Strongarm didn't know if she'd managed to dodge the strike, not until she found her face pressed to the floor and her spark miraculously still beating. With no time to raise her head up, she only got her optics on Strika fast enough to see a ped coming towards them. As she rolled aside, the Decepticon clipped the side of her helm- that alone was enough of an impact to send Strongarm flying on her back.

The floor filled her vision; with her head being so dazed, it was the only warning she could process of still being in danger. She rolled onto her front, just avoiding having her spine crushed beneath the brutal punch Strika sent down towards where she'd been sprawled out before. The Decepticon had to pull her hand back from the crater she'd just made in the floor, giving Strongarm precious nanoklicks to right herself and take a proper defensive stance- for all the good that one would do her with an opponent like this.

This time Strika didn't attack immediately. Instead she took time to savour the moment; the exertion in Strongarm's vents, the fear written in the creases of her faceplate. In turn, she forced Strongarm to take a good look at what she was really up against; Strika's 'Kamuicon' made her look even larger than usual somehow; like the Fibers within the plates were threaded through her protoform and swollen with energon, with rage, with pride, and whatever else a Decepticon was really capable of feeling.

Like how Fixit looked on Strongarm, Strika's kamui was made of metallic straps crisscrossing her bare protoform and jutting edges bristling out from her like spines. But, unlike Fixit, her kamui had no optics that Strongarm could see. No blinking, watching lights, no semblance of anything alive on those slivers of steel stretched across her skin. Which meant that, as Strika had said, this one didn't have a Minicon involved at all. It was construct of pure Life Fibers, attached directly onto her frame. The parasites would be pulling all her energon directly from her body, with no let-up until they'd gorged themselves and drained her dry… yet she was surviving it. More than that, she was thriving from it. Even with her size, her weight, her being besieged by hungry cosmic parasites, everything that should have put her at a disadvantage, Strika alone was faster and stronger than Strongarm was at her very best, even with Fixit's help.

If Fixit had been with Strongarm, maybe he would have known what the Pit to make of such a thing. But, if he was here, then she'd have a completely different problem to deal with anyway.

"You might as well just tell me where the Kamuicon is, Strongarm," Strika chuckled, cracking the joints of her fist as she straightened her claws one by one. "We'll find it anyway, somewhere in that bloated carcass you call a ship."

"You stay the frag away from my baby and my ship, ya' damn freak! Strongarm, get away from her!" Wheeljack was still shouting somewhere distant, somewhere Strongarm couldn't afford to look towards.

Then Strika cocked her helm, but not towards Wheeljack's protests. This wasn't about him. It was more like she surprised to see that Strongarm was still standing, still waiting for whatever would come next.

"Or maybe you just want to die like this," the Decepticon mused. "I imagine it'd be quite an honor. After all, you'd be my first victim in Primus-only knows so many cycles." Strika's next attack came from her other servo, the one that had been hanging limply by her side just a second ago. Strongarm made the mistake of blinking, breaking the crucial contact with Strika's optics, and the price she paid for it was a punch right to her neck. Strika had likely been aiming to uppercut her jaw, but the effect was still devastating; Strongarm was knocked backwards down to one knee, spluttering through her damaged vocaliser while it was still trying to recover from being crushed in the Decepticon's grip earlier.

"That's the worst thing about Chaar, you know. No silly little Autobots around to destroy when you're bored." Strika went on without missing a beat, while Strongarm tried to not choke on static and pain. "But look at you, brat! Only been here ten klicks and you've already entertained me more than any of your dead friends managed to."

Strongarm's couldn't look up while she was still coughing out her cords, but she saw Strika's three-pronged peds stop just in front of her. She saw each wide grip splay out to clamp down onto the floor, readying her whole frame for another heavy attack while Strongarm rushed to find the best escape route- but then those prongs relaxed just a nanoklick later, and turned so that they no longer faced her.

"Oh." Strika made a sound of disappointment. "That little one's managed to slip away. Lugnut, be a dear and send Waspinator after him before he gets too far."

Strongarm ended up leaning forwards as her vocaliser repaired itself as best as it could, her throat flooded with nanites that had lain dormant ever since Fixit and his Fibers had taken over the job of patching her up. Turning her head towards where Lugnut still held her sire and Thunderhoof back, forcing herself to not linger on them too long lest she start crying, she saw that First Aid had disappeared completely from the room. Good; the last thing she wanted was him putting himself in danger again just for her sake. She was getting tired of Minicons saving her. Whatever he was trying to do, he at least had experience in keeping himself hidden. So long as he found somewhere to hide from Waspinator, he'd be okay.

