Nature of the Beast

One-Shot Series: Tcsovan Niv A'anoth

Chapter 3: A Logistical Nightmare

*And here we go back to the overarching plot. ;)

*Kahar (pronounced "Kuh-haar") is a made-up colony. In my mind, a lot of these little "refugee camp" style colonies cropped up during the War.

Through the darkness, someone tapped her arm. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Miss."

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Miss."

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Sentenza mumbled and shifted onto her side. "Five m'minutes..."

"Miss!" the voice prompted louder.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Miss, please."

Sentenza groaned, forced herself back online, and found Camber leaning over her. She groaned and rolled her optics before forcing herself up through bleary, not-quite-correctly-calibrated optics. That was one of the major downsides of passing out on the foyer sofa instead of her berth in her room: Camber could get to her a little easier. Not that she hated her for the concern – it was a rare spark who cared so deeply for her tenants – but she would have preferred to wake on her own after dosing so heavily on her "special batch" the previous night. It was like a hangover, but at least a little less brutal to deal with. Camber, of course, read her behavior and assumed it was a hangover. The kind old femme offered to whip up a special remedy she'd learned of on Kahar, the small colony she'd stayed on.

"No," the black Seeker mumbled back as she rose and massaged her aching helm. "'M fine. Just...gimme a klik."

"Another rough night, eh?" the old femme guessed.

"Yeah..."

Camber kindly whipped up a small cube of burgundy colored taoth for her while the world swam into clearer focus. She passed it off to her and took a seat opposite to her in another chair while Sentenza took a sip. The flavor was mild but pleasant, though it would take a while for the stimulants to kick in and chase the grogginess off. Probably for the best, she thought. A burst of energy directly after mild anesthesia was not the best idea. Even if Camber wasn't aware of the true reason for her state, her judgment was still sound.

The black Seeker took another sip before asking, "Did you wake me up for a reason or...?"

"OH! aye!" Camber agreed. "I'd come in 'ere initially to see if ye were alright – ye were awfully quiet – and I noticed that ye had a communication from someone on yer terminal. Marked urgent and priority. I didn't read it o' course. Far be it from me te snoop into business that aren't mine," she insisted sheepishly, "I just noticed it sideways like. I didn't want ye te miss it by sleeping through it. Whoever it is wants a response right quick if they double-labeled it like that."

Intrigued, Sentenza strode over to the terminal with cube still in hand. One tap of the input keys brought up her communications and, true to Camber's words, at the top of the list was one labeled urgent and priority that had come through about ten breems ago. The sender was an old friend and trusted contact of hers over in Praxus, a friendly little mini-con barkeep named Half-Pint – the same Half-Pint who had sent Counterforce her way about the missing Praxian cops. According to his message, the golden boyscout and he were in indirect cahoots over a new case in Praxus that they were trying to keep a low profile. The case: a shipment processing warehouse had recently been bought by someone who, by all indications, was clean. However, Half-Pint had overheard a logistics worker for the warehouse chatting at the bar, and they'd let slip that the numbers weren't adding up. Weights didn't match, some items were doubled or even tripled. Shipments missing. Things like that. Nothing outwardly suspicious, of course, and the worker admitted that there could just be an error somewhere that a fellow worker had accidentally made, or an error they themselves had made. Little mistakes like that did happen sometimes.

Sentenza took another sip of her toath and kept reading.

After Half-Pint had let that slip to Counterforce, the golden boyscout had managed to chat up that selfsame worker and get them to provide a copy of the logs. He had asked for them strictly in an unofficial capacity, merely to see if there was an accidental math error that the worker was missing. And, indeed, when he had run the numbers he had found the exact same thing: they didn't add up. Many items were unaccounted for, others were not logged into the database. Weights didn't match labels. There was indeed something weird going on.

That was why they needed her help. Half-Pint had mentioned to Counterforce that she could cloak, prompting the golden officer to suggest sending her in as a spy. She could investigate without being caught.

The black Seeker arched a single brow ridge.

"Something the matter?"

"Yeah. Weirdness at a shipping warehouse in Praxus. They want me to spy for them."

"Spy?" gasped Camber. "Well, that's exciting! Certainly a change o' pace from yer norm. Do you plan te accept?"

Sentenza looked over at her case board. Nothing in Kaon was truly pestering her (well, nothing urgent at any rate) but Praxus did have Thunderhoof looming in the wings. If this had anything to do with his attempts to muscle in on the city, she needed to be over there to mess with him. The more setbacks he suffered, the better.

She shrugged, "Yeah. Might as well. I'll get Grimglimmer to 'bridge me over to save some time."

"Well, off ye go then!" her landlady beamed. "I'll watch yer room. No worries."

"Thanks, Cam."

She quickly gathered what she needed and darted out of the door.

Upon arrival at the precinct, a quick explanation to the chief landed her a speedy groundbridge to Praxus, direct to Commander Aegis's precinct. A simple message to the technician on the other end forewarned her arrival. She stepped through and the technician nodded to her.

"Keep this quiet, eh?" she urged him quietly.

"Yes, ma'am," he saluted.

"Good mech."

She cloaked and vanished.

Praxus was a vastly different city to Kaon. Where Kaon was rugged, practical, and industrial, her skyline frequently occluded by smog and soot from the foundry district, Praxus was stark, clean, and incredibly rigid in its layout. Even without being high in the air, it was plain that the city had used an intentional grid to efficiently map out where things should be (their Councilor, Prowl, was to blame for that). Perhaps the biggest difference between the two was who was in the city itself. Kaon had its fair share of law officers, of course, but Praxus was practically bursting at the seams with them. It seemed like every other 'bot she saw had a precinct badge on them somewhere.

