A Race Through the Night

Chapter 7

Lords of the Battle


And hurray another chapter! So, yeah, this one's pretty late, I know, but it's up now! Huge thanks and applaud to enmused, my beta, who is the reason I had the motivation to post this. Just as a warning, there are some very dark parts in this chapter, so you've been warned.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Transformers.

Review Responses: ... Heh... um, yeah no. Just kidding! The last several chapters I've been watching the number of reviews this story gets dwindle, and it would seem we've hit rock bottom... So since this has dealt a huge blow to my authorial confidence, please review so I know people actually do read and enjoy this story!


Hues of fuchsia radiance curled and spun around them, and she watched in mystified awe as her servos dissolved before her very optics. Gradually the space around Blurr and herself was swarming with their own molecules, feeling like a myriad of tiny bubbles popping on her armor. Enthralled by the unique sensation, Nightracer giggled, wiggling the molecules of her hand with youngling-like wonder.

Moments later, her whole frame disappeared and she found herself standing next to Blurr in the midst of a crowd of screaming bots. A large femme slammed into her, not even slowing down in her mad dash away from whatever had the city in an uproar.

"What are they running from?" She shouted to Blurr, only to find that her voice was completely drowned out by the hysterical wailing of everyone around them. Switching to comms, she repeated her query, /What are they running from?/

/I think the better question would be who./ Blurr replied tersely, spinning her around to face where they were running from.

The sniper beheld with a light shiver as a disembodied neon green and orange arm flew over the crowd and shattered against the face of a skyscraper above them. /First ninety-nine guesses don't count... Come on, you said this was the building we're looking for?/

Nightracer glanced at Blurr, patiently letting the mech turn her around three hundred and sixty degrees. Still staying close by so as to not be separated by the endless streams of wailing civilians, the blue mech pointed up at the giant neon white glyphs on the side of the building she was now facing.

/Yeah, no, that was the wrestling ring. This is the building we're looking for./

She shifted her gaze between the two buildings, cocking her helm in acknowledgement. The wrestling building was comparatively short and squat, with broken windows and bulging walls pocked with dents that vaguely resembled the silhouettes of various mechs and femmes. Whereas the building she was now staring at was tall and stately; elegant, but in a threatening, heavily fortified way that reminded her instantly of Enforcers.

"I-I'm not sure I want to go in..." She muttered to deaf audials, following Blurr into the Autobots' high-command center.

The Justice wasn't the only group of bots that she was wanted by after all. Because just in case being a Decepticon wasn't enough reason to want her shot or jailed, she'd also ended up getting herself on the bad side of the law. It wasn't technically her fault. That time. Running from the DJD made a bot desperate. It made a bot lonely, terrified beyond reason - only not really, given what they were capable of - and in all simplicity, hungry.

When bots are scared and hungry, they tend to care about little things like laws just that much less. Meaning, when the waste En recyclers were dry, and bots didn't leave enough of their meals at diners, she turned to less conventional means of acquiring fuel.

For a while, that worked out for her. No bot had enough fuel any more, so no bot blamed her for surviving, not even Enforcers. Everyone was out there for themselves; they stuck to themselves, she stuck to herself, and things were okay. Until she got in with a little band of bots that happened to be on Iacon's Most Wanted. Of course, she never knew about that until one dreary morning, they stumbled into an Enforcer patrol.

At which point, the kind bots she'd been running with for hardly a few orns threw her to the cops and ran while she made for a convenient distraction with the bomb they'd planted on her without her realizing.

Needless to say, she wasn't thrilled to be waltzing into Cop-Central. Through the front door, no less.

She walked quietly beside Blurr through the echoing silence, doing all that she could to keep her pede-falls from booming like cannon blasts in the grand hall. The roof loomed so far overhead that she couldn't even make it out, and they could see the rails of each and every floor above them, as high up as the optic could see, and very likely much beyond that.

Outside, the shouting was getting quieter, the stampedes thinning. A morbid part of her wondered if it was because most of the would-be escapees had gotten away, or because most had already died trying.

/So what now?/ She commed, not daring to speak. Both bots warily glared at each and every elegantly engraved column lining their path as though someone would leap out of behind it.

/I don't s'pose Swindle gave you a holo-map of this building too? Cause that'd be really handy right about now, cause I've only been here once and I took the tour, but I wasn't really paying attention very much because.../ He trailed off, almost like he was embarrassed about something.

