indomitable pull.
Optimus leaned forward, clenched fists grinding into the back of the chair he leaned into. He could hear his spark's pulse roaring in his audios, each beat burning wildly against the inside of his sparkcase. "Elita One's close." He could feel her, getting closer with every passing moment. She was frantic, fluttering like a storm. He wanted to reach out and touch her.
Trojan and Worm pounded furiously at the Darksyde's controls. They couldn't break free from the incredible gravity sucking them in. It was greater than anything they'd ever witnessed before. The darkness seemed darker than anything they had ever seen before- a physical darkness that was mass, weight, and sentience. With little hope of illunimating their way, the two Decepticons threw on every light on the Darksyde's hull. Tit did little good. Nothing was revealed. Literally, nothing. They were floating in the middle of nothing. A place where the antithesis of order and creation lurked. A void to defeat all other voids.
Mirage suddenly appeared on the bridge, Punch supported against his side. In one hand, he held out an unfamiliar piece of technology. "Dealer appears to have also been the Decepticon Doubledealer; he's dead, but whoever we're about to meet knows we're coming now."
"That explains why the cloak was suddenly dropped," Prowl said, frowning. "We have no element of surprise now."
"This just keeps getting better." Smokescreen scowled, optics transfixed to the seemingly endless, lightless vault they had been lured into.
Chromia was suddenly in the bridge's open doorway, scowling. Like every other living being aboard the Darksyde, she felt the indelible cold sinking into her frame, into her spark. It wasn't a natural feeling by any stretch of the imagination. If malice had a palpable sensation, this would be it.
"What the pit is happening?" she hissed.
"We are about to find out," Soundwave warned, having never taken his optics off the view screen. He saw the shift of nothing on nothing. Sensed it more than saw. Like the blinking of an optic in the dark. The sensed spacial difference between infinite and finite. It was the instinct that told a blind mech there was someone standing right in front of him.
Indeed, there was someone in front of them, as well as above them, below them, and behind them. They were surrounded.
Grey light flared, blinding them through the view screen. The Darksyde rocked and groaned as a floor suddenly materialized beneath it. Walls so far apart they might not have been there at all. A ceiling so high it was more myth than real. Around them, their surroundings rapidly materialized, and with it came their welcoming party.
Drones.
Hundreds of them. Perhaps even thousands. They were lined up in perfect order, separated into battalions, creating a checker-board effect across the spartan hangar. Their singular yellow optics were fixated dead ahead, erringly focused on the Darksyde. They were large, each easily twenty-five feet, maybe more.
Smokescreen growled quietly, glaring at the screen. "This is why we needed a plan before we flew into this. Our chances just went from slim to we're dead."
A small blip at one of the stations had Worm looking down, jerking back to rapidly sign a message. There was no need to translate, though. The view screen showed exactly what was wrong. One of the hatches on the Darksyde had been kicked open. Barricade was now sprinting headlong into the front ranks of the drones.
All hell broke lose.
Activated by the sudden movement, the drones all shifted into fight-ready stances. Those closest to the front advanced on Barricade. Barricade's flail was already out, arcing through the air and crashing into several drones' heads. Gunfire erupted as Autobots began to spill from the Darksyde to back Barricade up. They threw themselves into the melee with a relish. Within moments, the bizarre grey-lit room had devolved into a frenzy.
In a rush, the bridge of the Decepticon ship emptied as everyone present ran to join the fight.
By the time Optimus and the others were able to immerse themselves into the brawl, Barricade had somehow managed to weave himself so deep into the fray that he was only visible when tossed above the riot. His flail worked wildly in one hand while the other wielded a gun vomiting streams of burning plasma.
A deafening roar reverberated through the hanger, trapped and amplified by the sounds of gunfire and war cries. With each Cybertronian that entered the fray, the frenzy of the fight seemed to amplify. Chaos broke out in all directions. Clashing fists met unyielding armour. Claws gouged out optics, ripped at vulnerable openings. Hidden blades, swords, and daggers flashed like lightning. Severed limbs flew away in the aftermath.
There was no rhyme or reason to the fight, no plan of attack or possible way to defend. So many drones were pouring in from all sides, the only way to stay alive was to keep shooting, keep kicking, punching, and clawing. Anything that bore the vague colours of grey or violet were torn apart. The push from all sides from the drones became a drowning tide. It was a nightmarish experience in claustrophobia; no room to move, turn, run, or transform. The only hope there was to get free of the mess was to scramble on top of the frames of fallen drones. One had to be brave enough to run across the shoulders of the writhing mass for a breath of cold, stale air. The false freedom only lasted as long as the moment it took to be pulled back down into the mash again.
