I am back from my trip, and man was it tiring. Haha. I drove roughly forty hours in the last ten days, and got a total of probably about sixty hours of sleep in same number of days. But it was worth it. I am feeling happier than I have been in a long time, and that's worth the tiredness all by itself.
Alright, so I noticed that a number of people passed up on reviewing, and those that did were quite angry with me for how I ended the last chapter. I completely understand your anger, and I also don't blame those who didn't leave a review, if your reasons for doing so were because I made you angry. But please, please understand, I am not cruel enough to not have Shadow' and Arcee get together. That pairing will happen, and it is within sight for me, so please don't give up on this. Fluff is coming.
Thanks go out to everyone who favorited, followed, or reviewed since the last chapter, and extra thanks go to those that continue sticking with Fate Calls through the rough patches. Your feedback and continued interest mean so much. :)
Thanks go to Crystal Prime for beta reading.
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro. I only take credit for this story and my OCs.
June 2, 2013 1:53 P.M
Autobot base, outside Jasper, Nevada
Arcee laid on her medical berth, optics staring blankly up at the ceiling while she rested a servo on the right side of her chestplates. Ratchet and Moonracer had, apparently, worked for a full solar-cycle without stop to stabilize her and repair her chestplates. She apparently had been lucky, another five inches to the left, and she would have joined all the Autobots, neutrals, and Decepticons that this war had claimed. The shot she had taken wouldn't leave behind a deformity or a scar, for things could leave a permanent scar behind on a Cybertronian, but she would suffer from spark pain for the next six jours as she recovered from her grievous injury. But she didn't feel any pain right now, or much of anything, in fact. And all because her CPU was still processing a single thought.
Shadow' was gone.
Her sisters and Ironhide had been the ones who told the news to her a few breems ago, after she onlined for the first time following her injury. They had done everything they could to break it to her gently, but she had known from the emotions she had been getting from her end of her bonds with Ironhide and her siblings, and the fact Shadow' wasn't there when she onlined, that something happened to her partner while she was offline. And she had known it was something she wouldn't recover from.
From what Ironhide said, who was passing on Optimus' debriefing, Shadow' had seen the attack coming, and tried to tackle Optimus and Arcee to the ground, but only had a small amount of success. Optimus almost lost his right servo, and Arcee almost lost her life. Only Shadow's actions, and Ratchet and Moonracer's treatment, saved her.
After he treated her wound to the best of his abilities, Shadow' and Optimus found out their comm-links were being jammed. Her partner came to the conclusion their attackers were after him, since he had only been shot with a stun round while she and Optimus were hit with live ones, and that they weren't targets. He had pleaded with the Prime to take her and run out of range of the jammer so he could get her to base, while he stayed behind and kept the bots attacking them focused on him. Optimus had succeeded in getting her back to base in time for Ratchet and Moonracer to save her, just, and sent all except Jetfire and Springer to reinforce her partner, but Shadow's life signal had flatlined well before the others arrived. And by the time they did, he was gone. No parts, no frame, no Shadow', just the hulks of drones and some bots her partner offlined, as well as a large amount of energon that Ratchet confirmed was chemically identical to Shadowstreaker's, which along with his flat life signal, got rid of any doubt Arcee had in her CPU.
Her partner, her best friend, the mech she came to love, was offline. And just like her other partners, she had been powerless to stop his offlining.
'Three partners, three mechs I've failed,' Arcee thought, continuing to stare at the ceiling blankly. She had yet to gain any feeling since she found out Shadow' was gone. She felt empty, hollow, like her entire world had died, and everything around her was lifeless. Her fellow Autobots had come to visit after they heard she was online, but she couldn't remember what any of them said, and she didn't care. They weren't Shadow'.
Her sisters and Ironhide had tried, and were still trying, to comfort her through their bonds, but Arcee could barely find the strength to acknowledge them. Losing her third partner had pushed her over the edge. Her walls were in place, higher and stronger than ever before, and she wouldn't let anyone in. Her spark was broken, torn in two. The one thing that had healed her more than anything else was gone. He had been taken away, before she could even tell him the three words she had wanted to for since he came back from the station in stasis lock. I love you.
The med-bay door slid open, interrupting Arcee's thoughts, but not making her react at all to the sound, or even cause her look up to see who was now in the med-bay with her. She just kept looking at the ceiling, optics unblinking and blank.
Optimus Prime's towering frame entered her field of vision. His right servo was in a sling, and would remain there for five more mega-cycles, or until Ratchet cleared him for duty. "Arcee," he greeted, tone neutral.
The blue and pink femme continued staring at the ceiling, appearing to ignore the Prime's presence.
"It is good to see you online," Optimus continued. "How are you feeling?"
Arcee stayed silent.
The Prime's faceplate remained impassive, but a saddened look entered his optics. "I... Am sorry, Arcee."
The blue and pink femme blinked, but continued to not say a word.
"He was a good mech, and an excellent soldier," Optimus said. "He never lost his helm in battle."
Arcee didn't respond.
"A number of the others are greatly missing his presence, especially the children, Colonel Lennox, and his men," Optimus continued on, trying to get Arcee to respond to something. She had never been this bad, even when Tailgate was executed. "They have organized a memorial for Shadowstreaker, one that will not begin until you are released from the med-bay. The rest of us will be in attendance, as well. He integrated himself into this team very well. Andhe will never be forgotten by any of us."
Arcee kept staring at the ceiling.
Optimus sighed quietly and sat in a chair next to the berth. He didn't say anything for a long moment, uncertain what could cause Arcee to at least partially lower her walls. She always was a stubborn femme, but one with reasons behind her behavior. She had been better, happier, in the last orbital-cycle, but now that Shadowstreaker was gone, so was she, in a way. Perhaps a different tactic was required to get her to open up.
The Prime opened a sub-space pocket and pulled out the remains of Shadowstreaker's Ion Displacer and Nucleon Shock Cannon, the only traces of him they had found besides energon that was a chemical match to his, and placed them against the medical berth. "We found these among the battleground. Given your status as his partner, you have the authority to order the parts destroyed, or keep them for your own purposes."
Slowly, Arcee turned her helm to look at the destroyed weapons. They were both useless, with the Nucleon's barrel sliced in two, while the Ion Displacer was warped and blacked from what had likely been an explosion. "He went through quite a battle, if he used those," she said, tone as blank and hollow as she felt.
