Part Two
Half-closed eyes swirled with muted colors.
"Bob?" Overdose whispered. She dragged the gray rectangle out of her sub-space compartment. "Bob?"
"Dudette?"
"I need--huh? When did you start calling me dudette?" She gave the computer a puzzled glare, her eyes flaring for a moment with jewel tones.
"Like, the Maximal dudes, like, pointed out that you aren't, like, a dude."
"Um, right." She shook her head. "Nevermind. Can you tap into the Maximal and Predacons computers through their radios?" She shifted slightly in her seat, still curled up around the clawed necklace.
"Like, yeah. It'll take, like, some time, though."
"Time..." Overdose laughed bitterly. "We all need some time, I think."
"Dudette?"
She blinked and sighed. "Take as much time as you need, Bob. Run the standard searches, and everything, and tell me if you find anything."
"Like, okay."
Overdose turned her head away from where the computer sat and stared at the upholstery on the chair. Time. Yes, she had plenty of that. She had LIVED plenty of that. Her memory may not have been that great, but she remembered flashes of her life.
Sometimes...sometimes she almost remembered who she had been...
Shuddering, Overdose deliberately turned her thoughts from her past. Unfortunately for her, IT didn't seem to want to leave HER alone. The upholstery on the chair reminded her of something, and the memory made the present disappear...
* * * * *
She stared at the seat she was sitting on, carefully not looking across the aisle at the 'bot sitting there. With her armor carefully arranged into a completely bland and NORMAL pattern, he didn't notice her. He took the public transportation every night, to and from his workplace. She had been watching, so she knew.
Overdose also knew where this particular 'bot worked.
When the last of the transformers boarding on this particular automated vehicle got on, it lurched into motion, a pre-programmed route in its computer telling it where to got to get to the next stop. Overdose noticed an elderly 'bot with rust forming at his joints looking for an empty seat without success. She got up.
"You can sit here, sir," she said in a soft voice. The transformer gratefully smiled and sat down, and she moved across the aisle to where HE was sitting. She grabbed the bar along the ceiling made for those who stood up on the vehicle, and didn't even looked at him.
But she didn't need to. She had been studying the compact, brown-and-green-colored Stopgate for long enough that she didn't NEED to look at him anymore. Stopgate, the middle-management bureaucrat who lived in an apartment complex at the edges of the city. His neighbors liked him, although they thought he was a little boring, and thought he worked at some big company doing payroll. They were almost right.
Stopgate DID work for a big company, and he DID do payroll. He really wasn't that boring, though. The people who worked for the Predacon Secret Police usually weren't.
He started as something pricked his side as Overdose shifted. He started to move away from the discomfort, but her hand on his shoulder stopped him. The other passengers probably saw the move merely as a friend greeting a friend, but that hand held him to his seat in a grip of steel.
"Don't move, or you'll have a syringe full of mercury running around in your body," Overdose muttered to him, all the while smiling like she had just met an old friend.
Stopgate froze at the mention of the deadly poison. It took more of the metal to kill a transformer, but the result was ultimately the same as if a human had been injected with it: death. At the very least, mercury would make his systems go crazy. Either way, he wanted to avoid getting injected.
"I need some information," she said quietly, "and you're going to give it to me."
"Not a chance in the Inferno," he hissed back, and then gasped slightly as the pinprick turned into a sting. "Alright!" he yelped, muffling it at the last minute.
"Good." Overdose nodded pleasantly. No one in the public transportation vehicle noticed anything wrong. "Where is Eightline?"
"I don't kn--" Stopgate gasped as he felt something go into him from the sting that marked where the syringe was.
"That's a warning," Overdose said mildly. "I never give more than one."
He shivered. "I really don't know," he said quickly. "Wait! Let me explain!" He tensely waited for more of the mercury to enter into him, but went on when nothing happened. "The Council pulled him out of the ranks for something special. I don't know where he is because I don't finance him anymore. If you come back later, I might know..." He hopefully waited to see if this femme would take the bait. If she came back later, the PSP would have a trap waiting, and he might be able to save his job...and life. Giving away PSP secrets was worth his life if anyone found out.
