"Torment. Something is happening." Darksteel warns Torment and draws his attention away from Athena.
He looks to the compound and the swarm of fliers gathered in the air and surrounding his creator. Tapping into Talon's HUD, he reads the lines of information scrolling down it, warning about dwindling energy reserves and a worrying amount of minor damages. They may be insignificant now but can quickly become something more severe if Talon continues to receive damage to his frame. And with the number of enemies he faces, even his creator needs assistance.
"I'll assist him."
He looks at Darksteel, giving his friend a brief nod before Darksteel vanishes in a mist of purple. His friend reappears beside Talon the next second and immediately engages their foes alongside the Polyhexian leader, protecting Talon's back and allowing him to focus wholly on killing their enemies.
Wildstreak and Shadestop stand no chance with Darksteel working alongside Talon. He knows their teleportation pattern and is always there to block their attacks against Talon's weak sides.
Finally, they are the last ones still in the air, and Darksteel keeps Wildstreak occupied while Talon engages Shadestop in an intense version of turbo wolf versus glitch mice.
Talon flies at breakneck speed and corrects his course almost at the speed of light as he chases his elusive victim, forcing Shadestop to eventually make a fatal mistake and get within range of his deadly talons.
When the mistake finally happens, it is over fast, with Shadestop not even getting the chance to utter a sound of pain before he is dead as Talon's talons effortlessly pierce his chest armor and mercilessly rip his spark out of his frame.
As the last to stand, Wildstreak acknowledges that he has no chance of survival if he keeps fighting and surrenders, only to die when his spark explodes, Torrent executing him for his betrayal.
Talon descends into heavy weapon fire and, in his berserker rage, engages Torrent's ground forces head-on without any care for himself, their energon splattering his frame as he decimates them one after another. This is the moment Prowl and the elites have been waiting for and they assist in swiftly bringing down the rest of their foes until the fight is over and Torrent lies severely wounded on the floor in a pool of his own energon.
"YOU FOOLS! IT IS NOT OVER! WE HAVE ONLY JUST BEGUN! THE WORLD AS YOU KNOW IT IS AT AN END! NO ONE CAN STOP IT! NOT EVEN YOU!" Torrent is choking out while he stares hatefully up at them as Prowl and Talon stand above him.
Talon places a heavy foot on Torrent's crumbled chestplates, applying immense pressure on them as he leans down and stares his enemy directly in the optics.
"If you are referring to Highline and your grandiose plan of taking control over the Senate, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. You picked the wrong fight by going after Torment and lost because of it. And now you die."
Before Prowl can say or do anything, Talon plunges his hand wrist deep into Torrent's chest, where it closes around the frantically pulsing spark as Torrent roars in excruciating pain.
"Talon! Stop! We had an agreement!" Prowl protests as he struggles valiantly against the frontliners holding him back and preventing him from intervening in the execution.
"Can you feel it, Torrent," Talon growls menacingly, slowly squeezing the life out of his enemy. "How your life force slowly but steadily seeps out of your frame as your spark stutter. I could end it fast and painlessly for you, but I won't. I want you to feel it all as your pitiful life ends, and I will enjoy watching you as it happens."
Torrent gurgles something incoherently, energon pooling in his intake and choking him, speeding up his end as his frame no longer gets cooled down. At this point, Prowl hangs powerlessly in the merciless grip the frontliners have on him, knowing there is no longer any point in fighting against their hold. Torrent can no longer be saved, and he looks away from the scene, unwilling to witness the end as Talon draws out his victim's suffering for his own gratification.
This is what Talon is at his spark, and he should have known Talon wouldn't let go of the chance to take gruesome revenge.
Finally, after several excruciating minutes, it ends, the last death throes leaving Torrent's frame, and he lies lifeless on the floor, his face still depicting the sheer terror and torture of his final moment.
With a sickening sound, Talon removes his hand from the corpse, utterly unmoved by what he has done. Their optics meet, Talon looking at him with cold, emotionless optics, and Prowl is about to find his voice and raise all kinds of pit against Talon for what he did, for the outright betrayal of their alliance. But he doesn't get the chance as he, the next moment, feels a crippling hit to the back of his head.
Numerous errors warn him about severe processor damage as his vision gradually goes dark as he collapses to the ground, his frame no longer responsive. And the last thing he sees before he enters stasis-lock is Talon slowly kneeling beside him, the cold, emotionless optics narrowed while the Polyhexian leader's lips move as Talon speaks to him.