At least one of them would be okay.

She had to look away from Wheeljack. She couldn't let him see how scared she really was. She was the one who insisted on coming here, after all. He'd known the risks. He'd known they should have stayed away, but he brought her here anyway because she'd convinced him she could handle it. But this… this was beyond anything she'd been prepared for, at least so soon after docking.

Strika was still distracted, watching Lugnut bellow out a command while still restraining the only two lifelines Strongarm had on hand. Her back was turned, and Strongarm could see that the thick rotors of her alt-mode still hung down her shoulders like a stiff cape. But there was something different about them now; there was a red glow around each of them, like there was a strip of LEDs glued beneath metal piece…

Life Fibers. They were hanging down from the rotors, almost trailing the ground and writhing around like thin worms. Was that how she was surviving the strain of them? By having some of them trail outside her body? Whatever the answer, they were like loose threads hanging off the kamui. If Strongarm grabbed one and pulled hard enough… could the whole thing unravel?

There was only one way to find out.

She lunged forward and grabbed for one of the red threads, wrapping her whole hand around one and pulled on it with all her weight as she fell towards the floor-

Immediately, a hive of voices throbbed through her veins as the Fiber reached out towards her.

"Eateatdevourcontrolfeasteateatsurrendereat-"

Strongarm tried to let go, scrambling backwards and feeling like she'd been scalded; but her fingers were still tied together with red twine that wrapped itself around her palm, digging in like burning barbed wire. What had just been a strand a moment ago was now a thick red rope, swollen with her energon that it sucked out with so much hunger and force that she felt herself getting weaker by the second. Her other hand tried to tear the ravenous Fiber away, but it just reached out another swarm of strands to cover that one up to her wrist.

"Newbloodnewbloodeateatfeastdevourkilldevourdestroy-"

"Oh? What's this little one trying now, hm?" Strika had noticed her, turning around to see Strongarm trying to skitter away from the red strings that tightened around her wrists, pulling against her resistance to drag her back towards Strika, throbbing in her processor with their mindless chants-

"Destroydevournewbloodnewpreynewfoodeatdraindevour-"

She didn't have a blade or fire on hand, couldn't even reach to her subspace for her blunt polearm- Primus, why hadn't she brought it out when she first saw Strika bleeding!? Why didn't she bring Fixit?! What the Pit was she supposed to do?!

"Bite it off, Strongarm!" she heard Thunderhoof bellow, "Play dirty, use yer' denta!"

With desperation, wrenching her wrists back so the Fibers wouldn't cover her servos, Strongarm twisted the two strands together into one and brought it to her mouth, catching the pulsing cord between her denta and tearing at it by wrenching her helm aside. It was revolting and searing and screaming at her, but with just enough force she managed to break the rope before anything could latch onto her glossa. She spat out the clumps of red string, scraping them thoroughly from her mouth as they shrivelled away. With their source of fuel cut off, the Life Fibers swirled weightless around her before lying grey and dead at her peds as she pulled herself up.

She looked down at them without blinking, waiting for them to fuse together again and form a noose for her neck or something equally terrifying. Her wrists still felt scorched, and she was sure she'd see scars if she looked at them.

These things… these were what Fixit had living inside him? These were what he put inside her?! No wonder someone like Airachnid wanted them so badly. They were both as awful as each other.

"Hm." Strika looked down at the dead Fibers with just as much distaste as Strongarm did. "I suppose I should say well done, brat. But you'll have trouble fitting this between your teeth." She surged forward again, another fist ready, but she feinted right past Strongarm to come at her from behind. Strongarm only registered the Fibers streaming past her as Strika slammed her whole frame into her, knocking her off-balance so she couldn't guard herself against the punch when it finally hit. Strongarm's jaw exploded with pain, the entire metal joint ringing through her denta as she stumbled to stay on her peds. If she fell on the ground again, she was sure Strika wouldn't let her get back up again.

"Look at you, child." As Strika chuckled, the Life Fibers wreathed around her rotors seemed to swell and whip about like they were just as amused as her. "Still trying so hard, despite everything. Against the likes of me, you're practically naked!"

The irony of such a judgement coming from a femme showing over half her bare protoform was not lost on Strongarm, especially when she was usually the one in Strika's position of power. But if this is what Life Fibers were capable of, if this is what they did to you, did to Fixit… she didn't think she wanted anything else to do with them.