"He did," Optimus said, keeping his neutral tone despite the small satisfaction he felt as Arcee spoke for the first time since she was informed of Shadowstreaker's fate. A short sentence was hardly enough to warrant any celebration. "The battle he waged destroyed much of the forest we traveled to. Agent Fowler even had to organize a group of humans to begin replanting trees, after we cleaned the area."
"What else did you find?" The blue and pink femme asked, voice barely audible.
"Nothing you have not already been informed of," Optimus answered.
"How many did he take with him?" Arcee questioned, optics and tone still empty even though she actually wanted to know. Her sisters and Ironhide hadn't given an exact number of the offlined drones and bots they found.
"Nineteen in total. Fifteen drones, and four unidentified Cybertronians," Optimus replied. "All were armed with weapons similar to those Springer and Jetfire recovered from the station with Shadowstreaker. We have moved their remains to base, in the hopes we might be able to learn who they are, how they came to possess such advanced technology, and where they came from."
Arcee nodded absently, still staring at her offlined partner's destroyed weapons. Finding out where these bots came from was a good goal, it would give her the chance to repay them in kind for offlining Shadow', her Shadow'.
'Stop,' she ordered herself. Shadow' wasn't hers, wasn't even her courted... And now he never would be.
"He fought well," Arcee said, almost to herself. She reached out and brushed her digits against her partner's broken Ion Displacer, its barrels warped and partially melted from what she suspected was a powerful explosion. An explosion that probably offlined him.
"He did. He always fought well, especially when was the fight was to save a fellow Autobot," Optimus said, holding back the urge to say, 'Especially when he fought for you.' It wasn't his place to tell Arcee how her partner felt for her, and that piece of information would only cause her more grief.
The blue and pink femme fell silent. Shadow' wouldn't have had to cover Optimus' retreat if she had seen the shot coming. Had she not needed immediate medical attention, the three of them could have stayed together and fought alongside one another. Her partner would have still been among them if she hadn't failed to notice the sniper.
Optimus, seeing the look on Arcee's faceplate, internally sighed. "It was not your fault, Arcee."
"We should have been there for him, I should have been there," Arcee said, voice blank. "Had we been there, he wouldn't have been offlined, and his frame taken away."
"We would have been torn apart, Arcee. I nearly lost my servo, and you were klicks away from offlining. And we were only hit with one shot each," Optimus countered. "The Cybertronians that attacked us did not care whether we lived or not, they only wanted to take Shadowstreaker alive."
"At first they did, but then he became too much trouble," Arcee said.
The Prime nodded slowly. "Yes," he said as slowly as his nod, uncertain of what else to say. Not something that happened to him often. "At some point they found it to be easier to simply... Offline him."
Arcee went back to her silence, looking up at the ceiling again.
A saddened look crossed Optimus' faceplate, then he stood up and walked to the door, his attempt to help Arcee only providing her a brief distraction from her thoughts. He glanced back at Arcee just as the med-bay door opened for him. "For your own sake, Arcee, I pray that you chose to focus on your memories of Shadowstreaker, and not how he was lost to us." With that, he walked out of the med-bay and into the hallway, the door automatically closing behind him and leaving Arcee alone again.
Little sound carried in the med-bay after Optimus left, and Arcee liked it that way. It let her focus on her thoughts. And right now her thoughts were focused on a conversation she had almost two jours ago with Shadow'.
"I've... I've lost two partners already, Shadow', and I'm not sure how I would take losing a third..." She had said quietly as she stared straight out in front of her, away from her partner sitting next to her. "Before you said who left you in stasis lock, there was a part of me that thought you had left the other bot in worse shape, that you hadn't gone down without offlining the one who put you down... But after I found out you fought Megatron, and he was the one who left you in stasis lock, the realization about how easily you could have offlined kinda hit me hard," she was getting upset, and she knew it, but she pushed it to the side as much as she could. "You know, with everything I've seen in this war, I thought I was past being scared, but apparently I'm not. That can't be healthy for me, can it?"
"It is, actually," her partner had replied, sounding slightly off-put by her words. "It means you care, feel concern over losing your friends. When we become numb to the passings of friends and those close to us, we really do become machines, just as we appear to organics." He had looked down at her, a serious glint in his royal cobalt optics. "Don't you ever lose the fear of losing friends, Arcee, because that will mean you've totally lost hope that you'll ever see the future we're all fighting for."
Arcee had looked back at him in puzzlement, while at the same time she thought about how his habit of speaking what was on his processor was one of the reasons she had come to love him. "And what future are we fighting for, Shadow'?" She had asked curiously.
Her partner had paused for a long moment, before finally responding, "We're fighting for the future where Cybertron is in a new Golden Age, where all Cybertronians enjoy true freedom, where there is peace between the Autobots and Decepticons, where all those that have fallen victim to this war can truly be laid to rest, where we have all settled down, raised our families, and passed down the knowledge of how this war started, so that the generation that comes after us never lets it happen again."
Arcee pulled herself from the memory. She had reacted to her partner's cliched response with humor, and he had acknowledged his statement was rather cheesy, but his answer to her first question had been almost spot on. When you became numb, you had given up on hope, even though hope was never lost, only clouded. Shadow' had been very serious when he told her to not lose the fear of losing friends, and as a result becoming numb, and right now, she was doing exactly what he told her not to do. Become numb.
The blue and pink femme looked at the destroyed weapons of her partner, the only remaining pieces of him. He had faced an unknown enemy so she could live, and here she was, acting dead to the world. How disappointed would he be in her if he was sitting next to her right now? The answer was probably very. That was unacceptable.
At that moment, Arcee decided to no longer let herself be numb to everyone around her. She would let herself live, like Shadow' had fought and offlined for. It would take her time, but eventually she would laugh, smile, and joke, of that she was certain. But, if she had any say in the matter, she would never take another partner.
That position was filled.
(Human calendar) June 2, 2013 2:08 P.M (UTC-6:00 Mountain Standard Time)
(Cybertronian date) 1103432 (Centi-vorns since Golden Age)
Inescapable Shadow, sub space stream
"Repeat your previous statement, Praxis," the holographic image of Extremis said, his faceplate set in the neutral expression that never left him, and his unnaturally deep and mechanical voice carrying no emotion, yet somehow sounding angry to Praxis' audio receptors.
Praxis held the holographic gaze of his commander, having already prepared himself for contacting Extremis via a Quantum Entanglement Communicator. His debriefing was long overdue, and he would have done it after they finished loading the sedated Xel'Tor onboard the Inescapable Shadow and fled the system of the humans undetected, but circumstances had prevented him from doing so. They had been more than four-million light-years from Extremis' HQ, their communications were very advanced, but the Inescapable Shadow had been one of the first of their ships equipped a QEC, and, given its minor status in the fleet as a whole, it had yet to be retrofitted with their newer versions of Quantum Entanglement. The ship had to get within a certain range in order to have a conversation free of lag. And they only entered within that range twenty klicks ago.