Overdose considered, but only withdrew the syringe. "Thank you for your cooperation." The vehicle slid to a stop at its next stop, an isolated area. Overdose was the only one getting off. She gave one last smile to Stopgate and headed for the exit.
Once there, she turned and looked back, letting her armor go into a full explosion of color. Everyone on board immediately snapped their attention to her, and Stopgate's jaw sagged as he realized who she was and why she had wanted to know where one Lieutenant Eightline was located. She laughed and pointed to him, the passengers automatically following her lead in looking straight at him.
"He works for the Predacon Secret Police," she said calmly, and because she sounded so sure of herself, the passengers believed her. The PSP was not a popular organization. A lot of people in the slums of cities like this one had lost friends to it. As Overdose stepped off the bus, she saw the old 'bot she had given her seat to lunging across the aisle at Stopgate. He was the first of a wave of enraged transformers.
* * * * *
Overdose angrily shook the memory off. She never HAD found Eightline. "Bob, knock me out."
"Dudette?"
"I said, knock me out. Offline," she clarified. She placed her hand on him. "Now, Bob." There was a hesitant pause, and then an energy surge covered her, shocking her offline.
"Dudette?" No response came, and Bob went back to hacking into the Predacon and Maximal files. And one other set of files, that was separate from the rest, but tied into the communication radios of the Predacons. The files were located far away from either Maximal or Predacon bases, so Bob decided to open them last.
Beside him, slumped over in her chair, Overdose hadn't found release from her memories offline. Instead, they had merely been reduced to strange flashes. Different times, different people, different places...and mixed throughout the memories, forgotten flashes from a different life.
* * * * *
She knocked his hand away from their fellow prisoner's spark. "No, no, no," she chided him. "We can still have more fun." She pointed at the prisoner's legs, which she had been working on. The exposed ends of his nerve wiring poked up into the air.
X laughed. "You ARE good at this," he said admiringly.
* * * * *
A slim stiletto, so small and needle-like. Overdose contemplated it as she waited above the bedroom doorway. When it opened, she immediately drove the fragile-seeming weapon down without hesitation, killing the human organic, someone called the 'World Leader', instantly.
She flipped off the door mantle and vanished down the newly-opened door in the wall. She had been paid well for this night's work. What did she care that she left chaos in her wake?
* * * * *
She dipped and whirled, dancing freely. Every eye in the room was locked on her as she spun and leaped, and she almost laughed out loud. Humans. Only they would pay to see Cybertronians dance and wait tables, and pay well.
An exotic dance bar, is what they called places like this, she mused. Certainly exotic. The owners of the place hired beings from all around the known galaxy, including her. She didn't mind. She liked dancing, and if males, even human males, wanted to stare at her body while she did, she didn't care. It wasn't like she had clothes to take off, and the wages were great.
And the tips! She ended her dance looking slightly over her shoulder at the audience, and they broke into enthusiastic applause, showering the stage with money. Among them she knew there were notes asking for private sessions with her later, but she wouldn't accept. She wasn't into bi-racial.
* * * * *
"We know who you are," one of the three transformers said, his red armor blending with the other two's until she could barely tell them apart from where she stood in the shadows. "More importantly, we know WHAT you are."
"Prove it," she breathed. The three turned, seeking the direction from which her voice came, but she had chosen the meeting place well. The buildings bounced her voice around.
"How?" one of them asked.
She closed her eyes briefly. "Tell me my name." Because she didn't know...
* * * * *
"And what exactly do you mean by that?" she demanded to know.
Blacklight smiled down at her, his handsome features a little smug. "I mean, you're not the only one who spent a lot of time on Earth." With that, he lowered his mouth to hers in a tender, human kiss. She let him.
* * * * *
With no choice left, she dove into the shadows behind a heap of scrap metal. She was as obvious as could be, she thought resignedly, looking down at the deep blue of her arms. But they had changed. She couldn't see them...
