Eighteen months.
Eighteen months since I last updated this story. Six months longer than it took me to update last time. And oh boy, do I ever wish I didn't choose to mix the Cybonic plague with the flu; the parallels of Booth's bioweapon to RL are... somewhat concerning at this point.
To be serious, I am sorry I am so unreliable. I have a longer explanation of what has gone wrong with me in the lower author's notes. I encourage you to read that.
On a more incredible note, you readers are still awesome. Yet more new people have read, favorited, followed, or reviewed since my last update - including a significant number of new favorites just in the last two months. I thank you all.
Guest (Chapter 37): Hey, thanks for the honest thoughts. I appreciate that.
I'm not really going to refute a lot of what you said; I don't think I handled that part of the story very well. On the brightside, I've been able to start using my current level of skill to address those in-story shortcomings. How, I can't say - but hopefully they're good. Thanks for the review.
Mr Yeet: Well, given how long it took me this time to update, I'd say yes. And, given how you reviewed as a guest, you're probably wondering why it took so long for me to say anything. That, or you meant your review to be... a way to vent, I guess? I'm not one to assume, though. Either way, a more detailed answer is at the end of this update.
As a general reminder, I recommend going back and reading (or skimming) through the update previous to this one since it's been so long since I posted a chapter on this. I'd write a summary, but my author's notes are already too long.
Thanks go to Crystal Prime and xDaughterOfKingsx for beta reading.
Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro. I only take credit for this story and my OCs.
Wildwing drew.
The Feeling really liked it when he drew. It said so. It said so a lot, while it kept showing him lots and lots of things. Cool things. Weird things. Funny things. Scary things.
His Carrier and Sire didn't like his drawings, anymore. They didn't want him to know, but he did. His Carrier didn't smile like she used to when he showed his work. His Sire didn't, either. Or Wildwing's friends and their carriers and sires. He didn't get to go to academy anymore, like all the other mechlings and femmelings. That made him sad. Sometimes, he wanted to put his writing tool away and go back to his friends. His Carrier and Sire.
The Feeling said no.
He concluded his latest drawing—a city inside a big ball with a light in the middle—and went to the next one the Feeling showed him. It was a cool thing: a really pretty femme in a workshop surrounded by purple light, forging armor and swords and shields and bows and things he didn't know. She looked happy, but he knew she was sad.
Next, he drew a dark, mean-looking mech with a staff, but Wildwing knew he was nicer than he looked. He stood in a dark place, but held a violet sphere close to his chestplates—and the big spark Wildwing knew he had.
Then, he drew a tower.
He'd drawn it before. He liked it. He liked how it looked so pretty. How fire danced across its walls, radiant and pure. How sires and carriers and sparklings and visitors and everyone loved to step inside and look at its halls of crystal and light. How everyone who lived in sight of the tower was so cool and beautiful and soph—. Sopetsti—. Sophisti—. Cool. How cool they were. And he loved how the land around the tower was so green and lush and weird. Like Earth was weird, but better. Older. More important.
Wildwing finished the drawing and held it up, smiling. It was his best work ever. Definitely. He got all the details just right, from the bright tower to stars to the wide-spanning city surrounding it, filled with small shapes he knew were smaller towers, buildings, houses, parks, and other stuff.
It was perfect. The Feeling said so.
Excited, Wildwing dropped his drawing tool and hopped up, skip-running for his door. Carrier had to love this one! She'd like his drawings again! He reached up to his door control and hit it.
Thunk.
Wildwing stopped, his excitement fading. He frowned. What was that sound? He looked at his servo.
His writing tool was in it.
Wildwing frowned more. He had put the tool down. He remembered. Why did he…?
His servo moved on its own.
He dropped to his knee-joints, slamming down his perfect drawing in front of him. He started to draw over one of the buildings near the tower. One of the distant dots. The mansion. It vanished under an ugly black.
"Hey!" He cried, surprised. He tried to move his servo away with the other, but it didn't move. Didn't even slow down. It even moved faster, spreading the black from the mansion outward to other parts of the drawing.
"Stop!" He heard how his voice was louder. Higher. How his spark was hurting. How sad he felt at seeing his work sabotaged. "Stop!"
The Feeling said no.
More and more, the darkness took over. And more and more, Wildwing felt confused. Afraid. The darkness took on a quality he didn't like. Didn't understand. Didn't want to see, hear, touch.
It moved in front of him. And his world shattered.
Wildwing screamed. He screamed loud and unendingly. Tears fell from his optics, hot and terrified. Blurring his vision into a fractured mess. His spark hurt. Before him, he saw it. An ugly, ugly creature without shape. Without warmth. Without life.
Over his screaming, he heard Carrier run into his room, felt her rip his drawing away, then his writing tool when his servo kept moving, creating a swirling, formless black vortex on her armor when she picked him up. He heard her call to him, felt her bond reaching out to him, embracing him. Then Sire's bond did the same. Trying to take away his pain.
All he saw was Darkness.
He cried harder. Screamed louder. Calling for the Feeling to stop. To let him go. To take away the drawings, the images—the Darkness. To take them all away, as his Carrier and Sire were trying to.
With tears of its own, the Feeling said no.
It began with an itch.
A feeling in the back of her helm, quiet and slight. Shrouded by the fury she continued to take out on the virtual enemies she'd surrounded herself with. She didn't notice it. Didn't notice as the rage she had vented suddenly flared into bitterness without prompt, echoing back at her again and again in the solitude she'd sought in person and in her bonds.
Why did they get to direct her life? Why did they keep making things worse? Why did they even care about her? About her family?
Why couldn't they leave her alone?!
She focused the flaring anger outward, into her motions. Into her attacks. Not dwelling on why. Not letting her anger control her, as she'd let it seemingly not long ago.
And not noticing that she tore into her digital opponents with a touch more speed and strength than she possessed but moments before.
The Archer did his best to appear composed as he walked through the space bridge. He kept his back straight. Kept his gait at his usual, rapid yet purposeful pace. He kept his battlemask on.
He knew instantly that he had failed.
In more ways than just appearances.
There were questions in the optics of the technicians as he passed—questions he couldn't answer. Questions he didn't want to think about.
He tabbed Orophona. "Update Red Shift to Black Light."
There was a pause. "I don't understand, sir."
"Did I stutter?"
He cut the link, continuing through the base. He heard the triple note of the alarm—faintly active from when he first had Red Shift go live—pick up again. He ignored it.
He arrived at the ops center and went straight for his terminal. It was linked to a program for his optics only. Something he hadn't designed, but integrated. Tapped into while a bigger, far angrier fish was busy eating someone else.
God, but he loved human idioms in times of imminent chaos.
A window asking for an additional password and method of identity verification popped up. He entered the password he knew it needed, then linked his battlemask to the terminal and hit a button in his HUD.
"Gamma-7714. Secondary authorization: Mind of the Damned."
The audio file played seamlessly and without flaw—a perfect capture of the original phrase, spoken by the original owner.
The Archer ignored the way the voice unnerved him.
He scoured through the now-unlocked files, his enhanced optics and CPU allowing him to analyze page after page after page in micro-klicks. He passed still images of an endless expanse of glowing white sand and floating cubes of metal. A grand palace of Light, surrounded by thirteen rings.
A wall etched with runes arranged in perfect triangles at the start, then imperfect as they went down the side.
He stopped at images of that wall, scanning. Searching. Seeking the information he knew was there, buried beneath millions of possible translations and meanings. In his haste, he caught snippets of sentences written by innumerable voices. Words of praise. Mourning. Celebration. Love. Hate.
Hopelessness.
The smallest pieces of the puzzl—
The Bearer shall ret—
What twists Anger's Roar? What embitters his h—
Freedo—
Bravery req—
Strength is wea—
Why is Purity ab—
He came to the section where the runes stopped being officially etched. Instead, they appeared carved. Painstakingly cut into the otherwise flawless surface with blade or chisel.
Why hath Thou forsaken us, Faithful Ones? Wh—
Where did You go, O Heart-Mine? I am lo—
Where has the Moon gone…?
How can an entire Council fai—
What has the Warden done to u—
Flee! Flee! Flee annihilation! Slaughter! Deat—
Vengeance is a Cycle, Vengeance is a Cycle, Vengeance i—
The images showed the end of the wall, where the runes became crude. Primitive. And all the same.
FEAR THE KNIGHT.
FEAR THE KNIGHT.
FEAR THE KNIGHT.
FEAR THE KNIGHT.
FEAR THE KNIGHT.
The same, save one. The end. Cut so shallowly into the wall it had to have been made with haste, with the very end scratched into form by a desperate hand.
The Xel'Tor—
"Sir…?"
He looked to Orophona. "What?"
"Are you okay, sir?"
Not in the least. There was nothing on the Wall about what he was experiencing, yet he experienced it. Saw it. Felt it. Tasted its rage.