"I offlined Jhaxius, and took over his command under the grounds of insubordination," Praxis stated. "He was refusing to follow the orders you gave him, and you sent me to make sure he followed. I acted with appropriate force, sir."
The hologram's ruby red optics stared into Praxis', then his commander nodded slightly. "Your actions were within protocol, and also unavoidable. Jhaxius was stubborn, and at times reckless. He let his pride get in the way of his orders, and, had you not relieved him of command, would have had the Xel'Tor offlined in his blind rage." he said. Extremis' hologram folded one pede over the other and sipped at the cube of energon in his servo, undoubtedly high-grade. "What is the status of the Xel'Tor?"
"Sedated and secured in a holding cell, with guards posted outside," Praxis answered, silently relieved Extremis was taking the offlining of one of his military officers so well. His commander's wrath was... Terrifying, even to him. "He sustained extensive injuries during Jhaxius' attempts to capture him, and I regret to report I had to add to them."
Extremis' did not react, at least visibly, such was his way. "Clarify."
"Jhaxius' plan to capture the Xel'Tor required luring him, and any Autobot with him, to a remote location on the home world of the humans, where fifteen Stalker drones were to capture him, and offline the accompanying Autobots. The plan nearly worked, but the Xel'Tor realized they had been lured into a trap and alerted the Autobots with him," Praxis explained. "The drones failed their main objective, and were destroyed by the Xel'Tor. Jhaxius then authorized the Rogues to engage and wound him, but they, too, were offlined, but not without inflicting numerous injuries. Jhaxius attempted to deploy Cyclops, but I offlined him before he could. I then went down to the surface with Scatterblast and his team. We pacified the Xel'Tor with a Hard-Light Cannon to prevent further casualites, then sedated him before he could expire from his injuries."
Extremis' hologram, which had been silent throughout Praxis' answer, stared into the optics of his SIC. "I find your reasoning to be acceptable, under the grounds of preserving as many of my soldiers as possible. But despite that, the Xel'Tor is The Key to many Doors. I hope you have taken the necessary measures to ensure he does not offline while sedated."
Praxis nodded once. "I have, sir. Aidworker and several medical drones worked to repair the Xel'Tor's injuries, as well as return his energon levels to normal, after we returned to the Inescapable Shadow. He is now in perfect health."
"He offlined a combined total of nineteen Stalker drones Rogues while either in perfect health, or while he was injured," Extremis stated factually. "Have you taken precautions to prevent him from being a problem when you remove the sedative?"
"Yes, sir. I ordered Aidworker to introduce Virus E7 into his systems, he will be unable to transform or deploy any of his weapons until we remove the virus," Praxis answered.
"Good, we cannot afford to have him be a problem when you arrive. Thanks to Jhaxius' attacks, he will take far more convincing than I had hoped," Extremis said as he slowly swirled his cube of high-grade. "What of the Autobots accompanying the Xel'Tor? You did mention their fates."
"Their exact fates are unknown, but at least one is assumed to be online. They fled after the ambush failed," Praxis replied. "They retreated beyond the jamming capabilities of the Inescapable Shadow, and presumably returned to their base."
A trace of confusion entered the holographic optics of Extremis, but it was so faint and was gone so quickly Praxis almost thought it had been a flicker of the hologram. "Autobots are not known for leaving one of their own behind."
"No, sir, they are not. But they were injured in the failed ambush, one of them gravely. I believe the Xel'Tor fought the drones so his companions could return to their base," Praxis said.
Extremis' hologram nodded marginally. "A logical conclusion. He was with the Autobots, his loyalty to them is most certainly strong, strong enough to sacrifice himself so his fellow soldiers could escape," he said. "How many Autobots were with him?"
"Two. A femme and a mech," Praxis answered. "The femme was the one who was gravely injured, and on an intriguing note, I believe there was a mutual attraction between she and the Xel'Tor."
"Interesting." Extremis swirled his cube and raised it up to his mouth. "What were the names of the Autobots?" He asked, mechanical voice almost carrying a curious tone, but sounding no different than his usual tone.
Praxis never understood how he did that. "The femme with him was a famous recon scout by the name of Arcee, and the mech was the Autobots' leader, Optimus Prime."
Extremis froze, the cube of high-grade stopping inches from his lips. He stayed that way for two micro-klicks, far longer than Praxis had ever seen him pause. He looked at Praxis, his holographic, ruby red optics carrying a look as firm as Primax, yet also completely unreadable to Praxis' highly trained and experienced optics.
"What?" Extremis finally asked.
"The two companions of the Xel'Tor, were the recon scout known as Arcee, and Optimus Prime," Praxis answered, blinking once at his commander's question. He had never needed to repeat himself to Extremis.
Extremis' hologram continued staring at him for a brief moment, then he looked away, as if focused on something else. "Keep the Xel'Tor sedated until your arrival in six breems," he said, then he cut the link, leaving his SIC staring at the wall behind the QEC.
Praxis' faceplate tightened slightly in confusion. He never had seen Extremis act that way, and he had been the first one to follow him. Saying Extremis' behavior was odd, would be a vast understatement.
The dark grey and red mech pushed his confusion aside and turned to leave the communications room. He didn't have time to wonder why Extremis had reacted in the way that he did, he had too many responsibilities as the Inescapable Shadow's acting captain for such thoughts. And he had learned long ago to not try and look for meaning in every one of Extremis' mysteries.
A bot would find themselves investigating something new every solar-cycle.
I felt myself online in almost the exact moment my world went dark, but didn't feel the ground against my backplates. Strange.
Snapping my optics open, I was greeted by the sight of emotionless grey optics staring into my own, optics belonging to the dark grey and red mech that shot me just before the lights went out. He was crouched down to my level, making me realize I was on my knee-joints, with my servos bound in front of me.
"He is online, weapons up," the dark grey and red mech ordered in the language of Cybertron, voice as blank as his optics as he rose from his crouch and turned to a holographic panel I noticed behind him.
The sounds of multiple weapons powering up caused me to look away from the mech in front of me and look around me, where I heard the weapons power up.
Four large, dull silver mechs were standing on both sides of me, holding rifles that looked like updated versions of weapons I saw on the station. Were these the Cybertronians who bulit that place?