She froze as her pursuers glanced down the alley, convinced that they were about to come in after her. But their eyes passed over her, and they went on.
She looked down at where her arms should have been, and flexed her hands. She barely saw them before the colors and patterns rearranged, blending into her surroundings. When had she gotten THIS ability?!
* * * * *
Overdose stepped over the dead guards and looked around. The place was in shambles, but the guards had done their job. The Tripedicus Council had gotten away.
She heard the whine of laser weapons powering up, and she turned around quickly. Another couple squads of guards stood there, weapons trained on her.
"Give up, Overdose! Surrender!"
She didn't have a chance. Overdose grinned. Her favorite odds!
* * * * *
But the words on the screen told her those answers, and then went beyond that into the realm of things she didn't want to know. They gave her information, plain and simple. Her eyes stared in horror, and then drifted to the top of the screen, where the document name was. She recognized it for what it was: her diary.
* * * * *
"You didn't have to hit it," Overdose grumbled, cuddling Hike closer. Hike, one of the techno-vermin that infested the prison, bared its foot-long teeth at the other inhabitant of the cell, who was examining the slashes on his arm.
"Yes, I did," X said, just as grouchily as her. He waved his arm at her. "Look what that...that THING did!" She stuck her tongue out at him, and he sighed in defeat. "I'll never understand why you keep adopting those things..."
* * * * *
She couldn't take it. She had done too much, and there was no one left to make amends to. But she could never make amends for what she had done. The street shifted, her perspective turned, and she let everything go.
She took a step forward, falling into the depths of insanity.
* * * * *
Depth Charge steeled his resolve and swam around the rock. There, up ahead, was Rampage, walking along the ocean floor in his crab mode.
"Rampage!" the ray shouted.
The crab jumped in surprise and transformed in the same move, landing on his feet facing Depth Charge. He immediately braced for combat, looking more irritated than happy at the thought of a fight. "I'm a bit busy, Fish Face," Rampage grumbled. He seemed slightly confused when Depth Charge stayed in his beast mode instead of attacking him. "Well?" he said impatiently, drawing his missile launcher.
"I...need to talk to you," the ray said slowly, watching the weapon warily.
"Talk to me?!" Rampage stared at him in shock. "You?!"
Well, THIS was an uncomfortable situation... "Yeah."
"About what?" the Predacon asked suspiciously.
"Overdose. I want to," he lowered his voice to a barely audible mumble, "to apologize to her."
Sound carried well underwater. Rampage heard him. "You're not going NEAR her again," the crab snarled. "I don't care if you want to kiss her fe--" A scream cut him off.
* * * * *
Overdose tumbled into the water still screaming, the pain and fear of the old memories stabbing into her. She transformed, her fins waving wildly as color washed through them frantically. Her shrieks rippled through the water, carrying beyond the cave complex, but she didn't care.
She swam in circles, hoping that the physical exertion would dull the pain. It didn't work. In fact, it got worse.
* * * * *
Rampage whipped around, recognizing the voice and the pain/fear behind it. He tried to pinpoint the direction it was coming from, but the scream ended before he could. He cursed, and then realized who was behind him and cursed some more. When he turned around, however, Depth Charge was looking off to the side.
"That way," the ray said quietly.
Rampage stared at him. Did he trust his worst enemy (after pickles, that is), or did he fire on him? The Maximal was still in his beast mode, and Rampage still had his missile launcher out. The crab was torn. Depth Charge had injured Overdose before, but he had been trying to hit Rampage. Would the Maximal injure her in the crossfire again?
Transmutate's death had been like that. But if they didn't start fighting, there wouldn't be the risk of Overdose being hurt. And if they fought, Overdose WOULD get hurt. She was hurting right now, if her scream had been any indication. Her pain might get worse if Rampage didn't act now to find her.
He nodded fractionally and transformed to his beast mode. "Let's go."
* * * * *
Overdose hauled herself back up into the caves, still shrieking as the pain from her mental wounds cut into her. She stumbled forward, clutching her head. Sanity was fighting to return, trying to make her sort out the mess of her mind and memories. It was gradually working, forcing her to remember.
