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A loud crash awoke Axel from the involuntary recharge he had slipped into sometime during the night. He jerked his head up from where it had fallen against his chest, his optics lighting up a pale blue that shone through the dark prison cell.

Like a brass band playing way out of tune, a jarring discord of noise arose again from somewhere near him, the sound easily passing through the walls like they were made of paper. Axel rose to his feet, focusing his sensors on the sound. It couldn't be.

It was.

Laser fire sputtered around him somewhere, screams and grunts of pain puncturing its ceaseless wail when the molten blasts of light struck their target with the force of a small bomb. A fight- mammoth in proportions by the sound of it- had erupted sometime while he slept. But as long as the battle didn't enter his prison, he wouldn't have to get involved. The last thing Axel wanted was to have to fight someone. It was... to painful.

Then, like a sharp thrust in his CPU, the little minicon remembered Neera. His partner might be in danger from the collateral damage.

His sensors suddenly buzzing on full alert, Axel gingerly reached out to Neera, and found that the iron clad wall which had untouchably separated them before had corroded. In his mind's eye, the spikes were rusted and breaking off, small holes appearing in the wall, the wonderful, soft white light of her soul shining through the cracks. Axel allowed himself a short sigh of relief. At least she was still alive.

Cautiously, he pressed against the cracks in the barrier, feeling them buckle under his force. He pressed harder, forcing his presence through the holes, expanding them, sending a spider-web of cracks crawling up the wall. Slowly, ever so slowly, it began to crumble.

But the force he was using to break down the wall kept on going. It hit Neera's mind directly, and he felt her soft mental scream before the dark shadow of unconsciousness fell over him. But not his unconsciousness; Neera's

Axel panicked.

What had he done?

He had hurt her by accident with barely enough force to even affect a Transformer partner. But her fragile mind couldn't hold up against it.

No... He moaned in fear and anger at himself. He had hurt her.

But I only wanted to help her...

You hurt someone, again.

No... I only wanted to find her- to save her...

And suddenly, a sight through eyes that were not his own swept through his mind. He was high up, much more so than he should have been, on a cold steel table. Equipment he could not identify surrounded him. He shivered with a cold he shouldn't have felt. There were goosebumps on his skin.

Skin? What skin?

Axel inhaled sharply, his energon pump seizing. Neera. He was looking through her eyes.

Then, he saw something terrible. A human- an awfully mutilated human- stood in front of him/ Neera, a pleading, sorrowfully, pained look marring his features, or what was left of them. A name came to him.

Jonas.

Oh, Primus! They had finally found Jonas!

Jonas slowly approached him/ Neera, his lips parting to speak, but before he could hear anything, Neera fell forward into the darkness that he had caused.

No, he wasn't looking through her eyes, he was only seeing what she remembered. But the vision did accomplish one thing.

Axel knew where Neera was.

A blind passion over came him, and he felt himself pull his ion cannon from sub-space before he knew what he was doing. Swinging the blaster around, he trained its sights on the steel wall and fired. The wall never stood a chance.

The blast kept going and impacted the hallway across from him, a white hot fireball rising up from where it struck.

Before he had worried about discretion, keeping him from breaking out. Now, he couldn't care less.

Axel shot out into the hall, his body twisting and shifting with the momentum into an entirely different shape. His legs rotated and contracted around behind him, his arms flipping over his head even as his torso rotated and chinked into a different place. Hitting the ground on his back tire, Axel reeved his engine and shot off down the hall in a shower of sparks, his motorcycle form no more visible than a silver blur.

Left. Right. Left. Axel skidded around the corners, headless of who he passed. All around him robots of mammoth proportions compared to his small size were locked in heated combat, clashing and flying apart in a frenzy of laser fire and sword slashing. Battle cries and grunts of pain, the sound of ripping metal like fingernails on a chalkboard, the short but deadly screeches of laser blasts, the pounding, groaning, crashing symphony from Hell roared like a wild fire between the combatants. Animosity and hate saturated the air like poison gas, the two factions indistinguishable from one another.

Axel roared around Autobot and Decepticon alike, speeding between their legs and under their feet, ignoring the triumphant cries behind him when they spotted the small minicon. Fear unbridled arose in Axel, remembering the days of his enslavement... and his enslavement of others.

Just keep going...Just keep going...Just keep going...

He chanted to the rhythm of his engine.

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I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it.

Jonas was alive, but... not alive at the same time.

"Jonas!" I cried, my voice cracking pitifully. Tears ran unchecked down my face, my heart grinding to a painfully stop. He was alive, but somehow I knew, not for long.

It felt like someone was prying my chest open with a crowbar when he tried so hard to smile.

"You're ok..." He whispered. I sobbed, my face screwing up in pain.

"Yeah, I-I'm ok..." I tired to respond, but the words wouldn't come out properly.

Suddenly, I felt something probing my mind, softly at first, than harder and harder until I gave a weak cry and fell over, feeling as though I had been impaled through the skull. Darkness wrapped about me, no matter how much I tried to push it away.

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Something called to me, prodded me, and then I was staring up at a familiar metal being hovering over me, worry creasing his face, noise erupting in the background.

"Axel!" I whispered as forcefully as I could. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, then his strong arms came around me, cuddling me carefully to him as he lifted me from the steel slab. I was too weak to do much more than lie there limply, my mind going sluggishly slow. My vision shimmered as he somehow got down from that great height, walking towards the door. Then suddenly, something happened to Axel and I felt his body shift beneath me, his arms no longer holding me, then just as suddenly I found myself slumped forwards against the handlebars of a large European style motorcycle, my breathing labored. Straps came out and wrapped snugly around me legs, keeping me from falling off as I surely would have other wise.

Axel reeved his engine, then sped out into the hallway. The noise increased tenfold, and I tried weakly to shift my head and see what was going on, but something hindered the motion. I lifted my hand to touch my face, and found that it touched a motor-cross style helmet instead. I had no idea where that had come from, but my mind resisted thinking too hard on it.

Images shimmered before me, indistinct shapes embroiled in furious motions all about me. I flinched instinctually as something screamed by over head in an angry streak of light, and I hugged my body as close to Axel's reassuring bulk as I could, screwing my eyes shut against the noise assailing my ears, pain stabbing through my head with every vibration.

-Hold on just a little bit longer. I'll get us out of here...-

Came Axel's wonderful, soft timbre, only this time, it resonated inside the helmet rather than from his 'mouth'. I wondered why he didn't speak mentally instead...

My stomach lurched up into my throat as something lifted Axel off the floor with me still attached. I wanted to cry out, but no sound would come.

"Optimus, Sir! I've got them!" I heard our captor cry out.

"Good work, Hound! Autobots, return to base!" Another voice answered.

Then the same, sickening sensation of breaking apart washed over me, my body stretching between here and there, and BEING here and there. I felt as though I was being pulled inside out, and my body slumped completely limp against Axel even as he too was breaking apart.

The last thing I remembered thinking was; This is getting kind of old...

Then unconsciousness claimed me once more.

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Ta-da! I'm back!

More soon to come!