I looked passed the mechs surrounding me. We were on what appeared to be the bridge of a ship, complete with a view port with streaks of blue and black on the outside, likely what their FTL looked like from inside their ship. It had a lot of technology similar to the station's, or had things that reminded me of the technology, such as the captains chair, which was floating off the floor. There were other bots with us, all sitting at holographic panels like the one behind the dark grey and red mech, but there were not as many as I expected there would be on a bridge as large as this. They were a mixture of femmes and mechs, and they were all staring at me with an odd look in their optics. Well, except for a green mech who was no more than half my height, he was fidgeting at in his chair, trying not to look at me. Guess I scared him, that or he was a rookie, and found my various injuries hard to look-
My injuries.
I glanced down at my frame. It was completely repaired, not a trace remained of my stab or gunshot wounds. My paint looked almost polished, as if the repair job was so good, being clean was a side effect. The only thing that wasn't pristine about my frame was my vision, I noticed. It was glitching slightly, not flickering or fading between darkness and light, but glitching, like a circuit in my helm was loose. The problem with that was, I felt totally normal, and that meant I likely had a virus, one that my captors had planted in me.
'What do they even want with me?' I thought as I looked up from my frame and back at the dark grey and red mech, typing something into the panel in front of him. He breathed discipline and control, nothing else. He was the no-nonsense commander, everyone else was an underling to command, and they followed his lead without question, from what I could read from the bridge crew members. And if his soldiers had weapons far more advanced than anything we had, that meant this ship was just as advanced.
So why did he capture me? Was he hoping I would be some kind of leverage against the Autobots? No, that couldn't be it. He could have just captured Optimus if he wanted that. Did he capture me just because of my relation to Solus? It was possible. They knew I was her son, since they sent a message that led us into their trap, so were they hoping I knew secrets of the Thirteen? Tough luck in that was the case. Basically the only thing they had told me was they hadn't been able to create pure Primax. Or, was this mech not even the commander? And he was just taking me to the commander? If so, where were they taking me? And... How long had I been out?
I realized then that I had no idea how much time had past since I was shot by the mech in front of me, no way of knowing if Optimus ever got back to base... No idea whether the femme I loved with all my spark was even online...
'Please let her be online,' I thought, silently praying she was alright.
"Commander Highspeed," the dark grey and red mech said, bringing me out of my thoughts. "Bring us out of sub-space."
'They used sub-space as a means of travel?' I thought. The concept, while unusual, was very possible and effective. Sub-space was the extra-dimensional space between realities, meaning the laws of Physics didn't apply to it. Mostly, sub-space was used as personal storage, such as the pockets all Cybertronians had built into their frames, but if you knew how to manipulate it enough, you could have light travel hundreds, thousands, millions, or even billions of times faster while in sub-space. They must have a good grasp of how sub-space worked.
"Yes, sir," a red mech to the side of the captain answered, ordered tone seemingly forced and covering up a tone of fear and anger. Why was he hostile to his captain? And why would he be afraid of him?
I pushed my questions aside as the mech now identified as Highspeed waved his servos over a holographic panel he was sitting in front of, which caused the blue and black streaks outside the view port to rapidly fade away, and be replaced by a view of a planet with two suns, one yellow, one orange.
The planet was a large world, at least half again the size of Earth, or perhaps bigger. It looked similar to the planet I had called home for my entire life, but it had more ocean and less landmass. No deserts or snowy areas were visible, at least on this side of it, it looked like the only type of terrain on the planet thick rainforest.
It also seemed like there were several space stations in high orbit above the planet, but we were too far away for me to be sure.
"Report, Commander Highspeed," the dark grey and red mech said after the ship came out of FTL.
"Sub-space jump was successful, rupture has closed behind us," Highspeed reported blankly, as if repeating something he had said hundreds of times before, but also with that hidden tone of fear and anger in it.
"As expected. Bring us to low orbit," the captain ordered, either not hearing or ignoring the hidden tone Highspeed's voice.
Highspeed complied by moving his servos over his holographic panel in a rehearsed motion, one that caused the ship we were on to move toward the planet at an impressive pace, which would most certainly get us to the planet in only a few klicks, at the most.
Within a klick, the ship approached the objects I believed to be space stations when I first saw them. As it turned out, they weren't stations.
They were ships, seven of them.
Each ship was massive, no less than two-hundred and fifty kilometers in length, dwarfing even the Infinite Reverence. Their grey hulls were somewhat sleek, but mostly bulky, like they were designed purely for combat. Countless gun emplacements riddled the hull of every ship, from bow to stern, with each cannon being at least as large as the stealth frigate the others and I helped the neutrals fight last orbital-cycle. And on the bow of every ship, I saw three enormous main cannons whose barrels were wider than the Dark Matter was long, and looked like they could fire in multiple angles.
More ships soon came into view. They were similar in appearance as the seven titanic dreadnoughts, only far, far smaller, ranging from perhaps two to thirty kilometers in length. Still large, but not even in the same galaxy as the capital ships.
However, their numbers more than made up for their small-er size. There were hundreds to each of the dreadnoughts they flew around, totaling to about one tenth of the Autobot armada, I estimated. The problem was, our forces were spread across hundreds, if not thousands, of worlds, making it nearly impossible for us to gather a large fleet together. These Cybertronians didn't seem to have that problem, and had a larger fleet here than we could ever amass in a single place. Made me wonder how so many Cybertronians came to be here in the first place.
'And why do they need so much firepower?' I thought as our ship passed under one of the dreadnoughts and its accompanying fleet. Going by the size of their main cannons, a single shot from one of the capital ships would be enough to either turn an entire planet to glass, or destroy it outright. And I didn't even know what those monsters fired. I might have been underestimating their power, for all I knew. A terrifying thought.
After our ship completely passed by the orbiting fleets, the dark grey and red mech looked at Highspeed. "Commander Highspeed, you have the ship until your docking is complete," he stated emotionlessly, then turned around and walked by me. "Get the Xel'Tor on his pedes."
I didn't have time to wonder how the captain knew I was the Xel'Tor, since two of the grey mechs surrounding me lowered their rifles and pulled me up on my pedes, then returned to their original positions and aimed their weapons at me again. Guess we were going somewhere.
I turned around and saw the dark grey and red mech standing next to a door, servos at his sides as he stared at me, as if waiting for me to follow an unspoken order. I was supposed to follow him, then.
With an internal sigh, I started walking toward the door, the guards around me matching my pace and closing in around me, weapons at the ready while appearing to be held in a non-threatening manner.