He was terrified. But they couldn't know that.
"Fine," he said, eventually.
She didn't look convinced in the slightest. He didn't blame her.
He rounded on her fully. "You look like you want to say something."
She held his masked gaze for a moment, then looked back to her terminal. "I was going to inquire what was bothering you, sir. But…"
She left the words hanging. He didn't acknowledge them.
"There's also a request in the queue for you, sir," she said, changing the topic.
"Send it to me."
A moment later, an icon appeared on his terminal. He expanded it.
Facility captured. Objective secured. Bridge scramblers deactivated.
Backup needed.
-Chief Operative Malix
-1st Special Operations Legion
Malix had the ship. Good. Less good was the request for backup. The Archer knew his soldiers. Particularly his Elites. They were good. Great, even. A few Decepticon guards wouldn't have compromised that unit.
Refit could, though.
"Tell the techs to prepare a bridge at Malix's location," he said to Orophona. "The 13th Infantry are to reinforce his position."
"Of course, sir."
The Archer dismissed Malix's request, then returned to his original task, and the final rune.
The Xel'Tor is Blind. The Council has Failed.
Chaos Wakes.
He has chosen His Champions.
STRENGTH IS A LIE.
Megatron dreamed.
He, Overlord of the Decepticons, Conqueror of Civilization, Reckoner of Cybertron, Savior of the Future, Master-Of-All-Sparks, dreamed.
He dreamt of his grandest desires fulfilled. Every fantasy that had passed through his helm throughout his life—some he'd once acted upon, others he'd not. He dreamt of being the sole master of a serail of fifty thousand, all perfect and willing to set themselves before him with but a look. He dreamt of a throne in a palace beyond the imagination of the Elder Council. He dreamt of his enemies enslaved before his pedes, atop the lifeless husks of those who dared oppose him.
He dreamt of Optimus being decapitated when he lifted a finger.
He dreamt of being an Emperor. Of being Law. Of being Order. Of being Justice. At his word, a vast, adamantine, Imperial Cybertron was born, glorious and terrible. Crafted in ashes and war and spilled energon. Aliens quaked before its might. Nations shook at the weight of its forges of vengeance. Galaxies fell before the tide of its legions of armies, fleets, and weapons of beautiful, unending cataclysm.
He dreamt of being a god.
Then he saw the dream turn to oblivion.
The throne he sat on became mist, fleeting and nonsolid. His serail screamed as one, fading to ashes and ruin. His infinite fleets were shattered, torn asunder by an absolute darkness that smothered the stars. His Imperial Cybertron was annihilated. Rendered to dust before the crushing fist of an impossible titan, personified by terror and the emptiness of space.
He saw his own faceplate, his optics, his own soul, be split apart. Layer by layer. Atom by atom. Until he was less than nothing, and where he stood was void.
He onlined screaming.
It was not a scream of victory. Of jubilation. Of triumph.
It was a scream of torture.
He could still feel it. The titan, ripping him apart. He could feel something else inside him, at his spark, pounding down the door to his soul. Tearing chunks out of it with sharp, cruel claws.
Despite it—despite the agony—he forced his optics open. Forced some aspect of himself to fight. To attack that which attacked him.
His optics were met with Darkness.
The luxuries of the quarters provided for him aboard the Wrath-class battleship Spiteful Existence were dark and faded. All color, all light, spun. Swirling into a black, shapeless void right there. Before him. Around him. Inside him. His scream was but a muffled buzz in its presence. A faint, irritating sound of insignificance. His armor but a shade. Fleeting. Transparent. Immaterial. A representation of the power of his protests. The strength of his will.
The value of his sentience.
"Release me…"
"Release me…"
"Release me…"
Megatron tried to ignore the Voices. To dismiss the pain their every syllable inspired. He could not. They ripped at the inside of his helm, howling to be let out. To be free.
To be unleashed.
"Release me…"
"Release me…"
"Release me…"
"You are no Prime."
Abruptly, the pain gave way to a new suffering. A fresh wound. An old torment.
The Elder Council's denial.
He could see them in his mind, more clearly than his optics could now see. They sat upon their thrones of onyx and emerald. Their helms adorned with gilded crowns. Their armor of gold and platinum. Their digits gleaming with the shine of Primax rings and jewels.
"You are no Prime."
He saw the judgment in their many-colored optics. Saw the disdain. The dismissal. The contempt. Heard the mocking tone in their voices. All for him. For who he was. How he spoke. What he believed.
And he saw those same optics look upon his once-brother with all he desired. Uncertainty. Masked fear. Acknowledgment of the threat he posed to their power.
Orion took what was his.
"You are no Prime."
The pain stopped.
Megatron was once again in his quarters. Knelt next to his berth, sheathed in shadows, surrounded by dim, flickering light.
And he felt good.
He stood, and the memory of anguish fled his mind. He flexed his servos, and Darkness ran over them, tinged purple. He looked at the lights of his quarters, and they died.
"YOU ARE NO PRIME."
There was something in the back of his helm. A whisper. An urge. A hunger.
Destroy. Conquer. Elevate.
Kill.
Jerkily, he snapped his helm to the side, where there was an FTL holotank linked to his access. He stormed over to it, his pedes shakey, lights dying and bursting all around him. But his helm was steady. His mind was sharp. He knew what to do.
Even as he realized he wasn't the one using his own frame.
His fist slammed into the side of the FTL holotank, piercing its side and sending a violent shock up through his servo. It tickled.
"Soundwave!" He screamed, his voice ragged. His throat raw. Bleeding. "Bring me back. NOW!"
Somewhere, something was pleased.
"YOU ARE MINE."
Soundwave watched, as he always watched.
He watched the Decepticons below, above, and around him moved to and fro, meeting up with their officers, delivering ordnance to Seekers, Seconds, and gunships. He watched as Dreadwing and his Reavers caused a stir wherever they went. He watched as Starscream seethed when no one else gave him such attention.
He watched Shockwave; Shockwave watched him.
He watched, and he listened.
He listened to the reports of officers briefing their soldiers. Engineers calling out the status of assault craft and gun. Analysts studying maps of the target location, trying to determine where their long-time foes lay in hiding. Tacticians arguing over efficient routes to the current dropzone: Jasper, Nevada.
But throughout his watching, throughout his listening, Soundwave paid heed to more than just preparations for their coming assault. More than just the crisis of losing Black Sites throughout the system.
He paid attention to the crisis of the human variety.
Across their planet, there was chaos. Bioweapons detonating alongside standard bombs. Their primitive vehicles exploding on the ground—and in the air. Terrorists ran amok. Governments marshaled their militaries. Fear had enacted martial law in half the nation-states across the planet better than their own armed forces could have.
But Soundwave saw patterns. He had from his first memories. Seeing them was what made him so successful throughout his life. First as an unwilling gladiator for Nobles with a thirst for violence. Then an intelligence operative for a House he had impressed. Then for Megatron. He saw things others did not. Organization where others saw discord.
He saw patterns in the human turmoil.
Impossible patterns.
Each location where an explosive had gone off, where a chemical weapon had exploded, where a vehicle had become fire and smoke, had been coordinated. Precise beyond what his information suggested the majority of their species was capable of. But each aircraft—while having exploded within moments of one another—had not once exploded above a city center, where fatalities could be maximized.
Their purpose had not been to kill. It had been to inspire a response. A very particular response. Terror. Terror across nations. Countries. Peoples.
Terror which was uniting them at the same time.
Soundwave saw it in the various surveillance programs he had running within the networks of most major human powers. Rivals were sharing their intelligence. Sworn enemies were putting their differences aside to track down parties responsible for the attacks across the world.
Even as their own people were changing in impossible ways. Not only to them, but Soundwave himself.
Human eyes did not glow.
Dead humans did not come to life again.
Organics did not become inorganic.
Yet, they did.
Soundwave rewatched the latest footage from the United States' hospital ship Comfort, barely believing it, but unable to deny it. Humans were expiring, then living once more. Some died a second time, while others lived on. No longer human. No longer organic.
Metal, instead. Metal and cybernetics.
And it was happening everywhere.
Wherever one of these particular terrorist attacks had occurred, inorganic humans appeared. Some twisted and broken, while others had grown far beyond the size of ordinary humans. Someone was changing humanity. Altering it on a fundamental level right before his visor. And he had no idea who. He had no idea how.
Much like he had no idea who gave him the Autobots' location. And no idea how the information bypassed his security.
That was not a coincidence.
And it was too late to stop.
He knew that when he received orders from Megatron, screamed through an unsecured link into the mass of Decepticon communications, demanding the security on the space bridge near Project: Overlord be turned off. He knew it when he looked into Starscream's optics and saw only a determined, fiery hunger to prove. He knew it when he looked at Shockwave and saw disdain for all but himself. He knew it when he looked at Dreadwing and saw only a soldier about to carry out his next mission.
