Disclaimer: I only own my OCs. Vox belongs to a friend.

Authoress: *excited* We have a birthday request! You all know what that means!

All bots: *sing* Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear DarkPyralis! Happy birthday to you!

Frenzy: *confused* Shouldn't we be singing 'sparkday' instead of 'birthday'?

Authoress: *sighs* I really can't win.

Skywarp: *angrily* Speaking of that, you still need to pay for what you did to...

*all are banned except for Authoress*

Authoress: You all have to be banned because this is the end of the season and will be paramount to how the next season will start.

Chapter 25: All Fall Down

Optimus' 1st P.O.V.

Something wasn't right. Through my stellars of experience in fighting this war, and Megatron more specifically, I could say that I could tell how a battle was going to turn out. Yes, this was a rather large mine compared to the almost barren ones we have been able to take from the Decepticons, but when we had come to the mine, I had assumed that Megatron would not stay and fight for this mine long, since I knew that he has to have other mines that are larger than this that need his full attention.

I stepped to the side to barely avoid Megatron's sword before I had to put up my own sword in defense. As our blades clashed, my previous thoughts were supported. Megatron was fighting fiercely for this mine. I had fought against Megatron like this many times in the past and the determination in his optics was there, like other times when the battles were important.

I knew that I had to find out just what was so important about this mine in Megatron's optics, but right now I couldn't think about what the reason might be. From the little I had seen, and from what the other Autobots were reporting that they were seeing, the mine was used up to the point that it would only guarantee us energon for an earth months. Nothing that the Decepticons couldn't recover from.

Yet here we were, still fighting after one cycle. I couldn't understand what the logic behind this was.

Briefly, I went out of my thoughts as I had to dodge another blow from Megatron's blade. That was close. After a few clicks, though, I was able to return to my previous thoughts. As Megatron and I continued to fight, a worrying thought came to my processor. Megatron had two humans currently on his ship as a prisoner, one we did not know about. However, there was one that we did have information on. Lizzie. Paul's employee had been on the Decepticon warship for months now and I could not even begin to fathom what she might have gone through.

This fight, and its prolonged status, made me nervous about what the Decepticons might be doing to her on the ship right now. The other human, from the video feed that we saw from the MECH base, seemed to be supporting the Decepticons. While it was obvious that this unknown human was being manipulated by the Decepticons, I knew that this unknown human would, during this manipulation, also be a danger to Lizzie.

Could there be some act being done against Lizzie as we fought? That idea might explain the duration of time that was being used to fight for this mine for so long. As harrowing as that thought is, I could now not remove the idea from my helm. Experiments to Lizzie might cause the need for the Nemesis to be emptied, which would explain why Megatron was having his troops fight down here for so long.

"You seem very distracted Optimus." Megatron taunted me as our blades clashed in a draw. "Very unlike you." I could see it in his optics. A knowing look. I had fought Megatron for too long to assume that he couldn't read me. He knew what my thoughts were, and I could see the victory in his optics.

Of course, after all of these stellars of fighting against the leader of the Decepticons, I could read him as well. He was tense about something, I could see that from how he moved in his attacks. "It seems as if I am not the only one Megatron." While my opponent hid most of his reaction even from me, I could tell that I had struck a point. He was thinking about something outside of this fight as I was.

Megatron pushed our draw away and reset his pedes before we began to circle each other. The portion of the cave that we were in was one of the larger alcoves in the mine, excluding the main alcove of course. "While that may or may not be true, Optimus, your thoughts are easy to read." He then cast a smirk. "You are thinking of the femme human currently in our possession."

My optics narrowed at his taunt and, while a portion of me wanted to launch at my enemy, it seemed like I was finally receiving information on Lizzie. Over these months since the reveal of her capture by the Decepticons, we had tried to, not only save the human but to at least try to find out current information on the human. I could not let this chance to gather information pass me by. "Why do you hold her Megatron? What value could one human have to you?"

His continued smirk caused unease to settle in my circuits. "Well, that would be the question you would ask. However, the usefulness of the human currently in my possession has yet to be fully realized. Such strange creatures these humans are."

"What do you mean?" I pushed my opponent. Even though it did not go unnoticed to me that the warlord did not directly answer my question, I felt like I just had to keep at him. While the amount of time we were having to fight in the mine, so far, was deterring, this information would make up for that.

Megatron, as I expected, seemed to revel in my need for information. "Come now Optimus, even for you, this should be an easy answer to come by. I believe that you keep company with humans on a regular basis, do you not? And you have had this interaction with humans much longer than I have had with them. This should be most obvious to you."

I narrowed my optics at that. Yet again, another avoided answer. I knew Megatron, and I knew the mind games that he would play. He was trying to turn the question back on me to avoid answering. He was finally opening up about the condition of the human. I had to keep pressing him for the information.