By design, the drones were not battle-fiends. They were able to attack and defend to the capabilities of the Cybertronians mowing through their ranks. What the drones had been built for was science, not war. The only things they had going for them was their habit to swarm on a single bot if the individual looked weak, and their terribly thick armour. Short of ripping their processors or main pumps out, the fraggers didn't go down easy.
Worse yet was when the Cybertronians discovered how truly bizarre the place they were in was. In plain sight, it was an unnerving amalgam of grey-on-shadow and the sense of omnipresent optics. But to close ones' optics was to be assaulted with the sudden fury of flames. Surprise upon meeting the flames ended up besting a few of the warriors as they first encountered it; they jumped, trying to swing away from. Their split-astrosecond of distraction cost them dearly in footing. Drones would spot the weakness, swarming in.
Optimus pushed through the tide with desperate single-mindedness. His vision was awash in a churning sea of grey and violet, slashed through with a violent flash of yellow light. Every time a spark signature drew near, he called out to the battling bot. Their backs would meet for a short while, covering each other as they delivered wildfire into the drones, before breaking apart once more. As accomplished as he was on the battlefield, the situation, surrounded on all sides by an enemy that multiplied faster than turbo-rabbits, was a serious test of his skills. Currently, he had no one at his back for cover. Both blades in his forearms were out, slashing with wild fervour through the ranks of the drones. He spared them no mercy; heads severed, chests stabbed through. There would be no guilt in the aftermath for unthinking tools. As there would be sentient beings
Underlying the battle-rage was anxiousness. In the whorl of battle, Optimus couldn't tell if he was being shunted closer to Elita or if Elita was running toward him. Whatever the circumstance, the Prime's chassis would lick with blue lightning at different intervals. It was a distraction he did not need, yet welcomed it so wholly because it was evidence that his sparkmate was near.
A flash of yellow came into Optimus's line of sight as Bumblebee weaved into view. His battle-mask was down, while a long, sharp blade that looked as if it had been ripped from one of the drones' arms was clenched tight in his right hand.
"They just keep coming!" exclaimed the scout, slashing with his new weapon. "At this rate, we'll never get farther than this room. We'll be overpowered!"
"Keep fighting," Optimus grunted.
"That's all we can do, but-!" The scout leaped up onto one of the encroaching drones, stabbing repeatedly into the chest until it fell. As he straightened, he was forced onto another drone, with Optimus swooping in to defend his back. "There's a limit to what we can handle," Bumblebee said when he knew Optimus was close enough to hear him.
Steely determination laced Primes tone as he replied, "We can take them."
"If you say so." Bumblebee jerked a sharp nod, willing to keep fighting if the Prime had faith they could do it. He disappeared into the melee shortly after.
Sadly, faith did very little when you were being beaten down from every conceivable angle. No matter how many of their opponents were felled, more would come. There was no end to them. While the drones were tireless, the Cybertronians were not. Their frames were beginning to burn with exhaustion. The beating they were all taking was severe. They were dented, oozing energon, and some were missing limbs. No one was dead, but there were a few who felt like it. The grim reality of their suicide mission began to come to the forefront of their minds, with great emphasis on the suicide part.
Optimus stumbled backwards over a fallen frame, hitting the floor hard. His guard dropped for only a moment, but that was enough. The drones saw weakness and swarmed on it. The Prime braced himself for the thrashing to come, only to feel a large hand wrap around his arm and throw him up. Soundwave came into focus, using his superior size to crush the hordes of drones. His symbiotes were spread far and wide throughout the room, using their own considerable skills to fell drones that were several times their own size.
"This is a losing battle," growled the jet as he came back-to-back with Optimus.
"We must keep fighting," Optimus insisted.
"There is a difference between bravery and stupidity. We are crossing the line," Soundwave warned, his monotone voice roughened by draining energy and building exhaustion.
"Elita One is here! I can't just leave her here!" Optimus ducked and swerved, spinning around on himself in order to sever a head from its frame.
"Flamewar is also here," Soundwave said severely. "They are both strong femmes; if we opt for a tactical retreat, they will survive until we can attempt a proper rescue."
"I won't leave my sparkmate here!" Optimus snarled, taking on a tone that was much unlike himself. His next take-down was notably more vicious, reflecting the foul mood that was inspired by the thought of leaving his sparkmate behind.
"Fine, do as you will. I will not ask my crew to sacrifice themselves needlessly," Soundwave retorted sharply. "We came unprepared and unaware of the extent of what we were facing. We must cut our losses now, escape, and prepare for a better attack."
"Would you leave Barricade behind?" Optimus accused roughly.
Soundwave cast a quick look over the heads of the crowd, confirming what he already suspected. "He's already beyond the room; there's nothing we can do for him now. You are Prime, Optimus. You cannot be left behind. You must sacrifice your mate this time in order to have a better chance to rescue her next time."