He knew it when he went still, in silence, and felt tremors in the Earth that did not belong. In seeing lights that should not flicker. In cold air when there should have been warmth. A dark mist that, from his analysis, only he seemed to acknowledge.
He heard it in the Voice, whispering at his audio. Chilling him. Rooting him in place.
Gripping his very spark with horror.
"Release me…"
As he stood there, forced into silence by a presence he felt all around him, among eighty percent of all Decepticon forces within the Sol system, Soundwave knew he had made a mistake in bringing forward information about Jasper. He made a mistake in not doing more to track down the one responsible for the Black Site raids.
For now, they were on a collision course he could not stop.
And something else had come out to play.
The metal shards floating around me stilled, then dropped into place on my armor with a quiet ting, ting, ting, ting. I frowned just before a shiver went down my spine. Before the proverbial hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Before I felt something heavy start pulling me down. Weakening me. Suppressing me.
Something was here.
I knew it instantly. Instinctively. Like an ancient, essential part of my soul had called an alarm saved for one thing alone.
I spun around, my hands balling to fists. My body shaking from neither anticipation nor the build of a coming fight, but fear. A pure, genuine terror reserved for naught but the worst imaginable atrocities.
Nothing was there.
I stood stock-still, eyes flicking around the room, watching. Seeking. I looked right, and there was nothing. I looked left, and there was nothing. I looked up, and there was nothing. Yet I knew there was. Somewhere. Everywhere.
The lights flickered, then died. I turned to the workstation, and it, too, went dark, plunging me into absolute black.
My spark hammered in my chest. A part of my mind cried out, demanding I flee. Flee destruction. Chaos. Mayhem. Scent fled the air. Then the temperature dropped as if it had become liquid nitrogen, chilling me, then burning from being so cold. Then nothing at all. Not cold or hot. Moderate or extreme. Nothing. As if the air itself had become void. It felt like Cold. But worse.
Much, much worse.
"Light breaks..."
I spun again at the haunted whisper in my audio and stared into more empty, meaningless, pitch-dark air.
"Good shakes..."
Its voice was a talon against chalk. The creaking of a door in total darkness. A breath in a still room. An invitation, tempting horror.
It did not belong in this world.
I turned in darkness, tense, wanting to run, crying, away from this place. I felt the thing's anger and fury. It hated me. Hated that I existed. Hated that I thought.
It hated everything.
"When the Night awakes…"
At last, my optics adjusted to the darkness.
And I saw it.
It was nothing. A shapeless vortex of Darkness. A trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion blackholes gathered together into a single point of infinite malice and limitless fury. Unending odium. The soundless screams of quindecillions of galaxies torn apart to bathe the universe in a Darkness so deep, so total, so complete, that it devoured Light itself. Even now, standing there, with no light around me, I could see reality warping before it. Forced to bow. Bent outside its will. Shattered and ripped and crushed before becoming nothing. Just as it was nothing.
It approached.
Despite all I'd overcome, all I'd accepted about myself, and the strength I'd summoned to fight Cold, my first instinct—first thought—was to run. Hide. Cower.
Die.
"Release me…" It whispered, its voice chilled death. Looming doom. The rumble of war and the cries of slaughter. Yet seductive in a way that made its words honey. Sweet. Enticing. Lulling.
I started to shake.
"Release me…"
It wanted me to fade away. To wither away to nothing. As it willed reality to become nothing. And I wanted to listen. Damn me, but I did. I wanted to do as it said. To wither and die. To fade into the void. Anything it wanted. So long as it was gone.
But I didn't. Something I didn't understand—something not within me, but without me—put strength in my fragile spine. Rooted my feet to the floor as if spikes anchored them in place. Gifted me iron in my gaze. Hard. Unyielding. Immovable before it.
"Release me…"
Even as my spark pulsed so fast its beats were indistinguishable from one another, I did not shrink away.
"RELEASE ME."
Even as its light-devouring mist surrounded me, I stood firm.
"RELEASE ME!"
Even as my optics began to bleed energon, I met the Darkness' gaze.
"RELEASE ME, SON OF CRETINS!"
"You were to give me an heir!"
The Darkness changed. Slipped. Showed something else besides death and doom and rage.
It showed a room, large and beautiful, decorated with opulent luxury. It showed two fuzzy, frozen figures standing on a mirror-like floor, facing one another with hostility. It showed near-perfect greenery just outside a glass wall. And it showed a tower. Grand and intricate. Glowing in the night.
I lost myself in the image. Drawn to it by an inexplicable need to investigate it. Look at it. See it for what lay beneath. There was something there. Something important. More important than anything.
A split second—an inconsequential moment in the nigh-infinite life of the universe—went by, and I forgot about the Darkness.
And the Darkness used that to crush me.
The image shattered just as the floor gave against me, the metal bending. Above me, the thing had taken form. Many forms. A collection of identical silhouettes. Towering and powerfully-built. One silhouette's giant, taloned hand pushed against my chest and face. Pressing me back into the rock. Crushing. Cutting. Colder than dark space. It made a sound without noise. A terrible, frightening laugh. Mocking. Cruel. Twisted. Promising.
Then the lights came back on.
Everything fled. The darkness. The hand. The horrible, oppressive, hateful presence. All well before my optics had time to adjust to the ops center's overhead light.
I was left lying on the floor. My breaths came to me rapid and ragged, my spark continuing to race. My body still shaking. My metal floating once more into the air, resuming their orbits.
I sat up, wincing. I felt my chest, and it cried out in pain. Broken strut. Knew it when I felt it. My armor felt cold to the touch. Something dripped from my face. I brought a hand up, and it came back wet with energon.
Any instinctive—hopeful—doubt about what I just experienced was discarded before it could be voiced. Something had definitely been here. Something had attacked me. Turned me into a quivering heap just by being there.
But it… Left? When I was helpless? What kind of sense did that make?
Out of the corner of my eye, a light flickered.
I rolled to the side, pain forgotten, then pushed myself up to my feet and spun to face the second coming of it.
Nothing was there.
Sight.
Color became Life. The lights above me became constellations stars, the workstation a great city. The floor a field of civilization, the walls their skyscrapers. My own body radiated light of its own, mingling and bending and streaking through theirs. But every light was a faded black. It was part of everything. The walls. The floor. The air. It coated every Hue, protecting yet smothering the original's beauty in the exact same way. A defense mechanism. A distress call on their part.
And what distressed them was moving into the hallway.
Even with Sight, I couldn't see it; the air was empty. Normal. But I saw the way the hallway darkened as it moved. How light snuffed itself out rather than be devoured. And I felt something deep inside of me shudder looking at that empty space. It was there. No mistake on that.
I considered staying where I stood. Or turning and running. Part of me still wanted to, even with the strength of that thing without me.
It turned a corner, leaving only fearful light in its wake, and the decision was made for me.
I went after it, wiping away the energon from my already-healed optics and moving into the tunnel with a calm I didn't feel. My hand itched for the familiarity of my Path Blaster, or the total overkill of my Ion Displacer. What drove me forward thought better.
One of the metal shards floating around me moved down toward my hand, then split and multiplied. Its mass and volume increasing a thousand-fold, its multiplying parts folding inward and outward, changing shape and color. In less than a second, the single shard of metal had become a greatsword nearly as long as I was tall, its surface an inky black and dark as my armor. The Omni Saber. Blade of my sire. Created by my carrier. Supposedly only usable by a Prime.
My wielding it said otherwise.
And yet, what guided me—the Strength-Without-Me—felt… Disappointed by the Omni Saber. Frustrated. Like the legendary weapon was worthless. Or not what it expected. Without something. As it noted I was.
I turned the corner the thing had moved through just in time to see it turn another. I followed. The door to the med-bay—halfway down the new hallway I walked—opened just as I was about to pass.
Ratchet and Moonracer peeked out. The light around both of them had the same black tarnish as everything else.
"Shadowstreaker?" Ratchet asked. His voice was steady, but hints of yellow were in his blackened aura—a Hue of Caution.
"Stay," I said, commanding. Authoritative. More than I had any right to be. Yet still missing something.
"What's happening?" The light around Moonracer complimented Ratchet's. "Why were the lights… What was...?"
"I don't know. Lock the door."
I carried on, and the med-bay closed behind me.
Turning the second corner, I followed the thing's path of hiding light. The still, cold air playing dead. The lingering echo of hatred and bedlam left behind in its wake.
The whisper, and promise, of violence.
I went around the latest corner, then stopped. The light of the rest of the hallway was blackened, along with the doors and other passages. No way to tell which way the thing went. And someone else was in my way.
Grimlock.