Which of course piqued her curiosity, leading her to prompt, /Because...?/

Blurr gave her a reproachful look that almost made her regret asking. Almost. She briefly considered that it was somewhat unusual that they hadn't been greeted by armed guards escorting them to a cozy cell to grow old and rust in.

/Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't have been at least a little bit distracted if you were in the same situation! I was doing just fine and enjoying the tour and then I stopped paying attention because-/ He looked like he wanted to forgo finishing again, but sighed heavily at her expectant expression, ending with an exasperated, /Because Optimus!/

Suddenly she froze, her optics going wide as she refocused on the task at hand. A faint, practically inaudible clicking...

Nightracer pounced on Blurr, shoving him behind a white pillar before darting behind the next one over, bracing her back against its cool surface. She slid a servo up to her lips to signal silence, pressing her face to the column in order to peek around it while remaining unseen.

A klick passed in tense stillness, then Blurr shifted, his engine creaking slightly in a repressed moan. Another four klicks. The blue mech commed, /What? What is it? I didn't even hear anything, and there's nothing out there, it's probably your imagination playing tricks on you./

The femme didn't respond and another klick rolled by.

/Nightracer, c'mon, there's nothing out there. Even if there is, we don't have time to sit here staring at the wall cause you're scared of you're own echo!/

With that, the mech came out of hiding and dragged her back into the corridor in a disorienting blur of motion. He put his hands on his hips smugly, saying, "See? Nothing to w..."

His statement trailed off as they both felt the vibrating tips of charged blasters touch their dorsal plating. She couldn't help but feel the tiniest sliver of self-satisfaction as her fears proved to be well founded. If that hadn't been primarily overridden with new fears, she might have said something along the lines of, 'I told you so'.

"Worry about?" One of the mechs behind them suggested dryly, shoving Nightracer forward with his gun. The other one snickered, prodding Blurr in the same manner. The first one sounded thoughtful, "So what brought you back to Iacon with a known Decepticon fugitive, Blurr? I thought you chose our side when the War broke."

"I did!" Blurr snarled indignantly, surprising her with how concise he was being.

"Which is why you and your Decepticon femme friend here are sneaking around our highest security headquarters." The first one retorted, his skeptical tone obviously not buying it.

"Who're you to question my loyalties anyway? Prime's gone, high-command's gone, there is no more War here! They left us all to rust, and now you wanna tell me I'm breaking some set of rules just by coming home?"

Nightracer sighed, trying to walk fast enough that the guard behind her, the one doing all the talking, wouldn't think he had to bother jabbing her in the back with his weapon every time he wanted to emphasize a point. Arguing wouldn't do them any good. Like Blurr said, the command structure had crumbled, and that left bots to do what they felt like, how they felt like it.

"Yup." The second mech affirmed, happily whacking whatever retort Blurr might have had right out of him.

They were escorted quietly for a while, until the teal and charcoal femme locked optics on a small pool of life-En pouring from under the door at the end. The guards hadn't seen it yet, their optics not as well-trained as her own. She was guessing they were about seven levels up from the surface by now.

Hoping to distract her escort, she asked plaintively, "So... Where are you taking us?"

The four of them slowed down a little, "To the brig."

"Figured." She nodded understandingly, shrugging like she was too resigned to her fate to care. Somewhat odd for the brig to be above ground, but given it was a skyscraper... It wasn't like they were high security prisoners. She stole a glance up at her guard and saw his optics narrow with suspicion as he started to notice something wrong up ahead.

/On my mark./ She sent Blurr cryptically, hoping he'd get what she meant.

"Hey, Influx, you notice it smelling a bit weird down here?" The second mech asked, sounding mildly worried.

The first one, Influx, grunted in response, the gun-point pulling away from her back a fraction as he began to be distracted. Nightracer rolled her helm in anticipation of the fight to come, opening the comm. line just before there was a flash of blue and a couple muffled groans.

/... Mark...?/ She sent with a puzzled scowl, turning around to find both guards tied together with flex-chain. Both were unconscious, bearing no injuries signifying any sort of resistance whatsoever.

"Oh, did I do it too soon? I thought the helm-rolling-thing you just did was the signal, so: stun gun to the helm, and bang, two happily passed out guards in less than a nano." Blurr shrugged, grinning as he subspaced a compact stunner. "Didn't mean to steal the show though, so if it'd make you feel better about not helping me at all, you can always just like kick one of 'em or punch 'em in the face or something."