The dark grey and red mech pressed a holographic button next to the door when I started moving, revealing four more grey guards standing in a bare hallway just outside the door. The captain lead my guards and I into the bare hallway, and the four new guards fell in step with my own.
'Eight guards just for me? I am not sure if I should feel threatened or flattered,' I thought as we continued down the hallway, the captain and my guards causing any crew members in the hall to move out of the way when they passed.
After a short walk, the dark grey and red mech led my guards and I into a side room, or what I thought was a side room. It was only when the door to the side room closed, and I saw a femme sitting in a pilot's seat, that I realized we had entered a shuttle.
"Detach," the the leading mech said to the femme pilot once the door closed, walking forward to stand next to her seat, and stare out the view port in front of her.
"Yes, Praxis," the femme said in a professional, yet intimidated tone, giving me a name for the mech who shot me as she pressed holographic buttons and flipped solid switches.
I felt the shuttle jerk after she flipped one switch in particular. We were detached from the ship.
The femme then focused on moving her servos over a holographic panel, not unlike the one I had seen Highspeed use, and the shuttle began moving forward, down toward an island off the coast of another, larger island.
I remained in the middle of the shuttle as we flew down to the planet, unable to move since my guards were crowded around me. Think they took their job a little too seriously.
Our shuttle eventually got through the planet's atmosphere, and I saw two incredibly massive structures on the island come into view.
The first was a complex made of gold alloy, and seemed to be our destination. It was built in the middle of the island, surrounded completely by trees that rivaled those I saw in the Pocket Universe. It was designed in a simplistic fashion, nothing fancy or over the top. A shipyard was near the complex, with multiple dry docks, some with ships docked in them, that were large enough to fit a ship the size of the Nemesis, or perhaps larger. There were also a number of panels hidden on the entire structure. They may have been housings for anti-air cannons, but I didn't know for sure, since the second structure commanded most of my attention.
The second complex was far larger than the first, and was made out of bright white metal, likely an alloy of Primax. It was mostly built on land, but several areas were built beyond the a massive cliff that was the edge of the island, leaving parts of the structure hanging kilometers above the sea below. Its design was, unlike the first, more artistic and appealing. More thought had gone into its design, and it reminded me of the construction style of the Primes. Maybe they were here at one point.
Silver and gold symbols covered much of the complex's surface. Most of the symbols were unfamiliar and alien, but I recognized the largest of them, the one displayed on the front of the structure.
The one I had on either side of my helm.
'What? How did that get there?' I asked myself, staring at the symbol in masked confusion. That symbol identified me as a direct descendant of Solus Prime, why was it built onto the side of a complex built by the Primes? Did it mean more than I thought?
I didn't have time to think about it anymore, because our shuttle touched down on a landing pad on top of the gold complex at that moment, blocking the symbol from view.
Praxis walked away from the femme pilot and opened the shuttle door, then stepped out onto the landing pad as other bots moved forward to service the shuttle, probably for its return trip to the ship we were on earlier.
One of my guards nudged me lightly with his rifle. "Get moving, Xel'Tor," he ordered in a professional tone.
I gave the guard a brief look, but followed the guard's instructions and stepped out onto the landing pad, where Praxis waited with another set of guards. They honestly didn't need so many.
"Welcome to Ventqura Munitum, Xel'Tor," Praxis said as the guards around him formed with the ones already around me. He then turned and walked toward a lift on the far side of the landing pad.
'I don't feel very welcome,' I thought, grudgingly moving to follow the dark grey and red mech when the guard from before lightly nudged me again.
I had the feeling I would never feel welcome on this world.
Extremis sat in his gravity chair, scanning the holographic displays in front of him while drinking a cube of high-grade. It was his fourth since Praxis' report, but he was not at all hampered by the rich liquid. His... Unique physiology wouldn't allow him to become overcharged, no matter how much high-grade he consumed. Having that ability was useful, but for the first time in countless vorns, a small part of Extremis wished he did not have it.
His first lieutenant's report had brought memories Extremis wished to remain off his processor. He was dwelling on things he had buried long ago, thinking about battles that happened long before he ever stepped on Ventqura Munitum... And the Cybertronians involved in them.
But memories weren't important, and were a distraction from what he should be focusing on. The Xel'Tor's arrival.
Extremis focused his attention on one display in particular, and dismissing the others with a flick of his wrist and enlarging the remaining one in the same motion. The display was a live feed from a security camera, one located at the bottom of the lift to the landing pad the shuttle carrying his Second in Command and the Xel'Tor landed on nearly a klick ago. They would be in frame soon.
After only a few micro-klicks, the lift came into frame, along with its occupants.
Praxis was the closest to the camera, standing in front of a group of guards with his servos behind his backplates, looking professional and emotionless as he always did.
The guards behind Praxis were crowded around the center of the lift, where Extremis knew the Xel'Tor was. It was a completely secure perimeter, but it also blocked the Xel'Tor from the camera's view. They would have to spread out before he was visible.
The lift finished its descent to the floor, and Praxis stepped off as soon as it stopped, the guards immediately starting to move into a wider formation around the Xel'Tor and following after him.
Extremis watched as the guards moved in an ordered, precise fashion, silently pleased that his instructors had trained them as well as they had. But he stopped watching them when the Xel'Tor fully came into view, and almost dropped his cube of high-grade at his image.
The pure white mech realized, after a brief moment of studying the Xel'Tor to be sure, that he recognized the mech. Not his physical appearance, of course, but he recognized the Xel'Tor's posture, the way his royal cobalt optics analyzed everything around him almost instantly, how he refused to appear defeated, despite the fact he was surrounded on all sides. Extremis had seen those exact characteristics before, long before he created his organizaion. The chances of this being a coincidence, were literally incalculable.
"Nothing is simple," Extremis said to himself as Praxis led the Xel'Tor and his guards out of the camera's view. But, despite this revelation, it didn't change his goals. The Chaos Bringer was coming, and he wasn't sure where or when. They needed to be ready, and advanced technology was their only chance against the approaching battles. He needed to gain complete access to the Ancient complex, before it was too late for everyone.
No, the Xel'Tor's identity didn't change Extremis' goals. Merely... Complicated them.
Exremis raised his servo toward the energon dispenser, propelling his nearly empty cube through the air and inserting it beneath the dispenser. He needed another drink before Praxis arrived with the Xel'Tor.
I looked around as Praxis led my guards and I through the halls of the complex. The path we were on led us by a number of laboratories, all conducting experiments I am certain Ratchet and Moonracer would have loved to be a part of. If this place didn't belong to such a mysterious group of Cybertronians, of course. Most of the experiments I saw were beyond my understanding of science, but I knew what some of them were.