But the moral dilemma could wait until she found a way to survive Strika. The Decepticon let loose a swarm of Fibers, like glowing red homing missiles, and Strongarm had to almost break her spinal strut to dodge them. As they flew past her they doubled back, coiling together into ropes that closed in on her like a red web and suddenly left her struggling to break free. They burned, and singed, and she couldn't angle her jaw down to bite at them, couldn't even get her servos free as they were tied down at her sides, burning and aching and filling her head with that horrific chant-

"Newmeatnewmeatkilleatkilldrain-"

"Strongarm, keep it up!" Wheeljack was pleading somewhere far, far away. "Get your servos free and-" He was shouting, yelling at her so hard that his vocaliser was struggling to process the sound- but the Fibers killing her were louder.

"Killfirstonefirsthenothersthenuniversekillalldrainalluniversefeastallfoodalleaten-"

Too much, too much to break out of, too much to survive… they were cutting into her like barbed wire, sucking up her energon and the very light from her spark, and she knew she was just klicks away from going offline because these parasites could do nothing but gorge on her until she was hollow and then fill the empty space left with their deafening war cries; a thousand voices as one, unified with hunger and greed both insatiable and ever-growing, with one voice rising above them all-

"Strongarm, come in!"

…But that wasn't the Fibers. It wasn't Wheeljack or Thunderhoof, either. She opened her optics, with what little energy she had left that was slipping out of her, but from her place on the floor all she could see was Strika's back to her.

"What the Pit… Lugnut, who is that? I thought I gave strict orders to not be interrupted!"

"Forgive me, Premier Commander," Lugnut sounded like he was struggling to keep the other two mechs under control as he withered under Strika's disapproval. "I-I did order all officers to vacate-"

"Strongarm, are you there?" The voice spoke again- grainy, desperate… from a comm channel. It echoed around the chamber, fed through speakers in Strika's command module. "It's Steve- and First Aid is here, too. Can you hear me?"

Steve… he was awake. He was alive! And here was… here? It was unlikely he was still on the ship; their systems had no way to gain direct access to Chaar's comm lines, and First Aid wouldn't have had enough time to get back to the Riotjack. Unless Strongarm had spent a lot longer than she'd thought weathering the storm that was Strika...

Speaking of whom, she hadn't taken the interruption lightly. "Who the-?! Whoever this is, I will have you tracked down and melted down into the slag that you are! How dare you hijack my equipment-!"

Strongarm stopped listening once she realised that she could listen, that her audios weren't being engulfed by the Life Fiber chorus of death and destruction anymore. She looked down at her frame, finding that it also wasn't being strangled by the parasitic ligaments- instead they returned themselves to Strika and wrapped around the rotors on her back, still writhing there idly. She was so incensed by Steve's appearance that she'd turned all her anger from Strongarm onto his voice in a comm module, and even with their hunger for anything living the Fibers must have had no choice but to follow what her brain module told them to do.

Which meant they gave her no warning when Strongarm regained her strength and pushed herself back up, this time remembering to retrieve her secret weapon from her subspace. Furthermore, Strika's massive frame and her decision to put her comm module right in the middle of her chambers meant that Lugnut couldn't even see Strongarm sneaking up to club his beloved Commander right across the helm.

"Lugnut, go find this intruder immediately and have his gutted exoskeleton brought to-!" Strika didn't get to finish her order before she crumpled beneath the blow from Strongarm's pole. Strongarm didn't actually believe that had managed to take her out, not until some nanoklicks passed in stunned silence as Lugnut tried to process what had just happened- even Thunderhoof and Wheeljack still locked in his grip looked confused. Lugnut's five optics looked from Strika fallen on the floor, to Strongarm, back to Strika, before he realised that she wasn't trying to get back up.

"COMMANDER!" His servos flew out, unconsciously releasing his captives as he readied his fists to continue Strika's fight for her. "How dare you lay your filthy hands on-?!" As Lugnut made to advance on her, Thunderhoof quickly took advantage of his newfound freedom to charge right at him with his horns. He didn't have enough force to slam Lugnut into the wall, but it was enough to knock him onto the floor where his sheer size and shock left him floundering.

"Ah, would'ja shuddup already?!" Thunderhoof used one of his cloven peds to kick Lugnut across the helm, making it spin right round in its neck socket. Wheeljack looked down at Lugnut, almost impressed, as the Decepticon attempted to roll away from the danger.