Each revealed memory was a slash through her fragile shell of craziness, the dark side of her fighting to get out, to kill, to destroy. Three lives: one a dark destroyer, one created out of amnesia and experiments, the current one saving those around her through her insanity. The irony was that the last one was the ONLY one that was insane. Cold logic ruled the first, the second might have become someone normal if left to herself.
She had left those lives behind! She wasn't them anymore! She was Overdose! She had friends...didn't she?
The dark side fought nastily, snatching away memories that might have comforted her and presenting other ones: Shadowcall, her body in the morgue, on her way to the recycling plant after the transformer known as Protoform X had gone on a rampage; Goomba's skeleton lying on the floor in front of her; Blacklight's lifeless form after one of the those blank periods she could never remember but the dark side of her DID; Streetshine killed by her own hand...
Dozens, even hundreds of people, organic, robotic, even a couple psychics, all dead. Memories poured through her mangled mind: friends dying at her feet; pictures of their dead bodies sent to her by someone who knew that she had been friends with them; some killed by the government in search for her, some killed by her own hand; countless others dead in far away places, unknown by her until she tried to contact them.
All your fault.
"NO!" Not everyone was dead. X...Rampage was alive! He was here, on this planet! The widow, Blackarachnia, had been friendly! She wasn't dead!
Not yet. But they'll die.
"No!" The Predacons didn't like her because of what she had done to Dinobot, she had read that on Megatron's face. The Maximals wouldn't like her because she liked to torture people and she was Rampage's friend. Blackarachnia...she had just been making sure Overdose didn't join the Predacons. Rampage just liked her because she could outfight him. If she faltered, he'd kill her.
Some friends.
"No..." Her denial was a faint whisper now. Memories and thoughts filled her head. Darkness was claiming her, sanity returning. Her friends would die...because she would kill them.
Who needs friends? They only weaken us.
"...no..." She collapsed to her knees, and then to her side, curling up as she fought an inner war against herself.
* * * * *
Half-closed eyes swirled with muted colors.
"Bob?" Overdose whispered. She dragged the gray rectangle out of her sub-space compartment. "Bob?"
"Dudette?"
"I need--huh? When did you start calling me dudette?" She gave the computer a puzzled glare, her eyes flaring for a moment with jewel tones.
"Like, the Maximal dudes, like, pointed out that you aren't, like, a dude."
"Um, right." She shook her head. "Nevermind. Can you tap into the Maximal and Predacons computers through their radios?" She shifted slightly in her seat, still curled up around the clawed necklace.
"Like, yeah. It'll take, like, some time, though."
"Time..." Overdose laughed bitterly. "We all need some time, I think."
"Dudette?"
She blinked and sighed. "Take as much time as you need, Bob. Run the standard searches, and everything, and tell me if you find anything."
"Like, okay."
Overdose turned her head away from where the computer sat and stared at the upholstery on the chair. Time. Yes, she had plenty of that. She had LIVED plenty of that. Her memory may not have been that great, but she remembered flashes of her life.
Sometimes...sometimes she almost remembered who she had been...
Shuddering, Overdose deliberately turned her thoughts from her past. Unfortunately for her, IT didn't seem to want to leave HER alone. The upholstery on the chair reminded her of something, and the memory made the present disappear...
* * * * *
She stared at the seat she was sitting on, carefully not looking across the aisle at the 'bot sitting there. With her armor carefully arranged into a completely bland and NORMAL pattern, he didn't notice her. He took the public transportation every night, to and from his workplace. She had been watching, so she knew.
Overdose also knew where this particular 'bot worked.
When the last of the transformers boarding on this particular automated vehicle got on, it lurched into motion, a pre-programmed route in its computer telling it where to got to get to the next stop. Overdose noticed an elderly 'bot with rust forming at his joints looking for an empty seat without success. She got up.
"You can sit here, sir," she said in a soft voice. The transformer gratefully smiled and sat down, and she moved across the aisle to where HE was sitting. She grabbed the bar along the ceiling made for those who stood up on the vehicle, and didn't even looked at him.