It took a long, hard moment for the reality to set in, but eventually Optimus nodded grimly. A tactical retreat would be for the best. He didn't like it, but he'd do it. Sometimes he hated being Prime more than anything. The times when duty came before his own spark were one of them.
"HEADS UP!" Wheeljack's voice suddenly boomed. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"
A black canister-like contraption came sailing overhead, landing in a particularly thick mass of drones. The bomb detonated upon impact. Bright white light erupted in the hanger, so real and alive and that blinded any and all optics that caught a glimpse before they could duck. A rumbling roar rolled through the hanger as the explosion grew, incinerating every drone within reach. Waves of blistering heat washed through the hanger, enough to overpower the preternatural cold that filled the void of anti-space. There was no crater left in the singed floor, but a huge chunk of drones now lay in ashes. What remained of the standing drones were frozen in place, left stunned by the aftershock and awaiting new orders.
The grey fake-light was gone, the gloom pierced by the hull lights that were still active on the Darksyde. There was no more preternatural cold sinking into their frames. Seemingly evaporated by the heat of Wheeljack's bomb, the cold that assaulted them now was the regular touch of the vacuum of space. It felt very much like a spell had been shattered.
"Wheeljack, you're a genius!" Ratchet crowed across the hangar.
"I know!" the engineer joyously hollered back.
"We must fall back," Soundwave ordered gravely for everyone to hear, motioning for the Darksyde. "We have to leave or we die."
"Just a little farther," Elita urged as Flamewar pounded through the twisting halls.
"Do you even know where you're going?" Flamewar howled, skidding around yet another corner as directed by the femme on her back.
"No, I don't. You have to trust me- just keep running," Elita pleaded, her arm flexing tighter around Flamewar's neck. "Please, you have to trust me."
"Whatever- just get us out of here alive." Flamewar grimaced, her wounded leg throbbing as she continued to run on it. Not that she had a choice. She couldn't stop to rest, not if she wanted to get out. The fact of the matter was that she did trust Elita One. For some awful reason, she trusted the crazy slip of metal and wires. Even when the floors and corridors changed as they ran through them, Elita maintained a strange, unshakable confidence as she issued directions.
"Take a right, another right, and then wait an astrosecond for the walls to shift and run down the corridor that appears," ordered the femme.
Flamewar grunted, swinging a wide arc into the next right they came upon. There were drones in the corridor, charging them the moment they caught sight of the lose femmes. Flamewar snapped into action immediately. Confident that Elita would be able to hang on with her arm and legs, she freed her own arms for a proper fight. Not that she was fighting "proper" in any case. She fought quick and dirty, felling the drones and then ripping off the laser-cutter attached to one of their arms to use as a weapon. Straightening, shaking off her new coating of energon, Flamewar took off running again, down the second right, skidding to a stop as the walls continued to shift, and then bolting down the tunnel that appeared.
Halfway down, a great arc of blue light lashed away from her chest. Her spark soared, recognizing who was near. She suddenly put on a new burst of speed, flying into the corridor on the other side of the tunnel. The sight that met the femmes there was of Barricade wedged deep into a fight, frame moving like a blur as he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with whomever got too close. His flail was useless in the close quarters of the hall. He obviously sensed Flamewar drawing near, because his movement became even more frenzied to work his way through.
"Barricade!" Flamewar yelled, unable to decide if she was stunned, elated, or downright furious to see her mate.
"Flamewar! I'm here to rescue you!" exclaimed the minibot before becoming lost in the fray.
Elita pulled herself up to Flamewar's audio. "Seven drones: aim high and you won't hit the mech."
With a burning glance to the laser-cutter clenched in her hand, Flamewar charged her makeshift weapon and aimed high. She wasn't much of a shot, being that hand-to-hand was her speciality. However, with this kind of distance, she'd be damned to miss. As the first head was severed with the high-powered laser, Barricade dropped low. He was at least ten feet shorter than the drones, but didn't want to press his luck with his mate's aim. Once the light show was over, Barricade straightened, facing his mate's exhausted yet smirking faceplate.
"Who's rescuing who?" she drawled.
Barricade ran to her, sweeping her into an embrace. "Dammit, you can rescue me any orn so long as you let me take you home," he growled, rubbing the side of his faceplate to hers. He'd never experience as much relief in his life as he was now.
"Fine by me," Flamewar laughed, giving a one-armed hug in return. "We'll have time for the warm-happy moments when we get out of here. Right now, you gotta lead us out."
"Us?" Barricade leaned away, catching the optic of the strange creature wrapped around his mate's back. "A friend of yours, I presume?"
