Ah, sorry for taking so long to give out the next chapter. Quarantine gave me a lot of time to write my 5,000 stories I'm writing, but I never finished this story, and now that school has started up and I got a job, I haven't had as much time to write. Annnd this story kinda got neglected as I focused on others. Since I don't even have the next chapter fully writen yet, and I'm going camping for a few days, it'll be a while before I post the next chapter.

Anyways, enjoy!

"You b***leg liar!" Quickshadow shouts, kicking him in the stomach. She picks up her knife and ducks to avoid his slash at her face. The two engage in a knife fight, with each participant driven to kill.

Quickshadow drops her knife into her left hand and while Fracture keeps his focus on the knife, punches him in the faceplates. As she backs away, the white femme activates her high-tech, holographic shield. As she predicted, Fracture pulls out his blaster and fires shots at her. She ducks behind the shield as the laser blasts bounce off it.

(Flashback)

"Ta-da!" Wheeljack exclaimed, showing off a shield attached to his arm. "Holographic shield. My new design. Light weight, easy to carry, and very effective at deflecting blasts."

"Impressive," Tigris said rather unimpressed as she activated her newly attached gadget.

"This will definitely come in handy," Onca smirked, clenching her right fist as the shield activated. "We won't have to carry it into battle or worry about it getting in the way."

"Can this shield stand a lot of pressure?" Pardus asked, slamming the end of the shield into a metal sheet. Instead of slicing it in half, the shield sputtered and faded.

"The shield only deflects blaster fires," Wheeljack explained, a little miffed that Pardus had broken his gadget within thirty seconds of receiving it. "And stop breaking my stuff. Only I get to do that."

"How many blasts can it withstand?" Uncia asked, holding the shield in front of her face as Leo fires round after round at the holograph.

"Not much," Wheeljack said as the shield fizzled and flickered. "It's a hologram, so I'm working on making it more durable. Right now it's just an emergency shield for you guys while you run for cover."

"So, it's not that awesome," Pardus sputtered. "It's just for emergencies."

"I created it, it is awesome!" Wheeljack chuckled. "I'll work on durability, but it's still just a prototype. Use it only if you have to."

"Hey, don't lecture me on caution," Pardus snickered.

(Present)

Knowing she only had a limited amount of time, Quickshadow runs in a circle around Fracture. He shoots at the center of her shield, trying to wear it down. The special ops reaches the trees and rolls into the brush. She deactivates her shield, and activates her camouflage mode.

Fracture brandishes a heavier blaster and slowly scans the tree line for any sign of her. Due to the nature of her camouflage technique, Quickshadow couldn't move around quickly. After waiting a minute, she throws a small pebble. It taps a rock behind Fracture, making a small clink. He whirls around, convinced that she had snuck around behind him and was about to jump out and attack.

Quickshadow takes her chance and jumps on his back, straddling his shoulders as she chokes him with his blaster. Fracture grabs her arm and flips her over his shoulder. She rolls over, spits out the gritty Earth soil, and runs at him. Fracture moves to punch her in the chest and she raises her left arm to block it. Quickshadow uses her right arm to support her left and push back against Fracture.

Taking advantage of her, Fracture kicks her in the chest, sending her rolling across the grass. Fracture falls over, sits up and starts shooting at her. Quickshadow activates her shield quickly and deflects the bullets.

Fracture runs out of energon in his blaster. "Sl*g, I'm running low on ammo."

Quickshadow takes advantage of his situation and performs a flying kick to his arm, knocking the blaster out of his hands. "Fr*g!" Fracture mutters as he pulls out another blaster and starts firing at her again. After hiding behind her shield again, the white femme throws a wide punch at his face. Then she deactivated her shield and punches with her left arm.

Fracture lands a punch on her face and uses her left arm to flip her over. The highly trained Rescue Bot lands on her peds and punches him twice as he blocks her blows. Fracture lands a hard strike to Quickshadow's chest, knocking her backwards. She flips over to see him activate the shield he stole from her. "Thanks for the upgrade," he snickers sinisterly.

"Don't mention it," Quickshadow hisses, and shoots at him with her blaster. The shield fizzles and dies.

Fracture growls and draws out his long, sword-like spike attached to his wrist. He begins to deliver a series of quick jabs and cuts, but Quickshadow blocks them with her arms.

(Flashback)

"You gotta keep your eyes on the spike, Uncia," Pardus grinned as the two pant from exhaustion.

"I'm watching," she chuckled. "But you move so fast."

"Come on, the great snow leopard can't keep her optics on the old purple leopard?" Pardus teased.

"Keep running your mouth," Uncia huffed playfully. "We'll see who's faster."

The two began their training session again, and Pardus delivered quick, short jabs while Uncia blocked with her forearms. Just as Uncia thought that she could predict where his right servo would go, he switched to his left and stabbed her arm. "Ah!" Uncia grunted.

"You gotta watch out for both spikes!" Pardus grinned. "I'm devious."

"I'm just glad that wasn't a real spike," Uncia rolled her optics as the training simulation ended and Pardus's spikes disappeared.

(Present)

As Quickshadow keeps her optic on the right arm, she secretly watches his left. The white femme surprises Fracture when she was prepared for his switch. Angered, he sweeps his spike at her head twice, and misses as she ducks.

Turning around, Quickshadow lands a hard strike on his face, knocking him backwards. Her mouth curling back in anger, the white special ops jumps up, spins around and lands a sharp kick to his torso.

Fracture falls back against a large boulder, grunting from the impact. Quickshadow runs at him and hits his upper chest with her knee. Holding him against the rock, she goes to punch him, but he blocks it.