"Nice one, Bambi. But as a Decepticon you really should know their weakness lies in the chest, since they ain't got anything in the helm to hurt." He demonstrated by kicking Lugnut square in the spark chamber as he tried clambering back up to his peds. Really, they were both mercilessly bullying him. Which suited Strongarm just fine.

With Strika and Lugnut both dealt with for now, she went to the module Steve's blessed voice had been coming from.

"Steve, you still there?" With how her luck was running so far she was almost expecting Steve to have been overrun by the many Megatron-replicas stalking elsewhere around the fortress, or worse… but only a nanoklick passed before she was thankfully proven wrong.

"Strongarm! You're still alive!" He was panting, like his vents were struggling to keep up with the rest of him, but he didn't sound like a Dark Energon zombie at least. "Listen, I should have warned you about Strika. She and Airachnid both lead squads in the fight for Alpha Centauri-"

"Never mind that, Steve, what the-?" Strongarm shook her helm, deciding quickly that the 'whats' were the least important kind of question to be asking at that moment. "Where are you? Is everyone okay?"

"The ship is locked down. I managed to get us all out, but we don't have much time. I'm only able to talk to you cause this place's comm lines are set up just like the Nemesis'. First Aid told me what's going on, if you can stall for a little longer we can come and-"

"No, no," she cut in while Steve was still talking, "do not come after me." She felt guilty enough taking them all right into a trap like this. If the others were outside, at least they had a chance- however minor- to get away. They'd need a new ship, one to at least get them out of Chaar's gravity, but as soon as they left the atmosphere the Autobots would be coming for them, thanks to the logging satellite Wheeljack had mentioned. And with Rosanna alive and well, they wouldn't need to worry about being arrested for murder anymore.

Easy. Simple. Perfect. She just had to help keep them all alive until they found a way out.

"Find somewhere else to hide," she told Steve; firmly, an order that should not be disobeyed. "Somewhere nearby. We'll come find you when we're done here."

Steve was silent for a second. "But… what about Fix-?" His question was buried under a groan from behind Strongarm.

"Just go!" Strongarm barked. "Now! I'll hold Strika back!" She turned away from the module with her pole ready, and only just parried a blow in time as Strika set out to take her revenge.

This time she didn't bother toying with Strongarm; her strikes were as fast as they were brutal, coming in from just about every direction. It was all Strongarm could do to defend against them, using her pole to help vault herself out of the way. After a volley of failed punches, Strika let loose a deafening snarl as she whipped around to try and sweep Strongarm's peds from under her. The Life Fibers too kept trying to grab for her, to resume their feast, but Strongarm kept them away by guarding with her weapon. As they increased their frenzied writhing, Strika seemed to stumble and struggle to stay balanced. And, little by little, she was slowing down.

Even with a femme as strong as her, the Fibers were finally taking their toll. Strongarm's frame throbbed with pain and exhaustion; her nerve nodes caught fire every time she moved, her tanks were achingly hollow and her veins were full of waste sludge from her efforts, but if she could just last a little longer…

As she rolled aside of Strika, she caught sight of Lugnut still blocking the elevator. He was no longer flailing on the floor; now he had Thunderhoof pinned down with one of his peds, and Wheeljack trapped in his servos.

"Dad!" Strongarm couldn't help but cry out, seeing her sire being squeezed like his protoform would turn to jelly within his armor plates; his optics bulged and his denta bit deep into his scarred lips, as he tried to muffle cries of pain. He wriggled and kicked and tried to pull himself free, but Lugnut just held even tighter as the sheer strength of the embrace threatened to crush Wheeljack's spark.

Thunderhoof couldn't help. So Strongarm had to. With her pole gripped tightly, she deflected one more punch from Strika before abandoning her, running towards Lugnut and readying her weapon-

"Let GO OF HIM!"

-to send it crashing right between his legs, straight into his codpiece. He buckled instantly, with a roar that almost cracked the windows showing only darkness through them. Wheeljack gave himself a second to recover before he picked up where he'd left off, this time with renewed and righteous fury. Thunderhoof bucked Lugnut off of him, and the two mechs practically batted the Decepticon between them like he was an over-inflated volleyball.

"Lugnut! Get your hands off him, you-!" Strika's disgusted cry came close behind Strongarm, giving her plenty warning of where her attack was coming from. She didn't need to look behind her as she thrust her pole out to her side- but instead of slamming into her chest, she instead caught Strika across the knees, almost sending her helm-over-heels. The Decepticon hadn't been moving to attack her; she'd been running past her, to get at Wheeljack and Thunderhoof.