She allowed herself a slow blink as she processed his words, then shook her helm roughly and started jogging towards the leaking door. "Come on... They slowed us down and I think..."

The door swooshed open with a hiss and a chirp, dropping a heavily leaking, but still alive mech against her pedes. The rancid scent of fading lifeblood stung her olfactory sensors, mixed with the smell of burning circuitry, ruptured sparks, and cooling slag.

"... We're too late." Nightracer finished, her voice no more than a whisper as they stared at the carnage strewn before them.

Lumps of molten slag were heaped against the walls, barely identifiable as having once been Cybertronians. One of the frames was shriveled up as though his spark had turned into a black hole, while another was in so many pieces it would take the best forensics team decavorns to make helm or pedes of them.

Her tanks roiled at the sight, her spark feeling as though it were on fire. Coolant began to pool in her large ruby optics as her vents heaved, her engine catching on itself and hitching painfully.

Life-En dripped from the ceiling onto her shoulder, making her helm jerk up instantly, finding a sight almost more gruesome than what lay on the floor. It was as though the mechs were melted into it, but not really melted. More like, phased into it. Become physically intertwined with the alloys at a molecular level.

Literally every fiber of their beings had been shattered and forced back together around the ceiling. Limbs and body parts stuck out of the metal, grotesque expressions of unimaginable agony seared into both faces. Their life fluids dripped down from where the bodies connected with the ceiling.

"G...go..." The mech directly above her - the source of the fluids splashing down on her face - groaned weakly, causing her spark to momentarily freeze in alarm. His frame had gone such a deathly shade of gray, she could have sworn he was already offline, yet his optics shone an unnaturally bright, pure white light. "W...what you... kkkzzzzz- seek... lies just... Beyond..."

As soon as he'd spoken, the mech's optics faded to the empty black of death, his frame dull and lifeless as though he'd never moved. Her tanks churned again and the femme doubled over and purged violently.

Six sparks faded for no reason at all.

Blurr was at her side instantly, holding her steady and preventing her from collapsing among the dead. His mouth was moving a mile a minute, but her audials failed to comprehend his words. She wrapped one hand over her throbbing t-cog, shuttering her optics to block out their faces. Instead, they only grew more vivid in her mind.

One thing she did manage to catch in the midst of his rambling was one, simple assurance that her spark longed to believe, yet could not.

This wasn't her fault.

She wanted to believe it. Primus knew she wanted to believe it. She told herself that it was Overlord's fault for ending their lives so pointlessly. That she had had no idea that the terminal would send him here. That there wasn't probably another massacre like this in the building she'd warped him to first.

Nightracer bit back a sob, only for it to mutate and tear out of her vocals in the form of a grieved shriek of rage. These bots should never have died. There was no reason for their sparks to be taken, and there was no reason that they should see the Well while Overlord lived on. There was no reason.

This was completely her fault.

There was nothing she could do to change that, and there was nothing she could do to help these bots. But Overlord would pay for what he had done here, and the countless other massacres he was responsible for in his lifetime.

She straightened resolutely, shoving Blurr aside and storming to the door the dead mech in the roof had indicated, paying no heed to the blue Autobot's high-speed warnings, ramblings, and queries.

Her twin gold rifles appeared in her clenched fists, though she later could not recall drawing them from her subspace. She casually twirled one around her servo, a dangerous light behind her optics that was not entirely sane. A small, grim smirk touched her hardened face-plates as she regarded the huge phase-sixer standing over the weapons with his back to her, his attention devoted to choosing another toy to play with.

Blurr fidgeted in the door, but after seeing her murderous expression, the mech wisely chose against following.

"Overlord." The teal and gray femme stated coldly, an aura of fury around her that made even the navy and white gladiator before her visibly shudder as he straightened and turned to face her. The crazed, gleeful grin across his face that so many deaths had given life to didn't even waver.

He held the weapon that they had come for in one hand, though as promised, it looked nothing like the blueprints they had been shown. Instead it stretched past his elbow, clamped to his upper forearm in a sleek hand-held cannon, its various deadly features shaped in an extravagant, fear-embuing manner, drawing extra attention to the weapon's most terrifying capabilities.