But she didn't need to. She had been studying the compact, brown-and-green-colored Stopgate for long enough that she didn't NEED to look at him anymore. Stopgate, the middle-management bureaucrat who lived in an apartment complex at the edges of the city. His neighbors liked him, although they thought he was a little boring, and thought he worked at some big company doing payroll. They were almost right.
Stopgate DID work for a big company, and he DID do payroll. He really wasn't that boring, though. The people who worked for the Predacon Secret Police usually weren't.
He started as something pricked his side as Overdose shifted. He started to move away from the discomfort, but her hand on his shoulder stopped him. The other passengers probably saw the move merely as a friend greeting a friend, but that hand held him to his seat in a grip of steel.
"Don't move, or you'll have a syringe full of mercury running around in your body," Overdose muttered to him, all the while smiling like she had just met an old friend.
Stopgate froze at the mention of the deadly poison. It took more of the metal to kill a transformer, but the result was ultimately the same as if a human had been injected with it: death. At the very least, mercury would make his systems go crazy. Either way, he wanted to avoid getting injected.
"I need some information," she said quietly, "and you're going to give it to me."
"Not a chance in the Inferno," he hissed back, and then gasped slightly as the pinprick turned into a sting. "Alright!" he yelped, muffling it at the last minute.
"Good." Overdose nodded pleasantly. No one in the public transportation vehicle noticed anything wrong. "Where is Eightline?"
"I don't kn--" Stopgate gasped as he felt something go into him from the sting that marked where the syringe was.
"That's a warning," Overdose said mildly. "I never give more than one."
He shivered. "I really don't know," he said quickly. "Wait! Let me explain!" He tensely waited for more of the mercury to enter into him, but went on when nothing happened. "The Council pulled him out of the ranks for something special. I don't know where he is because I don't finance him anymore. If you come back later, I might know..." He hopefully waited to see if this femme would take the bait. If she came back later, the PSP would have a trap waiting, and he might be able to save his job...and life. Giving away PSP secrets was worth his life if anyone found out.
Overdose considered, but only withdrew the syringe. "Thank you for your cooperation." The vehicle slid to a stop at its next stop, an isolated area. Overdose was the only one getting off. She gave one last smile to Stopgate and headed for the exit.
Once there, she turned and looked back, letting her armor go into a full explosion of color. Everyone on board immediately snapped their attention to her, and Stopgate's jaw sagged as he realized who she was and why she had wanted to know where one Lieutenant Eightline was located. She laughed and pointed to him, the passengers automatically following her lead in looking straight at him.
"He works for the Predacon Secret Police," she said calmly, and because she sounded so sure of herself, the passengers believed her. The PSP was not a popular organization. A lot of people in the slums of cities like this one had lost friends to it. As Overdose stepped off the bus, she saw the old 'bot she had given her seat to lunging across the aisle at Stopgate. He was the first of a wave of enraged transformers.
* * * * *
Overdose angrily shook the memory off. She never HAD found Eightline. "Bob, knock me out."
"Dudette?"
"I said, knock me out. Offline," she clarified. She placed her hand on him. "Now, Bob." There was a hesitant pause, and then an energy surge covered her, shocking her offline.
"Dudette?" No response came, and Bob went back to hacking into the Predacon and Maximal files. And one other set of files, that was separate from the rest, but tied into the communication radios of the Predacons. The files were located far away from either Maximal or Predacon bases, so Bob decided to open them last.
Beside him, slumped over in her chair, Overdose hadn't found release from her memories offline. Instead, they had merely been reduced to strange flashes. Different times, different people, different places...and mixed throughout the memories, forgotten flashes from a different life.
* * * * *
She knocked his hand away from their fellow prisoner's spark. "No, no, no," she chided him. "We can still have more fun." She pointed at the prisoner's legs, which she had been working on. The exposed ends of his nerve wiring poked up into the air.
X laughed. "You ARE good at this," he said admiringly.