The sheer volume of law officers did make her wonder why Thunderhoof was even bothering with the city in the first place. He didn't seriously think he could buy them off or intimidate them into submission, did he? That would never work. A true Praxian officer would unflinchingly hand a warrant to a volcano for making too much of a racket, and if Counterforce and Aegis were any indication of the larger whole, "bribery" wasn't even in their vocabulary. Bad cops were virtually unheard of in Praxus thanks to their extremely strict screening process.

At least crooked cops weren't one of her worries to deal with on top of the case, she thought. If only Kaon was half as lucky.

Her first major stop was at the local MacAdam's pub. That was where Half-Pint worked. He could give her a more detailed rundown of what was going on with the warehouse.

She took to the skies in a scream of jet engines and made for the address. Within a breem, she had arrived at the establishment.

Sentenza dove down and ducked through the doors. Compared to the one in Kaon, the Praxus MacAdam's was a lot more "professional" looking. Tidier. Sleeker. More modern. Pendant lights dangled over the mostly empty booths and tables as well as over a shiny bar counter. At that counter was the exact 'bot she was looking for: a stocky little beige and orange mini-con checking the inventory on the shelves behind him, who looked a trifle bored about the place being mostly empty (to be expected at that time of day). When she put a hand up and shouted his name, he spun and perked up.

"Sen'za?" he gasped. "Ha! Paint me surprised! I didn't know if you'd come or not."

"Well, you piqued my interest," she smiled as she sat at the bar. "You don't happen to have a copy of the warehouse's logs on you by any chance?"

"Our mutual acquaintance provided a copy," he winked. "Shame he's not here to look it over with you, but unlike you, he's got regular joors to work."

Half-Pint reached under the counter and slid her a datapad after unlocking it with a passcode.

"Would you like somethin' while you look that over?" he wondered.

She smiled, "A small cube of my favorite would be delightful if you have the stuff for it."

Half-Pint chuckled "I do indeed!" and set to work. By the time he was finished, a once blue cube of A-class high grade had turned a fiery orange and venomous green that smelled not like ozone but like a toxic wildfire. Smoke rose from the top of the concoction. A drink of it had her mouth hot and smoldering, and it burned like acid as it went down. Then again, that was exactly what she wanted: the drink equivalent of a rude wake-up to kick her processor fully online. She would need to be, to properly study the logs and then, later, spy.

"I hope that vkra'al is to your liking?" asked Half-Pint.

"Vkra'al?" a young, curious voice repeated. "I've never heard of that one. What's that?"

She looked behind her to spot a young red and teal mini-bot at a booth who had apparently overheard at least some of the conversation. She hoped that just meant they were the curious type and not someone with nefarious intent trying to eavesdrop intel off her. He looked fairly harmless at any rate, bearing the gangly proportions of adolescence, and the gleam in Half-Pint's optics said he knew him. Rather than answer him, Sentenza merely smirked and took a sip, prompting the youth to come in for a better look. Giving him said better look only resulted in more intrigue.

"Can I try it?" he wondered.

"Ah, kid, I wouldn't," warned Half-Pint.

Sentenza smirked and offered him a sip from her cube. He was fine for about three seconds, then was gasping and panting, then ran behind the counter to dunk his poor burning mouth into a vat of pure spring Energon.

"Regret! Regret!" he gasped when his face re-emerged from the vat.

Sentenza laughed. Half-Pint cuffed her on her arm.

She spent the next quarter joor drinking and running math equations. In the process of doing the latter, she noticed a bizarre pattern. Shipments were coming in at night and were then being logged in the morning. That wouldn't have been too strange – her species' society wasn't bound by day/night sleep cycles like many organic ones were – were it not for the fact that most of the "wrong weight" shipments were the ones coming in at night, and every time that happened, some of the shipments simply disappeared but without evidence of having been shipped. Those were the missing shipments and labels mentioned in Half-Pint's communication.

Sentenza paused mid-drink and frowned. Someone in that warehouse, she decided, was trying to do sneaky, off-the-books stuff.

"Have you checked with any of the other employees? To see if they know anything?" she asked Half-Pint. "I take it some of them come here."

"I tried. So did Counterforce," shrugged Half-Pint, "but they're about as clueless as the logistics worker who first reported this. Whether that means they're truly ignorant or if someone's payin' 'em to keep their traps shut, I can't say for sure. This is pretty recent, you see. There's not really much to go on yet."

She nodded. That was understandable. Mundane crimes like the one Half-Pint had found tended to only gain evidence updates over long periods of time. Investigating them was much more of a long-term process, rather than the more frequent updates to more violent crimes like robbery or murder.

"What about the owner? Any intel on them?"

"I was able to do some digging on him. Name's Fornax. Problem is, all my snooping says he's clean. So," Half-Pit gave an exasperated gesture, "I mean, it's gotta be one of the employees, right? One of 'em has to be playing daft to keep suspicion away."

"What about the logistics worker themselves, the one who reported this? Any updates from them?"

"I've been trying to get one, but haven't heard back from 'em yet. It could just be they're busy, and you know how some bosses get about casual comm. chats when on the job. But since you're gonna be doing a little snooping of your own over there, you might as well ask 'em yourself. His name is Lensflare. Good kid. Young. Very smart but a bit self-doubtful. That's why he brought the logs here, to me. He was worried his math wasn't right."