Wheeljack's 1st P.O.V.

"Fragging Decepticon," I growled to myself as I had to fall back slightly from fighting the seeker in front of me.

Thundercracker was pushing his advantage and, up until this point, I had not realized that Thundercracker was this skilled at fighting. Frag, and when I ran into him, I thought that this was going to be a simple fight. He was a seeker after all, and everybot knew that the majority of flying alt mode bots had claustrophobia. Even though it wasn't too bad on Springer, he had a small show of it when he would be cooped up somewhere small for too long. Thundercracker should be panicking right now since seekers were usually even more susceptible to claustrophobia than other flying alt mode bots.

But, that would be too slagging much to ask for, wouldn't it?

I had started fighting against the seeker when they first arrived to counter us at the mine. Over a cycle in these mines should have made the seeker on edge by this point. But, from what I was seeing, Thundercracker seemed much more composed than I would have given him credit for. If this kept up for much longer, then Springer was going to have to go back. That would put us at a major disadvantage since the 'Cons had both Astrotrain and Blitzwing.

Of course, if I had a credit for every time the Autobots were at a disadvantage, then I could have bought myself the best weapons that the universe could offer.

"Autobot,"

I looked at the Decepticon in front of me as he started to talk to me. "What do you want?" Was he really choosing now to have a little bit of talking?

The Decepticon across from me narrowed his optics slightly before he shifted his position. "What makes you an Autobot? What do Autobots fight for?"

Really? He was asking me about my beliefs in the middle of a fight? Well, since he was talking, I might as well take advantage of this. I had a lot of questions that I wanted to be answered and, if I answered his, then he had a better chance of answering mine. "I swore to be an Autobot to fight the Decepticons."

Before I could ask the mech my question, he turned the tables on me and asked another one. "No, I didn't ask who you fought. That much is obvious given our situation." The two of us then clashed blades and, once we were in a deadlock, he continued. "I asked you what you fought for? What do Autobots want?"

I was about to give the automatic answer that I had given plenty of times when I was asked this. I was an Autobot to fight for the rights of all bots and to do that I had to stop the Decepticons from taking those rights away. Simple enough. But, before I could get the words out of my vocals, I hesitated mentally. To Thundercracker, we were just trading blows back and forth and I didn't have time to answer. But, I was a talented bot. I could do two things at once.

But, thinking to everything that was happening here on Earth, I wasn't sure if I really believed that was what the Autobots were doing anymore. Zarron had this mission to root out bots who were going against that very idea here. Bots who were right under the Prime's optics. My processor went to the training session that Zarron, Cliffjumper, and I would do with Paul against Flamewar, Pitch, and Sentinel. If I really believed what I was telling Thundercracker, then there would have been no need for the Zarron, Cliffjumper, and me to get involved in that training in the first place.

Once Thundercracker and I were at an impasse again, I decided to throw the question back at the mech in front of me. What about you, Decepticon? What do you fight for? And what do the Decepticons fight for?"

Since the usual Decepticon mode of dealing with my questions was to not answer them, I was suspecting that the same would happen here. However, I was surprised when, after we clashed a few more times with our blades, Thundercracker actually answered. "The Decepticons fight to right the wrongs that were pushed on us by the leaders of Cybertron's past. I won't allow anybot to think that they are less than me as a bot just because of their status that Cybertron set up in its hierarchy. Some of the greatest Decepticon minds were once thought of as little more than slag." He then glared at me. "No, you being an Autobot is a choice, so I have no issue in saying that you are scum."

While I launched at the 'Con in front of me for calling me scum, I was surprised by the way that Thundercracker had answered me. He didn't hesitate when I asked him that, and it didn't sound like it was a rehearsed party line. While the first part was cutting it a little close, since they were preaching that false bit since the beginning of the war, the second part he said sounded like it was a lot more personal to him.

I wasn't an idiot. I knew that things weren't good in many of the cities that would create future Decepticons. Tarn and Kaon were the worst. While Vos wasn't as bad as the other two, even they had difficulties dealing with the Council. Only bots who were isolated in the other cities never realized just how tough it was for somebot.

Thinking about that also caused me to think about Zarron. He was from Tarn, and yet he was an Autobot. It made me wonder what caused him to choose the Autobots over the Decepticons. The number of Autobots from those three cities was very low. I even knew that much.

I flinched as I barely dodged Thundercracker's swords. Scrap. I had to put more focus on this fight. Thundercracker was better at fighting in a cave than I thought he was and that meant that I had to focus. He was pushing me back and, while I normally didn't want that, I realized that he was leading me back toward the main cavern. Why was he doing that? The mech would have a better advantage getting me alone, that way he could ambush me and lower my chance for backup. So, why was he leading me to the main area where most of the other fights were happening?