So Strika had two weaknesses; being interrupted, and Lugnut. Strongarm quickly took advantage of Strika's disorientation by thumping her across the helm again- it wasn't nearly as effective as the first time, but she didn't expect it to be- or need it to be.

"What's the matter, Strika?" Strongarm taunted. "Don't like seeing your pet getting thrown around?" From where the Decepticon was left kneeling on the floor, she had a perfect view of Thunderhoof and Wheeljack overpowering Lugnut- her lapdog, her lieutenant, her sparkmate, whatever he was to someone like her, the sight of him being pummelled made her even weaker than the drain of the Fibers around her did. She reached up to grab Strongarm's weapon and yank it out of her grip, but Strongarm rolled with the movement with her ped on Strika's shoulder, pushing off so she pulled herself right over the top of her. Now that she was in front of Strika, she took a page from the Decepticon's own playbook and slammed her pole into her jaw, then her shoulder, then her cheek, anywhere and everywhere she could reach while she still had the energy left. Even if she had to be dragged comatose out of the chamber by the end of it all, she had to make sure that Strika was completely overwhelmed; by the attacks, by the ravenous Life Fibers she thought she could handle all by herself, by the sight of Lugnut losing-

"ENOUGH!"

Strongarm heard Strika shriek, heard it echo all around her as she crashed her pole into her face- but she didn't make it that far. Suddenly she was yanked forwards and then lifted off her peds, the floor gone from under her, horrible weightlessness for a nanoklick, and then-

SLAM!

...

Agony. Blind. Stinging nodes. Ringing all around her audios.

She was dead.

No, not quite, but she might as well have been. When her optics stuttered online, their view covered in warnings and glitches and broken pixels, she found herself in the middle of a sunken pit, a crater that had appeared in the split-second between her winning and losing. There was a shadow over her, a heavy one pressing down on her frame, holding her there as if she even could have moved away.

"One more step, Wheeljack. I dare you. You put down one ped towards me or Lugnut, and I'll put one down too…"

Rolling her optics like they were loose in their sockets, she saw something at the edge of the crater. Her pole. But even if she could have stretched her servo to it, she wouldn't have been able to reach it. She'd let go of it at some point… her hands were empty. Aching. Her legs… numb. She couldn't feel anything at all around the weight crushing her, the burden of her failure cracking her armor plates.

At least it wasn't living armor. At least it wasn't Fixit suffering along with her.

"It's funny, isn't it, Strongarm? This is how you said you killed that Minicon diva…" Strika spoke slowly, savoring the drawn-out whines and grinding groans that Strongarm just realised her vocaliser was making. "Minicons are so easy to kill, you know. That's why they rely on everyone else to keep them safe. But with enough pressure… with enough force, you can snap just about anyone's spine…"

She demonstrated without mercy, shifting even more of her weight onto the ped she had planted on Strongarm's chest, and it was like being thrown helm-first into a smelting pool.

"STRONGARM!"

Wheeljack was still here… why was he here? Oh, because of her. All because of her. Because she'd lied to him and said she could handle this. And now she was going to die.

She was going to die here.

"Lugnut, open the comm channel for me. I want to tell Airachnid the exact moment that this one's spark turns to paste."

She was doomed. She was already dead. She could feel it- the stiffening, the rust, the rest of her spark's energy fizzling out under Strika's pressure, like a nuclear meltdown contained only by her broken frame. Her servos spasmed not because she was struggling, not because she even could struggle under such immense pain, but because they were being forced out of her joints. Her whole frame was crumbling, her protoform forced tight against her internals and empty veins like it would soon tear apart like paper. Her optics stung with coolant and energon dripping out of them, but through that blurry mist she could see her sire in as much pain as her, his face damp and stretched wide in a horrified scowl, and in the foreground her pole, her only weapon, still sitting there taunting her as her fingers numbly stretched for it, barely grazing the nearest edge-

And then it started moving. Pulling itself along tiny, microscopic strands that grew out and wrapped around her fingers. Through the mask of coolant and agony and certainty of death, she didn't notice they were red until they spoke to her.

"Doit," they said, and for a precious second she thought it was Fixit's voice. Not quite, though- it was too quiet, too multiplied- but it was close enough, just close enough like her pole was. What really mattered was that her hand wasn't empty anymore…

"Doitstrongarm…"

And that it was no longer a pole. It was a spear tipped with a glowing red drill, the same one that had disabled Pharma.