Ordinarily, the sight of such a weapon would have her shaking in her armor. However, all the sniper felt was rage. She sneered at him, unimpressed by the odds that stood against her so plainly.

"Am I supposed to be afraid, Overlord? Am I supposed to bow at your feet and plead for my spark?" She began slowly circling, her hungry optics not leaving him for a moment. She could feel her logic and battle protocols taking over, locking out the majority of her emotional cortex as they had been programmed to do, yet she made no effort to stop them. "Because if that's what you were expecting, slayer, I'd suggest you reassess."

"You would fight me?" Overlord questioned, sounding amused. He leered, "You don't stand a chance. Nonetheless, I will take great pleasure in tearing your spark out before your very optics, abomination."

She simply smiled back, her battle protocols more in control than she was at this point, leaving her unfazed by his threats. They seemed small to her, insignificant compared to the wrath burning in her spark. No reply was necessary; her frame was already moving to give the answer that rang loudest in her mind.

She fired at will.

Life-En immediately began streaming from his two punctured optics, but his chestplate shielding his spark was only badly damaged. His ununtrium-plated spark casing had stopped the bullets from terminating him right then and there. As soon as she'd stopped shooting, she ducked and rolled, subspacing one rifle and springing up directly in front of the howling mech. Smacking him between his bleeding optics with the butt of her rifle, the femme snatched the new weapon from his shocked grasp and ran for her spark with Blurr close behind.

"You shot Overlord in the optics!" Blurr shouted as he chased after her, periodically tossing a glance over his shoulder at the infuriated, cursing phase-sixer that was chasing them firing missiles and swearing to slaughter them both. "Wait, isn't he supposed to be like falling over dead or something right about now? I mean you put two in his helm and a bunch in his spark, so shouldn't he be less annoyed and more dying?"

"He's a phase-sixer, point-one-percenter, and he's got a coat of ununtrium - the strongest, rarest metal in the known galaxy - over his skeleton, spark casing, and processor modules! What do you think?" Nightracer snapped back, her pedes pumping beneath her. Her spark was tight with fear, and her processors were only slightly relinquishing their grip on her.

Whirling around without stopping, the weapon fired seemingly of its own accord. Her optics lit up and her little smirk grew into a wide, wild grin. It was almost exactly like her own rifles, only so much better. In her hand perched a twin-barrel sniper rifle. When it fired, there was practically no recoil, and it felt as if she and the gun were a single entity. Whatever she thought, it did, and at the moment, that meant that the whole corridor in front of her exploded in a rich red flame, engulfing everything in its path.

She faced forward and kept running, not looking back at the destruction she'd just caused, though she had a feeling that Overlord had just taken a short cut to the next floor.

Everything she'd ever thought wrong with her rifles, this new one had done away with. Every flaw was perfected to a point she hadn't thought possible. Aesthetically, it was the epitome of military beauty. Her fangs glinted wickedly in the smoky light as she grinned, her optics bright with a sense of superiority. She could have the world.

Whatever she wanted; it could all be hers with a twitch of the trigger.

"Nightracer, what's wrong, what are you planning on doing? This is a really dangerous weapon, and I think its getting to your helm..." She hardly even noticed the blue mech beside her trying to get her attention back to their mission.

Trying to get her helm out of the battle.

He trailed off as she stopped running and turned back towards the wreckage where Overlord was crawling back up from the gaping hole in the floor, his navy and white armor singed, dented, and scratched. His optics were dark, their protective covering shattered and leaking life-En.

Yet behind those sightless holes, she saw a fury so intense she ought to have been running for her life. Instead, she laughed harshly, sashaying towards the mech.

Blurr sped back to where she was, not having slowed down fast enough, and jumped in front of her, shaking her shoulders hard enough that she couldn't keep her helm from following the whiplash motion.

"Race? Nightracer! C'mon, c'mon femme, we gotta get outta here before that guy-" His cerulean optics widened and a look of abject terror crossed his face, his already rapid speech doubling in speed, now nearly unintelligibly fast, "Oh-sweet-Primus-please-don't-shoot-me! Idon'twannadie, pleasedon'tkillme... NIGHTRACER!"