"Would you say he's the careful type? Slightly paranoid maybe?" she guessed. "That could be why he brought them to you and Counterforce instead of going to his co-workers or superiors. He might suspect someone there and didn't want to give the game away."

Half-Pint nodded slowly. "That thought did cross my mind. All the more reason to talk to him."

She nodded and turned her focus back on the logs and to her own case datapad. Multiple notes were added to the latter alongside the more detailed information Half-Pint had provided. The case was pretty bland compared to her others; less sensational. She didn't entirely trust that outwardly though, not when Thunderhoof had an interest in the city, and the crime boss had already proven once before that he was going to use more covert tactics. With that thought as a backdrop, she finished the drink. She then slid the mug and the payment to Half-Pint and went for the door. She quickly doubled back when a thought assailed her. At a gesture, Half-Pint produced his own datapad into which she input all her ideas, notes, and theories from her own datapad.

"Might as well keep the boyscout updated," she told him as she frantically wrote. "I should have more for you when I'm done with our little venture."

"Thanks," grinned Half-Pint. "I'll update him about that when I've got the chance. If I get any updates from him or any on my end, I'll let you know."

Sentenza then headed out the door, cloaked, and took to the air once more.

The address for the warehouse said the place was in the southwest quadrant of the city where most of the shipping and storage warehouses were located. That location put them right off the main highways to save time and resources. As much as she wasn't a fan of Councilor Prowl's stoic and computeristic logic, she could not deny he was an excellent civil engineer. Organizing a city from the ground up was no easy task. Plus, it made her job easier: no flying around in circles trying to find the right place. The warehouse she needed was a long, low building with a retractable roof so the workers could enjoy nice, sunny days. Today, the roof was closed to keep some of the summer heat out, but that didn't mean the workers were lounging about like in Altihex; Praxus's summers were mild compared to Altihex's. Delivery workers were already heading out on their routes, while more workers kept the warehouse itself moving. Everything looked normal and aboveboard to her.

She spiraled down, cloak still active, and slipped in. Having found the warehouse, she thus needed to locate Lensflare. Luckily, Half-Pint had provided a description in the datapad and it didn't take much prowling around to find the young logistics worker; she found him leaning against a back wall and jotting down things in his itinerary. Lensflare was a young mini-bot colored pale orange and yellow with pale blue accents, but his most notable feature was his helm design: it swept back into multiple jutting spikes that looked like a flaring comet tail. It was very unique and stood out from the more traditional looks she normally saw in the city.

Sentenza crept in close and followed him until he was mostly alone. Then, still cloaked, she tapped him on his shoulder.

"Hey," she greeted quietly. "Lensflare, right?"

The young mech nearly shrieked at being tapped and talked to by empty air. She quickly stifled the sound by slapping an invisible hand over his mouth.

"Shh!" she hissed.

"Oh! Oh, it's you! I-I – what're you doing here?" he whispered back.

"Heard about your case from a mutual friend. I thought I'd offer my services. Are you busy?"

"I'm on a short break, it's okay. I suppose you'd like an update then. It happened again last night."

Lensflare brought out a datapad and held it out. She took it. Just like the other provided logs, the same pattern of timing was there: nighttime was when the logistical shenanigans took place.

"I quadruple-checked. There's no way I'm making these mistakes," he insisted.

"I never said it was you," she replied as she read through the logs. "Do you think if it was just you that I'd be here?"

Lensflare blinked. "Oh, yeah. Right. Do you – I mean, are there any questions you'd like me to answer?"

"Why go to Half-Pint to check your math? Why not another logistics worker?"

"That's the thing. I wanted someone totally disconnected from the warehouse because I didn't know who was causing these errors, but it has to be someone here. If I approached the wrong person here, I worry I might get fired because they'll see me as a snitch or something, and they'd find a way to get me in trouble with the boss."

"So you do suspect someone here. Who?"

"I-I don't know," he admitted. "I assume it's one of the night workers since this stuff happens almost exclusively during night shifts."

"I assume because there're fewer people in the building then?"

Lensflare nodded. "Yes."

"How many fewer?"

"Day shifts, usually we have about fifty to a hundred depending on how busy it is. Night shifts don't get more than twenty on average."

Curious, she asked why that was. In Kaon, people tended to be wary of the night for superstitious reasons and for fear of the Nightdemon herself. But Praxus was, by contrast, a starkly rational city. Was there a practical reason for the dip in night worker numbers?

"No, not that I know," clarified Lensflare. "Some people are just night owls, y'know? They work better at night."

She nodded. Some 'bots were simply fans of the night while others, especially certain Predacons and pseudo-beasts, actually did have heightened functionality at night as opposed to during the day. Many night workers in Kaon were either specially modified to work at night or were naturally adapted for it. She had contact with a few of those individuals; night workers tended to notice things more than day workers since nights in Kaon always left them jumpy and on edge – on top of their nocturnal adaptations, of course.

"Where are these packages coming from and where are they being delivered? Do you know?" she asked him.

Lensflare shrugged. "They're being labeled as coming from elsewhere in Praxus and headed for elsewhere in Praxus but I don't actually think I can trust those labels. I think they're being mislabeled to throw people off."

The kid did have a working processor. Good. They were on the same page.

"Have you ever thought to check one of these suspicious parcels?"

Lensglare gawked. "What? No! That's against policy!"

She rolled her optics. Praxians.

Sentenza decided to be blunt then. "Do you think your boss is involved in this?"

"Fornax? Slag no!" he gasped. "He's transparent with everyone – transparent almost to a fault, actually. He's working double-time to make up for the delays caused by this fiasco. I'm working double-time to help him."