She knew what they wanted her to do. What she had to do.

Strika was right there, not even looking down at her anymore. Her mouth was moving, but Strongarm didn't hear what she was saying. It didn't really matter.

Nothing mattered, except ending it all.

Strongarm felt something that wasn't her lift up her servo, tighten her digits, and lift her ruined frame up just enough for her, with one last agonised scream, to shove the spear through Strika's chest. The bare protoform cleaved in two, effortlessly, but the chamber gave a horrific crunch as it was pierced, as if it was protesting the attack, as if it could stop the spear stabbing through. And it was only when the spear broke through, when it re-emerged through Strika's back,that she finally realised she was dying.

She looked down at her open chest; the energon now gushing from the wound, drawing the Fibers out of her likes flies swarming around honey. Bright cyan devoured by red, she watched the parasites flood into her spark, as if to engulf the very last rays of light trying to break through the flood of lifeblood. Then she looked past to Strongarm, still prone on the floor, still crushed beneath her weight- yet still victorious.

"How… how did... you…?" Strika didn't live long enough to receive the answer. With one last gasp from her vents, she toppled over and made the crater her grave. She fell onto the dull end of the spear, driving it in even deeper to her chest, as if there was any doubt that she could have survived such a wound.

Strongarm was released from the dead Decepticon's weight, but she still couldn't move. Not yet. The fleeting moment of strength was gone, leaving her lying completely empty. She could see, and she could hear, and she could taste the energon on her lips, and that was the extent of it.

"C…C-Commander? Strika?" Lugnut sounded confused, and distant.

"Strongarm…?" Wheeljack sounded exactly the same.

She turned her helm, but not towards her sire. She faced the comm module, the one that Strika had ordered opened to Airachnid's line. There was a light on… it was still open. She was still listening. Maybe even watching, if there was a camera.

Strongarm licked the energon from her mouth, and grabbed the jagged end of the pole still sticking through Strika's corpse. It took a moment to pull it free, but once she had it in her hand she used it to drag herself towards the console- the only way she could move her frame at all. Her legs wouldn't let her stand up, wouldn't move at all, but she could still sit up to reach the microphone. That was all she cared about at that moment. Making herself heard. Making herself known, on her own terms, to the femme she was hunting down

"Can you see me, Airachnid?" Her voice sounded foreign, ragged with static and groans and weary with abuse, but at least it was loud enough. "I know you can hear me… so you better fragging listen!" She held back a cough, swallowing the energon coming up from her broken fuel lines instead of spitting it out. "What I just did to your little guard-dog here… that's nothing compared to what I'll do to you, if you resist, if you try and run. You understand?! I'm coming after you! Me, my sire, my team, and Fixit… my Kamuicon! We will do what Optimus Prime and Megatron themselves failed to, we will find you and we will make you pay for everything you've done. And if you wanna stop us, you'll have to try harder than this!"

That was as much as she could get out before she collapsed. The familiar floor came up to her, but she didn't hit it. Someone grabbed her, hands gently pulling her up, another hand on her crooked spinal strut.

"You're okay, baby, you're okay… just stay still." Wheeljack was by her side, and she could have wept from how good it was to hear him- not bellowing, not terrified or miserable, but the softest whisper she'd heard ever since she was a sparkling. She could have died then and there and been happy for it… if not for Lugnut's wailing behind her.

"Strika… Strika! Wh… say something, my beloved! The brat still lives! You need to wake up and deal with her! We… we still have work to do! SAY SOMETHING!"

If she had the emotional room for it, she might have felt sorry for him. She might have felt guilty about having to kill to save herself. But, at that moment, all she could think about was one thing; one terrible thing that fully hit her only when she opened her optics by a sliver and saw Thunderhoof carrying her peds- and the state of her waist. Broken plating, cables hanging loose, frayed wires dangling down like intestines. She couldn't feel anything there. She couldn't even feel the agony she should have been in anymore.

"Dad…"

"Hold on, sweetie," Wheeljack soothed, "I've got you, we're getting' out of here, just stay with me-"

"Dad, I… I c…" She couldn't stop herself coughing up energon now, splattering it all over her chest and burning in her throat. "I can't f-feel… my legs…"

The numbness started at her legs, then spread all over, until her optics couldn't stay open a nanoklick longer and she was left drowning in blind blackness. The last thing she heard was Lugnut's mourning cries from far, far away.