This didn't make a single scrap of sense to me. Of course, nothing that the Decepticons were doing here was making much sense. I just had to make sure that I was able to adapt to whatever the Decepticons were going to throw at us...and make sure that I was ready for just about anything.

Megatron's 1st P.O.V.

The mine was almost ready. About thirty clicks into this fight, I had realized that we were not going to be able to hold the mine. While we had the numbers to do just that, I knew that most of my troops were not in the right mentality to be fighting for a very long period of time. Many of them had become closely attached to our human Decepticon. Their focuses, unfortunately, were split between the fight that we needed to have here and the now stable human on the Nemesis.

I would admit, that the human had grown on me. Not to the point that the majority of my troops seemed to have attached themselves, but from the point that the human had first fallen through that grate to this point now, my view on this human had improved by leagues. Her strategies, while unusual, had led us to many advances over the Autobots.

Also, her ability to fight was coming along nicely, if the spar that I had with her was anything to make my basis on. While I had heard that the human was upset with her performance in that fight, I had been impressed. For a being that had only been online for a servo-full of stellars, she learned quickly. Of course, I had learned that our human Decepticon took what she viewed as failure seriously. I didn't correct her on this thinking because it was pushing her to become a more valuable asset.

Along with that, her ability to quickly learn from her mistakes made her a valuable asset to me. There was no time wasted in repeat lessons with her and she seemed to even be able to predict what might be taken as a mistake before she was placed in trouble for them.

However, as valuable as she had made herself, there was only so much time and supplies that we could use on her recovery. If she was not on a visible path to recovery by the time that our plans for this mine were complete, then I would have no choice but to order that she be unplugged from the machines that she was currently attached to. From the reports that Knockout and Joe were sending in, the actual resources being used to keep Lizzie in this state was staggering. We had not been prepared to deal with human injury on this level of complexity and damage. Of course, we were not even sure if our human would survive past the battle. True, she was stable now, but her body was still using a great deal of energy to keep the energon at bay.

I briefly came out of my thoughts on Lizzie as Optimus took a swing at my helm. I blocked the attack and parried with a few more of my own before returning to my thoughts.

However, my thoughts drifted from our human who was fighting for her survival to our plans for this mine. Since I knew that we were not going to be able to keep the Autobots at bay forever, given the torn processors of most of my troops, the only remaining course of action would be to blow this mine and try to take as many Autobots as we could with it. As expected, though, we would need to make sure that all of the energon would be exploded. I did not want to leave any for the Autobots since we were spending much of our valuable time defending it against them.

To do this, I had the drones setting the explosives against any of the major energon cores that were remaining. Once the explosions went off around them, then the explosions that those energon cores caused would explode the far off energon that was connected to the core by veins. However, this plan did take time and so I had to make sure that my Decepticons stayed focused on the fight that was in front of them.

Speaking of my troops, I sent an order to all of my main Decepticon troops to report in with their current locations, and this included Knockout. Knockout, of course, was on the Nemesis. However, I was surprised that both Soundwave and Airachnid were both on the ship as well. That was, of course, I was given a report of their injuries. Airachnid had suffered a large gash to her side that Knockout had just finished patching. She was to walk it off for a few clicks before she would be returned to the battle. Soundwave had just arrived on the Nemesis. Sentinel Major had taken my third in command by surprise as he was fighting Pitch and the Autobot had ended up cracking Soundwave's visor to the point where he was virtually blind on the battlefield.

The rest of my troops were still here, below the ground and holding back the Autobots as the drones set the charges. A positive notion about this situation was the fact that the Autobots seemed to be dis-unified as a fighting unit here on Earth. Perfect. While I knew that our strategy could not be the only factor that was causing this fall of the Autobot confidence in their own, I was almost certain that it was a part of it.

Soundwave had received a battle report from Hook early in the battle that, from speaking with the Autobot medic, he was able to learn that the Autobots believed that we were in possession of more than one human. That had not been my original plan when I had had Lizzie lead the mission to retrieve Breakdown and Vox from MECH. However, I was not going to curse this bonus. The Autobots would be even less likely to attack my ship, if they could find it, if they believed that I had multiple humans on the ship. They would have to split their forces on my ship, and given that I would have the home territory advantage on my ship, then they would just be placing themselves in a position that I could defeat them in.

...On second thought, given my current thought process, perhaps Lizzie had earned the right to fight for the rest of the solar for her life.

Airachnid's 1st P.O.V.

Fragging glitch. When I got my servos around that two-wheeler's neck cables, I would make her pay. That slagging glitch Flamewar just had to interfere in a fight that was not hers to fight in. With the original plan between Astrotrain and myself, I was to be injured by Arcee and, since I knew my favorite target so well, then I had felt that there would have been no problem in getting hurt by the femme.