She nodded. That was a transparent answer in and of itself, and if Half-Pint trusted him that was a vote in the kid's and Fornax's favor.

"Do you know any of the night workers yourself? Do you suspect any of them?"

Lensflare considered and then shook his helm. "Not really. I sometimes bump into some of them if I work a little overtime and our shifts intersect, but I've never really talked to them. Sharing a greeting isn't the same as chatting. If you want some exacts about the night workers, like names and specific job titles and all of that, you can talk to Fornax. He tries his best to keep logs of how many joors we work so we don't all wind up overworked."

Sentenza decided against that suggestion. If Fornax was as transparently honest as Lensflare said he was, revealing that she was there in the warehouse working a case (or approaching him and asking questions directly of him about said case) could wind up alerting the culprit (or culprits) that their game had been called. They would then be much more careful, thereby needlessly complicating her job. Lensflare on the other hand had proven already he could be discreet and not raise any alarms. However, there was a way to get more information from Fornax without tipping him off. She was, after all, there to spy. Spying didn't entail playing by the rules. Spying just meant you weren't to be caught doing it. Fornax, being the meticulous type, no doubt had a lot of solid information about the night workers stored away in his office. She just had to ensure she wouldn't be interrupted while getting it.

"Where is Fornax by the way?" she asked him. "In his office?"

"The last I saw him he was out wandering the floor. He likes to help us out in person as much as he can, now more than ever."

Had she been visible, Lensflare would have spotted her ensuing devious smile. "Thanks."

"Lensflare! I need a hand over here!" someone called.

Lensflare turned to find a younger femme peering around the corner and gesturing at him.

"Oh, sorry! Coming!" Lensflare shouted before running off.

Sentenza roved the warehouse until she found the mech's office. Hanging from a hook on the door was a customized little metal flip sign; the side facing her read "Out on the floor. Be back soon!" Rather than wait, Sentenza hacked the coded lock and slipped inside, then re-locked the door.

Fornax's office was a rather simple place: a desk, a chair, and some planning boards were tacked to the wall. It was the office of someone who didn't spend a lot of time in it. That meant she was unlikely to be disturbed while she snooped. So she set to work; she hacked the console with relative ease and began browsing through his files for clues. On finding a few log files and noting the comments appended to them, Lensflare's insistence that he wasn't involved began to look even more promising. He was just as confused by this as Lensflare. It was a point in Fornax's favor as well that he wasn't jumping to conclusions about who was doing it.

Good mech, she thought. The last thing they wanted to do was nab the wrong person.

Due to Fornax's well-organized files, it didn't take long to find what she was looking for: a timetable of the various warehouse workers all neatly divided into working joors – day and night – and updated on a regular daily basis. From the comments appended to the night workers, it looked like Fornax was running his own little investigation to try to find the perpetrator. He'd pinned a few of the night workers as "of interest" but no reason was given for why. Either he wasn't sure of the answer or he was keeping that to himself for now.

"Alright. Let's see here..." she murmured.

She went through entry by entry. Fornax's suspicion tags on the selected workers were sound: four of the drivers were new and from outside Praxus, a fifth one had a former criminal record for minor, non-violent crimes, while the last pinned worker, actually a mid-tier manager, was there each and every night shipments got weird. The main problem with her was that other than times lining up, he didn't really have conclusive evidence against her. She was a solid manager, got along well with the other workers, and had been there for a few years.

Sentenza hastily noted down the names of the suspects.

The door to the office clicked and hissed open.

She whirled and nearly swore out loud. Fornax, a big brass mech with fiery red-orange optics, was standing on the threshold looking beleaguered. When he sighed and went for the console, she deftly moved out of his way. He thus noticed his console had been unlocked. Worry flashed in his field and optics and he quickly ran through his files to ensure nothing was deleted. He let out a sigh of relief on finding nothing had been touched or tampered with.

While he went to work on his console, she quickly slipped out of the door. She caught a confused look through the small window as he tried to understand why the door had opened by itself.

"Half-Pint!"

The little barkeep's helm jerked up to spy her entering the bar once again. There was no need for him to verbalize his question. It was written on his faceplates.

She slipped into a seat at the bar counter and pulled out her datapad.

"I have some leads for tonight," she whispered. "I just need your input. Do you know these 'bots, and how much do you know about them?"

Half-Pint took the datapad and examined it for a time in silence.

"The out-of-towners, the new guys, I don't think can be it. One of them arrived before this mess started and the other arrived here after it had already started. Stuff like this takes time to organize, it can't be done overnight. So you can look into them both tonight but I don't think you'll get anywhere. The one with the criminal offense you don't need to worry about at all. He's just a kid who got caught up in some misdemeanor stuff and Fornax offered him the job to help straighten him out. He's the kid you pranked earlier, actually. His name's Badbeat."

Sentenza's slender brow ridges rose. "Where'd he go? He's not here anymore."

"He runs a couple of gig jobs around Praxus during the day, that's all. Nothing harmful or suspicious. He just stops by when he has the time to get a drink and chat."

"And the last one on the list?" she prompted.

"Her I know less about despite her living here for some time now. Her name's Nightfire. She's a former Decepticon officer who helped with troop training and served as a sergeant for the soldiers. She was apparently fairly well-liked but her boss had other ideas," Half-Pint shrugged. "After Megatron went on a bit of an anti-femme purge of his ranks – for reasons she's still rather salty about, I might add – she was out of a job and went off to one of the colonies instead of joining up with the Autobots and possibly getting an even bigger target painted on her. What she did out there she's never told me, but when she returned after the War she decided Praxus was much more to her liking than Kaon and decided to try to land a job here. She did. Fornax has nothing but praise for her. She keeps the workers in line but not in a mean way. The kid likes her pretty well from what I hear, him and Lensflare both."