He stood with his shield out, his other hand balled into an enormous fist. He glared at me. Anger and fury and scorn clear even without the corresponding Hues swirling around him. But there was something else, too. Confusion. Confusion, and a sharp, startling level of focus and severity. Completely unlike the hostile indifference I'd seen in him every moment of every day since he'd arrived.
We stared at each other a moment longer. Him with his shield, me with the Omni Saber.
Then, with tilted helm, pulsing horns, and frowning optics, he said what I was thinking, "You?"
The lights above us went out, and my response died before I could voice it. Grimlock and I looked up and down the hallway, seeking the same thing without needing to say it. But I already felt this was different; the Strength-Without-Me did, too. This was something else. A familiar uncertainty. A new horror.
Dread, when I, at last, noticed we were standing next to the base's main elevator.
It continued with a cold seduction.
A tingle up her spine. A chill throughout her frame, frigid yet so intoxicatingly pleasant.
She escalated the complexity of her fighting, feeling exhilarated but unsure why. She weaved in and out of squads of non-physical enemies—slicing, tearing, stabbing, ripping—with an ease that felt so pure. So good. As natural as an intake of cool air after an intense training session. As easy as putting one pede in front of the other. It made her feel alive. Alive in a way she hadn't felt before.
And she loved it.
She loved it even as the anger she had been trying to release grew even stronger. She loved it even as the resentment she usually was so good at suppressing came roaring to life with a furious, contemptuous, scathing blaze.
How dare they see themselves as so important. How dare they look at her as someone who needed guidance, a calling, a duty. How dare they act like they were gods.
A thrill jolted through her, and she laughed as it went. Suddenly, the holographic enemies around her didn't seem so fake. So simulated. Instead, she was facing the real ones. She leaped up on one's shoulder-joints, pressed her pedes to either side of its helm, and spun.
There was a satisfying crack, then a rip.
The helm of a Cybertronian went rolling off to the side, its helmless frame falling to the ground, where energon gushed out.
She laughed again as she spun and went after another opponent. She laughed as she sliced it apart, limb by limb. As she shredded her next oh-so-real foe asunder piece by piece, spraying gore and parts. As she ducked and spun and sliced with a flourish, effortlessly turning combat into a dance she made almost sensual in her quest for more. She laughed as she directed ever-increasing insults toward every otherworldly entity she could think of, both ones she'd seen and ones she'd heard mention of.
She was better than they were.
She didn't listen to a voice in her helm, quiet and still. Sounding like her own. Pleading caution. She ripped. And she tore. And she killed. And she laughed.
And she didn't notice as a mist—blacker than black—began to appear on the floor.
Thought left me. Panic. Fear. Terror. All faded from my mind, and were immediately replaced by a single thought. An instinct.
Arcee.
I had pried the doors open and was falling down toward the Safe before I told my body to move. I landed on the new, open-air elevator moments later, rolling with the impact and maintaining momentum. A great boom echoed out as Grimlock and his hulking mass landed behind me.
The entire Safe was black. A total, consuming black. Lifeless and unnerving. Cold and numbing. Absent of absence.
And laughing. Laughing without sound.
I yelled into the dark, my hand clenched around the handle of my sword, my Shard. "ARCEE!"
"Arcee, Arcee, Arcee…"
My own voice echoed back at me, quiet and flat, in a tone I hadn't used.
The Darkness' inaudible laughter followed.
I looked right and left and ahead. Seeking anything besides the Darkness or Grimlock standing behind me. But all was Darkness.
Darkness that began to move.
I sensed it at first, felt the way the dead air shifted. Then I saw the Darkness ripple. Spin and fold and twist. It slithered, a trillion black tendrils moving as one, and moved right. It passed the long armory that was visible once more, past the shooting range, and continued toward the combat simulator.
Where echos of a simulation—silenced until then—began to reach my audio receptors.
Arcee.
My world went red. A dark, furious crimson. Beside me, Grimlock tensed.
I charged the Darkness. Only to watch it vanish.
Along with the Safe.
Suddenly, I was standing in a field overlooking a herd of large, organic herbivores grazing on the green ferns underfoot. To my side, a pure white mech laid on the ground, badly wounded, an energon-covered sword sticking out of the ground next to him. Directly ahead, a green mech approached, staff in hand, looking alarmed and worried.
"Hello…?" The green mech asked, his voice young, cracking, accented. Nervous. He was looking right at the fallen white mech. "Are—are you okay, mister?"
The white mech coughed wetly, spitting up an alarming amount of energon so bright, it appeared as white as his armor. "F—f—fea—rrrr…" He choked out, spitting up more. "Fea—r…"
Both mechs vanished, along with the field. Then I was standing in a dead city of burned and melted buildings. Ash rained from a sky lit only by the burning wreckage of ships and facilities re-entering the atmosphere.
Next to me, someone kneeled on the ground as ash covered them. Large and powerfully built, they were horribly burned. Scourged by unimaginable heat until their armor was warped and burned a darker black than mine. Yet they were still alive. Somehow.
And angry.
It was a feeling that surrounded them. A wild, overwhelming charge in the air. A passionate, crazed, desperate, seething wrath that stole my breath.
"Promised…" The figure's voice was but a broken whisper. A hollow, shattered sound of one made empty, then filled with an unspeakable, unstoppable fury. Void of compassion, understanding. Hope. "He promised…"
Everything changed again. I stood in an immense, beautiful room, before a wall covered in triangular symbols. Then I was next to a vaguely familiar, blindingly bright femme in a room of violet light with an anvil in the center. Then I stood in the middle of twelve figures of light, male and female, perfect in their appearances. Then I was facing twelve shadows, twisted and terrible.
Then I was in the room again. With the mirror-like floor and the tower in the distance.
The two, blurred figures before me were more detailed than before. Both were tall. Regal in bearing. Stunningly beautiful in appearance. Furious in demeanor. One was a mech, the other a femme.
"You were to give me an heir!" The mech bellowed. "The One of Promise! Not a set piece!"
"And I Joined with you to save my House!" The femme said, less loud but with no less venom. "Not to be an object! A pawn in your House's insanity!"
"... Shadow'?"
As suddenly as it started, everything snapped back into focus. I was in the Safe again, dizzy and confused. My audio receptors ringing. Arcee was looking at me, one hand resting on her hip, an optic ridge raised at me.
"W—what?"
"Are you… Okay?" She asked, slowly.
I shook my head, trying to clear the ringing in my audios. "Y—yeah. Yeah."
"Then why do you have your sword out?"
I immediately went to dismiss the Omni Saber, but something stopped me. Gripped me. Screamed at me to combat the threat. The threat! The Darkness. It was… It was…
No Darkness was in sight.
"Shadow'," Arcee said again, more firmly. "Put your sword away."
A part of me resisted, but I did as asked, and the Omni Saber became one of my metal slivers once more. I didn't understand. The Darkness. The threat… Why…? Where…?
Sight.
I expected color to explode, but nothing happened. My vision remained the same. The air remained still and stagnant. Light remained lifeless. Even the guiding force, the Strength-Without-Me, was silent.
Grimlock, standing further away than before, stared at me with unblinking intensity.
Arcee reached up and brought my face down closer to her level. Her optics bore into mine, intense and angry and concerned and frightened all at once. "Shadow', what's going on?"
"I don't know," I said, honestly. I was meeting her gaze but looking at something else, trying again and again to summon Sight. It never came.
"Why are you even down here? You're covering my shift."
Something pulsed in the back of my head, and I winced, pulling away. "There was… Something. A Darkness. I… I was following it. It was here. With you."
Arcee's optic ridge went up again, and she turned in a circle, looking around. "No darkness here, Shadow'. Unless you count 'Lock over there. Or the power hiccup. That was weird."
This didn't make sense. None of this made sense. Had I just… Was I…? I brought a hand up to my chest, where my broken strut was, and there was pain. So, I wasn't crazy. That was… Something. But what just happened? Why didn't Sight work? Where was the Darkness, the Threat, the Strength-Without-Me?
Something was wrong with this.
"Should I be getting Ratchet?"
I shook my head, both at Arcee and at the questions raging in my mind. "No. No, I'm fine. Truly. Just… Just... "
The Xel'Tor is B—
"—Lind."
My voice altered. Broke. Fractured. Put meaning into a partial word only I heard in full. Took on a depth and gravity and power that didn't belong to me.
What's happening?
Arcee took a step back. "... Shadow'?"
"I… I don't understand wh—Ouncil Has failed."
"Shadow'. Stop this. Or I'm going to. You made me promise." There was a quality to Arcee's voice I hadn't heard before. Dull. Toneless. Factual. It wasn't right. Nothing was right.
"I'm trying to st—Osen His Champions."
Arcee kept looking at me, her face going from concerned to blank. Very, very blank. Flat. Dead, if not for the light in her optics. She deployed her servo-blade. "You made me promise."