Yes, our plan did call for my becoming injured. I needed a reason to return to the Nemesis while the other Decepticons were still fighting. However, Flamewar had thrown a scraplet in that part of the plan. With her arrival, it had been harder to manipulate the fight to allow me to get hurt. Finally, when it seemed like it was taking too much time to entice a simple injury that would barely require my return to the Nemesis, I had opened myself up too much and Flamewar, the slagging femme that she was, had taken full advantage of the hole that I was leaving open to Arcee.

"When this is over, that two-wheeler will truly learn the meaning of pain," I growled as I slowly moved toward my quarters.

However, I would have to remain calm for now. Our plan was to take out the larger problem for the two of us, Lizzie. That slagging human had found a way to get under my gears more than any other opponent I had faced before. The bug had maneuvered her small frame and week processor into the ranks of the Decepticons and, what still bothered me was the fact that they were all just happily wrapped around the fleshbag's fingers. I could even see that, while he may not be fully aware of the situation, Lord Megatron was becoming wrapped around Lizzie's fingers as well.

After a long trek down the halls of the Nemesis, I finally arrived in my chambers. Inside there was the tool that would be used to finally take down the human. When I had heard the report that the annoying human had been infected by energon, I was hopeful that our plan might not have to be implemented. While I was not a fan of residing with the Decepticons, there were plenty of advantages that I could take advantage of on the ship still.

However, between the two of us, I knew that Astrotrain still had more trust around the others than I did. So, that made me the perfect instrument to bring about the human's end. Being removed from the Decepticons, and possibly hunted myself, would be worth the risk if meant that the human stain that was still on the Nemesis would be no more.

Once I grabbed a bot that I kept in a secret compartment I had found, I left my quarters and made my way to the auxiliary room to med bay. That was where the human was being kept. While it might be easier to just crush the human with my own servos, and that still sounded tempting, I knew that our plan promised the human the most pain that we could possibly place on her. That would more than makeup for the lack of feeling the human's pathetic life leave her small body in my own grasp.

Ever since I came to be on this ship, that fragging human had caused me nothing but trouble. The same, Astrotrain had told me, could be said for her. She pretended to have a unique way of viewing the situation around us on Earth, yet all I saw from the fragging human glitch was repeat tactics that processors greater than hers created. Then, this lump of meat has the bearings to try and act superior to me. I am a being that this human stain could never hope to become, and yet she tried this. If it wasn't so insulting it would be laughable.

As I finally walked into the auxiliary room, and my optics fell on the sickly human, I smirked. Yes, while the human had caused me great humiliation, that would all be redeemed for with this act. I would take out this human, and she would suffer for a long and terrible time...well to her it would feel like that at the least. From what was happening to her now, I had little doubt that our little addition to the human's condition would kill her in less than a cycle at the most.

When I finally was standing next to the human, and the equipment that was keeping her alive, I allowed one of my extended servos to touch the human's cheek. "You foolish fleshbag. I bet you could not imagine your prideful self in this position. I could crush you with my servos and take you out of this life in an instant." My extended servo pressed against the human's cheek and her red blood dripped from where I injured her. I leaned my helm close to the human's helm. "But, we have so much more planned for you."

Once I pulled away from the side of the human, I brought out the box that I had taken from my room before I opened it. A purple glow appeared from the box and I felt victory close in servo as I pulled out the syringe of the dark energon. It was almost ironic. Astrotrain and I were tested in the mine, and that test would provide us with this crucial element to defeat the human. If energon was currently causing chaos in her systems, then this dark energon should destroy her.

With the syringe in servo, I moved to inject the substance into the bags that were returning the blood to the human's body.

Authoress: Well, since I banned everyone, I guess I'm just going to sit here and laugh at you all. *laughs*

AN: And again happy birthday to DarkPyralis and sorry if this ends up posting late! The past week has been stressful but I hope this is on time. Here is the last chapter of season 1! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. We see that the way that the Autobots are translating the current fight might not necessarily match up to what the Decepticon plan truly is. Plus, add in Wheeljack questioning the Autobots even more now...well, this chapter is hiding a lot of interesting ideas...

Of course, I would be remiss to forget to mention Airachnid's ending there. Will she get away with the plan that she has made with Astrotrain? We will find out as the next chapter begins season two. No spoilers coming from me on this point but I'll try to have another chapter up soon.

Side note, if you all want to look at the poll on my profile, have some fun with it! Also, while you are on my profile, take a gander at my rules for birthday requests just in case you want one. Remember that is a sure way of getting a posted story that you like updated on a date that you will know.

Now, since there will be no reveals of the names of the next chapters (since I am still hiding their names from you), I'll say that I would love to see all of my readers leave a review, even if just to say hello...though only between saying hi and leaving a review about my actual story please! =)

Well, that's all for now. TTYL! *peeks into the turmoil in season 2*