She jerked away suddenly, her crazed grin fading to confusion overlaid with fear. She glanced down and found that the weapon of mass destruction in her hand was firmly pressed into the mech's abdomen. She subspaced it in favor of her own rifles, which she held to her sides. Her ruby optics dimmed as she tried to recall how she'd gotten here, why she was trying to kill Blurr, why the whole corridor in front of them smelled like seared metal, and why Overlord was right behind Blurr with a giant sword-

The thought-line cut off and instinct took over. Nightracer leapt on top of the blue mech, shoving both of them aside right as the gladiator's sword collided with the floor where they'd stood only seconds before. In the blade's wake, the floor was sheared in two, leaving a gaping rip in the metal.

The Autobot's optics were dim, and she realized in hind-sight that she'd accidentally knocked his helm too roughly into the ground, rendering the mech unconscious in saving his life.

"Lovely." She muttered, working to ignore her attacker's threats and taunts.

Cartwheeling away from the blue Autobot, the sniper sprung off of her hands to land several meters down the hall, drawing Overlord's attention away from the dazed mech.

"Where are you, you little- AARGGH!" The mech roared as another of her sniper bullets embedded itself in his helm, leaving a leaky, smoky hole in the center of his forehelm. A large navy hand shot up to hold the wound, servos quickly scouting the damage before he charged at her with renewed hate, tracking her only by the sounds of her movements and voice. "I WILL CRUSH YOU, INSOLENT CLONE!"

A shudder wracked her frame, and Nightracer winced as her t-cog attempted to transform her in an automatic urge to escape as quickly as possible. She doubled over with a groan, but kept on, sprinting to where Blurr lie inert, somehow dodging Overlord's missiles and sword strokes as she went.

She scooped up the Autobot with a grunt, vaguely wondering how a mech built so lightly could weigh so much. Nightracer staggered as the ground shook with her pursuer's heavy pede-falls, hissing as shrapnel from a stray missile cut into the back of pede, just above her knee-joint.

Honestly, if she'd been thinking, she should have left the blue mech. He only slowed her down.

Her vocalizers let out a fear-strangled shriek as Overlord's sword impaled itself in the wall, mere inches from her helm as she swung a corner.

She swore under her breath, skidding to a halt before she could crash into the dead-end wall in her way. Roof above, floor below, wall on one side, floor-to-ceiling window on the other side. As Overlord drew closer by the nano, his furious bellows reverberating through the building, Nightracer pulled out the other weapon. The weapon that offered her all the power she could ever hope for.

Desperation broke over and she turned to the window and shuttered her optics tight, clenching her armor as close to her frame as she could before charging the glass. She swiveled moments before breaking through, turning her dorsal plating to the glass and shielding the mech in her arms with her own body.

Air rushed past her, drowning out Overlord's enraged howls as his prey escaped him. Time seemed to slow and Nightracer briefly pondered the wisdom of her actions. What in the Pits of Kaon was she thinking?

The weapon in her hand fired a blast down at the ground, but she never consciously moved to do so. The people below screamed - or maybe that was her own voice? - but she paid it little attention.

She was going to die.

Maybe Primus would pity her unworthy spark and she - in spite of being a clone, or as Overlord so aptly said, and abomination - perhaps she would find the Well anyway. Or perhaps she would simply fade and disappear, and she would be to utterly ended to care that she had no place in the Well of Allsparks.

A twinge of renewed terror touched her spark as the sniper realized she could no longer see her arms wrapped around Blurr's unconscious frame. Nor could she see any part of herself.

Her helm tilted to the side and a faint smile graced her lips. Apparently, Swindle was wrong. The gun really did cloak its owner in the face of death.

Then time seemed to remember that it was supposed to be going faster than it was, and her processors remembered that she had audials. The world erupted into chaos. Pedestrians and other bystanders were screaming, while others sounded excited. Her optics flung open and she watched the skyscraper speed by her. Glass fell in a glittering, tinkling cascade of rainbow reflections all around her, mixed with drops of life-En that could only be hers.

Five stories above her, Nightracer could still hear Overlord cursing her existence as he no doubt stumbled about blindly, trying to find his way down. Six stories away now. Seven.

Strangely, she felt no pain. Not from her wounds, not from the collision with what she assumed was the glistening streets of Iacon at sunset.

The suns were so beautiful this cycle; filling the blazing sky with their radiance while the far away stars twinkled through the thin atmosphere. She blinked her dimming optics, trying to make them focus on the suns' setting. So beautiful.