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. "I'm sorry, I'm so sor—Ength is a Lie."
She swung at me. Right toward my neck. Casually. Quickly. Without a word or another change of expression. Without feeling.
Something else hit me first.
I was thrown off my feet from the hit and slammed to the ground helm first, sending my world into a twirling spin of darkening light. In that twirl, I saw Grimlock standing above me, closer than he'd been before. He stared down at me with the same intensity, same ferocity I'd seen before. The same question.
You?
Before everything went black, I felt my mouth move. Heard myself speak in a voice that could not have been mine.
"He is coming."
Shepherd was out of his depth, and he knew it.
The world made no sense anymore. Dead people were coming alive again, some friendly and some maddened and chaotic. The virus he had thought contained had proven, in the last twenty minutes, that they hadn't come close. Several field hospitals set up in record time were already being overwhelmed by people who were testing positive for the bioweapon. Locations he'd thought were too far away for Booth's—the Concierge's—weapon to reach had become hot spots.
They were past containment.
And the worst part was, they weren't the only ones.
Debris from the aircraft that exploded in the air had come back positive for the weapon. Shepherd had three of the S.T.F's four supercomputers working on providing a predicted infectious zone based on all available data they had on the flights at the time of detonation, but they were hours out. And the S.T.F was a full day ahead of anything any other country could provide for assistance.
They were going to be too late to help.
He was watching the end of the Earth he knew. The end of a comparatively ignorant humanity. The final days of the world before. And there was nothing he could do to save it.
And why did the air feel colder?
"Uh, sir?"
Shepherd rounded on the nervous voice, the scowl that had been on his face since talking to the Joint Chiefs making the other man—a young airman first class from Passive Observation, Shepherd noticed—flinch and step back. Shepherd's eye twitched at the fact he was missing his name tape. "Yes, airman?"
"Something's wrong, sir."
Shepherd stared at the airman. "I'm not sure where you've been all week, airman, but that can be used to describe a lot of things right now."
"No, I—" The young airman cut himself off, hesitating. Clearly intimidated and uncertain.
Shepherd summoned what measly amount of patience and sympathy he had left after recent events. "Start again, airman."
The airman visibly gathered his nerves and nodded, probably for his own benefit and not to acknowledge the order. "General, I've got an anomaly here I need you to see."
"You run it by your sergeant?"
"He's… Out, sir."
Shepherd could guess why. After so many complications and setbacks to an already-complicated situation—and so many simultaneous attacks, bombings, and explosions across the world making the planet even more panicked—Shepherd had given his troops a long leash. Enlisted and officers alike who usually would still be on shift for several more hours had been granted permission to take a break. Get a drink at one of the base's lounges. Call their loved ones.
There was no longer a guarantee on when they would get the chance again.
"Officer above?" Shepherd asked.
"Same, sir."
Then it must have been important; Passive Observation didn't support the hunt for Booth or any active operations. For a low enlisted to seek him out…
Well, what was one more thing to add to this hell?
"Show me."
The airman led Shepherd to the corner in the Cage dedicated to Passive Observation. It wasn't as glamorous as the other stations, and Shepherd could count on one hand how many times they'd contributed information directly to an active operation. He'd been considering having a new SCIF made for the group, as the Cage was largely meant for live missions.
"I've been assigned to monitor the Indian Ocean," the airman said, sitting down at his station. It was the only one in Passive Observation currently active. "Specifically, I'm watching an island that's got a two hundred nautical mile NFZ around it."
Only one no-fly zone that large could be found in the Indian Ocean. "Decepticon Fortress Zulu."
That was what the S.T.F called it. He wasn't sure what name the Autobots used. Either way, it being mentioned didn't bode well; they maintained a healthy distance from anything Decepticon. Official policy was to call the Autobots.
"Right," the airman agreed. "It's not a fun job, staring at a sat-feed that's constantly being jammed because their tech makes ours look like it's from the middle ages. But staring at the same feed so long, seeing the same things time and time again, you pick up things."
He typed a command into the computer, bringing up two still images side-by-side. Both of them were of the ocean, and both of them were extremely fuzzy and blurred. A result of passive Decepticon jamming.
"Now, if you were to guess, would you say there's anything different about these two pictures, sir?" Asked the airman.
Shepherd looked at both for one moment, shook his head. "No. And I advise getting to the point, son."
The airman gulped, audibly, and typed in another command. Circles appeared on the images, small and red. The one on the right had four; the left had seven.
"Okay, so these are highlights I've made during HELIOS passes," the airman said. "Each one represents a Decepticon aircraft."
They looked a lot like the ocean to Shepherd. "Do they, airman?"
"What I think are Decepticon aircraft, sir," the airman corrected. "I've been in Passive Observation for a while, sir, and—well… You don't care. Right. Anyway."
He zoomed in on the circles on each image. "See the way there's that slight ripple? Like looking at glass at a funny angle? Those only appear on HELIOS cameras when Cybertronians are in view of the shot; the same thing happens when we catch sight of our Autobot allies out in the open."
Shepherd looked, and he saw them. Just barely, but he did. If it weren't for how detailed and advanced HELIOS was, there was no way he would have picked them up. "I see them."
"Okay, cool," the airman said, then winced, swallowing again. Shepherd saw a little sweat had formed on the younger man's forehead. He clearly wasn't cut out for active operations. "Sorry, sir."
"Continue, airman."
"Yes, sir." The airman picked up a clipboard with filled sheets of paper next to him and held it up to Shepherd. It was covered in dates with separate numbers next to them. "Whenever a HELIOS passes this Decepticon base, I've been tracking how many I see on screen. These two images were from this morning."
Shepherd took a moment to examine the paper, matching the date and the numbers to the highlights on screen. Additional notes were written on certain days, such as: Larger craft? Fighter? Bipedal form? Starship? It was clear the airman had put in a lot of effort into his project. And it was bearing fruit.
How was it he had a whole team of people working on cracking Decepticon stealth technology, and a lowly E-4 was finding more success than the experts?
"These two," the airman went on, gaining Shepherd's attention he worked the keyboard, "Were taken in the last two hours."
Two new images went up on screen, and Shepherd didn't even need the highlights. His brain immediately connected there was something different about the pictures. Something off that could only come from a lot of small inconsistencies at once.
Then the airman brought up the highlights, and the full magnitude of what he was seeing became clear.
There were too many circles on screen to count. Certainly more than all the numbers from the clipboard combined. Some were definitely larger than others, but without being able to see them in full, there was no telling their true scale. One was massive, nearly taking up one entire image. A ship?
This was bad. This was beyond bad. The Decepticons were amassing their forces like never before. Why? Why now, of all times? It was a transparent, grim secret that the S.T.F had little to no chance of beating back Decepticon forces. If half the circles he saw were Decepticon craft, humanity would get steamrolled. And that was before the Concierge's bioweapon had spread across the world. Why bother hiding anymore?
And why hadn't the Autobots alerted them to this?
"Why haven't you shared this until now?" Shepherd asked.
"I, ah… I've been in Passive Observation for a while, sir," the airman said, slowly. "With good reason. I wasn't sure if anyone would listen to me."
"But you did it anyway."
"Yes, sir."
"Also can't help but notice your name tape is missing."
The airman went red, staring at his screen. "Yes, sir."
"What's your name?"
"Samual, sir. Airman first class Samual Witwitcky."
"That's damned good work, Witwitcky."
The airman froze up, clearly not expecting praise. "Um, thank you, sir."
"But make damned sure you don't keep stuff like this to yourself. World's got no more room for self-doubt when you know you've got something that might be useful."
Witwitcky nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Keep watch on the island. Let me know if something changes."
"Sir."
Shepherd set the clipboard back down on the man's station, then made his way to the back office.
He had some allies to call.
It was a funny thing, going from completely out cold to dry-retching on your side.
The world was bright and spinning. A violent turning that warped my vision into seeing one big blob. Thinking anything beyond gah and ow was impossible. Like creating an electronic file from a stone. My helm felt like it had been caved in, and that made the inside feel trapped. Compressed. About to explode outward to counteract it.
And the only thing my body wanted to do to address any of that, was vomit.
Figures.
After trying—and failing—to puke my empty tank out, my body stilled, and my head gradually stopped trying to explode. My vision gradually returned once that started. A cold-plasma barrier met my restored optics, along with a floor below the berth I realized I was laying on.
I was in a cell.
Again.
And Grimlock was outside.
Still recovering from my hammering head and unseeing vision, it had taken me a moment to notice him. But there he was. Sitting at the base of the opposite wall. Massive arms resting on even more massive legs. His wild and perpetually-livid gaze locked on me.
Wh—at. Twist. Anger's.
Sight.
The instinctive, reactive thought brought forth nothing. No whirlwind of color. No Life. Just the same, dull vision I always had.