But he cannot hear any of the words, his processor shutting down to protect itself from fatal cascading failures, and as he finally enters blissful oblivion, he is relieved that he will not feel his end coming.
Red optics narrow as they look at the blazing inferno in the distance. The fire sends billowing smoke so far into the air that it is visible from a dozen miles away.
There shouldn't be anything out here.
Only dried out uninhabitable wasteland.
"ETA 3 minutes, my Lord."
Rampage looks at his Second-in-Command and nods once.
"Scan the perimeter. We don't know what waits for us when we land."
"As you wish, my Lord."
His Second-in-Command bows and dismisses himself, and once again, Rampage focuses his attention on the mystery they are approaching, his HUD scanning the area for anything noticeable. But they are still too far away for him to get any reliable input, the fire and smoke masking everything.
When they land, he is the first to step out, his optics scanning the burning ruin of a large compound of roughly six to seven different building structures.
What in the pit is this!
"Put out the fire! Scan the area! I want to know everything there is to know about this place! Is that understood?!"
"Yes, Lord Rampage!" A chorus comes from his troops, and they get to work, putting out the fire and combing the area for any evidence of what the place had been and what had transpired there.
A large number of deactivated frames get collected and examined. They all show wounds from battle, and a large part bears the marks from a distinctive pair of talons.
TALON!
Rampage barely manages to contain his fury when he gets the information, his hatred billowing from him like the smoke from the fire.
ONE DAY, TALON!
ONE DAY YOU WILL SLIP UP AND MAKE A MISTAKE, AND THEN NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME FROM TAKING MY REVENGE!
A firm hand on his shoulder instantly calms his fury and he looks at his Second-in-Command.
"We have collected everything salvageable from the site, my Lord. There is no reason to stay. The smoke has likely alerted others too. We need to get out of here before anyone else arrives at the scene."
He nods at the sound advice and follows his Second-in-Command into their aircraft, glaring at the destroyed compound as the ramp closes, his optics narrowing hatefully.
I don't know what this place is or why you were here, Talon, but I will find out, and when I do, I will make you regret going behind my back and trespassing on my territory!
"...fatal cascading failure-..."
His audial input screams pure unintelligible nonsense at him as something forces him out of stasis-lock, and he fights to get to the surface, but something or someone holds him down.
"...-alon, sometimes you ar-..."
Prevents him or his processor from onlining fully.
"...-orgot he isn't built like us."
He recognizes a medical link-up and senses the calming presence as someone expertly sifts through his increasingly failing systems, applying quick fixes and shutting down some of them to stem the flood of damage.
"...-wo critical patients instead of one."
Errors blare at him from all sides as the ongoing damage to his processor continues to occur at a worrying pace, and his awareness begins to fade again, once again sending him into blessed darkness. Away from all the pain.
"...-ay with me, Prowl."
Is this what it feels like to die?
"...-ark unstable. He is going to flatline. I have done everything I can with what is at my disposal, but it is not enough, and my medical patches will only last for so long on his crashing systems. You better find me a hospital now, Talon! No! No arguments! You did this to him, so unless you want him to die, you will follow my orders! GET US TO A HOSPITAL! NOW!"
If so, he welcomes it.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
"..-ll clear!"
All of it.
"Do it again!"
Just to get away from the insistent pain in his frame.
"And again!"
All he has to do is let go.
"A faint response!"
To stop fighting and allow himself to be swept away.
"Full power this time!"
Just like this...
The link-up disconnects, and he feels one last extremely painful surge of electrical energy course throughout his frame and spark before the darkness claims him entirely, and he knows no more.
Prowl inhales deeply, desperately drawing in air, feeling as if waking up from somewhere deep, and onlines his optics to a white hospital ceiling. He looks frantically around, feeling down his frame as he tries to make sense of everything.
He had been so certain he was going to die that waking up alive is incomprehensible to him.
Hands grab his hands, holding them still, and he sees Aurora sitting by his side.
"You are awake."
Tears fill Aurora's optics.
"They didn't know if the damage your processor sustained would heal completely or leave you in a coma."
Countless thoughts fill Prowl's processor at that moment as everything comes back to him.
"Torrent is-..."
"I know." Aurora nods, voice gentle and reassuring. "There was nothing you could do."
"Nacelle...?" He asks, pain in his voice, fear in his spark.
"Still with them," Aurora says, unconcerned. "He is still there of his own volition. Topkick has been in frequent contact with him. He is still safe and unharmed."
Relief floods Prowl, and he nods absentmindedly.
"How long have I been gone?"
Aurora smiles, a few tears still running down his cheeks.