Sentenza nodded. The femme didn't sound all that suspicious but that consequently made her the best person to pull off a logistical heist like this. The only thing really missing was a motive. If it was her, why? Why was she doing it?

"Thanks. I'll check her out."

"You've got a while before sundown. What do you plan to do until then?"

"Oh, just fly around maybe," she idly mused, flicking her wrist around in a bored manner, "see the sights, do the whole 'tourist' routine. It should help keep suspicion off me. Any updates from our mutual friend before I head out?"

"I'll send him Nightfire's credentials and see if he can dig up anything more on her. He has access to info in official channels that I just don't."

"Thanks," she said as she rose. "Hit me up if you get anything back from him."

"Absolutely. But he should be off before you need to be over there, so he may just ring you directly. Have fun out there!" waved Half-Pint.

Sentenza laughed at him. "Fun? In Praxus? Please."

Half-Pint chortled and waved her out.

Sentenza spent the rest of the day exploring Praxus. Unlike Kaon, it was a fairly uneventful city but there was one thing to her liking that she stumbled across. Some local Predacon artisans from a few nearby tribes had set up street stalls in one of the little park plazas to sell their wares, and judging by the size of the market and how many Praxians had stopped by to appreciate their work and make purchases, the beasts were not only tolerated in the city but well-liked. She decided it was as good a place as any to mingle and blend in, so she melted into the crowd and did some window-shopping (and actual shopping) of her own. From a Silk-Runner merchant, she bought a nice little silk pillow that she had hand-woven. From there, she wandered over to a Blue Moon merchant who specialized in jewelry and adornments.

"You like?" the young Canipid asked with a smile. "Engraved and shaped by hand."

"They're beautiful!" she agreed through a smile. "Is that Canipian writing on that one?"

"You know it?" they asked with a bright twinkle in their optics.

"I'm not fluent, but I know some," she confessed. "Some Canipids over in Kaon were nice enough to give me a crash course on the basics."

"I see! Good!"

"From Kaon? You are far from home," a nearby second Canipid commented. "What brought you here?"

"Just visiting," she lightly lied. "Some friends invited me over for a day or so."

She picked one audial ring for a friend back in Kaon and purchased it. The two exchanged pleasantries before they parted ways.

At that point, she simply mingled and made small talk with various Praxians and Predacons. While she was in the city, it was only right to be proactive and find some additional friendly faces who would be willing to be her optics and audials in the city. Half-Pint was good, of course, but he was only one 'bot and he couldn't overhear everything. Unfortunately, she couldn't find anyone who was the gossipy type she needed. Therefore, she had no true reason to stick around.

She quietly slipped away from the crowd, cloaked, and flew back to the warehouse. En route, a call came through: Counterforce's personal frequency.

"Detective?"

"Hey, boyscout. You have something for me?"

"I do. I did some digging on Nightfire today like you asked. Turns out, she's not as flawless as she looks. That colony she came from? It's a little place called Tolzarus. She's got a warrant and a bounty out for fraud and identity theft there. There are also some disappearances she's a notable suspect in."

Sentenza almost purred in delight. "Oh, so she's not as spotless as she wants everyone here to think, then? Good, now I won't feel guilty spying on her."

"Detective, I bring up those disappearances as a warning. Lensflare hasn't told anyone other than you, me, and Half-Pint about this, right?"

She admitted that as far as she was aware, he hadn't. But the fact that Nightfire served as middle management meant that his logistics work had to pass through her hands at some point as part of the hierarchy. Even if he was a day worker, he did still have to share info about what went in and what went out just to keep the system smooth. You didn't want double deliveries or anything like that happening just because the two shifts weren't talking. But just handing her the logs shouldn't get her suspicious. He was being careful. He had admitted in the interview he suspected someone among the night shift, he just didn't know who. That was double the reason for him to be cautious.

"...Sentenza, I need to ask you to please keep a close watch on him. I'm worried. Nightfire may or may not realize he's onto her yet. If she does realize –"

"You don't want her adding another disappearance onto her record," she concluded grimly. "Yeah. We're on the same frequency there, golden boy. I trust this two-faced glitch about as far as I can blast her right now. Since I don't use blasters, that's not far at all."

"Noted. And please be careful yourself."

"I will be. I'll let you know when I have enough evidence for a warrant. I know you won't let me go in and just grab her."

"No."

She sighed. "Figures. I'm going dark. Don't ping me until I prompt you."

"Agreed. Good luck in there. Stay safe."

She snorted. "Luck is for rookies. I'm a professional."

Sentenza cut the call, cloaked herself, and landed just outside the warehouse. She waited until sunset had truly arrived and watched as the day workers left and some early arrival night workers trickled in. She wasn't that troubled on not spotting Lensflare leave the building; his statements earlier had indicated he didn't always work overtime, and knowing how much he'd been fussing and helping, there was every chance Fornax had told him to go home early and rest. Fornax did sound like that type. If Fornax was still in the building, she'd have to keep watch on him too. Transparency as shining as his spelled trouble around someone like Nightfire. She'd have to watch the kid, too, the one from the bar that apparently worked night shifts at the place; he was the curious type and that could get him into trouble.

