Chapter Seven

Memories Within

There was no up or down. No sideways. Neither here nor there.

It was just a void of bright light.

"Where… where am I?" Sari slowly opened her eyes.

She quickly closed them as the intense light blinded her. With a bit more caution, she opened her eyes slowly once more. Using her hands to block out as much light as possibly, Sari's eyes began to adjust. She just seemed to be floating in a bright space with no sky or ground or in between. She whipped her head back and forth, desperate to determine where she was. But there was nothing but white. She could feel panic setting to settle in her chest as she realized that she was alone.

"Hello?" Sari shouted, "Hello?"

No one answered.

"HELLO!?" she was growing scared, "HELLO!?"

She began to tremble as no one answered her back. She was alone, floating in a white space and didn't know how she got there. The last thing she could remember was the key going crazy and pulling her towards Pyrus.

"Then I was here," she wrapped her arms around herself for some form of comfort.

"We… apparently," a voice came from above.

"PYRUS!" Sari looked up, "Boy am I… well i'm not happy to see you, but I'm just happy that I'm not the only one here," she tried to move towards her.

"Thanks kid," Pyrus snorted as she floated towards Sari, "I feel so wanted."

"Sorry," Sari just couldn't seem to move or at least she couldn't tell if she was.

"Stop struggling kid," Pyrus came down next to her, "You'll hurt yourself."

"How are you able to move so easily?" Sari grabbed onto Pyrus' leg.

"Discipline of mind," she answered nonchalantly.

"Seriously?" Sari didn't believe her, "Where… where are we?" she pulled closer to Pyrus.

"I was hoping that you would know that… Hmm... ," she looked around, "I don't know. It feels like when I'm running a VR simulation, but this is a bit different… it feels more… real…," she looked at her hand, "Maybe it's… hmm," she seemed to be listening for something, "Someone is talking…"

"I hear it too," Sari could hear someone whispering in her ears.

… I will show you… what I did… I will show you… what I saw…

The deep bellowing voice faded.

The white void was soon swallowed up by a black one. Sari hid her face behind Pyrus' leg. She felt Pyrus pull her closer. And admittedly, it made her feel better. A green glow filled the air above the peeked out to see what was happening. Green lights were dancing about and forming a series of ones and zeros into a pattern. All the numbers began to swirl together until they formed a pulsing sphere with what looked like to be a very dense core at its center. She didn't understand what she was witnessing. Pyrus seemed to.

"That's Cerberus…," she mumbled, "I know it's coding anywhere. It's as I gave it to you…"

Before Sari could ask what she meant, a pulse of blue energy filled the empty space. The sphere of purple numbers pulsed back. The energies clashed and caused ripples through the void. The surges of energies made Sari's skin tingle and her head dizzy. She nearly let go of Pyrus's jeans, but Pyrus bent down and held her close. Sari was able to get a grip and hung on as tight as she could. She looked on in awe and confusion as the two energies seemed to be fighting for dominance. Pieces of the sphere began to break away and fall apart until only the core was left. Pyrus pulled her long black coat over Sari to shield her from the falling bits of broken numbers.

"What's?! What's happening!?" Sari yelled.

"Something is breaking off the shell protocols from Cerberus," Pyrus remained calm as she watched the scene play out, "Unleashing it… but Cerberus is fighting it..."

The core whipped about and fought against the pulsing blue energy. It released its own. It felt angry and savage; like it would lash out at anything that would come near it. The blue energy continued to pulse and seemed to try to get the angry core to pulse with it. The two conflicting energies pulsed and filled the place. It was almost unbearable. Sari felt like she would be broken apart at any moment. But the pulsing slowed as the two energies began to sync with one another.

"Cerberus is obeying… not willingly, but it is listening," Pyrus commented as the core stopped struggling so hard.

It still wiggled about as if it didn't like what was happening to it, but it was thrashing about so wildly now. The ones and zeros that made up the core began to fade between green and blue.

"Why would it break off…?" Pyrus started to ask, but was interrupted by the sudden change in surroundings.

The black void was once again filled with a bright light. Sari was a bit more prepared for it this time. She shut her eyes as soon as the light began to intensify. Hiding in the folds of Pyrus' long coat, Sari waited for her eyes to adjust before she stuck her head out. Her eyes were met with a plain white scene; similar to the one that they first found themselves in. This time, however, she could make out shapes materializing.

