Chapter 7

"Run"

There was a golden field of wild wheat. Someone had described Elysium to her once. This was it. This was Elysium. Only, no one said anything about Elysium having a tower.

She walked through the field, grain brushing against her outstretched fingers/digits. Her fingers were flesh and bone/plasteel and alkahest/cybermatter and energon. She could feel each fibrous strand with varying forms of acuity.

No army. Not this time. She walked up to the door and entered - only it wasn't a tower anymore.

It was a snug little habitat with a bed shoved in one corner and a short, teary woman sat upon it. The despair was infectious. Hands of flesh met hands of flesh, clutching tight - the rest faded away, 'cause they just didn't belong here. Wasn't the right time. Wasn't the right place. It was before the ice, before the war, before death.

Adria/Lennox-2/Hawkmoon sat straighter. Her spine wouldn't bend - not for anything or anyone.

"You're pride incarnate," the other woman muttered bitterly. There was an opened envelope between them marked with the initials 'C.B.' and they'd both read what was inside.

Adria, scoured of all other identities, looked away. Her pride was a smouldering fire she refused to quench. She was terrified that doing so would only hurt.

"You're killing yourself," the other woman accused. "You know what he's like."

"I know," Adria confirmed. "But I just don't care."

It wasn't just an envelope between them stretching out between them to become an invisible barrier. It wasn't just the letter. It wasn't just the initials. There was a photo, unrelated to all the others. It was the two of them - correction: the three of them.

Someone was missing.

"You'd rather die before you crack, is that it?"

A child. The missing third party was a child.

Hawkmoon woke with gasping vents and a keening voicebox. She ached to cry. Her optics refused to shed even a single tear.

Her arms trembled. Her wings fluttered against her back as she sat up on her berth, swinging her legs over the side. She was hurting deep inside, where her heart should have been. The tower had hurt her. Betrayed her. It was supposed to be the answer, not... not that!

It had given what she'd long sought, but too much - too much! - and as a result left her impossibly winded. She was soulfully exhausted. Subconsciously reeling. Her heart truly became a spark - a spark of pain and torment. The dream persisted, thrashing against the barriers of her mind and permeating every single sensor until she couldn't even see straight, couldn't peer past the sight of them.

Her talons carved gouges in the side of her berth.

I'm Adria, her processor screamed, so shrilly her audials were automatically switched off.

"I'm Hawkmoon," she said quietly, trying in vain to pick between the blurring lines of HUMAN/EXO/RISEN/CYBERTRONIAN. It wasn't happening. Everything was rushing in. Everything she used to be. Everything she'd left behind. Hawkmoon hardened her heart - HER SPARK - and drove a knife in the stream of non-data rippling into her core. There were no lines of coding, no detectable programmes, just painful humanity, and by the Traveler and Primus and all the gods good and bad it HURT.

For the first time in her life she hated what she had been, rather than what she was.

I'm Adria. I had a family. I'm dead.

"I'm Hawkmoon. I'm unbonded. I'm a lone Seeker. I'm alive."

I'm dead. The ice ate up everything.

"I'm alive. I was bitten by a Wish-Dragon. Tricked by a Worm. Bisected, removed, reborn."

I drowned.

"I fly."

The last part struck a chord, irrational as it was. Hawkmoon offlined her optics in conjunction with her audio receptors, rummaged haphazardly through her coding to switch off every other sense until all she was was wings. "I fly," she echoed softly. "I fly."

It became a murmuring chant, keeping the past at bay. Finally, finally, the flood gates closed, leaving her with the sheer desolation of what managed to slip through.

Hawkmoon fell back and silently cried until morning crept up on her.

After an over-hastened breakfast of energon (as if there was anything else), Hawkmoon took to flying. Took to flying fast and hard, just to hear her thrusters scream. It took her a while to realize she was roaring too. When she did, she allowed herself to exult in the noise, the wild pleasure in the act of expressing rage and grief and pain as pure wordless sound.