Three people to keep watch on over the night, she thought. At least she wouldn't be stuck idling in place the whole night.

Once the last of the workers had arrived for their shift, Badbeat included, she slipped inside and found that the best way to observe was from higher up. The nice, sturdy support beams that held the roof up offered a network of perches that covered the entire building. There was no need to be on the floor; she could observe from above more efficiently.

There wasn't much to observe overall as time ticked slowly by. The workers were chatty with each other and Nightfire seemed to be in a good mood. Sentenza kept an optic on the kid from the bar, Badbeat, regardless. Curious types like him tended to stick their nasals in places they shouldn't. Even if done in innocence, Nightfire would perceive that kind of curiosity as a threat, and if she went after him for it then he'd be dealing with way worse consequences than a singed mouth and some embarrassment. In light of that worry, she found herself almost exclusively tailing him rather than Nightfire. And she was right to do so. Every time he handled one of the suspicious packages, his curiosity spiked. One such package was passed to another worker and then on to Nightfire herself, so when another mysterious package appeared, the kid pretended to get an order to bring it elsewhere and snuck off to investigate it.

'Good mech,' she thought in some pride. 'Careful though.'

Badbeat found a quiet corner of the warehouse, set the package down, and sliced into it. What he found staring back at him was the muzzle of an extremely high caliber and very much illegal blaster. The kid nearly yelped but quickly clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle it. He wildly looked around and quickly set about taking an image of it and then hastily shoving it back into the crate and sliding it under a storage shelf where it wouldn't be easily seen. He then quickly trotted back to his work.

Sentenza clambered down from the rafters and took the crate out of hiding. On closer inspection, the weapon wasn't just of illegally high caliber, it was also an innovative cryo-weapon known as an NC-X1, but was more commonly called a Glass Cannon. That in itself was puzzling. The NC-X1 wasn't supposed to be being manufactured any longer after brief use in the War. Curiouser still was the fact that, far from being a Decepticon weapon, Glass Cannons were actually of Autobot make: a clever means of conserving Energon for themselves when the War situation had gone downhill for them. The Council had banned any post-War use of them even by the Elite Guard because of how dangerous they were. A shot from the NC-X1 itself wasn't deadly, but all it took after being hit by one was a mere tap, even from a well-meaning ally, and the poor spark would shatter into a thousand pieces as if suddenly made of fragile glass. Hence the name.

Carefully, she removed it from the crate. It didn't appear to be loaded.

"What are you doing with one of these...?" she muttered.

Footfalls warned of someone nearby. She quickly cloaked herself and the weapon in her hands. It wasn't Nightfire. It was Badbeat.

"Psst!" she hissed. "Kid!"

Badbeat whirled in the direction of her voice. "Who? What?"

"Sentenza."

"The femme from Mac's? What're you doing here?"

"Ssh!"

"Sorry," he whispered. "You're not gonna turn me in for opening that, are you?"

"No. If anything you deserve a promotion. But I need you to get lost. Go home. Or better yet, head to the fifteenth precinct."

"Why?"

Badbeat?" came Nightfire's voice. "Is everything going okay back there?"

"Just trust me on this, okay?" Sentenza insisted.

Badbeat, thank Solus, listened to her. He trotted up to Nightfire and made an impeccably good excuse: one of his other part-time gigs had messaged him and begged for an extra hand since another worker had wound up in a clinic from a razorsnake bite. Nightfire was at once understanding and sympathetic.

"You're perfectly free to go and help them," she conceded. "But you will need to make up the missing joors at another time as per your contract here."

"Got it. Thanks, boss!"

Badbeat raced from the warehouse.

Only then did Nightfire spot the emptied crate just barely jutting out from beneath the lowermost shelf. Her previously sympathetic look went hard, and she shot a wary and angry look in Badbeat's direction. But to Sentenza's surprise, she didn't run after him. Instead, she went first for her office and took the crate she had previously been handed, then headed for the distribution tunnels where delivery 'bots were waiting. She laid the crate in one driver's packing lane and then left.

Sentenza didn't let it stay there. She slunk up and took it herself, noting how unusually heavy it was. More Glass Cannons? One was devastating enough. Why the slag would she need more?

Upon finding a nice, secluded corner, she carefully cut the crate open with a small plasma knife she kept on her for just such occasions.

Her spark stopped on seeing what was inside.

Lensflare. Or more accurately, the chopped-up parts of his body.

Cold fury rose in her chassis. Her vision went red.

Nightfire.

Hunt.

That was all that went through her mind. Nightfire had fled the building but such flight was only delaying the inevitable, and thanks to Counterforce's and Fornax's intel she had an address. She had to assume, rightly so, she would do one of two things: head home and thereby try to create an alibi, or hunt down Badbeat to remove him as a witness. That look she had tossed him after he had fled led her to think the second was far more likely, and so it was after Badbeat she went. Finding him was easy: at night his colorful form stood out against the more modest civilians. He appeared to be headed for the fifteenth precinct, as Sentenza had requested. And Nightfire was trailing him.

Nightfire.

Hunt.

Badbeat made a cut through a small side street to avoid a busy intersection. That was when Nightfire made her move. She transformed and readied a Glass Cannon.

"Sorry, kid," she growled. "I like you, but I don't abide snitches."

WHAM!

Badbeat nearly shrieked when Nightfire was slammed face-first into the street by an unseen force.

"And I don't abide killers," she hissed at the downed femme.

"What?!" Badbeat yelped.

"Get to the precinct," she told him. "I will deal with this one."

The youth transformed and squealed off in a mad rush.