"Elita One," piped the strange femme, offering a weak nod. "We have to move now. The others will leave without us if we don't hurry. Run straight, take a left, a right, and we should drop into the hangar."
Seeing Barricade about to question the directions, Flamewar gripped his wrist and forced him to run. "Don't question it: just do it!"
They ran with the last of their strength, letting the edges of their vision blur, their vents heave, and their limbs burn. What they didn't realize while following Elita's directions was that when she said 'drop in' she literally meant it. Psi had twisted himself up so thoroughly on the inside that up was down and down was up. As Barricade and the femmes came to the end of Elita's directions, the floor beneath them promptly opened up and gravity took hold.
Their surprised shrieks drew the notice of the retreating bots below.
"Flying drones?" Bluestreak squealed, hefting his rifle to pick the three free-falling bots from the air.
"Don't shoot!" Barricade roared. His voice was enough to be identified by.
Soundwave moved swiftly, swiping the three bots from certain death as they came near enough to catch.
"How the pit did you get up there?" Ratchet demanded, optics shooting to the ceiling where there was no evidence to be seen of trapdoors or holes to fall through.
"Don't ask," Flamewar snapped, wriggling to be set down. "I want out of this pit-hole right now!"
Elita One shot up, her optics flashing bright and wide. A bright arc of blue flashed between her and a figure who was burnished in flames, yet she held no fear of him. She welcomed the sight of him. "Optimus!"
Heedless of the condition of his sparkmate, Optimus Prime ran for his mate in order to bring her into his arms. His voice was rough with emotion as he managed to call her designation, "Elita One."
"You're real! Oh Primus, you're real!" exclaimed the femme, burying her faceplate into her sparkmate's armour. She felt her spark swell in its case, soaring and fluttering, but for once there was no pain. No pain at all. Only joy. Around them lashed blue lightning, but they were heedless of it.
Optimus was in awe of the creature he held, running his hand over her frame as if to memorize her once more. He saw her as his spark saw her: the most gorgeous creature he'd ever laid optics on. "You're okay. Dear Primus, I'm so sorry. I should have known you were here. I should have come for you sooner."
Elita gripped him with surprising strength, as if magnetically adhered to him. She wasn't going to be letting go any time soon. "Don't think about it. You're here now- that's what counts." She stroked his faceplate in wonder. "I can't believe you're real. You're more handsome than I remember."
"Prime, we don't have time!" Prowl yelled as he stood at the top of the Darksyde's ramp ushering everyone in. Smokescreen was standing opposite to Prowl, waving violently for everyone to get their afts in gear. Both tacticians looked beaten within an inch of their lives, their doorwings ripped off and large sections of their armour missing.
Cradling Elita close, Optimus turned and sprinted for the ramp. He was the last up, the hatch closing behind him.
Elita lifted her head to watch the last sliver of her prison disappear. She couldn't name the emotion that flooded her. She was free. Free. Yet she couldn't bring herself to fly apart with joy. Not when the last thing she saw of the Fallen's insides was a drone's optic turn burning amber as it met her gaze, lifting its hand to wiggle its fingers teasingly in goodbye. "Until we meet again, my pet." The hatch hissed closed, locking in place.
The symbiotes were at the controls, charging the Darksyde's engines. Sparing no expense, they unloaded most of the ship's firepower into the nearest wall. The wall itself wasn't damaged, but it retracted on itself like a living thing jerking away from a painful sting. There were stars beyond the gaping hole. Thrusters engaged to full power, wrenching the Darksyde ahead so hard it threw everyone to the floor. Whoever was piloting was either too eager to get out, or he underestimated the dimensions of the ship compared to their way to freedom; a shrieking screech came though the hull as the right flight-stabilizer was sheered from the side of the ship.
Flung back into normal space, they thought they were home free. Instead, things were about to get a thousand times worse. Behind them, the black hole stretching into anti-space was ripped wide. The Fallen's full form came through; a monolithic ship of impossible size. Easily the mass of the North and South American continents, possibly more. Black metal as dark as the space between the stars. It stretched so far in every direction that it appeared to go on forever. Without warning, its whole mass was on fire. Horrible, furious, roaring pit-fire.
Elita went rigid. "Brace for impact."
The energy wave that hit them was so strong that it flipped them nose-over-thruster several times. Without their right flight-stabilizer, there was little chance of getting themselves under control. When the second furious attack hit, it ripped the Darksyde's hanger open. The sudden vacuum created sucked every bot in the hangar out into space. They were all too close to Earth's atmosphere, too weak too pull away from the drag of gravity. Armour was shed and protoforms donned as, one by one, they began to burn up in the atmosphere.
Except for Elita One. She had no protoform.