"Almost three weeks." He answers, feeling better now that Prowl still seems to be Prowl. It is reassuring seeing his superior take in the information and ask questions. "Your processor took a serious beating, causing a cascading failure before it shut down, and the first week it was uncertain if it would kill you or you would pull through it. But you stabilized slowly and we have been waiting to see if you woke up and was you when you finally did."
"How did I get here? The last thing I remember is Talon looming over me, speaking to me, but I could not hear or understand anything he said."
"Because your processor suffered a cascading failure due to the trauma, it most likely made your audials glitch out. You should have seen it when they arrived with you. We had been notified beforehand and I was here waiting for you to make decisions on your behalf should it be needed since Nacelle, as you know, couldn't. I have never seen anything like it. Flux, I think was his name, was livid as he delivered you into the hospital's care, cursing out Talon directly to his face. Like, who in the pit curses out the unmaker himself like that without fearing for his life!"
Prowl could have told Aurora a lot about the intricacies he has learned while dealing with the leading members of the Polyhexian Cartel, but it would be too taxing on his energy.
Nothing is always as it seems.
You have to look between the lines to understand the whole picture.
And what he gathers from Aurora's retelling is that Talon had had no actual intention to kill him but had made a near-fatal miscalculation on how sturdy his frame is compared to the heavily armored criminals'.
He would have died but didn't because Talon chose to save him after his blunder. It would have been easy for the Polyhexian leader to leave him behind to die, but he didn't, which speaks of honor. A trait he never expected to associate with Talon but is living proof of.
"Someone the unmaker highly respects or fears." He answers, a smile in his voice. "Being Talon's chief physician gives Flux some leeway in ordering him around, I assume. And while he seems easy-going and calm, you don't get to his position without being able to intimidate your patients into obedience. I'm sure there is a side to him we don't know and don't want to see. But he seems to have the wellbeing of his patients as his main priority like any other medical professional."
Aurora smiles widely, his optics gleaming with joy.
"He does indeed. In the end, it all went mostly as planned, and now that you are back, I can finally brief you on our successes and failures." As Prowl leans back and offlines his optics to relax and listen attentively, Aurora begins to meticulously list the events that had happened while Prowl had been in a coma. "Highline has officially been arrested and is facing trial after the Senate removed his immunity. Torrent is gone, not as we wanted it, but alas. The Organization is no more. Talon burned down their base. Shift managed to take down Torrent's hacker group and secured the evidence against them before it could get destroyed. Ember and his lot are currently facing their own trial for the multitude of criminal offenses they have committed over the years. Unfortunately, Shift managed to disappear and evade arrest when they arrived in Iacon. She will be even harder to track down and arrest now. Hailstorm assisted Topkick flawlessly at the Senate. There were no casualties, but many got wounded when he and his team shot down several enforcers guarding their aircraft and fled the scene. Surprisingly, he gave Topkick his personal communication ID, and we have been using it to communicate with the cartel. Athena survived but is, as far as I know, still in a coma. We have heard nothing from Torment. He has been completely silent. Talon has also kept a low profile after he allowed some media exposure and basked in their victory. Our own situation is still unresolved. The alliance with the Polyhexian Cartel is officially over, and we have left the temporary base and returned to Praxus, but our legal status is still in the air. Last I heard, the Senate is debating some changes, but it is still vague. However, I think this crisis has been an optic opener for many senators, so we will have to see what happens-"
Aurora continues the briefing, bringing up all their casualties during their fights against the Syndicate and the Organization. And while he listens, Prowl realizes that the Joint Investigation Unit finally has accomplished what it had been put in the world to do.
Stop Torrent and Highline.
There is no longer any need for them to exist as an organization, and now it is time for them to return to their respective city-states.
He has been the director of their organization for so long that it will feel strange to return to his old position in Praxus. To say goodbye to the people he has come to care for and enjoy leading.
But it all is, as Aurora said, still in the air, and he hopes the Senate finds a new purpose for the Joint Investigation Unit because the firepower is needed to combat the likes of Talon and the rest of the criminal underworld. Especially since the criminal organizations during the Joint Investigation Unit's prolonged fight against the Syndicate have been allowed to grow unchecked to a size and strength where they now threaten their society.
It has, in fact, come to a point where the underworld, on all parameters, is far stronger than those put in the world to stop it. And it furthermore necessitates the presence of a counterbalance to enable them to effectively combat and, in the end, destroy the criminal organizations.
A counterbalance he knows the Joint Investigation Unit can be if only it gets the chance.