"Who are you?" demanded Nightfire.

"Your end."

Nightfire laughed. "Megatron himself couldn't end me. Besides, don't you Praxians have regulations about killing suspects?"

"I am no Praxian."

The femme's haughty expression faltered. "Then who are you? An independent? Some sort of cop special agent?"

"I ask the questions, murderer!" she snarled at her, pushing her scythe blade into her neck. "You are on trial, not me!"

"Oh, please. Is this about that logistics worker?" Nightfire huffed. "They're a dime a dozen as the humans say. Shame I had to get rid of him though. He was a good one. The problem with him being so good at his job is that I knew he was clever enough to notice the discrepancies. I can't have anyone disrupting me. He'd have snitched on me sooner or later, same as the kid, and then there goes my neat little side hustle. Can you blame a femme for being practical?"

Her snarl became more savage, more like a feral beast than the growl of an engine. The scythe was pushed harder against her neck, hard enough to open a cut that oozed bright blue. Nightfire laughed at the gesture, declaring almost proudly that she had suffered worse torments among the Decepticons. Thunderhooft at least understood her value: where Megatron had cast her and other femmes out (or executed them) for being a "distraction" or a "liability" to his forces, Thunderhoof made good use of her. A little smuggling of illegal weapons from some Decepticon friends of hers on the fringes of the galaxy, a little mangling and lying on logistics logs, and a pretty, honest face to hide it all – the perfect combination. He paid well, too. What wasn't to like?

"What are they for?"

"What do you think they're for?" Nightfire countered coyly.

She snarled at her. The neck wound deepened. Her arms stiffened in preparation. Then a smirk crossed her blank lip-plates. Nightfire was chatty and clearly did not know who she was. She was connected to Thunderhoof as well, her most prized prey. Both points were useful.

"Thunderhoof, you said?" she almost purred at her. "Then you are valuable to me as well. What can you tell me about this system you have in place?"

Nightfire sighed in relief. "I thought you'd see things my way. I'm sure I could talk him into adding another relay point to the line. He's always looking for extra embedded helpers, especially here. He'd find a cloaker like you very useful. That could increase our efficiency by at least fifteen percent, maybe more! All I ask is you get rid of the kid for me. I'll arrange a nice bonus if you do it quietly."

Her growl became a gurgling, primal noise as both voices joined together: one the voice of a cold-blooded feral beast, the other one of righteous fury.

"Kt'ztak vizesh lktztz," she hissed at her. "Only two will die tonight."

"So you accept?"

"And he is not one of them."

Fear exploded into her expression and field. Nightfire whipped her Glass Cannon up in defense only for the scythe blade to cleave through it straight, splitting it apart like a wishbone. The volatile ammunition inside of it leaked out onto Nightfire's upper body. The femme rightly went stiff in terror.

All she had to do was tap.

Nightfire hadn't even the time to scream, but it probably would not have been heard over the sound of approaching wailing sirens. Lights appeared at one end of the side street: one set of police lights, the other a set of brilliant headlights. Visible just beyond their glare was a familiar golden form.

"Primus below," the golden mech muttered upon spying Nightfire's fragmented corpse. "What...?"

She backed away. She happened to step on a tiny sliver of Nightfire that crunched under the weight of her trod. Counterforce heard the noise and focused on it.

"Halt!" Counterforce ordered with scimitars at the ready. "Praxian Fifteenth Precinct!"

Sentenza faltered inside. The cloak faltered with her. Idiot, she thought, idiot and weakling. She did not let him see more than the tip of her wings before she was gone completely. She would return to the warehouse and root out any further criminals. Her best bet? The delivery drivers themselves.

"Sentenza? Detective, do you read me?" demanded Counterforce. "Sentenza? Nightfire's dead. Someone got her. Sentenza?"

No answer came. The much younger, shorter mech at his side looked fraught with worry. He kept looking over his shoulder as if he expected someone to jump at him.

"You said you found contraband in that warehouse?" he asked him.

"Yes, sir," Badbeat answered. "Guns of some kind. Big ones. Really big!"

Counterforce briefly debated calling Aegis and informing him of current events. What he did instead was call Flintlock, his patrol partner and long-time friend. If Nightfire was smuggling weapons, large and dangerous ones, he needed someone skilled in that type of fighting. He wasn't at all surprised when Flintlock jumped at the chance and arrived at his position in record time. He had brought a friend with him, too, a young femme officer named Lux, to take Badbeat back to the precinct.

"C'mon then! What're we waitin' for? Hit it!" barked Flintlock.

Flintlock roared ahead. Counterforce squealed after him.

Upon arrival at the warehouse, they were both surprised to see most of the workers, and Fornax himself, out front scared out of their minds. When Flintlock asked them why they all turned terrified looks at him and explained that something had come in and started wreaking havoc through the building, tearing through everything and shouting at them as it ripped into crates. It had headed for the loading bays in the back, so everyone had rightly run for the front entrance to get out of its way. Once the screaming had started, they'd fled the building completely.

"It? You didn't see who it was?" Counterforce wondered.

"No one saw anything as far as I can tell," Fornax clarified. "It's like an angry ghost barged in."

Flintlock shared a look with Counterforce. Counterforce in turn cast a wary, confused look at the warehouse.

"Flint, with me. The rest of you, stay out here. If any of you see or hear anything off, get as far away as possible."

Flintlock readied his two issued pistols and nodded for him to lead the way. He'd watch his back.