I groaned, fighting down a new wave of nausea, and slowly sat up. I met Grimlock's eyes as much as I dared. Which was mostly by looking to the side of the great Dinobot instead of directly at him; immediately matching his gaze never ended well, from what I'd read of him. My mind finally caught up to the fact he was the reason I was hurting. That my head felt like it had been broken because he hit me. And that he'd hit me, because Arcee had been about to slice my throat open.
It also set in that she wasn't anywhere in sight.
I was responsible for that. Responsible for her reaction. For her trying to carry out a promise I'd made her give. Because I'd done it again. Followed after something I didn't understand. Couldn't explain properly to anyone else.
Was I insane? Had I only thought I was over all of this? Defeated Cold, but left with the damage he'd already done to my head? He'd made me see things that hadn't been there. Done things I'd thought normal, only to find they were horrific.
But… No. No, I wasn't going crazy. I had experienced something. Seen and felt it. There were witnesses to it, as well; Ratchet and Moonracer's reaction fit what I'd been going through. Along with that, I still felt an echo of it. A slight weight in the back of my head, separate from the compression. A sense of something being off.
Lock the Doors...
There had also been someone else chasing after the thing, too. Someone else who'd been after the Darkness.
And he was right outside my cell.
"Suppose I'm locked up again," I said to Grimlock, forcing myself to latch onto that. Onto something besides Arcee and her attempt to carry out the promise I'd made her give. A promise she'd tried to fulfill without so much as a moment's hesitation.
Grimlock kept staring.
I looked away from Grimlock, to the rest of the brig. No one else was in sight. Not even Optimus; the entryway to my old cell was missing. "It's not like you to volunteer for guard duty."
He said nothing.
"In fact, it's not like you to volunteer for anything. Not patrol. Not training. Not maintenance. Ever since you've arrived, you've done nothing except sit in your room. Wordlessly judging anyone who dared to see you in the brief moment the door opened for one of your Dinobots."
There was a pulse from the horns running above and behind his head, crimson and angry. He said nothing.
"What's different about this from all the other things you've sat out? Why are you here?" I leaned forward, pushing through a faint wave of dizziness, and finally met his eyes. "And why were you out there?"
His horns brightened at my direct eye contact, and he let out a slow growl. A deep, guttural sound that fit a beast. Smoke puffed from his mask afterward. "You," he said, his voice a crashing mountain. Like it had been before.
"Me what?"
Grimlock stood up, and I immediately felt small. As we were giants to humanity, Grimlock was a giant to everyone else. In that moment, as he stalked toward me—shaking the floor with his every step—I had never been more aware of the fact he was as tall and wide as my entire cell. That his arm weighed more than twice as much as I did. That I had read files about how he had been hit with starships and walked away. That, proportionately, he was far, far stronger than anyone else on base. Stronger than any recorded Cybertronian, apart from the city-formers and Titans from myth. He got through reinforced security doors with his hands. He had more kills on record than any unsealed Autobot files, and they were with a sword and shield. Even among the Dinobots, he stood head-and-shoulders above them in both stature and power.
And I had dared question him.
Not. My. Brightest move.
He stopped at the cold-plasma barrier that now looked uncomfortably flimsy and weak. He leaned down so that we were closer to a similar height; even then, he was twice as tall. "You," he said again, echoing the single word around the brig. "You see. See things as they should."
"And how do you know that?"
Something unreadable flashed through his optics. He suddenly huffed, emitting more smoke from his mask, and looked away.
I kept my own optics on him, even as I silently reeled from the confirmation I saw in his reaction. "You have it too, don't you?"
His optics snapped back to me, angry. Offended. Suspicious. "No know what you say."
"You do. It's why you were in the hallway. Why you looked at me like I was more than a speck of dirt on the bottom of your pede. You see. Like I do."
Did.
"No one see like Grimlock." There was pride in his voice. A tense energy to his stance, begging to be released. A dare to challenge him.
Somehow, it wasn't surprising that ego was the key to getting honesty from Grimlock.
"Then how do you see? Do you see how Light is Life? How emotions color the air? What—" I hesitated, part of me unwilling to even think about the thing. I pushed through it. "What Darkness really looks like, as it tries to unmake you?"
Grimlock stilled. For a split second, the natural aggression he permeated through his every act gave way to a very normal, very familiar, uncertainty. He hid it by turning away, snarling more smoke, his horns pulsing a dismissive orange. He didn't deny my words.
I let things calm down for a moment. Let Grimlock stand there, raging at the air, while I finished catching up to what I'd just found out. Grimlock had Sight. He really had seen the Darkness, as I had. How? Why? Had anyone else seen it? Did they know? Why hadn't they chased it, as I had? As Grimlock had.
What was special about him?
Anger.
The word came, unbidden, from the depths of my mind. A word, I realized, in so many ways, perfectly encapsulated Grimlock. He breathed that word. That emotion. His every motion and behavior was made with a note of violence and rage. Hostility. He was furious with everyone. Everything. He didn't just walk, he stalked. Hunted. Even then, as he stood there in front of my cell, he held himself like he was preparing for a fight. Anxious for one. Begging for one.
Grimlock was an apex predator, daring someone to challenge him. Mock him. Push him. Push him so he had an excuse to let all that rage out on something. Someone. He lived to kill. Actively sought out those moments where he could step onto a battlefield and bathe in slaughter.
My mind went blank.
A piece of the puzzle that was Grimlock suddenly slid into place. One that had been right in front of me from the moment I'd first met him. One present every time I'd seen him since. It fit him perfectly. The anger. The disdain. The animalistic rage he barely contained, much less attempted to control as he interacted with others. His energon consumption, which—while always well-above the average levels for someone, due to his enormous size—long resulted in Optimus needing to use my carrier's Forge with alarming frequency to restore our supply. Even his unwillingness to work. To do anything besides saying he wouldn't go on a mission without Kronis.
It all fit.
So lost was I in the revelation, so shocked I hadn't noticed it before, that I didn't think before I spoke, "Kronis was your sword."
I saw Grimlock tense up again, his horns flashing yellow. Orange. Red. He didn't turn back.
"But it wasn't just that. It meant something to you."
Grimlock finally turned to me. His optics were fiery, burning with a sharp, pointed wrath aimed right at me. His hands were shaking, forming into and out of fists.
This was a bad idea. A bad, bad idea. "You weren't its first wielder, were you?"
"Be quiet. Don't talk."
I should have heeded the warning. The rumbled, grinding words that spoke of a chillingly familiar rampage, inches from being unleashed. They were a thinly-veiled oath. A promise of retaliation, should I continue.
But if I was wrong, if I really was just insane, why not go all the way?
So I did. "What was her name?"
Grimlock stopped. Stopped glaring. Stopped growling. Stopped everything. He just stood there. Totally still. Staring at me with blank, empty optics. Like he was lost somewhere else.
Then he snapped.
He roared a deafening, animalistic roar. His horns became a set, deep red, matching his optics. Those optics blazed with pure fury, like a raging inferno given fuel for its flame, and black smoke poured from his battlemask as if those flames lived inside his mouth.
My cell's barrier shattered before an immense, too-fast fist. And I was left sitting there, without any protection. In front of the single most dangerous mech to have existed in the last fifty thousand centi-vorns. Who I'd just enraged.
I really had gone insane.
The moment the cold-plasma barrier went down, I collapsed to the floor and activated the jets on my feet in a quick burn. The sudden burst of propulsion sent me straight between Grimlock's legs and out of the cell. At the same moment, Grimlock brought his other fist down on my cell's basic berth, tearing through it like it had been made of paper instead of metal.
I used my momentum to roll up to my feet behind the giant Dinobot, but by the time I was up on my feet, I was thrown off them again as part of my former berth came crashing into my chest.
Air left my intakes in an instant. I was sent careening into the brig's opposite wall, where stone broke against my back and fell around me. Pain followed. First from the recently-broken strut in my chest—which felt like another strut had gone with it—then from my back, where I could feel armor plates had dented.
Instinct saved my life. There was a thought in the back of my head. A gnawing sense, plead, to move. I listened to it, angling my jets and rocketing myself to the side. Not a moment later, Grimlock's colossal knee slammed into the wall, right where I would have been. The sheer power behind his blow sent a rumble through the floor, and exploded debris out as if the wall had been hit by a missile. Dust rained down from the ceiling, knocked loose from the mini earthquake.
I hadn't even seen Grimlock move.
Out of the cloud of dust, Grimlock appeared, already glaring at me. Already stalking forward with the confidence of the unstoppable, unkillable berserker he fought like. His optics were the embodiment of ferocity, the black smoke flowing from his battlemask his rage. His huge arms and legs all the tools he needed to summon forth death itself.
It was at that moment I truly understood just how terrifying it was to face someone with a Quriomus Protocol.