One of the labs was testing a bulky suit of power armor, going by how the helm of the operator of the armor was tiny compared to his chassis, and he was clumsily walking into floating tables with parts covering their surfaces, or even bumping into the scientists around him, yelling instructions at him that I couldn't hear. That project was clearly in the early stages of development. But despite that, I would have bet a jour's high-grade that Arcee would have had a lot of fun with...
'Bad thought, moving on,' I thought as I looked away from the power armor testing. Couldn't think about her right now, couldn't let myself worry at all, even though I wanted to.
I looked into another lab and saw scientists studying objects made out of glowing white metal that pulsed with bright blue energy. Occasionally, a scientist would grab a tool next to him, or her, and scan the object in front of them, and the tool would then display an interactive hologram of what they scanned, which the scientist would then study intently. I had no idea what any of them were studying, but they definitely found it interesting. They probably didn't even notice us walk by.
Another lab was filled with slabs of black stone etched with white runes in an alien language, but also with crude drawings of creatures or beings on them as well. Scientists surrounded one of the larger slabs, and seemed to be studying one of the drawings extensively, as if trying to decipher its meaning. Seemed to me like they were learning the language of another race.
We continued walking through hallways, passing a number of more laboratories, and even some assembly lines for what looked like updated versions of the power crystals I recovered from the station with Springer and Jetfire, along with the weapons that used them.
As we passed one lab in particular, I came to a halt, causing the guard directly behind me to nudge me with his rifle, but I didn't budge, just kept staring into the lab.
Floating above the floor of the laboratory, with scientists gathered around it and using holographic tools to take readings, was a Delphic.
But it wasn't the Delphic, it seemed. It was much larger, about twice the size as the one back at the base I called home for the last sixteen jours. Its shape was also a bit more jagged. But it was also even brighter than the one on Earth, and it had a faint red color to it, unlike the Delphic. Energy also seemed to crackle the air around it, making the scientists give it a respectable berth while they conducted their scans and experiments.
My processor went to two conversations I had on the station, and just after the station.
The first conversation I focused on was when Springer offered the theory of how maybe there were more Delphics in the universe, and the reason why the crystals we found on the station were Delphic-like was because their creators had found one and studied it.
And the second conversation that my CPU went to was when I was in the Pocket Universe and I asked the Primes if they created the Delphic. They said they hadn't, that they had only found it, and added to it, whatever that meant. They said nothing about there being more than one. But then again, I hadn't asked if there was more than one. I only asked if they created the Delphic at base, and hadn't mentioned Springer's theory of there being more than one. And the Primes had been tight-lipped my entire visit, they had no reason to give me more information than I requested.
Sneaky of them, frustrating and confusing to me.
I was pulled from my thoughts by Praxis addressing me without turning around, "Move, Xel'Tor. Extremis is waiting for your arrival." The guard behind me punctuated his statement by nudging me with his rifle again.
I turned my gaze away and followed Praxis' instruction, while also wondering who he was referring to. Guess I was going to find out soon.
Praxis continued down the hallway once he saw I was following, and the second Delphic quickly faded from view.
After another klick of walking, we reached a door with a pair of heavily armored guards standing on either side of it, battlemasks snapped over their faceplates.
One of them turned and pressed a holographic button behind him as soon as he saw Praxis, my guards, and I. The door opened silently, revealing a long hallway on the other side that led to another door.
"Guards, remain here," Praxis ordered after the door opened, his emotionless voice sounding commanding without changing tones.
My guards rested their rifles against their shoulder-joints, snapped clean salutes at exactly the same time, then stepped out of my way and stood at attention on either side of me.
'Who were they taking me to, if they didn't question Praxis about me being near this Extremis?' I thought. They had been surrounding me since I first onlined, to make sure I didn't try anything, I assume. And any good guard would protest about leaving their superiors alone with a prisoner they viewed as dangerous, as if I could do anything now, but that didn't matter. So why didn't they protest at me only being guarded by Praxis while in the presence of what was apparently their leader? Their actions, or lack thereof, didn't sit well with me.
Placing my thoughts to the side, I walked into the final hallway without Praxis telling me to, and the dark grey and red mech followed me, closing the first door behind us.
The only sounds that reached my audio receptors as we moved to the second door were the pedes of Praxis and I hitting the floor, making the trip seem longer and more ominous, in my CPU, anyway.
After what seemed like a long walk, when in fact it was only about a hundred meters, we reached the second door.
Praxis stepped up to the door and stood still. And a moment later, an orange, holographic panel appeared in front of him. He pressed his servo against it, and the panel went from orange to green.
"Enter," an incredibly deep, mechanical voice said from an unseen speaker, likely a security VI authorizing Praxis entry.
The panel vanished, and the door opened, letting me see the room beyond for the first time.
It was very large, but completely spartan. The floor was made of a smooth, black material, likely some type of metal, or perhaps an unknown kind of Marble. A giant window made up the entire far wall. It would have given a spectacular view of the jungle outside, but the second complex took up most of the view, due to its sheer size.
In the center of the room, with no less than two dozen holographic screens in front of him, a pure white mech sat in a chair held up by apparently nothing, likely supported by a gravity field.
"Welcome to my planet, Xel'Tor," the mech who could only be Extremis said in a blank tone, not turning to look at Praxis and I. His voice was impossibly deep and far more mechanical than any voice I had heard from a Cybertronian. It was probably either the result of an injury to his voice box, or a modification he had installed.
I remained silent as I stepped fully into the room, Praxis not far behind. I was not in a talkative mood, and wouldn't be until I knew for sure how Arcee was, whether she was online. And, even if he wasn't there, this mech was just as responsible for what happened to my spark as the drone who shot her.
The pure white mech focused on one display in particular, but I couldn't see what he was seeing. "Mystery surrounds you, Xel'Tor. No birth records from the Age of the Primes exist, and too many vorns have passed since your carrier last walked on Cybertron. But there are no other information sources that you possibly would appear in. No training records in the Autobot, Decepticon, or civilian databases. No purchase history on record in the databases of ancient Cybertronian corporations. No security footage of you entering or leaving any city under control of the Cybertronian race. Not even the Hall of Records can reveal anything about you, and at one point they recorded, logged, and stored all data on Cybertron, even something as minor as a comm-link conversation between courteds," he listed. "What shall we call you, since we do not know your true name, Xel'Tor?"
I didn't reply, silently filing away everything he said. His apparent access to so many databases was... Alarming. It made me wonder how he got access to them, and whether he had access for many vorns, or his access was recent.