* * * * *
A slim stiletto, so small and needle-like. Overdose contemplated it as she waited above the bedroom doorway. When it opened, she immediately drove the fragile-seeming weapon down without hesitation, killing the human organic, someone called the 'World Leader', instantly.
She flipped off the door mantle and vanished down the newly-opened door in the wall. She had been paid well for this night's work. What did she care that she left chaos in her wake?
* * * * *
She dipped and whirled, dancing freely. Every eye in the room was locked on her as she spun and leaped, and she almost laughed out loud. Humans. Only they would pay to see Cybertronians dance and wait tables, and pay well.
An exotic dance bar, is what they called places like this, she mused. Certainly exotic. The owners of the place hired beings from all around the known galaxy, including her. She didn't mind. She liked dancing, and if males, even human males, wanted to stare at her body while she did, she didn't care. It wasn't like she had clothes to take off, and the wages were great.
And the tips! She ended her dance looking slightly over her shoulder at the audience, and they broke into enthusiastic applause, showering the stage with money. Among them she knew there were notes asking for private sessions with her later, but she wouldn't accept. She wasn't into bi-racial.
* * * * *
"We know who you are," one of the three transformers said, his red armor blending with the other two's until she could barely tell them apart from where she stood in the shadows. "More importantly, we know WHAT you are."
"Prove it," she breathed. The three turned, seeking the direction from which her voice came, but she had chosen the meeting place well. The buildings bounced her voice around.
"How?" one of them asked.
She closed her eyes briefly. "Tell me my name." Because she didn't know...
* * * * *
"And what exactly do you mean by that?" she demanded to know.
Blacklight smiled down at her, his handsome features a little smug. "I mean, you're not the only one who spent a lot of time on Earth." With that, he lowered his mouth to hers in a tender, human kiss. She let him.
* * * * *
With no choice left, she dove into the shadows behind a heap of scrap metal. She was as obvious as could be, she thought resignedly, looking down at the deep blue of her arms. But they had changed. She couldn't see them...
She froze as her pursuers glanced down the alley, convinced that they were about to come in after her. But their eyes passed over her, and they went on.
She looked down at where her arms should have been, and flexed her hands. She barely saw them before the colors and patterns rearranged, blending into her surroundings. When had she gotten THIS ability?!
* * * * *
Overdose stepped over the dead guards and looked around. The place was in shambles, but the guards had done their job. The Tripedicus Council had gotten away.
She heard the whine of laser weapons powering up, and she turned around quickly. Another couple squads of guards stood there, weapons trained on her.
"Give up, Overdose! Surrender!"
She didn't have a chance. Overdose grinned. Her favorite odds!
* * * * *
But the words on the screen told her those answers, and then went beyond that into the realm of things she didn't want to know. They gave her information, plain and simple. Her eyes stared in horror, and then drifted to the top of the screen, where the document name was. She recognized it for what it was: her diary.
* * * * *
"You didn't have to hit it," Overdose grumbled, cuddling Hike closer. Hike, one of the techno-vermin that infested the prison, bared its foot-long teeth at the other inhabitant of the cell, who was examining the slashes on his arm.
"Yes, I did," X said, just as grouchily as her. He waved his arm at her. "Look what that...that THING did!" She stuck her tongue out at him, and he sighed in defeat. "I'll never understand why you keep adopting those things..."
* * * * *
She couldn't take it. She had done too much, and there was no one left to make amends to. But she could never make amends for what she had done. The street shifted, her perspective turned, and she let everything go.
She took a step forward, falling into the depths of insanity.
* * * * *
Depth Charge steeled his resolve and swam around the rock. There, up ahead, was Rampage, walking along the ocean floor in his crab mode.
"Rampage!" the ray shouted.
The crab jumped in surprise and transformed in the same move, landing on his feet facing Depth Charge. He immediately braced for combat, looking more irritated than happy at the thought of a fight. "I'm a bit busy, Fish Face," Rampage grumbled. He seemed slightly confused when Depth Charge stayed in his beast mode instead of attacking him. "Well?" he said impatiently, drawing his missile launcher.
