Heyo! Posting a day early because this is gonna be a semi-busy weekend for me because I'm gonna be spending time with Family and I'd rather not forget!

Especially since Maria is dealing with a bit of something.

Chapter 8 – Grief

Wildfire was dead.

Wildfire was dead.

As much as Maria didn't want to wrap her head around that statement, she knew it would happen eventually.

She just wished it hadn't happened when she was away from home.

Maria disappeared upstairs into the room the Pines had given her – a simple space with a desk and a bed with red and yellow sheets.

She sat on the bed and put her head in her hands.

"I should have been there. I'm sorry."

Maria felt like she should be crying about this. Wildfire had been her longest-living close friend. One of the last few people who remembered her and her siblings from Earth. Now, all that was left of them was their other Cybertronian friends in that dimension – counted on one hand – and the history books on Cybertron. None of Earth's contained Maria's World-Jumping history – they'd never known. But it was better that way.

A long, drawn-out sigh. Her eyes were wet, yes, but would the tears ever come? She'd lost others already – why would losing Wildfire make her cry when she'd come to accept her great-grandson's death of old age without a single tear?

There was a knock at her bedroom door. It opened, and a young man with spiky blond and black hair stuck his head in. "Maria?"

Maria glanced up, and pushed herself back onto the bed and pulled her knees up to her chest. "Wildfire's gone."

Vash's expression shifted in an instant, and he closed the door behind him and approached. "It's been that long since we've been…?"

Maria didn't know how to answer him for a moment. "I don't know how long it's been there. But she was getting…on in years, when we came here."

Vash sat down on the bed next to Maria. "So, you're going to the funeral?"

Maria sighed and leaned her head against her knees as she looked at Vash. "I'm heading out tomorrow. I was wondering if you and Knives wanted to come with, since you knew her."

"Not as well as you did. I mean, she was in your head for ten years thanks to some time-space something or other!" Vash motioned to his own head.

"Thanks to Vector Prime," Maria corrected with a small smile. The smile dropped, and shook her head. "…I can't believe that I wasn't there when she passed."

"You were taking care of something important. She knew that it was important you be here." Vash offered an arm around Maria's shoulders.

She leaned into him, nodding as Vash squeezed a shoulder reassuringly. "Yeah. But…still. We were there for Nicholas and Meryl and Millie. It doesn't seem right."

"I know, Auntie. But we can't always be there for everything."

There was another knock at the door, and another blond young man with his hair cut short and a lightning bolt streak of black stepped into the room. He was much more grim-faced than Vash. "Sixer informed me that something had happened to Wildfire?"

Maria sighed. Knives wasn't one to wait for explanations. "She's dead, Knives. I'm…I'm taking a day to come to terms with it, and then I'm going to Cybertron. I'd like to bring the two of you with me, since you knew her."

Knives blinked slowly. "I see." He remained where he was, moving his gaze around the room as he considered what Maria had just said. "I didn't think she would pass. We have been gone for longer trips before and very little time has passed in our absence."

"I didn't think it was going to happen, either. At least…not this time."

That got Maria odd looks from Knives and Vash.

"You were expecting that the multiverse would do this to you?" Vash frowned. "But—"

"I don't fit in with my home dimension anymore. My family is either dead or gone through so many generations that they hardly know me. The only people left who knew me in the beginning are those on Cybertron and…of them, Wildfire was the closest. She was my anchor, after Matthew and Collin died. And now that she isn't…" Maria bowed her head, putting it in her hands. "I just…other than you two, I don't have any reason to stay there. Not anymore."

Knives and Vash exchanged looks again.

"You want to leave your home behind after this, then," Knives said.

"…I haven't decided yet. But I think so. I have more connections here than I do back there, and…" Maria sighed and shook her head. "Honestly? Earth isn't what it was. I like the century I was born in, not what the world has become. Going back would only cement that feeling."