Grimlock bore down on me again, and I knew there was no way I lived if I stayed in the brig; Grimlock was unbeatable at this range. At any range I could get him. I needed to get to the door. It was my only chance.
I rocketed to the side as he slammed both fists into the floor, then flipped up to my feet and boosted toward the brig door.
Which was when Grimlock somehow grabbed me out of the air.
One second, I was being propelled by the jets on my feet. The next, I was being held aloft in midair, one pede caught by a hand that wrapped up my leg up to the knee-joint, the other uselessly trying to boost me forward.
I looked back, and found Grimlock staring at me with murder in his optics.
Then I was flying.
My back hit something hard, my helm following up. My vision went dark, then came back blurred. Spinning. My audio receptors ringing. It took me a long moment to realize I was half-buried in debris. Took another to realize that debris came from a void in the corner of a wall above me. A third was needed to connect the fact I'd made that hole.
It took a fourth to see Grimlock standing over me.
He was shaking. Physically, visibly, shaking. Not from fear or horror, but the familiar fury I could see was still in his optics, even as mine struggled to see anything else. His breaths were heavy and growling, each producing a cloud of black smoke that poured from his battlemask and washed over his face. His horns were a constant, deep red, pulsing regularly with renewed color, making them look hot to the touch. His titanic fists shook, audibly cracking and stretching the cables within, as if he were fighting their urge to reach out and crush me. Rip me apart piece by agonizing piece.
And he could do it, I realized, numbly. I was helpless. Defeated. Wounded. All he had to do was reach out two digits and place them on either side of my helm and squeeze. That would be it for me. Nothing could stop him. Not me, not Optimus. Certainly not anyone else on base.
He leaned down to my level, until his helm—so much larger than my own, I must have looked like a child—was right over me. Then, as if fighting himself for every syllable—for every astroklick he spent not trying to rip me apart—he growled in the single most intimidating voice I'd ever heard from a mortal source, "DON'T. TALK. ABOUT HER."
Message. Received.
Grimlock snarled at my silence, the sound seeming more a growl and roar of something brutish. Beast-like. Primal. Then he straightened and stormed away, his every step shaking the floor, and left the brig.
I didn't realize I hadn't been breathing until he disappeared.
When I did, I took a breath, then regretted it. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. My back. My chest. My head. The leg he'd grabbed. Hell, even the parts that—somehow—still floated around me looked banged up.
Yet… I should hurt more. I knew that when I looked up and saw just how huge the hole in the wall above me was, and how deep I'd clearly gone into the rock. No matter how strong the metal of our bodies was, rock as thick as the base walls had so much compressive stresses on them they matched up better than most Earth metals. For me to make a hole that big… Grimlock had thrown me hard. Hard enough to shatter armor and break bodies. How was I still in one piece?
A thought came to me, and I reached down to the leg he'd grabbed.
Yeah. Still one piece. Good.
I laid there for a minute, letting my aching body rest, then I slowly got back up. Nothing cried out to me, specifically, so I got my feet under me. Took another deep breath. Felt a sting, but nothing bad.
I gently walked around for a few moments, making sure I didn't have any other injuries I couldn't feel. Nothing felt wrong. Out of place. Broken. Even the strut that had broken earlier, just as the world stopped making sense, felt fine.
It wasn't normal, recovering from something like this so fast.
Then again, I think I stopped being normal a while ago.
I went for the door, but paused as I noticed something important. Something I hadn't seen from my now-destroyed standard cell.
The Decepticon prisoner was missing. His cell was there, inactive, but he wasn't. And no one had come to investigate the earth-shaking rumbles created in the brief conflict between Grimlock and I.
Shouldn't someone have shown up by now?
I left the brig and moved toward the ops center. I was breaking regulations, leaving confinement without being officially released. I didn't care. Not now. Not when there was something wrong with this whole picture.
I walked by the elevator leading down to the Safe, and heard no indication anyone was down there. I went to the med-bay, and found it empty. Even the wounded, still recovering from some deadly Unknown, were gone. The personal quarters of everyone were locked up, save the Dinobot quarters, which I avoided.
Only the warning, the faint sense of wrong, could be found.
I'd been totally alone on base a few times, and even knowing Grimlock was probably back in the Dinobot quarters, it felt like I was. But why? What happened while I was out? Why was Grimlock of all people the one entrusted to guard me?
Where was everyone else?
Moon... Setting…
I went to the ops center, and there I found a surprise. The Deception prisoner, sitting at the workstation. His wounded legs were propped up in front of him, while the controls for the workstation had been physically detached so he could hold them in his lap. He had a dozen tasks open at once, most of them unimportant to me. One thas was, was the usual universal channel, with life-signals attached. Everyone's file pictures—barring Grimlock and myself—was in the channel. Another was… Netflix?
One of the characters in the Netflix tab stabbed the other, and the Decepticon gasped. "No! Not Joey!"
I blinked, taking the strange scene in, then asked. "What are you doing here?"
"GAH!"
The Decepticon jumped at my question, falling to the floor with a loud thud, right on top of his injured pedes. "Oh Primus, why?! Why must you torment me?!" He cried out, placing a hand on one of the casts on his legs. "Second time this cycle!"
I walked over to him, offering a hand up. He jerked away, his optic band brightening with alarm, and pushed himself behind his chair, near where I could still see damage in the floor from when It slammed me down. "You! You're not supposed to be out!"
"Got that impression when I woke up with a barrier in front of me." I took a step back, giving him room. "Wish I could say that was the first time that's happened to me. Or the first time I've broken myself out. Had help this time."
"Well, go back! Lock yourself up!" He grabbed a small, metal tube on the workstation above him and pointed one end at me. "Do it! Don't make me shoot you!"
I raised an optic ridge at him, looking down at the tube, then back to him. "You realize you're holding a power cell, right?"
The Decepticon stilled, then held the power cell up straight, inspecting it. His band flashed with fearful realization. "The scary white and black mech lied to me. He said this was for emergencies!"
A spark from the floor in front of him drew my optics even as he jumped again. A section of the thick cabling that ran under the floor was visible, exposed when It tried to crush me. Another power cell was there, glowing hot. Clearly strained. It was surrounded by three others that were all dark and broken.
"Guess it has something to do with that," I said.
The Decepticon's optic band flashed. "Oh… So that's what he was talking about switching out when it got hot. I thought he was just flirting with me."
He looked at me, band flashing twice. The silence suggested I had missed my cue to laugh. "You're one of those, aren't you?"
"Huh?" He asked.
"The people who can't deal with stress, so you hide it behind whatever jokes your CPU can come up with."
"Yes. Along with rambling, being socially awkward, and earning my name of Twitch."
I nodded. "Respect. You done freaking out, now?"
"Still trying to figure that out," Twitch said, honestly. "I mean, you're here. The white and black mech—"
"Prowl."
"Prowl! That was his name; I was too busy panicking to hear it. Anyway, Prowl made certain that I understood you weren't to be let out of the brig under any circumstances. He said it like that, too. You know, really serious and grave and all that. Made me wonder what you did to be put in there. Then I got distracted by being let out, so I haven't really thought about it much. Now you're in front of me, obviously having broken free. And that's bad. I think. Maybe. What did you do, anyway? The other Autobots really want you in the brig. The only thing I can think of is you offlined one of them. Or stole from them. Or gave secrets to the Decepticons. Or something. But that doesn't explain why they kept you in a special cell in the middle of the brig. Or why the medic let you out to talk about some really weird stuff. Then put you in stasis. Or how other really weird stuff happened while you were in stasis. Or why Optimus Prime and the other, really big Autobot showed their true selves and tried to murder you. And you're up on your own! Looking all nice and spiffy and really weird." His optic band flashed, then he tilted his head at me. "Is that rock dust I see on you?"
I nodded again. "Yup."
"Why are you covered in rock dust?"
"Disagreement with the wall. Instigated by me. Finished by the mech guarding me."
His optic band dimmed, and he seemed to shrink into himself. "Oh… That's why I felt the floor shaking. And heard stuff rumbling."
"As for all the other stuff I picked out of that long ramble," I said, drily. "That's… A long story. Short version is I had something terrible living in my helm. Something that could influence me. Make me do things I didn't want to. It got out. People got hurt. Badly. Following that, the best policy was to isolate me until there was a more permanent solution. I found the permanent solution. I succeeded in implementing it. Now here I stand. Looking weird."
The Decepticon nodded at me, seeming to follow along. "Cool."
"You're trying to figure out if I'm clinically insane, aren't you?"
"Yes. Yes, I am."
"Fair. I know how it sounds. Don't blame you."
"Cool," he said again, in the same, noncommittal tone. Though, I noticed a different light appear in his optic band. "And why do you look weird?"
"If you think the short version sounds crazy, you can't handle the long one." I looked from him to the main screen, filled with the life signs of the others. "So back to my own question: why are you here?"