"I...need to talk to you," the ray said slowly, watching the weapon warily.
"Talk to me?!" Rampage stared at him in shock. "You?!"
Well, THIS was an uncomfortable situation... "Yeah."
"About what?" the Predacon asked suspiciously.
"Overdose. I want to," he lowered his voice to a barely audible mumble, "to apologize to her."
Sound carried well underwater. Rampage heard him. "You're not going NEAR her again," the crab snarled. "I don't care if you want to kiss her fe--" A scream cut him off.
* * * * *
Overdose tumbled into the water still screaming, the pain and fear of the old memories stabbing into her. She transformed, her fins waving wildly as color washed through them frantically. Her shrieks rippled through the water, carrying beyond the cave complex, but she didn't care.
She swam in circles, hoping that the physical exertion would dull the pain. It didn't work. In fact, it got worse.
* * * * *
Rampage whipped around, recognizing the voice and the pain/fear behind it. He tried to pinpoint the direction it was coming from, but the scream ended before he could. He cursed, and then realized who was behind him and cursed some more. When he turned around, however, Depth Charge was looking off to the side.
"That way," the ray said quietly.
Rampage stared at him. Did he trust his worst enemy (after pickles, that is), or did he fire on him? The Maximal was still in his beast mode, and Rampage still had his missile launcher out. The crab was torn. Depth Charge had injured Overdose before, but he had been trying to hit Rampage. Would the Maximal injure her in the crossfire again?
Transmutate's death had been like that. But if they didn't start fighting, there wouldn't be the risk of Overdose being hurt. And if they fought, Overdose WOULD get hurt. She was hurting right now, if her scream had been any indication. Her pain might get worse if Rampage didn't act now to find her.
He nodded fractionally and transformed to his beast mode. "Let's go."
* * * * *
Overdose hauled herself back up into the caves, still shrieking as the pain from her mental wounds cut into her. She stumbled forward, clutching her head. Sanity was fighting to return, trying to make her sort out the mess of her mind and memories. It was gradually working, forcing her to remember.
Each revealed memory was a slash through her fragile shell of craziness, the dark side of her fighting to get out, to kill, to destroy. Three lives: one a dark destroyer, one created out of amnesia and experiments, the current one saving those around her through her insanity. The irony was that the last one was the ONLY one that was insane. Cold logic ruled the first, the second might have become someone normal if left to herself.
She had left those lives behind! She wasn't them anymore! She was Overdose! She had friends...didn't she?
The dark side fought nastily, snatching away memories that might have comforted her and presenting other ones: Shadowcall, her body in the morgue, on her way to the recycling plant after the transformer known as Protoform X had gone on a rampage; Goomba's skeleton lying on the floor in front of her; Blacklight's lifeless form after one of the those blank periods she could never remember but the dark side of her DID; Streetshine killed by her own hand...
Dozens, even hundreds of people, organic, robotic, even a couple psychics, all dead. Memories poured through her mangled mind: friends dying at her feet; pictures of their dead bodies sent to her by someone who knew that she had been friends with them; some killed by the government in search for her, some killed by her own hand; countless others dead in far away places, unknown by her until she tried to contact them.
All your fault.
"NO!" Not everyone was dead. X...Rampage was alive! He was here, on this planet! The widow, Blackarachnia, had been friendly! She wasn't dead!
Not yet. But they'll die.
"No!" The Predacons didn't like her because of what she had done to Dinobot, she had read that on Megatron's face. The Maximals wouldn't like her because she liked to torture people and she was Rampage's friend. Blackarachnia...she had just been making sure Overdose didn't join the Predacons. Rampage just liked her because she could outfight him. If she faltered, he'd kill her.
Some friends.
"No..." Her denial was a faint whisper now. Memories and thoughts filled her head. Darkness was claiming her, sanity returning. Her friends would die...because she would kill them.
Who needs friends? They only weaken us.
"...no..." She collapsed to her knees, and then to her side, curling up as she fought an inner war against herself.
* * * * *