"If you will not give us your name, then we shall continue calling you 'Xel'Tor' until you you decide to give us one," Extremis said, dismissing the display he had been focusing on and turning his attention to another.
Silence descended on the room. I could feel Praxis' optics on me, but he said nothing, just kept standing behind me, watching.
Extremis broke the silence, still keeping his gaze on the displays in front of him while sipping from a cube of energon. "You have questions," he said, a statement, not a question.
I had a number of them, but the only one that mattered was whether Arcee was alright. "Who are you?" I asked instead of voicing the question I actually wanted answered. This wasn't the time or place for worry, despite how anxious I was to find out her condition.
"Your statement can be interpreted in multiple manners, clarify," Extremis replied, still finding the data on his displays more interesting than me.
He almost sounded like an answering machine, just now. "What is the name of your faction, or organization?"
"We are the Paraions," Extremis responded, tapping one display and making it disappear, only to be replaced by another one with different data being displayed.
"Do you serve the Decepticons, or the Autobots?" I asked.
"We serve neither, and favor both," Extremis answered, finally looking away from his displays, standing up, and walking toward me. He was a massive mech, at least six feet taller than Megatron and even more broad. His pure white armor had sharp edges, and appeared thicker than the armor of any other mechs I had seen inside the complex, giving me the impression he was no stranger to war and battle. No weapons were visible on his chassis, but I highly doubted he was unarmed. And his optics were ruby red, and carried even less emotion than Praxis'.
"Then what is your cause?" I asked, struggling slightly to keep my composure. Extremis breathed power and control, intimidation and cold indifference. And he scared the slag out of me, even more so than Megatron.
"Progress, uncovering long-lost secrets, and preparation," Extremis replied as he stopped right in front me, only raising more questions with his answer.
I blinked at his unclear reply. "And what are you preparing for?"
"Many things," Extremis responded. "Your arrival chief among them, Xel'Tor."
And there we go, back to that word. Xel'Tor. "Why am I so important?"
Extremis looked at me for a moment, faceplate set in a neutral look that hadn't left his faceplate since I first saw him. "You do not know," he said, impossibly deep and mechanical voice carrying no emotion, yet somehow showing his mild surprise.
"No," I replied honestly. They already knew who my carrier was, were aware I essentially didn't exist anywhere, and knew I was the Xel'Tor. There wasn't a lot left that they didn't know about me.
Extremis didn't respond immediately, and walked back over to his chair. He pressed a digit against one display in front of his chair, and dragged it through the air, and it expanded in size until it was nearly as tall as he was, and twice as wide. The image on the display was one of me, at the exact moment Refit caused the Precursor Protocol to activate. He must have had cameras on the station that were still operational.
"You do not know what the Xel'Tor is, yet you have had contact with the personal ship of the Thirteen. Contact, which I believe, transferred knowledge to you regarding your status as the Xel'Tor," Extremis said.
If only he knew what gave me knowledge of my status. "Contact does not mean knowledge, and knowledge does not mean understanding," I said, avoiding any possible mention of the Delphic. It seemed like Extremis believed I had only come into contact with the Infinite Reverence, and while that contact left me with a lot of questions, my connection with the Delphic raised just as many. It would likely be best if Extremis didn't know.
Extremis studied me, ruby red optics staring into my own. "Perhaps you are correct," he finally said, slowly walking back toward me. "Unless, of course, the knowledge required a cipher. A key, like encrypted files in a computer, or a Cybertronian's memory banks. And let us say this key contained two parts, one located on the personal ship of the Thirteen, and the other in an unknown location, in an unknown object." He stopped just in front of me, towering over me. "A location you have been to, and an object you have had contact with."
I stood there, shocked. How did he figure that out so quickly? Granted, he was wrong about me having a cipher, but he still figured out what he knew about what happened on the station wasn't the full picutre. "You're jumping to conclusions that are false," I said, trying to sound confused by what he said.
"And you are lying," Extremis stated factually, seeing straight through my attempt to brush off his suspicions. "You did not know what you were given by the vessel of the Thirteen because you had only one piece out of two. But now you understand, due to you coming into contact with the second."
Wait, he thinks I'm lying about understanding nothing about what happened on the station. Not good. "I don't understand anything about what the Xel'Tor is."
"You claim not to," Extremis said, then set a servo on the shoulder-joints of Praxis and I. "So allow me to..." My world suddenly warped around me, folding and stretching in ways I had no way to describe or make sense of. Light itself was misshapen, deformed, like it was too slow to keep up with the vortex around us. And before it seemed to even start, it was over, and our surroundings were completely different, from what I could see out of my peripheral vision. "Remind you."
I pulled my shoulder-joint from Extremis' grip and slowly backed away, staring at the pure white mech in shock, as well as fear, while he just stared right back.
Did... Did he just teleport us?! He just teleported us. As in used a space bridge to transport us to an entirely different location, only without the actual space bridge! Who the frag was this mech?! Only the Thirteen had the power to do that... Right?
I didn't get a chance to ponder that question, since I felt the floor give way beneath my pede as I went to take another step away from Extremis, which caused me to quickly pull my pede back and turn to look at where there should have been floor.
I was standing on the edge of a platform that wasn't made out of metal, crystals, or energy, but light itself, white light that felt more soild than anything I had ever touched. And we were inside what was undoubtedly the largest room I had ever seen.
It looked like a giant dome, no less than a thousand kilometers wide at its widest point at the bottom, and about five kilometers wide at the apex of its ceiling. Countless structures were all over the room, both on the room and the floor, but I had no idea what they could have been. Perhaps they were armories, or storage hangers, or archives, but I had no clue. Everything was made out of glowing white metal, light, or a combination of both, leading me to believe the Thirteen were the creators of this place.
The platform we were on was in the center of the great room, roughly one-hundred fifty kilometers away from the nearest wall, since we were at least fifty kilometers in the air, floating without any supports.
I looked behind me, back to Extremis and Praxis, and saw that the platform we were standing on was connected to a giant, glowing white sphere that pulsed with energy, almost like the metal I saw the scientists studying earlier, only with a much more... Dangerous air to the pulses. Runes in the language of the Primes covered the entire sphere, but faded and brightened at seemingly random times, espeically around a circular, vault-like door that was directly in front of me, and behind Extremis and Praxis.
Cybertronian scientists were all around the giant sphere, setting up an experiment with an automated machine, it seemed, while soldiers stood guard near them. Now why did they need to be here?