"What are those?" Sari pointed them out.

"Hmm…," Pyrus observed them taking shape, "They look like files… programs… data… Like what you file in a hard disk or RAM. And over there looks like a connection to the internet."

"So we're in a computer?" Sari looked up at her.

"That would be a sensible guess," she agreed, "Since we have already witnessed the dismantling of my safety protocols and 'taming' of Cerberus, I would say that whoever or whatever was speaking to us earlier is showing us what it did… what happened inside the computer. Hmm…," she thought as she looked around, "If I had to guess we were just in the computer where I was contacted from and now we're in the computer that was blown up. There," she pointed to something in the distance.

Sari looked to see that something was wiggling inside the screen that seemed to be connected to the internet. It was coming from a link that looked familiar.

"Hey!" Sari remembered, "That's the website that Bumblebee tried to download from. Eww," she watched as something red and squishy pulled itself from the link, "What's that?" she hid in Pyrus' coat once again.

"Its malware… a trojan to be specific," she studied the digital creature that had emerged, "That's my trojan," she recognized it, "That's Halberd."

"Malware? Trojan? Halberd?" Sari didn't understand what she was talking about.

"There's no way that Halberd would have caused Cerberus to act so aggressively," Pyrus mumbled to herself, "Cerberus knows Halberd… even with the leash protocols on it should have been able to disassemble without much trouble… plus Halberd is programmed to recognize Cerberus and instantly stop what it is doing," she continued to talk herself, "It shouldn't have fought…," she turned her attention back to the red blob, "Something… something's not right…"

"It looks mad," Sari could feel an erratic energy coming from it.

It was true. The whole place began to tingle with an angry static. Sari could feel her hair beginning to stand up on end. She quickly pulled down on her pigtails; it felt like they would lift right off her head. This didn't last long as the static was soon replaced with a much bigger energy, but this one felt familiar. Above them start to glow with greenish blue. Sari looked up to see the mass of ones and zeros pulsating in the air. It twisted and wove about as if it was looking for something. The red wriggling mass fully emerged from its hiding space in the internet link. It zipped through the air and quickly attached to greenish blue mass.

"What? Why… why would Halberd attack Cerberus?" Pyrus seemed to understand what was going on, "It knows Cerberus… it would have no reason to attack it. Its aggression makes no sense. Huh… Cerberus is reacting"

The larger mass went on the offensive. It engulfed the smaller red blob and began to shrink and shrink until it became a dense ball. What was inside tried to escape, but it could break through.

"I need to see what's happening in there," Pyrus started to move towards the mass of numbers.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Sari trembled as she clung tightly to Pyrus' coat.

Pyrus stopped and released a sigh, "I can see from here."

They floated there just watching struggle between the two masses of data. With one final squeeze, the red blob broke into a thousand pieces. The bits of red ones and zeros began to fuze into Cerberus' data.

"Eww…," Sari was a bit disgusted by what she saw, "What's happening?"

"Cerberus is following its program," Pyrus continued to watch, "Containment. Destruction. Integration. It absorbs any malware and preserves the data for me to analyze later. It shouldn't have though. Halberd is already in it's memory," she thought about it for a moment, "It would have only done containment protocols if Halberd had evolved… which does happen… it's aggression… has it modified itself? Hmm?" she noticed that the dense mass of data was starting to violently writhe, "SARI!" she pulled her in close and shielded her from the coming blast.

The pressure wave hit them with a mighty gust as the mass of data became a bomb. All Sari could do was hang on. The pair was soon enveloped in a bright light. A loud boom rang through the air and in their ears. Sari couldn't even hear herself scream.

"...," a fuzzy voice was calling out to her, "... Sari…"

"Huh?" she slowly opened her eyes.

"SARI!" Optimus was relieved to finally get a response from her.

"Optimus…?" she groggily asked.

"Thank the All Spark," Optimus sighed.

Sari shook her head back and forth to get the fuzziest out. She could see that she was back in Autobots' base of operation. Optimus was standing in front of her with Prowl nearby. He was holding up Pyrus who also seemed to be having a hard time standing.

"Pyrus?" Sari ran over to her, "You okay?"

"I… I," she held her head.

"What's wrong?" Sari was actually concerned.

"I… I understand…"