She had discussed this with Vash and Knives the day that Jheselbraum had made an appearance the week before. Wildfire wasn't a "Shrodinger's Cybertronian" anymore, and that only made Maria saddened by the loss.

"…I'll consider your invitation," Knives said after a long pause. "Brother, perhaps we should leave her to herself for a little while."

"Hmm?" Vash looked confused for a moment. "Oh. Yeah. You'll let us know if you need anything?"

"Yeah." Maria leaned back against the wall behind the bed. "I'll…I'll be down in a couple hours."

Vash nodded, and he and Knives retreated from the bedroom, closing the door behind them.

It was only then that the tears finally started to trickle.

Maria didn't fight the wave of grief that finally hit her in the face – on the contrary, she accepted it.

It was a heavy embrace that she was more than used to.

Change in POV

"How was it?"

"Hm?" Sixer looked up from the journal he had been writing in and blinked a couple times. Stanford was looking at him with a strangely intense gaze. "How was what?"

"Atlantis." Stanford motioned to Sixer. "The city, the culture, the power source. What did you think of it?"

Sixer blinked, then frowned. "You've heard of Atlantis?"

"I stayed with Maria in her dimension for some time before returning to my own dimension and defeating Cipher." Stanford frowned. "She mentioned Atlantis then when she spoke of having mentors in the beginning, and I feel a bit foolish for not realizing Axel was one of them."

"Ah." Sixer nodded. "But she was a Reploid by that time, so she didn't have a crystal shard to show you as proof of that."

"No. She did demonstrate her android form and her capabilities with that. Still, in my experience, most outsiders aren't accepted unless they have proven to be someone trustworthy. I didn't make it a point to stay long enough to make an impression, as by then I had a number of bounties on my head—"

"You went to an Atlantis." Sixer's eyebrows rose. "When? If you had a number of people besides Cipher after you by then, I assume that it was some time into your travels."

Stanford paused, then nodded. "…yes, it was some time before I met Jheselbraum. The king and queen were kind enough to give me time to recover in their city before I moved on – the world was in the midst of what I assume was their version of the end of a world war."

Sixer's tails flicked back and forth. Something about the conversation made him think of a comment Milo had made – about how his last name had been familiar.

"Was the king of a different ethnic descent from the others around him?" Sixer asked.

Stanford blinked at the question. "He…he was, yes. He was one of the few exceptions to the general rule that outsiders didn't receive a crystal." He frowned. "I don't doubt there is a chance you and I traveled to similar dimensions, if what you describe is what you saw. It would be almost improbable for me to have crossed Maria's path twice before meeting her."

"Well – twice?" Sixer stared. "Are you referring to when you met her in her dimension or—"

"We nearly crossed paths before then," Stanford corrected. "An…alternate reality from her own, from what I understand, where most beings were in a moral reverse from their counterparts in Maria's dimension."

"Moral reverse…?" Something about that made Sixer feel unnerved. "You mean that, if you had met the Maria of that dimension, she would have rather sided with…"

Stanford caught on what Sixer was referring to, and he nodded. "Likely, yes. I think we're highly fortunate to have not met such a counterpart."

"But what was she doing in that dimension, then?" Sixer set his pen aside, giving Stanford more of his attention. "What brought her attention; do you know?"

"If I had to guess, it had something to do with the war that I stumbled into. I landed on a mechanical world where mechanical, transforming beings were in the middle of tearing each other apart in the war of attrition. I ended up assisting them in the end by shrinking down one of the more dangerous opponents. I had no idea at the time that a giant robot the size of a city could be shrunk down to the size of an action figure – completely destroyed my makeshift shrink ray when the circuits overheated, but it was an excellent field test."

"I should think so," Sixer agreed. "Did Maria figure out that you had been there?"

"Oh, yes. It helped, I think, that her dimension had a planet with the same beings living on it. I distinctly remember her being accompanied by a mechanical being colored like fire. I learned later that her name was Wildfire, and that she and Maria were unusually close."