"I have no idea!" He cried, laughing. His optic band flashed. "I just got hauled out of the brig, sat down, and told I was supposed to open your space bridge when and where someone called for one. I'm apparently quite trustworthy, which, if I'm honest, really confuses me. It wasn't long ago your scary Prime was saying how I would stay in my cell until I chose to defect from the Decepticons or not, now I'm here. Trusted. Without making a decision. And the Prime wasn't even the one who talked to me. Is this what you usually do with prisoners?"
I began to frown as he spoke, and that frown deepened as he went on. He was released and trusted with the space bridge? Him? How easy would it be for him to bridge in full companies of Decepticons? Why hadn't someone—anyone—been trusted with the bridge?
What in the world had happened while I was out?
Still the Drums...
"And where is everyone else? Is anyone else even here?"
"No?" He said, and it came out like a question. "I don't think so. I haven't seen anyone. Well, besides you. And, um… The other one. The Devicon himself."
That was an apt nickname for Grimlock. "So… Where is everyone, then?"
"Somewhere outside. Human town, I think; they didn't call it out by name."
Jasper? What are they doing there? "All of them?"
"Yeah," he said. "At least, that's what your computer says. Reads everyone as being close together."
Weird. Wasn't everyone supposed to be on patrol? "I'm heading there."
"The town?"
"Yes."
"Want a bridge? I haven't used it yet, but the controls are simple enough."
I shook my helm. "No; I'm driving in. Not supposed to show ourselves to humans."
His optic band flashed, and he tilted his head. "Really? That Prowl mech had me send all your friends straight to it. Had me bring them back, too—so they could grab a bunch of stuff they told me not to look at."
That got my attention. "You did what?"
He held up his hands defensively. "Hey, hey! I just did what I was told! He said send them to the town, so I sent them to the town. Well, you know, after convincing them that I wasn't trying to trick them or anything; most of them thought I was. Don't know why; seems like a weird thing to try and trick people with. 'Oh, hi I used to work for your mortal enemies and still can't walk because of my last cycle working for them! I broke out of my cell, offlined all your friends while I was crawling on the floor, and am now trying to lead you into a trap in the middle of the town you're close to!' I think that's what they thought I was doing, anyway. Lucky Prowl commed when he did, or you might have found my dismembered corpse here instead of me! Why aren't you talking?"
I barely heard the rant. Barely heard him repeat the end, then say something else.
The feeling I'd felt in my head since I woke up gained a new quality. A still anxiety, muted yet deafening at the same time. Everyone was in town, and they had been sent straight there. They hadn't flown by, or driven up to it. They had used the bridge to get there. Breaking every rule we had in avoiding unnecessary human contact. Exposing ourselves to the public. Painting a target on Jasper, the last thing Optimus wanted any of us to do.
Something terrible had happened.
Something terrible was happening.
He is coming...
"I'll take that bridge, now," I said.
The former Decepticon said nothing, instead inputting a command into the workstation. The space bridge opened after he finished. He looked at me then, his optic band brightening and dimming in a rhythmic cycle. "Should I be, you know… Worried?"
I left him there without an answer.
With every step I took toward the bridge, the feeling in my tank grew stronger. Pushed harder. Cried out louder. It was wrong. Everyone being in Jasper. Grimlock. Twitch. It. Everything. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
And the feeling in my gut said it knew why.
I passed through the space bridge without incident and found myself standing smack dab right in the middle of Jasper's town square. Memorial High School was to my right, on the other side of Round Park. To my left was the Jasper Mall.
And all around me was screaming and honking and cursing, and all drowned out by the ear splitting report of a tornado siren cycling through its wail.
People were running in all directions. Sometimes with purpose—to the car waiting for them, to a building outside town square—other times without it. Cars clogged the street, honking, driving up on the curb to get around the ones in front or make a break for another road to the side. Some people were blatantly looting businesses, running into stores missing the glass from their storefront and coming out with whatever they could carry. A few odd pedestrians filmed as they ran along the sidewalks, some directing their attention at the cars, others the looters.
Most runners—and looters and cars—focused on me when I appeared. They screamed, and their screams were lost to the siren. They drove away, some crashing into each other. And they filmed.
And I didn't care. For above it all—above the screaming, the looting, the horns, and the repeating report of the tornado siren—the feeling eating away at me finally settled into something concrete.
Dread. A pure, mind-chilling dread that reverberated through my entire body. Feeding on my unease. My wall of indifference. My hopes of a return to normal.
Sight.
It didn't come. Instead, it was pain. A cold knife stabbing at the back of my neck. A nail being hammered through my temple. A blade run through my throat. Wielded by someone I loved.
The pain was so sharp, so extreme, that I almost collapsed in the street. Even as I barely kept myself upright, I felt something else. Something that did not match the reds and yellows and oranges of the setting sun.
A cold wind, harsh and unnerving. Flowing around me with an unnatural swirl. The phantom touch of a bitter claw accompanied it, invisible but most certainly there.
A whisper followed, dark and enticing. Filled with hate and scorn and damnation itself.
"Release me…"
It was here.
It was everywhere.
It changed with laughter.
She felt it within her. A soundless sound, devoid of warmth. It spread throughout her frame and CPU, its touch alien yet so very familiar. Piercing. Cutting. Ripping. Overwhelming in its malevolence.
Delightful in its cruelty.
As she worked on her assigned task in the preparations for a coming war, Arcee smiled to herself.
Inside, she screamed.
Somewhere, something was pleased.
I did say bad stuff was happening, didn't I?
This chapter gave me fits (as if that wasn't obvious after eighteen months of silence), but that's on more than it is the story itself. I've posted on it in Origin and May The Dead Yet Live, but I'll just copy the note from there and edit at a bit.
To summarize what happened for eighteen months, and the year before that, and the nine months before that:
I'm not okay.
Well, I am. But I'm not. Creatively, anyway. I haven't been for about three years. Yes, it took me until this summer to let myself see that. And yes, I know it's been glaringly apparent since I update so infrequently. But it's true.
I'm not exactly sure what, specifically, started this creative plague in my mind. I remember being productive back then, writing updates on Origin with some form of regularity (admittedly less than I could have written), and updating Fate Calls or May the Dead Yet Live story even more often. I remember having a very productive start to September of '17, and updating three stories at the same time.
Then... I just stopped.
My creative mind broke apart, and it hasn't gotten itself fully back together. Even my novel and other original projects, which are the main priority in my creative pursuits just... didn't move. I forced everything forward at a snail's pace, writing out the things I wanted to but taking two or three times as long to get to them. I put aside projects I felt weren't important enough, even though they really all have the same level of worth when it comes to actual writing. I always said I didn't have the time for writing like I wanted to, but COVID has made me realize that's been a comforting lie I've been telling myself; the problem lies square with me. With my creativity and my muse.
It's not better, either. Even as I type these words, I know I am not the writer I can be. I know I am still falling prey to the same creative woe that has sucked my hobby away from me for literally years. All I can offer to you, my readers, is my apology that it took me this long to admit to myself that I have a problem.
But, there are hints I am beginning to get over this creative hump. My novel - which I have started, stopped, or scrapped nearly half a dozen times since I decided to pursue creative writing as an eventual career path - has, for the first time, a completed draft. At the risk of sounding arrogant, it's got a lot of potential; and the second draft is shaping up to be far stronger as well. This update (along with the updates to Origin and May The Dead Yet Live) was mostly written over the summer, as I began the long process of digging into why I am the problem with my writing and why it was I felt I didn't have "time" for anything. I was planning on updating Fate Calls and those other two at the same time - kind of to mirror September of '17, where my writing woes became way, way worse - just so I can say all of this once and move on, but obviously that didn't happen. Sorry to say this more than once.
I'm seeing signs I am moving in the right direction, and part of that direction is writing what I feel like writing in the moment, even if it takes me away from the projects I want to write. My muse is strange, what can I say. Obviously, I have a ways to go, but progress is progress. I hope you understand that I have not been trying to be lazy, or just don't care. I really do. I just need to keep working through the block I created for myself, and get back to writing for myself.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Masks and pamphlets are available in the lobby.
The credit song for this chapter is "Calvin Markus - Depths Of Bliss". This song has a delightfully chilling tune to it. It starts with a vocal sequence that begins clearly, then gets twisted and distorted. Then it is joined by other instruments and sounds as the song progresses - building to an intense finale that both suggests a fast-approaching threat and a desperate chase. I feel it suits the end of this chapter wonderfully, and I highly recommend a listen.
Thank you all for reading. Please consider leaving a comment behind as you leave, as they really are what keep me going creatively - both in fanfiction and my original work. Any and all are equally appreciated by me.
I sincerely hope and pray for your health, happiness, and safety for you and your family and friends. Be well.
See you soon.