Some time later she landed, back at a rock formation in the middle of nowhere she'd long before decided was perfect for stargazing. Only, the sun was up and the stars hid away from their big brother. The sun was a predator, and its glaring intensity ate up its distant relatives with gluttonous abandon.

"I am a star," Hawkmoon said, though she meant to say I am Light. "I have not been devoured." I am not extinguished, I am not dead, I AM NOT DEAD. "I'm going to fight." I'm going to kill that bastard. Do you hear me, Xol? I'm going to kill you. Truly kill you.

She grabbed a rock and smashed it into an open palm. Metal scratched. A drop of blue energon welled up. It ran down her hand, down a talon, and fell sizzling onto the dusty grey ground below.

With her oath sworn, Hawkmoon leapt into the air and transformed. She rocketed back the way she'd come, back into Stanix, back home. Knockout was waiting for her out front. Hawkmoon landed with an effortless flourish - her balance, her chassis' aerodynamics, everything about flying and falling and all those things in between had become second nature to her.

"Hey, Hawk," Knockout smiled weakly. He looked worried. It didn't suit him.

"Hey yourself," she returned it with a warm smile, because she found she genuinely liked him - as a defined friend, nothing less and nothing more. She just didn't roll that way. "What's bothering you?"

"It's... well, it's you?"

Her smile faltered. "What about me?"

"Someone's looking for you." Knockout stared straight into her optics. "He's an Enforcer."

Hawkmoon straightened. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

"That's..." Not good. Enforcers were the native equivalent of an antique Golden Age police force, or like the Peacekeepers of the Last City except far more numerous and less... well, less Titan. "Local mecha, or...?"

"Not local," Knockout confirmed.

Well. That wasn't promising. What would bring a non-local officer of the law all the way to boring old Stanix just to ask around about the new Seeker in town? Nothing good, Hawkmoon imagined. A myriad of less-than-ideal scenarios ran through her processor, each worse than the previous.

"I'm sure he just wants to say hello," Hawkmoon said with a shrug. "It's not everyday you see someone with wings."

"Uh... I suppose?"

"Where is this mech? It is a mech, right?"

Knockout nodded. His faceplates were set in a grim frown. "Yes. He came by the pharmacy, asking about 'the Seeker.' I... I think he's privately hired."

"What does that mean?"

"Did you do something?"

"I... what?"

"Are you on the run?"

Hawkmoon crossed her arms. "Knockout, let me spell things out for you: I don't remember."

"... Oh yeah." The racer/assistant physician nodded and looked away. "That's true."

Something in his accusation carried weight, despite her protests. Begrudgingly, Hawkmoon gave it some thought. Her chassis was hers, but... what if it hadn't been that way before? What if there was some-

Nope. Not thinking about that.

"So what are you going to do?"

Hawkmoon shrugged. "I don't know?"

Knockout stepped closer. Something... buzzed. An extraneous sensor she hadn't looked at before. She toned it down, keeping the sensitivity to a minimum, and frowned at the racer.

"He's bad news," Knockout said quietly. "I feel it in my spark."

"Uh, noted?"

"I mean it. You need to be careful."

"I will," Hawkmoon confirmed, more warmly. Am I never not careful?

She missed the people who would've told her yes, all the time.

Contrary to what most people thought, the best place to hide was not inside one's home. No no no, that was where most nemeses/rivals/ex-girlfriends went to check first. Predictable. Amateurish. Hawkmoon was not predictable nor an amateur. She'd been playing the I'm-in-danger game for a very long time. Long enough to realize that she must have been doing something wrong with her life, since she was always in danger.

The real secret to hiding was to hide in plain sight. In simpler terms? Dive into a crowd and blend in. Which was considerably difficult when one lived in a city where said person was of the few - maybe even the only one - possessing really big wings.

So Hawkmoon, in a fit of sheer brilliance, came up with the idea of hiding where her oh so mysterious tracker had already covered.

"I don't think this is going to work," Knockout muttered.