Sixer's expression fell a little when he remembered the conversation he had overheard before Maria had disappeared upstairs. "I haven't met her, but I am under the same impression."

The look on Maria's face had felt closed off, but now that she was upstairs and away from prying eyes, Sixer got the impression she was feeling the full brunt of the loss.

Stanford nodded. "The people of her time were good people, from what little I saw of them. They knew the risks of dimensional travel and were not only willing to assist me, but were also more than aware of the dangers Cipher posed. They hadn't met him at the time, but watching a cartoon was apparently more than enough of a warning."

Sixer's ear flicked. "I suppose it had something to do with the worlds Maria had traveled to, in the past. She spoke of some of them when we were in Atlantis. The realm where we met was a series of games that she was quite familiar with."

Stanford nodded. "Yes, that seems to be quite common. She seems to think that her own dimension might be considered a fictional world elsewhere, as well – even without her and her family's presence."

"I do not doubt that. The multiverse is…infinite, as far as we can understand it."

"Unfortunately. It makes it very difficult to record every single dimension in existence." Stanford shook his head. "It makes the researcher in me both excited at the thought of infinite locations to investigate and despair that such research would never be capable of ending."

"It certainly does," Sixer agreed. He paused, remembering something else. "Milo did say that the name Pines was familiar, but Maria and I didn't pursue the question. We didn't get a moment to ask, as most of the conversations either focused on the world itself or some of the worlds Maria has been to. I doubt that she spoke of all of them – I get the impression that she has been to quite a few in her lifetime."

Something about Stanford's face suggested he didn't quite catch all of that. "Milo said the Pines name was familiar? This seems to be more than a coincidence."

"It certainly does." Sixer frowned at the thought. "Perhaps you were part of an area of the multiverse that Maria frequents regularly? As she is the one who helped you return to your home dimension, it's likely this local 'quadrant' is where she does regular enough patrols that the sight of her would be a common occurrence."

"Do World Jumpers even have visible territories like that in the multiverse?" Stanford frowned. "It would be something to look into. It might also explain why her siblings very rarely traveled with Maria to other dimensions. From what I remember, the only one who traveled with her often was her cousin Joshua."

"Cousin?" That was news to Sixer. "She had a cousin who was also a World Jumper?"

"In name, at least – the two of them lived on the same street, and had been turned into Reploids under different circumstances."

"Ah." Sixer hadn't been expecting to hear that. "Then, wouldn't he be as long-lived as Maria currently is?"

"That would be the idea, but Maria mentioned that Joshua had passed on as soon as she arrived here last summer."

Sixer's ears flattened. "Oh."

"You're talking about Joshua?" Vash stepped into the room, raising an eyebrow.

"We seem to have…stumbled into that subject." Stanford exchanged a look with Sixer. "How did we get to him again?"

"We were talking about the frequency with which you and Maria crossed paths," Sixer reminded him.

Stanford nodded. "Ah, yes. And the possibility of my having been to the same Atlantis at some point and how World Jumpers might have areas of the multiverse that they frequent worlds in."

"Oh, that kind of thing?" Vash nodded. "Yeah, Maria likes to stay with worlds that are familiar to her. Sometimes that means going to the same ones multiple times over. I haven't heard of her going to an alternate dimension of one she's been to already, though."

"Besides the ones where Cybertron existed?" Stanford raised an eyebrow.

"The Justice League was in one of them and the other one was an emergency," Vash replied. "I don't think she really thinks of the Cybertronians as a contributing factor to anything – just that they're there."

"Because she's used to them in her dimension?" Sixer hedged a guess.

"Probably?" Vash shrugged. "At the same time, though, our species lives between dimensions, and she's pretty used to us being around. I think her dimension's the only one that people like Knives and I can actually live in, though."

Sixer did a double-take. "Between dimensions? You don't mean…like in the Nightmare Realm?"