Counterforce slunk into the warehouse with only his scimitars as a light source. Crates had indeed been torn into and their contents wrecked almost beyond recognition. Weapons, it looked like. Glass Cannons, just like Badbeat had said. The crates looked to have been cleaved open by a sharp, wide blade, but the weapons themselves had been decommissioned by a smaller blade. But was it Sentenza? And if so, what in the Allspark had possessed her to go on such a surgical rampage? She was supposed to have waited and contacted him so that he and a squad could go in with a warrant.

"What the frack happened?" Flintlock muttered as he checked out a shredded crate. "It's like a beast went off the rails in here or somethin'."

"Detective?" he whispered into his comm. link. "Hello?"

Once again, he was met with silence from her end of the call. He was beginning to get worried. She wasn't hurt, was she?

He kept his low crouch but picked up his pace. Flintlock remained behind in the main area.

Something in the air caught his attention as he neared the back of the warehouse: the faint smell of sour ozone. His scanners confirmed spilled Energon in the loading bays.

"Flint?" he hissed. "We may have wounded back here. Get Evac and Hoist on site ASAP."

"Callin' 'em in now, Goldie."

He shouldered up to the loading bay doors and peered in sideways. Horror and sickness flashed through him when he saw what was inside.

Virtually all of the crates had been slashed open. But that was minor compared to the four workers who lay bleeding on the floor, their throats snapped and cut into by a wicked sharp weapon. Counterforce rushed up to the nearest one but had his hopes dashed when he scanned the body. No spark signal in any of them. They were all dead. Something about the neck wounds made him deeply uneasy, however. He'd read of a serial case in Kaon, an ongoing one, where all the victims had similar neck wounds and neck trauma. "Tcsovan niv a'anoth" the Kaonians fearfully called it: the Demon of the Night, an invisible spirit that served as Kaon's unholy executioner of the wicked.

"Sentenza?!" he hissed into his comm. link. "Someone killed some of the delivery workers! Did you see who did it? Sentenza?!"

He happened to look up when he caught movement almost out of his field of vision. A splash of blue was moving outside, just past the bay doors.

"Halt!" he shouted. "Praxian Fifteenth Precinct!"

The blue smear slowed briefly. Beneath it, the air flickered and revealed something he was unprepared to see: an elegant black and red form whose crimson optics glared and searched around until they momentarily landed on him. Then, the red-eyed figure that looked so eerily like Sentenza but couldn't possibly be vanished just as quickly as they'd appeared.

The next morning...

"So you know nothing about what happened at the warehouse?" Aegis asked her. "Or who killed Nightfire or the delivery drivers?"

"I didn't say nothing," Sentenza retorted hotly. "Nightfire saw Badbeat had cracked open one of the crates and given the game away, so I had him get out of the warehouse as fast as possible. I knew she'd go after him so I trailed her. Her death was..." she faltered, "an accident. I stopped her from shooting Badbeat. She retaliated and so I defended myself. Her Cannon malfunctioned after I hit it and – well, you know what happens to someone when coated in Glass Cannon ammo. I wasn't in the warehouse when those drivers were killed. I don't know who got them."

She happened to eye Counterforce to the side. His quizzical look made her uncomfortable. Did he know she was lying?

"Do you know why the drivers might have been targeted?" asked Aegis.

"I looked into that, sir," Counterforce interjected. "The IDs they were using were fakes. They weren't who they claimed to be. The IDs matched to some colonials from the same colony Nightfire came from, but those 'bots have been missing for decades."

"There would have been no ready way for Fornax to double-check their credentials," Sentenza agreed. "I assumed Nightfire couldn't be working alone but I didn't know who else exactly was helping her. When I went through Fornax's computer they all came up clean."

"Identity theft," hemmed Aegis. "So whoever killed them must have known that. And Lensflare?"

Sentenza frowned and let out a low snarl from her engine. "She must have got him when I was out of the warehouse for the day. I...I didn't think she'd be that brazen since she was so covert in all other instances. She must have guessed he was talking to someone and didn't want to run any risks. I didn't – I didn't think –"

She looked away. It took all her effort to reign in the aggravated scream that threatened to escape. She was glad Nightfire was dead. She only wished Lensflare was alive to be thankful and glad about it, too. To slaughter an innocent worker just for doing his job honestly – frack her. If there was a Pit like those mountain monks attested, where the wicked were thrown after death, she hoped Nightfire was there now.

"I'm sorry I didn't save Lensflare," she muttered. "I failed. I'm sorry."

"You helped shut down an illegal weapons smuggling ring and slow down Thunderhoof's encroach on the city," Counterforce reminded her. "In doing so, you helped save many more lives. And the one who killed him is now dead. It's not much, I know, but it is some form of justice for Lensflare."

She rose, got right into his face, and glared at him so intently his doorwings drooped. His whole demeanor became that of a cowed child.

"He didn't have to die," she hissed at him. "One innocent life lost is a crime in and of itself, Praxian. You told me to protect him and I failed. End. Of. Story. I forfeit my pay."

She swept past him and out the door of the precinct.

Counterforce dared contact her privately. [I'm sorry, detective.]

[...So am I.]

He thought for a moment she had hung up on him until her voice returned, cold and stiff.

[I'm heading back to Kaon. I have more work to handle. Keep an eye on Badbeat for me, would you? He's a good kid.]

[I will.]

Note: I had to be careful here in this story because of a trope I discovered called "fridging" wherein a character is hurt or killed specifically to hurt the main character and for no other reason. Lensflare is not a case of fridging because Nightfire wasn't aware of Sentenza's presence, she was acting solely in self-interest.