"Where did you take us?" I asked, covering my nervousness with interest as I watched one of the scientists brushed passed one of the soldiers on his way to a holographic computer.
"Not far. This is the Ancient complex you most certainly saw during your time on your shuttle. It is called the Master Registry and Seed Nexus," Extremis answered. "Many of my follows refer to it as the Archive, for short."
"What is it, exactly?" I asked.
"That, is unknown," the Paraions' leader replied as the scientists behind him interacted with the automated machine, and it transformed into a small hovering drone. A scientist immediately started running tests on it. For what purpose, I did not know.
"Then why did you bring me here?" I questioned as the mech scientist that went to the holographic computer started moving his servos over its keyboard, causing the drone to move forward and backwards with certain motions.
Extremis turned and looked at the scientists. "Watch," he said to me.
Since I already was watching the scientists, I complied with Extremis' request.
After the scientist tested the drone a few more times, he moved it toward the vault-like door, making the drone move in at a slow, non-threatening pace. It continued on smoothly, no changes in the height it hovered, or the direction it was going, or even its speed. Then it got within twenty meters of the sphere.
And it all went to hell.
A beam of of plasma, molten metal, light, energy, magma, I honestly didn't know what the frag it was, lashed out from the sphere and hit the drone, and a blinding light caused me to turn the sensitivity of my optics down, while all sound seemed to be sucked out of the air for a brief moment, before returning in a deafening explosion.
The light and sound from the explosion faded, and I had my optics readjust to the light. The drone had, quite simply, ceased to exist. There was absolutely nothing in the place it had been, no ashes, scorch marks, or even smoke. It was just completely gone.
I did not want to get in the way of whatever shot it.
Extremis looked back at me once the explosion died away. "Approximately eighty-six point four percent of all systems within the Master Registry and Seed Nexus are restricted exclusively to Xel'Tor access, thirteen of the remaining percent require either a Prime or the Xel'Tor to activate, and the remaining point six percent can be accessed freely by anyone, provided you do not attempt to force higher access," he said. "However, all restricted systems are guarded by security measures similar to the one you just wittnessed activating."
"Must make a lot of systems secure," I remarked.
"Be thankful the system did not find it necessary to deploy warrior drones," Extremis said seriously. "The security systems of this structure have claimed many lives over the vorns."
"What a shame," I said, hiding the fact that hearing some of Extremis' soldiers being offlined pleased me a bit. Serves them right for what happened to Arcee.
Bad thoughts, go away. Not the time.
Extremis looked at me for a brief moment, as if he heard the tone I was keeping hidden. "A way to reduce casualties, would be to open the door for us, Xel'Tor."
I looked at the sphere. They thought I knew how to open that? Well, they're going to get a surprise... "I don't know how to open the door."
"False," Extremis said. "You are the Xel'Tor, you are meant to open doors that otherwise would remain closed."
What part of, 'I don't know' does he not understand? "I. Don't. Know. What. I. Am!" I yelled in frustration, tired of the Paraions' leader assuming I knew something I did not.
Extremis stared at me, completely unaffected by the loud tone I used. "You truly do not know," he stated, as if hearing my statement for the first time.
I shook my helm negatively.
The Paraions' leader blinked at me once, expression unchanging. "Then let me inform you," he said. "You are the Xel'Tor, you are meant to open doors that otherwise would remain closed, for they do not open for anyone else. You are the Key to many Doors. And right now, there is a door that needs to be opened." He raised his servo out toward me, and the air between him and I distorted, as if it was being heated up, and the cuffs on my servos fell to the floor without anyone touching them. Another ability that I only saw being used by the Thirteen. "And you are the only one who can open it."
I said nothing, and didn't move at all. This mech, the leader of a faction that clearly did not care if the Autobots or Decepticons were destroyed, was asking for my help in furthering his own goals. He wanted to get in that door so badly, that he was willing to offline anyone in his way, going by how they tried to capture me. He was responsible, either intentionally or unintentionally, for what happened to Arcee, and I still didn't know if was she was even alive, and he was asking me to help him?!
Not only no, but frag no.
"No," I said quietly, the word almost coming out as a growl.
Extremis reached his servo out toward me, and I found myself unable to move or resist as he picked me off the ground with his abilities and brought me right in front of his faceplate, his blank ruby red optics boring into my own. "It would be in your best interest, if you would help us, Xel'Tor," he said, tone unchanged from when he first spoke. "There are many things in the dark that we must fight, things that would spell the end of everything. Alone, we have little chance of success. But with you with us, we could accomplish more than you can currently imagine, and save more lives than have ever existed."
"If you really wanted that, you would have sided with the Autobots," I said.
"Their leader is not willing to make the decisions necessary to secure the safety of everything, and everyone. Sacrifices must be made in order to achieve victory. But those sacrifices will be minimal with your help," Extremis said, optics emotionless and blank, oblivious to how twisted he sounded. Victory was always the goal, but if you were willing to sacrifice others in order to achieve it, then what would that turn you into?
I glared into his optics, fighting the overwhelming urge to break contact. "How about you go to hell, instead?"
The Paraions' leader looked at me for a moment, almost sadly, then he released me from his abilities, where Praxis immediately recuffed me. "Praxis, buried deep within the Xel'Tor's processor, whether he is aware or not, lies the knowledge to open this door. Take him to the Hammer, and see to it that Scalpel acquires it." He then turned around and looked at the door, apparently finding it more worth his time than I was.
Praxis and another soldier started dragging me away after Extremis spoke, moving toward a light bridge that appeared on the platform as they moved.
I stared at Extremis' backplates, silently pleased he wasn't getting to whatever was behind the door. And I had this strange feeling that I made the right decision in keeping him out of the sphere, almost like an unseen bot's approval. It felt good.
I just hoped they didn't find whatever they wanted from me.
As you no-doubt saw, there's a lot more I have planned with Fate Calls, and let me say there are tons of plot elements that have yet to see the light of day. And I am really looking forward to writing them.
I am hoping to get the next chapter in this month, but it is unlikely I will, because every time I try and do that, I get myself stuck due to wanting to get it done so much. Lol. But who knows, maybe this time will be different.
This chapter's credit song is "Nine Lashes - Anthem of the Lonely" This song is one of my personal favorites. It has an epic beginning, an awesome middle, and is just incredible overall. One of my favorites, and it fits really well with the ending of this chapter. So I recommend listening to this one.
Please be sure to leave a review to let me know what you think. I take all reviews seriously, besides just flames, and do my best to make sure I answer questions as fast as possible.
Thank you all very much for taking the time to read, and I will see you soon.