Quickshadow dives for his torso, and tries to wrap her right arm around him, but Fracture uses it to flip her over onto the ground. She stands up, and he grabs her neck roughly. She growls in pain and anger, and the Decepticon throws her backwards. She rolls over a boulder and lands with a hard smack on a smooth rock.

Fracture leaps up into the air and brings his fist down towards her. Quickshadow rolls away and his fist cracks the rock. She leaps up and blocks his punches with her left arm. He throws her into the mountain side and pulls out a long knife. Fracture kicks her torso back against the rock and dives for her faceplates. Quickshadow grabs his servos to keep the knife from slicing her optics. The weapon was dangerously close to her faceplates as she curls back her dermas.

Fracture pulls back and dives in again. Quickshadow moves her helm and the knife digs itself into the mountain side. Fracture drives the knife through the rock towards her head, making a high-pitched, nails-on-a-chalkboard sound as the knife cuts through the hard stone. Quickshadow growls and ducks under his arm, grabs his torso and flips backwards. Fracture lands in the dirt and spits out the soil. The femme tries to pin him down on the ground, but he swings his right arm behind him, cutting her side.

Quickshadow curses and gives him enough time to get up while she is distracted. He moves to punch her in the face, and she flips backwards; kicking him in the back of the head. She grabs his jaw and flips him over her shoulder.

Fracture lands with a grunt, and wipes the energon off of his mouth. "Traitors make traitors, Uncia. What will Heatwave do?"

"Heatwave would never harm me," Quickshadow spits. "He's a real gentlemech who is double the mech you could ever be."

"I was talking about you," Fracture snickers. "You left him and ignored him. Traitors are drawn to traitors. You haven't treated your sparkmate any better. Would he ever come back for you after the way you've treated him?"

Quickshadow's anger falters. Would Heatwave forgive her? Was she creating in him the same monster Fracture created in her?

While she was momentarily distracted, Fracture takes advantage and stabs her in the side with his spike. The femme screams, and pokes him in the optic. Dirty, but very effective. Fracture jerks his helm back, cursing loudly.

Quickshadow runs away into the forests, heading for a rocky crevice she had used to hide from everyone on multiple occasions. Fracture pulls out a deadly looking blaster and aims at her as she runs. He fires, and hits her in the shoulder.

Gasping in pain, Quickshadow crawls behind the rock. She covers the blaster wound on her shoulder with one hand, and covers her helpless sparkling with the other.

The white femme looks out from behind the rock tentatively. Fracture is nowhere to be seen. She hears him pull out his wrist spike from the other side and whips her helm around. His irritating, amused smile is replaced with a sickeningly joyful grin. He snickers. "Well, well, well. I suppose that's what you were freaking out about earlier."

Quickshadow moves her right arm to her hidden knife, still covering her sparkling.

"It seems you have more to lose than I initially thought, girl-on-fire," Fracture snickers, nodding with his helm towards her abdomen. "Maybe not, if you chose your sparkmate over your sparkling."

Quickshadow growls and slashes at him with her knife, but he kicks her in the faceplates. Knocked down with two possibly fatal injuries and panicking, the white femme loses her fight against Fracture and cries out in pain as he claws and stabs her.

"Come on, fix 'em already," Heatwave growls as Kade tinkers with the towns cameras.

"I'm no Graham, okay?" Kade sighs. "Get off my back, and I'll get off yours soon enough."

"You're not on my back, you're on my head," Heatwave says snarkily.

"Cause you forgot your ladder," Kade retorts back. "Who forgets a part of their own body?!"

"I didn't forget it, it's stuck at the firehouse being repaired," Heatwave huffs. "Maybe because you were too slow to act during the last emergency."

"I was not slow!" Kade protests, climbing down Heatwave's face to access the toolbox resting on his shoulder.

"You were too, and oh my Primus, your feet reek!" Heatwave sputters, his faceplates scrunching up in disgust.

"Like you smell any better, Mister oily aroma!" Kade retorts.

"Kade, knock it off," Chief Burns says rather tiredly from the ground. "Heatwave, we'll find her."

"I'll travel to the ends of the universe if I have to," Heatwave says. "But it'd be easier if we could just see if she's passed by here. And for that, we need the security cameras."

"Hey, it's not my fault you couldn't keep your sparkmate," Kade goads.

"Kade!" Chief Burns barks.

"Sorry, Heatwave," Mr. Bunty approaches the Chief and the Rescue Bots. "I've kept an eye out for her from my drive-in movie theatre but she hasn't gone by that I've seen."

"Is she still not answering you?" Cody asks sympathetically.

"No, she's outright ignoring me," Heatwave sighs.

"You knew what you were getting into when you sparkbonded with that spitfire," Kade points out.

"That's one way to describe her," Heatwave shakes his head, disrupting Kade.

"She's here somewhere," Cody says. "She wouldn't leave us when Fracture is still around."

"There hasn't been any sign of him either," Chase says, miffed. "I have a pair of stasis cuffs with his name on it."

"Get in line," Onca smirks. "Heatwave goes first, the Panthera team next, then you. Once we've incapacitated him, the humans can have a go if they want."

"Sure," Kade shrugs, grinning. Then he frowns. "Heatwave?"

"Something's wrong," the firebot says, distracted.

"Is Quickshadow okay?" Cody asks, concerned.

"She's alive…" Heatwave mumbles. "For now… we have to find her."

"We will buddy," Kade says, ignoring the smirk from his younger brother.

"Let's search harder," Heatwave says, a fire burning in his optics.

Next chapter: Salvation