"Oh, ye of little faith."

"He could still be there."

"Maybe. Maybe not. We won't know if we don't go."

"... Yeah, we could. I can call Complexius."

"And give us away?"

"Complexius wouldn't-"

"Shush. No. What if your communications are being tracked?"

"That's... possible, but unlikely."

Hawkmoon put her servos on her hips and raised an optical ridge. "By drawing attention to how unlikely it is, you have dared the universe to make it happen. And the universe never passes on a dare."

"... That makes no sense. At all."

"Trust me."

"Yes, you know, I used to, but now..?"

Hawkmoon marched on, unfazed. "To the clinic," she declared, with all the bravado of an Iron Lord. Lady. Femme. Iron Femme? Those weren't a thing.

Hawkmoon decided to make it a thing.

Knockout grumbled and followed her.

It turned out that Knockout was right. The Enforcer was still inside. They didn't actually get to see him, but there was a sign on the clinic's sliding door that said, in Cybertronian runes, AWAY ON BUSINESS.

"Complexius never puts that up," Knockout whispered. "Except when... you know, he actually has business to be away on."

"Naturally," Hawkmoon murmured. "Is he away on business right now?"

"No?"

"Why'd you phrase that like a question?"

"He wasn't away last time I checked."

"Which was?"

"Just before I reached you."

"Ah. Probably not away, then."

"Probably. Should we leave?"

"No."

"Then...?"

Hawkmoon looked around and, finding something suitable, pointed. "Let's hide behind that wall."

"That one?"

"Yes."

"... Alright." They ducked behind the wall. Knockout nudged her arm. "What next?"

"We wait for this guy to leave."

"And then?"

"We go in and interrogate Complexius."

"Ah."

"Is there a problem?"

"It depends on the type of interrogation. I kinda, you know, work for him."

"Just a few questions. What did you think I meant? Torture?"

Knockout didn't say no. Didn't say anything, actually, but the not-saying-no part was what she focused on.

"Unbelievable," Hawkmoon rolled her optics. It felt good - the rolling-optics part. Not the grumbling. No, that was genuine complaining.

"You're scary sometimes."

"You never acted scared before."

"Well, I never envisioned you as a runaway fugitive."

"A- Okay, sorry, what? I'm not a fugitive."

"Then what?"

"How about very confused."

Knockout nodded slowly. "Same."

"See? Nothing scary about me."

"You can be intense."

"And you can be confident. Where's that bravery now, huh?"

"Very intense."

Hawkmoon shook her helm. What a wuss. At least he's... Is... is that a cat?

Something crawled over the top of their hidey-wall. It meowed in a very mechanical fashion down at them and jumped onto the ground. Hawkmoon held out a hand, curling her talons inwards. The robo-cat looked at her, looked at her hand, and then rubbed its head against her fingers.

She couldn't help it - she cooed. In a very undignified manner. She'd berate herself later, but for now... cat.

Cat.

Cybertron had cats.

Everything was going to be a-okay.

"Hey," Knockout whispered, "look. He's leaving."

Mr. Robot Cat meowed. "So he is."

Hawkmoon's hand shot back. She barely suppressed the oncoming yelp. "... The cats can talk?"

Complexius took in the sight of them with a troubled, and not a little bit bewildered, frown. "Knockout."

"Yes?"

"Why are you holding a symbiote?"

"Because Hawkmoon told me to."

"... Hawkmoon?"

"Yes?"

"Why did you tell Knockout to hold a symbiote?"

"Because I want to ask you about it."

"Okay. But why is he holding it?"

"Because it's freaky."

The cat-robot turned up its snout. "And you're weird."

Hawkmoon shrugged. "Never said I wasn't."

Complexius cleared a throat that really didn't need clearing. Like, at all. "Why aren't you holding it."

"Because... because it's freaky?"

"... Ah. I think I understand."

"Do you?" Knockout asked.

Complexius shrugged. "I'm going to pretend I do. For my processor's sake."