Had Vash's relatives been living in the same space as Cipher and he'd never realized it?

Vash rubbed the back of his head, frowning. "Er…kinda? But we don't call it the exact same thing. I'm not sure how it would translate into a verbal language, since my sisters are all connected telepathically. They're almost like a hive mind, really, but and Knives and I have autonomy outside of that because we're different."

Stanford frowned. He seemed to be lost in thought over something.

"But from what my sisters have shared with me and Knives, the in-between areas they live in don't look anything like what Cipher brought over with him into this dimension. Our areas are a lot more peaceful, but they are pretty energy-rich, I think." Vash motioned to himself. "We're kind of radioactive batteries. Each one of us has the power to create a universe, but to do that kills that person in the process."

Sixer stared. "That's…that's incredible."

"Indeed. Joshua did meet one of them during the time I was in Maria's dimension." Stanford frowned in thought. "He did siphon power off her, but only as a secondary source. He had more than enough in a different form."

"Yeah. Energon's pretty powerful that way." Vash gave a crooked smile.

"That's the…the Cybertronians' power source, correct?" Sixer frowned. "Maria mentioned it in passing when we were in Atlantis, when she was discussing some of her travels."

Stanford and Vash nodded.

"So her cousin had access to it. Was he on Cybertron by that point or—"

"Apparently, there were hidden caches of the stuff on Earth." Stanford gained a knowing look. "Joshua had access to his own personal supply. Considering the size of them mine, he could have lived for centuries on it and never need to leave his home."

That was impressive.

"It's a shame that I likely won't get access to his or Jolt's labs again – those two were great help in pulling together the Quantum Destabilizer." Stanford was starting to look thoughtful. "I wonder. If Maria often travels to dimensions where the Cybertronians are likely on their own planet, what are the chances they'll now be involved in our dimension?"

"Highly unlikely." Maria stepped downstairs and entered the kitchen. There was a hollow look in her eyes, but she didn't look like she was ready to start crying any moment. "As cool as it would be to get you guys to meet with the Autobot scientists – maybe the Decepticon ones too if the war wasn't a current event – I doubt that they would be mixed up in what happened here as well. I probably would have picked up something that resembled a Cybertronian Spark signature or radio frequency by now."

"Well, there goes that plan," Stanford muttered.

Sixer chuckled quietly. He looked over at Maria and noticed that she wasn't smiling, causing the smile to drop from his own face. The news must still be hitting her hard. "Will you…be all right?"

Maria sighed at Sixer's question. "I will be. It's just…gonna take me a bit." She rubbed her forehead. "Vash, you'll let me know if you and Knives decide you want to come along, all right?"

Vash nodded. "Yeah. I'll let you know before we turn in tonight, since you said you're leaving tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah. I just…need a little time to process this, before I go and see it for myself." Maria looked over at Sixer. "You're welcome to come to, but you don't have to. I know you don't know Wildfire, so…"

Sixer's eyebrows rose as his ears flicked. His tails twitched a little. "Why not Stanford? He met with your family and the Cybertronians that you knew."

"I wasn't there long enough to make an impression with her, I think," Stanford replied. He shook his head. "If Jolt was…."

"As far as I know, he's still alive and head of the science department for a university in Kaon," Maria replied.

"Good to know." Stanford nodded. "I'm glad to hear he's doing well."

"Heh. Yeah." A smile flickered across Maria's face, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

"How about you let me handle dinner tonight?" Vash suggested. "You just sit back and – and do something else for a bit. I've got something in mind that I've been wanting to try, anyway."

Maria looked at Vash for a moment, then nodded a little. "Yeah. Sure, that's…that's fine."

Vash nodded. "Go sit in front of the TV or something." He started shooing her out of the kitchen.

"Okay, okay." Maria chuckled as she stepped into the living room.

Sixer watched her go, frowning.

She had invited him to the funeral, as well as Vash and Knives?

Should he accept?