"Oh."

"So... Hawkmoon. You're a corporate criminal."

"I am?"

"You are."

"Huh."

"You don't remember, though."

"No. Not really."

"Not really?"

"Not at all."

Complexius nodded. "As I suspected. That makes things difficult."

Hawkmoon nodded with him. It seemed like the right thing to do. "Does it?"

"Morally you should be absolved of the crime, since the person who enacted the deeds isn't truly you."

"You specified morally. The not-morally part is going to be a nuisance, right?"

"Correct. Legally, it's the other way around."

"Shouldn't they be one and the same?"

"In some cases, that might seem like-"

"Laws are built on morals, right? Society builds morals to live by, and then laws to enforce those morals. That's how civilization works."

"Yes, but-"

"It seems like a bit of a letdown for morality and legality to clash. Like civilization itself has failed on a fundamental level."

"That's not-"

"Exactly!" The symbiote agreed. "Civilization is overrated."

"True," Hawkmoon readily agreed. "What's your name, by the way?"

"I don't have any. Will you give me one?"

"Sure. How about Doomcat?"

"I like it."

"Thought you would." Hawkmoon patted Knockout's shoulder. "Take care of Doomcat."

"... What?"

"He belongs to you now."

"But I don't want a-"

"I give him to you. Care for him as I would."

"He's not yours!"

"Only legally speaking. But emotionally? Morally? Spiritually? He's always been mine. And now - yours."

Doomcat purred happily and snuggled against the racer's chassis. Knockout grumbled. It was fast becoming a habit of his.

Complexius leaned forward, rubbing his helm. "What did you want to ask me?"

Hawkmoon opened her mouth... and then closed it. She shrugged. "I forgot."

"You forgot?"

"Doomcat sidetracked me."

"Ah."

"I don't mind, really. He's Doomcat after all."

"I am," Doomcat said, nodding vigorously.

Complexius sighed. "You never used to be this chatty," he mused tiredly. "Or boisterous."

Hawkmoon played with her talons. They were still wicked cool. "I'm a tad nervous. I've never been a corporate criminal before. It's almost exciting."

"Almost?"

"Being tracked down like a runaway fugitive - which I am not - isn't all that much fun."

"I can imagine."

"Since we're on the topic, uh... what the frag?!"

"You mean being a fugitive."

"Yeah!"

"If it's any consolation," Doomcat said, "you're a very pretty fugitive."

"Aww." Hawkmoon put a hand over her spark. "I'll miss you so much."

Doomcat continued to purr. She thought it was endearing. Knockout, judging from his taut frame, did not share the sentiment. In fact, he looked positively miserable.

Hawkmoon sobered up. She touched his elbow. "Hey. Thanks - for everything."

"You're actually leaving?"

"Looks like I have to."

"It would be wise to relocate," Complexius said slowly. "At least for the time being."

"And thank you too." Hawkmoon turned to him. "You've been nicer to me than I deserve."

"Shall I inform your foster family on your behalf?"

She thought about them. About overbearing Phosphora and too-serious Overwatch. About bright little Daybreak. "I'll do it," Hawkmoon quietly told him. "I owe them that much."

"Well, you should do so quickly. The Enforcer-"

The door opened behind them. A mech stepped in, already in the midst of saying something. "Sorry, I should have given you my comm. codes so..." Then he caught sight of Hawkmoon and froze. His chassis was blockier and more robust than that of Knockout, but he still had the slim plating of a quick alt-mode, all covered in gold and blue paint. In an instant one of his servos raised up and transformed into... well, something pointy and sparkly. "Cloudbreaker."

"Hawkmoon, actually." She tensed, optics scanning the office for another way out, a weapon, anything, but everything was so damn civilian.

The Enforcer - because that was what he was, judging from the symbol on his shoulder - ignored her protest. "I am Nightbeat of the Interstate Enforcer Brigade and I am placing you under arrest."

AN: As ever massive thanks for Nomad Blue editing all I've thrown at him